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

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

red velvet pancake poopies

hobbit harvest pies

how closely related are these to cow pies I wonder

Rereading The Fellowship of the Ring recently, I'm pleased to find that my pre-Jackson ways of imagining these scenes have remained intact. I'm not obliged to view Sauron as literally a GIANT EYE.

http://flyingmoose.org/tolksarc/sauron.gif

Hahah um, I think the original link has been changed a bit...but not by much, really.

We wants it, we needs it. Must have the precious bandwidth. They stole it from us.

http://i.imgur.com/EhzpW.gif

Sauron and family at his wedding:

http://static.rateyourmusic.com/lk/f/a/eb2df878168967bd6d7083481ec37694/1121095.jpg

so all jokes aside i thought i'd still go and see this but i caught the trailer tonight and freeman's 'fair enough' and thorin proving that yet again jackson mistakes speaking slowly for charisma has convinced me that this is a book i don't need a shitty scriptwriter with a flair for visuals to misinterpret for me over a nine hour period

somehow i do not remember bilbo's mood at the start of the book being quite the equivalent of martin freeman running along shouting 'i'm going on an ADVENTURE!'

i'm going to capture jackson and turn him into the gluttony character from se7en

crossed with the writer in misery

chain the fucker to a desk, make him eat and type all day.

Looking at the pictures of the Dennys hobbit meals genuinely nauseated me.

yeah, good point, we'll make him eat those all day

Just funnel the pancake puppies down his throat.

Lots of crazy spoilers

http://io9.com/5954767/massive-secrets-of-the-hobbit--revealed

For instance:

Bombur is quite naïve, and doesn't know what to expect on this journey, but don't underestimate him. He can use his beard—which is braided into an enormous loop—as a weapon. He throws it over his enemies' heads, pulls them into his massive girth, and strangles them. Otherwise, he mostly cooks.

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.