New Hobbit Pictures

the most likely place to end the first movie would be Mirkwood in some fashion. either the entrance to it, or after bilbo resuces the dwarves from the spiders and theyre taken to the Elves.

the second movie would open with the dwarves being held captive and bilbos sneaking around the elves prison using the ring.

A lot depends on how they intersperse the other content. Just going off of The Hobbit material, I could see a decent ending coming with the escape from the Orcs and Wargs... that's about halfway for the big events, and a suitable climax for an ending. Though maybe they wouldn't like to end both movies with the Eagles sweeping in (or that could be appealing, who knows).

But depending on what else they are wanting to include, that might not do it. Part of my difficulty with the two movie content using info from other Tolkien writings is how much it'd diverge from the story of The Hobbit. It's certainly possible to have more than one storyline going at once (look at the original LOTR books), but those are dealing with the same overall events: the Necromancer is pretty off course from the overall plot of Hobbit.

We'll see how it goes... I'd actually feel better about two Hobbit movies if they were just dealing with the Hobbit storyline, actually.

<Spoiler>
It's unlikely that anyone will be singing "Where there's a whip, there's a way" in this version.

</spoiler>

As fitting as that is for some of my demon MMs....

See my Guides and Tutorials

*sings in a warbly voice*

"The grea-test adventURE!" I have a fond spot in my heart for that movie... used to watch it all the time as a kid. I liked certain aspects of the first LOTR movie, too, though it was overall a little wonky and just ended randomly like the story was over with the events of The Two Towers.

What Necromancer is that, GP, and why would his story have any input in The Hobbit? I don't recall one in any of the four books, but I've not read "the Silmarillion". Are you perhaps referring to the history of the Witch King of the Dark Riders?

I'm wondering if Jackson is going to use the Ring as an anchor to allow the telling of the history of the 5 wizards and other special beings like Sauron,funneling down to the creation of the rings. We know Radigast the Brown is in the films, at least (more than just the comment by Gandalf in the books). I've not heard if the blue wizards are or not.

Necromancer=the dark sorceror at the south end of Mirkwood, who captured Thorin's father, and who the White Council (led by Saruman) is meeting to attack during the events of The Hobbit. They did not know this at first, but the Necromancer was actually Sauron. The White Council at first thought it might be one of the Ringwraiths, because of the corruption that was being caused to Mirkwood (it's why it's so dark and the spiders are in there).

So it is related to The Hobbit, but looking at the actual fighting with the Necromancer is going to be rather tangential and not really needed for the storyline of Hobbit. Depending on how they set the two movies up, it might be easier to see it as a different story, touching on the events of Hobbit, so we'll see how it goes.

Mine shipped on Sunday (somehow) Amazon says it'll be here tomorrow.

Here's hoping!

You're dead to me, sir.

Nuuu!!! Now I have that accursed song stuck in me head >,<

I was under the impression that Jackson was going to make The Battle of the Five Armies huge and robust, like.. Battle of Minas Tirith big.. Which I would imagine could take up a large portion of Part II. (That battle being the main reason they extended it to part II, just so they *could* flesh it out)

Ho, ho, my lad? Mwahahaha.

Zikar, I always took the Necromancer references as notices that this was a great world with many different things going on, which adds to its realism. Gandalf leaving is key to Bilbo growing, and also keeps the story from "here's a smart wizard that will save us from everything!" So the Necromancer is in there as much as he needs to be (it's good to remember that Tolkien did not know that the Ring was the Ruling Ring when he wrote The Hobbit, too. The first edition has Gollum being all nice to Bilbo and apologetic when he can't find the Ring for him, which Bilbo won fair and square. That got changed up once Tolkien started work on LOTR).

There's other things going on in Lord of the Rings that we don't see all the time, so I don't mind it all that much. Same thing for most books... you don't need to know everything that is happening. I'd just say that Tolkien handles Gandalf's references to it when he returns late in the book too roughly. The earlier stuff is fine.

I haven't heard much about the Blu Ray stuff for Lord of the Rings... is there going to be much extra from the DVDs? I don't have a Blu Ray player (and I wouldn't want to sink more money into yet another version of those films), but I am curious.

wow, I'd forgotten the reason for Gandalf's departure. But then, I've not read the book in 30 years, so certain plot points are hazy. How could the Necromancer be Sauron, though? His disembodiment was, what, a thousand years before?

As far as I am aware the Blu-Rays, both Theatrical and Extended additions, have all the same extras as their DVD counterparts.

The main advantage is simply that you can now watch the films themselves in glorious 1080p.

I hear you and as a purist myself I tend to agree. However, IMO PJ and crew are mindful of the material and will do it justice. I understand where you are coming from though.

That's epic and sprawling and covers centuries of time. It would be tough to pull off, since it's basically a mythology of an entire age (or more). It makes The Lord of the Rings look like a cakewalk to make. There are some great ideas and powerful scenes in there, but appreciating it all requires a vast horde of names, information, and events. The picture of my Silmarillion is of the last Silmaril being thrown in the ocean, which I have always found striking (both for the picture, and the meaning from the story), but appreciating what that act means requires a lot of investment. Movies just aren't able to do that, and even when looking at the book, it's not for everyone.

Still, I've actually thought about how it would be possible some, and the best I think that could be done is pursuing some of the episodes within it. It's partially why Christopher Tolkien put out The Children of Hurin a few years ago. It stands on its own fairly well (though still required a little backstory to the war going on) and has some strong themes and ideas within just that episode. Biggest issue there would be making Turin sympathetic to the audience while still having the issues he does, and then also the whole marrying a relative issue, which is common in older literature and mythology, but is rather foreign and off-putting for modern audiences.

Rodoan, Sauron's defeat at the end of the Second Age put him back for a long time. However, because he put most of his power and essence was placed in the One Ring, he was able to slowly regenerate himself. I'd have to check my timeline in one of LOTR books, but I don't believe the Necromancer appeared in Mirkwood until somewhere in the 2000s of the third age (so longer than we have had since Christ or the start of the Common Era, whichever you like to go with). That's a long time. Sauron being weaker at the start is why Gandalf and the rest thought the Necromancer was one of the Ringwraiths (and the Witch King that destroyed the northern kingdom--from which Aragorn is descended--was a Ringwraith). By the time of The Hobbit and LOTR, it's been three thousand years (that's going back to King David or so).

That's why it's so important that the Ring be destroyed in The Lord of the Rings. With it being around, Sauron had been able to regain much of his power: if he were to regain it, there wasn't anything or anyone that would have been able to stop him. As it is, he still could not be defeated short of destroying the Ring.

Love that song.

A lot of people who point out "problems" with the book or films often say "Why don't they just hide the Ring somewhere impossible to get to, like in the middle of the sea" or something.
What they seem to forget is that Sauron had already raised one hell of an army, it stopped Sauron acting directly, or regaining most of his power, but his armies could still kill off a huge number of people or even win.

Oh and by the way, got mah Blu-Rays this morning

My Mom used to read it to us kids to get us to go to sleep. Hence I can blame my addiction of fantasy on my Mom.

Don't they address this in the movie as well? I know it is asked in the book specifically at the Council of Elrond, and it gets shot down for those reasons, and also--as Gandalf points out--it would not keep the Ring from being discovered at some later date, and it should not be left to later generations. I always think that works well in the story, and it always feels like it's immensely applicable to life: people put off 'til tomorrow what they should do today, and in Tolkien's time, appeasement did a whole lot of hurt to the world, thanks to European actions with Hitler.

Don't approach it as a modern work of fiction, but a history or a mythology. It hits me the same way as reading Norse or Greek mythology, and has some powerful images even though it is not told in quite a fictional way.

My dad is the one that got me in to LOTR as a kid (he had the paperback set with Tolkien's watercolors on the front: we read them to the point where the books broke in half on the spine... luckily I found other copies elsewhere), but he couldn't finish The Silmarillion, either. It is quite different than the other books, as Tolkien and his publisher knew quite well. But hopefully I can get him to like The Children of Hurin, and you'll like it now as well. There are some interesting things at work in The Silmarillion.