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

Though apparently one of the trailers shows the dwarves singing...something at Bag-End. Maybe just Pogues songs.

You're kind of the last person I'd expect to have not seen the trailers by now, Ned!

But yeah I was rereading the book and there's a lot of "and then they carried on with much singing" - it would be kind of hilarious if the films were 50% musical.

TBH what I suspect will happen is that they're just not going to be the 4-hour butt-numbers that the LOTR films were - if you split it at entering Mirkwood / Smaug's death, and stick in all the Dol Guldur stuff in the last section, you could make three snappy 90-minute films out of it.

(I don't really think it's going to be 90 minutes, I just reckon it'll be closer to 90 than 240)

You're kind of the last person I'd expect to have not seen the trailers by now, Ned!

Eh? I had seen them! I just remembered a bit like that in one of them -- sure seems like they're singing something. Anyway.

(I don't really think it's going to be 90 minutes, I just reckon it'll be closer to 90 than 240)

I would be fine with this.

Imagine if Part 1 is just hobbit songs and stories

xp Ah right, the 'apparently' threw me - yeah, the song they're singing in Bag End is the one from the book afaict.

the latest rumoured running time for the first one is 2hrs 44mins

lol

man i had somehow forgotten that that song's in the book! was just thinking of the cartoon. never mind then.

But yeah I was rereading the book and there's a lot of "and then they carried on with much singing" - it would be kind of hilarious if the films were 50% musical.

There's a lot of singing in LotR too, but they left almost all of that out, except for Pippin's Enya number in the third film (which I don't think was in the book?). I had high hopes that, based on the source material, the movies would've been more musical-ly, but sadly they weren't... For example, when Gandalf "dies" in the first book, the other members of the Fellowship burst into a multi-part lament, with Aragorn starting to sing spontaneously, Legolas continuing after him, etc. How awesome would've it been if that was in the movie?!

*leafs through book, does not find anything resembling that scene* (Frodo sings a song in lothlorien 35 pages later but Legolas says the grief is still to near for him to sing.)

Hmm, maybe I misremember, but I'm pretty sure there's some scene in the books where the characters start to spontaneously sing when they think someone is dead... Maybe it was when Legolas, Gimli and Aragorn think Merry and Pippin have been killed by orcs?

in the first book, the other members of the Fellowship burst into a multi-part lament, with Aragorn starting to sing spontaneously, Legolas continuing after him, etc. How awesome would've it been if that was in the movie?!

If by awesome you mean very irritating. I am so glad there was not more singing in the LOTR movies, I skipped all the songs and poetry in the book when I was a kid. I just wanted to get to the orc killing.

You know what both audiences and production executives love? Stopping a movie dead in its tracks for the characters to sing a lament to a dead person.

It works in musicals and Disney films, no?

The scene you're thinking about the funeral of Boromir at the start of The Two Towers

Ah, yeah, that's it!

Ah yes.

"You left the East Wind to me," said Gimli, "but I will say naught of it."
"That is as it should be," said Aragorn. "In Minas Tirith they endure the East Wind, but they do not ask it for tidings."

Transl: "I'm not fucking singing." "Good, we'd rather not have to fucking listen, lol."

If that had ended up in the film I suspect farts would have been involved.

This movie was not marketed as a Disney film or a musical, it was marketed as "Serious adventure is serious, and also hobbits."

Yea, but if it had included all/most of the songs from the books, obviously the marketing would've been different too.

And why can't a musical be serious? Do you think The Umbrellas of Cherbourg is not serious?

The movie was what it was. Of all the criticisms that were provided, and they were legion, I don't recall any of them being "Not enough musical numbers!"

i saw QI tonight (maybe a rerun, in fact do episodes of QI ever air in originality or do they come into being pre-viewed and full-fledged as reruns? i digress) and sandy toksvig was there in a red jacket and i thought to myself that she would make a splendid hobbit, a first-rate bilbo indeed. too late now, but maybe there'll be a chance before her clogs are self-popped for a scriptwriter to have a decent crack at the franchise, eh

i've decided i don't hate Tolkein just this lame literalist murdering of everything that was decent in his books

― syntax evasion (Noodle Vague), Friday, 28 September 2012

confident that this too shall pass and you will indeed in the fulness of time remember that you do in fact hate tolkien

Much as I will probably quite enjoy these, I kind of hope they flop massively just to teach everyone a lesson.

And that somebody on the internet does a single two hour edit of all three that everybody agrees is much better.

Hmm...

http://www.empireonline.com/news/story.asp?NID=35541

I hope he's Bard.

Hahaha if only.

"Black arrow! You've never failed me, and I've always recovered you. I had you from my father, and he from of old. If ever you came from the forges of the true King under the Mountain, go now and speed well!"

songwise, there's the part in the fellowship movie where sam recites a little poem about gandalf's fireworks in lothlorien. watched it once w a friend, and sam says "the finest rockets ever seen / they burst in stars of blue and green / or after thunder, silver showers" and friend suddenly yells "THAT WAS ONE OF GANDALF'S POWERS". still laugh.

HA!

was the green dragon song merry and pippin sing in rotk in the theatrical cut or the extended? ages since i've watched it. was that in the book?

Theatrical IIRC. Not in the book (nor was that whole sequence, because what happened was *two hour lecture follows, everyone flees*).

movies cut out lots of lectures iirc. Also the multiple decades between the birthday party and Frodo fleeing the shire.

http://www.theonering.net/torwp/2012/10/22/63709-tolkiendrim-com-hi-res-photo-of-bolg-spoilers/#

http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_mbvowvopaT1rqyl6qo2_250.jpg

I'm kind of seeing

http://images3.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20090817155808/heman/images/2/29/Beastman1.jpg + http://www.warmphotos.net/img/music/black/black02.jpg

A Saturday morning cartoon about Immortal would be the bollocks.

That's a shit costume.

saw the trailer in the theater the other day and i'm kinda dreading this. i haven't been so much of a JRRT fanatic since i was 12 (tho i'm still enough of one that i get upset when someone casually suggests that jackson's overcooked trilogy is better than the books) but 'the hobbit' is one of my favorite kids' books in the world and i have no desire to see it mucked up with a bunch of pseudo-serious 'this is the real backstory' bullshit. i dug all the LOTR movies at the time but, lke DLH upthread, really don't think that the jackson/LOTR vibe is suited AT ALL for this story and these characters. but yeah, i'm sure i'll still see it.

bilbo baggins is such a great character -- he's like if bertie wooster was suddenly forced into danger and had to develop some jeeves-y cleverness.

http://www.mediabistro.com/prnewser/dennys-hobbit-menu_b48172

Rejoice, ye fans of Bilbo, Frodo, Gandalf and “second breakfast”! Thanks to Denny’s, you no longer need to live in The Shire to eat like a Hobbit. As part of a joint marketing effort with the upcoming flick The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, the restaurant chain is about to launch a special, limited-time-only menu chock full of Middle Earth-inspired delights.

Beginning November 6, Tolkien fans can choose from 11 breakfast, lunch, and dinner items including “Hobbit Hole Breakfast”, “Frodo’s Pot Roast Skillet,” and “Gandalf’s Gobble Melt”. Denny’s offers plenty of options for any mealtime, whether you’re sitting down to enjoy breakfast, second breakfast, elevensies, luncheon, afternoon tea, dinner or supper.

In support of its promotional menu, the company will launch an accompanying ad campaign including a full TV spot (sneak peek below) set to begin airing on November 12–roughly a month before the movie’s December 14 release. Denny’s hopes to cash in on fans’ growing anticipation by offering trading cards with each special entree; the chain also plans to print QR-coded place mats that enthusiasts can use to unlock movie-related content like videos and online games.

"Hobbit Hole Breakfast" what is this I can't even

gandalf's gobble melt.

anyway this is america we've been eating like hobbits for like sixty years now

Frodo's Pot Roast Skillet is the only one that doesn't sound like an unspeakable sexual act

hobbit hole breakfast already has a subreddit iirc

It gets worse:

Hobbit Harvest Pies
Lonely Mountain Treasure
Radagast's Red Velvet Pancake Puppies
Bilbo's Berry Smoothie
Lone-lands Campfire Cookie Milk Shake

wtf are "Radagast's Red Velvet Pancake Puppies"

like anyone cares about radagast.

They are little red hush puppies made of pancake dough. I only know this because of GIS btw.

but... red velvet implies they are chocolate? chocolate pancake hush puppies?

http://www.discountqueens.com/uploads/2011/11/Red-Velvet-Pancake-Puppies.jpg

radagast should probably see a doctor