The Hobbit films, previously to be directed by Guillermo del Toro and now to be directed by Peter Jackson again.

One thing you will notice as soon as you walk into Stone Street Studios is that there are massive green screens everywhere. You can take tours of the real-life places where Lord of the Rings was filmed, but The Hobbit is a largely indoor affair. Where Lord of the Rings was a masterpiece of forced perspective, Jackson opted to try something different this time around.

To film Bilbo, the Dwarves, Gandalf, and the other characters at their respective heights, The Hobbit employs slave motion capture technology, specifically SimulCam. For example, when Gandalf is talking to the Dwarves and Bilbo in Bag End, the Dwarves are over on the set, and Ian McKellan is on a sound stage standing in front of a green screen.

oh good.

they could at least get McKellen's name right.

oof.

Somewhat related but utterly terrifying:

http://comicsbeat.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/201210291336.jpg

Do not fly into Wellington airport or you will be confronted by this horrific sculpture.

"The portion consisting of his head and outstretched arm measures about 42 feet and weighs over 2,500 pounds"

charming

OK wait, this feels bloated and long ... compared to the LOTR trilogy?!

http://blogs.indiewire.com/criticwire/early-hobbit-reviews

i'm not sure how it could feel like anything else! LOTR trilogy was 1200 or so pages of text, the hobbit was 300 or so. seems unavoidable for the hobbit to feel stretched.

I still can't figure out how they are going to stretch this into three films. Lots of singing dwarves or something? I don't know.

maybe they'll just move all the Tom Bombadil material into these movies

i'm gonna have a wild guess that 30 minute CGI fight scenes might do the job

A negative review at Ain't It Cool News, too:
http://www.aint-it-cool-news.com/node/59869

I only made it about 15 minutes into The Two Towers before giving up entirely, but the LOTR trilogy already felt like the most insufferably long-winded thing ever.

maybe they'll just move all the Tom Bombadil material into these movies

― I loves you, PORGI (DJP), Tuesday, December 4, 2012 10:53 AM (18 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I wish they would!

From AICN

It could be that Jackson's trying to introduce too many characters at once, but he commits the double sin of failing to make the most important members of the crew memorable or vital to the story. Balin, Fili, Kili, Dwalin... unless you know the story well, they barely register.

This is exactly the same as in the book, though: Fili & Kili = the young ones, Balin = likes Bilbo a bit more than most, Bombur = ho ho he's fat, the other 8 (!) are completely interchangable.

Haha I wonder if Jackson will go full Lucas and rerelease The Fellowship of the Ring with blue glowing ghosts of the (majority of) the survivors of the companions, who settled in Moria and were slaughtered by the Balrog etc.

I just realized they're going to have to have something in the new films about Balin actually planning to go TO Moria at some point.

Started rereading in prep last week. First reread in about 20 years. I'm up to them arriving at the gate of Beorn's place.

Am thinking of rereading but it will only strengthen my already firm conviction to avoid the hell out of this film.

Haha I wonder if Jackson will go full Lucas and rerelease The Fellowship of the Ring with blue glowing ghosts of the (majority of) the survivors of the companions, who settled in Moria and were slaughtered by the Balrog etc.

I just realized they're going to have to have something in the new films about Balin actually planning to go TO Moria at some point.

http://jawiin.files.wordpress.com/2012/01/nerd-gif-6.gif

There was a NYT profile of Fran Walsh on Sunday; she and the other writer added a LOTR chick or two to the scenario, and you know they prolong things.

Wait, did they (Jackson and the studios) decide to stretch this out from one to three films in post-production?

Or is that their story at least?

I'm assuming they shot it and then didn't want to cut one precious shot of two actors on two different sized sets composited together.

it was conceived of as two, apparently.

Run all six of these suckers back to back, it's the Berlin Alexanderplatz of fantasy films.

It's the Empire of do not want.

more like the Hundred Years War

I learned to appreciate LOTR when visiting relatives on Thanksgiving and Christmas Eve and watching the things unfurling slowly in the background but fuck if any of it makes sense.

re-read the Hobbit last month, a great little book, but really cannot bring myself to care about this

adore the lotr movies, entire hobbit project is a depressing error BUT

http://pmcmovieline.files.wordpress.com/2012/12/hobbit-48-fps-peter-jackson.jpg

would see it if it were directed by slavoj zizek

reminds me of this

http://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/unused-audio-commentary-by-howard-zinn-and-noam-chomsky-recorded-summer-2002-for-the-fellowship-of-the-ring-platinum-series-extended-edition-dvd-part-one

ha i was thinking of that too

it's my single favorite mcsweeney's thing (not a v rich field)

"Think about the strangeness of today's situation. Thirty, forty years ago, we were still debating about what the future will be: Valar, Melkor, whatever. Today, nobody even debates these issues. We all silently accept global capitalism is here to stay. On the other hand, we are obsessed with cosmic catastrophes: Sauron securing the ring of power; the departure of the elves to Valinor. So the paradox is, that it's much easier to imagine the end of all life on middle-earth than a much more modest radical change in capitalism."

everything you always wanted to know about the balrog but were afraid to ask gandalf

the problem with saruman was that he was "not violent enough"

'it is an uncontroversial fact, a truism, if you will, that gandalf has killed more people than sauron. it isn't even worth discussing.'

ah, comedy writers working out Third Way guilt.

if Sauron had really been hot shit, he would have fired the Nazgul and aimed drone rockets at the Shire.

"scoured" it, if you will

it was saruman chickened out of that one tbh

4/5 in Empire.

Empire will never give a bad rating to a film they've had a massive feature on.

very true. their positive 90s reviews for the later Batman films spring to mind.

I always imagine they send several critics to watch the film, and pick the one who had the most positive reaction to write it up.

i always imagine they big up anything that teenage boys of all ages get a boner for

That One Substitute English Teacher: 25 Things You'll Totally Believe

Don't really GAF what ain't it cool, Empire or any nerd service sites think tbf. This thing could be a botch or a fumble but who knows, the people involved are pretty fuckin smart and they surprised me before.

the Aint It Cool review of Dark Knight Rises was ridiculously over-the-top in its geekery and seemed to be out of step with everyone else on the planet's opinion give or take. is it always like that these days?