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[The Hobbit] The Longest Post in History, pg 48
Posts
well ....
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"My fellow elvin brothers, tomorrow we leave for the eternal peace of the Grey Havens and remove ourselves from this realm of war and suffering for all time."
"Hooray!"
"Except for you guys over there. You gotta go to Helm's Deep and get murdered in a muddy pit."
" . . . . aw."
As well, Martin Freeman (young Bilbo) is back on set after finishing up his run on Sherlock, the modernized telling of Sherlock Holmes on British television, and he's brought company. Specifically, series star and the titular Holmes himself, Benedict Cumberbatch. Other than holding obviously the most English name ever, little else is known about Cumberbatch's duties on set. Early rumors pegged him at playing the voice of Smaug, but were quickly shot down as "stupid," since no one would need to fly to New Zealand for voice-over work this early in the production, if at all. Speculation now is that he'll be playing the role of Bard the Bowman.
Seems that David Tennant will be not joining the cast, given the casting of Lee Pace as the Elvinking. Ah, well. We still have one Dr. Who on board.
I always thought it was added because they had no time to show/mention that in the books the elves were fighting the armies of Dol Guldur at the time.
I haven't watched the movies in a while (should get around to that) but as far as I remember, most of the changes Sir PJ made were for the better. Boromir's death and the complete removal of Tom Bombadil stand out to me, though I'm sure there were quite a few others I can't remember at the moment. Really glad they scrapped the idea of Arwen going to Helms Deep though, that would've been stupid.
Anyway, the real question is, when will we get a Tom Bombadil film?
Both films are set in Middle-earth 60 years before Tolkien’s “The Lord of the Rings” which Jackson and his filmmaking team brought to the big screen in the blockbuster trilogy that culminated with the Oscar-winning The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King. The adventure of “The Hobbit” follows the journey of title character Bilbo Baggins, who is swept into an epic quest to reclaim the lost Dwarf Kingdom of Erebor from the fearsome dragon Smaug.
Under Jackson’s direction, both movies are being shot consecutively in digital 3D using the latest camera and stereo technology. Filming is taking place at Stone Street Studios, Wellington, and on location around New Zealand.
Ian McKellen returns as Gandalf the Grey, the character he played in “The Lord of the Rings” trilogy, and Martin Freeman, who just won a BAFTA TV Award for Best Supporting Actor for his role in the BBC series “Sherlock,” takes on the central role of Bilbo Baggins. Also reprising their roles from “The Lord of the Rings” movies are: Cate Blanchett as Galadriel; Orlando Bloom as Legolas; Ian Holm as the elder Bilbo; Christopher Lee as Saruman; Hugo Weaving as Elrond; Elijah Wood as Frodo; and Andy Serkis as Gollum. The ensemble cast also includes (in alphabetical order) Richard Armitage, Jed Brophy, Adam Brown, John Callen, Stephen Fry, Ryan Gage, Mark Hadlow, Peter Hambleton, Stephen Hunter, William Kircher, Sylvester McCoy, Bret McKenzie, Graham McTavish, Mike Mizrahi, James Nesbitt, Dean O’Gorman, Lee Pace, Mikael Persbrandt, Conan Stevens, Ken Stott, Jeffrey Thomas and Aidan Turner.
The screenplays for “The Hobbit” films are by Fran Walsh, Philippa Boyens, Guillermo del Toro and Peter Jackson. Jackson is also producing the films, together with Fran Walsh and Carolynne Cunningham. The executive producers are Ken Kamins and Zane Weiner, with Philippa Boyens serving as co-producer.
“The Hobbit” films are productions of New Line Cinema and MGM, with New Line managing production. Warner Bros Pictures is handling worldwide theatrical distribution, with select international territories as well as all international television licensing being handled by MGM.
TL;DR: An Unexpected Journey, December 14, 2012; There and Back Again, December 13, 2013. Also, official confirmations for Orlando Bloom, Christopher Lee, and Stephen Fry.
Also, Peter Jackson has obtusely answered some questions about the peripheral stories taking place in the film.
He just had his 89th birthday a few days ago.
Have you not been paying attention?
That means you probably didn't hear about Benedict Cumberbatch, or Nick Frost, or Simon Pegg joining the cast, either.
So good news! Now you know!
While many others have been linked to the role, the part of Bard the Bowman has been landed by up-and-coming Welsh thespian, Luke Evans. He was briefly seen before in Clash of the Titans as Apollo, and will be playing Aramis in this summer's The Three Musketeers as well as returning to the pantheon as Zeus in Tarsem Singh's The Immortals with new Superman Henry Cavill.
Which still leaves us with Benedict Cumberbatch, whom Martin Freeman and Peter Jackson assured us was now part of the production, and generally rumored for the part Luke Evans won. Well, Cumberbatch is officially the voice of Smaug the Dragon. A bit of mixed news, really, as while Cumberbatch's aristocratic nasal whine likely suits the character of Smaug, I think we were all hoping Bill Nighy would land the part as heavily rumored.
Interesting, it seems that Cumberbatch was offered the role of Smaug after Jackson was impressed with his readings for the bit-part of The Necromancer. Could Cumberbatch be pulling a Rhys-Davies and playing two characters? Maybe.
That should be it, folks! Casting wrapped.
Man, Dominic Monaghan made out like a bandit. I'll be in these ridiculously fantastic Oscar-winning movies, then go be in one of the most popular tv shows of all time. Oh and the incredibly sexy lady from that show? Yeah, got her too.
GFWL: Genesius Prime / PSN: Genesius_Prime / Origin: genesiusprime / 3DS: 4871-3718-5715
No idea. It would be nice. There are always pickups. Think about how much changed due to pickups for the LOTR trilogy. Aragorn originally fought Sauron for cryin' out loud. It was the makeup allergy that was causing his reticence to return, right? I kinda don't blame him for that.
God, I'm already excited. Getting the extended blu-ray set next week. Maybe that will keep me sane until these come out.
GFWL: Genesius Prime / PSN: Genesius_Prime / Origin: genesiusprime / 3DS: 4871-3718-5715
More or less. I remember on the commentaries they were talking about special stuff they did for each actor on their last day of shooting. For John Rhys-Davies they gave him a disembodied cast of his makeup he could hurl into a fire.
There's that, plus the fact that John Rhys-Davies is a curmudgeonly bastard.
Jackson (and to a lesser extent, Tolkien) firmly established in LOTR that your potential for good is determined by your skin color, starting with white wizards and blonde elves, and descending on down.
So unless the mighty Mos wants to play "Evil Pirate #2" or something, . . . .
The eagles were clearly a diversity hire.
Pics, here.
I held out for these editions of the films before I got the blu-rays, as I consider (as should everyone) these films to be the definitive editions. They are so much substantially better than the theatrical versions.
GFWL: Genesius Prime / PSN: Genesius_Prime / Origin: genesiusprime / 3DS: 4871-3718-5715
My biggest gripes, and maybe my only gripes, are that the films are still split across 2 discs each, and that none of the original extras are remastered in HD.
Wal-Mart has the best B&M price, matching Amazon's $70. MSRP is a whoppin' $140.
Also, it's 4 discs longer than the original EE cuts. So sixteen discs in all.
The outer cover:
The inner cover:
The film cases:
GFWL: Genesius Prime / PSN: Genesius_Prime / Origin: genesiusprime / 3DS: 4871-3718-5715
Edit: I'm don't know what the transfer of the theatrical version looked like on blu-ray, but Fellowship looks astounding.
GFWL: Genesius Prime / PSN: Genesius_Prime / Origin: genesiusprime / 3DS: 4871-3718-5715
It's a minor bummer, but considering the extra material wasn't filmed in HD we're not missing all that much.
Lee said like a year ago that flying to New Zealand is too much for him at this point in his life. "It's too far", he said.
But he was announced on the press release, so I guess maybe they got him a private plane to make it a smoother flight.
If Jackson can do anything remotely like what Lucas pulled off in AOTC and ROTS, Lee only needs to do a quick full-dress video scan, record some dialogue, and drop the mic.
I think you're missing what I'm saying.
The actual media with just the film and associated commentaries plays over 2 discs for each film, so six discs for just the three movies. Considering there are three or four commentaries, plus the DTS track, plus the 1-3 SAP tracks taking up a lot of the space on the disc, I'd gladly sacrifice several of those (to me) superfluous audio tracks to get just the films and the 6.1 track on one disc each.
However, considering that fucking no one is using dual-layer BRDs for some reason unknown to me, I don't think there's any possible way to get all of ROTK on just one disc; the 1080p transfer on its own almost takes up all the space on a single-layer BRD, never mind the audio.
She has a bigger picture than Gandalf on the ROTK cover. That's some bullshit.
If I remember right there's FOUR commentary tracks per movie. Sure, some of those commentary tracks may be superfluous (if I remember right there's a Peter Jackson track, an actors track, a design team track and a production crew track), but considering this is supposed to be the 100% definitive Blu-ray version fans would scream bloody murder if even one of them was taken out.
Dori, Nori, and Ori first look. Won't let me embed on my phone. They look great.
GFWL: Genesius Prime / PSN: Genesius_Prime / Origin: genesiusprime / 3DS: 4871-3718-5715
With so many, they ran the risk of them all being a litle "samey".
I'm excited.