Warner Brothers headed back to Middle Earth on the big screen
 

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/mo...on-1235894513/

Cautiously optimistic.

Curious about this one. I never thought there was any appetite for Gollum as they also made a game about him. Hopefully they don’t try and drag this out over three movies like the Hobbit disasters.

The involvement of Jackson and co. is the only thing that gives this movie a chance to not be yet another garbage movie attempting to cash in on an established franchise.

Even so, The Hobbit trilogy was pretty terrible.

Yeah, i went and re-read the Hobbit for the first time in like 25 years after I watched the trilogies and was just floored by how they managed to take a book that short and make 9 hours of movie out of it.

I mean sure - it was 90% worthless fluff, but you have to almost be impressed by the audacity of it.

Which sucked because Martin Freeman as Bilbo should've been great. And the story of The Hobbit is good. But god almighty did they gack that thing.

But I'm inclined to agree with you - A Gollum-centric movie isn't the direction I'd go. Tolkien built an entire universe and mythology (at least a massive outline of one) in The Silmarillion; that's really the direction this should've gone.

I mean you look into stuff like Gandalf as a sort of quasi-god and that whole Valar thing with Morgoth and how that all interplays with Middle Earth - it may end up too complicated to bring to film, but if you wanted to make another trilogy and do it well, there's a TON of source material there to flesh out that would actually really complement the series nicely and could even play into the Rings of Power series also.

**** the Silmarilion is a hard read. I've tried....it's a tough one. But there's so much shit in there, They could easily do another trilogy.

I actually really enjoyed the RIngs of Power.

I have some weird hate for Hobbits and hobbit like creatures.

For example, Willow's stupid face makes my skin crawl.

I want all Hobbit and hobbit things to just die. I love orcs and magic and wizards and elves and dragons and swords and shit....but **** me, can we just not have hobbits? And their stupid big hairy feet. Dwarves...Hobbits....i just wish the orcs would kill them all off once and for all please.

Yes. Give me wizards and warlocks and shit. Give me gargoyles and swords and maces.

**** you and your hobbits. Never am i more bored than when those genetic losers are on screen.

I don't disagree. They remind me of Ewoks, who all deserved to die.

Call me a midgetphobe. LMAO

You'd think they would have learned their lesson with how badly the Gollum game bombed.

I liked Rings of Power as well. Thought it got unfairly criticized in a lot of ways.

And yeah, Silmarillion is TOUGH. That's why I think a movie might be really good. That's the best part of the LOTR trilogy - it's not better than the books, its not worse - its extremely complementary.

Both the books and the movies are better for the others existence.

If you could get a Silmarillion trilogy done and done well, it provides a visual staking post for then re-reading the book. It would be a lot like how the GOT series complemented the ASOIAF books so well. It made those a lot more digestible.

There's an excellent story in there if you can get the names/faces locked in somewhere in your mind. If you have reference points that let you really absorb the story being told. Without it, Silmarillion is as hard as some of those WWI history books where all the names and places start to sound the same and nothing makes sense.

Gandalf kicking ass in some nether-realm would be a hell of a lot of fun. But you'd still have First Age stuff that would probably annoy you.

Hey, maybe they could right the wrongs of the original trilogy and actually involve Tom Bombadil.

It really did take me awhile to figure out that Gandalf and Saruman and even Sauron where all the same 'order' of mythical creature. Even Radagast. Sauron is just a monumental asshole.

But once you figure that out, the 'victory' makes a little more sense. Sauron really shouldn't have been orders of magnitude more powerful than Gandalf - in fact he most likely wasn't. He was just proactive and had Gandalf on his heels from the jump. That doesn't mean he couldn't recapture the initiative, but it took a couple of good breaks along the way.

It would require so much movie and screen time to properly do it. I think a Rings of Power type thing could really do it well. Give it a few seasons worth to fully tell the story.

That could get tough to keep up with though. Fun to think about .

The Hobbit trilogy was doomed from the start despite Jackson's involvement and a product of trying to cash in on the coattails of the LOTR trilogy. Now maybe they were trying to appeal to an audience that never read the books.

There's just no way to take The Hobbit book which was the shortest of all the main books (not counting offshoots like Beren and Luthien) was going to last without gross amounts of fluff and it showed. I know that it turned me off as well as a lot of other fans because of this.

Now I would love a Silmarillion trilogy as I believe there is more than enough source material to support it. I get that it can be a harder read for many (I personally love it), but I also think that it would translate much better on screen.

Actually watched the Rings of Power and found that it wasn't nearly as bad as many tried to make it. Personally I didn't care for the "Galadriel Warrior Princess" arc, but it is what it is. What I do like was how they could incorporate more elements into the story as their is far less source material that they would have to adhere to.

The Silmarillion is definitely a book that would thrive with a trilogy movie made for it for many of the reasons you highlighted above. The material is there, so the hard part would be making that come to life on the screen without creating multiple snooze fests for the average audience member.

What also could do well is a movie or series involving the Blue Wizards in the east. There's just enough lore that they could make something while keeping it "canon" while not enough lore that they can't take reasonable creative licenses with the story.

I think that would allow for an expansion into an area of Middle Earth that has always been fascinating and mysterious to many fans. As Tolkien has long since passed (as well as his son) there is no way to 100% know if/what he thought of those areas from a lore development perspective (outside vague references here and there).

By having someone like Jackson make it with input from recognized Tolkien experts, I think something great could be made while keeping in the spirit of how Tolkien most likely would have envisioned it.

Sauron was of the same 'order' as Gandalf and gang. Big difference between him and them was he wasn't constrained like they were. They came over as advisors but were cloaked as old men in mortal bodies. That's why Gandalf died (and was brought back) as well as Saruman (in the Shire).

That was a limitation on them that Sauron did not have to deal with.

so it's a Fellowship prequel. Cool.

Sir Ian should be back.

Exactly right - a better and more succinct summation of what I was trying to say.

It's a perfect outline. It has lore, it has story, but it's so damn vague at parts that you can stretch WELL beyond the source material. It has bright lines but plenty of places to fill in the colors.

Its like the battle scenes in both LOTR and ASOIAF - there's very little actually written on any of that. They just...happen. So they lend themselves to a ton of creative license that doesn't violate the spirit of the books (and in many ways builds incredibly well on them).

It really could be as good or better than LOTR.

My very first thought. That game was historically bad and you're planning to double down on that exact subject matter for a movie. Bold choice.

See, this idea should have been what was distributed to Amazon, and The Rings of Power should have been the next feature film trilogy. They boofed the order of things.

I wouldn't be shocked if they're doing this specifically for Ian McKellen. He has stated repeatedly and strongly that he wanted to play Gandalf one last time, and well, he's earned the right to ask to do so.

Don't give a single fart, wasn't a huge fan of the originals and care even less about the reeruns

We're in our 50s, 60s and 70s now... how much longer do we have to pretend
to care about this rehashed trash?

Hollywood is out of good ideas, its starving for ideas and its eating itself now.. they're going to trash every good series from here on out with countless redo's and "alternate universes"

I'd rather watch old Gunsmoke reruns, and I will

I'm visiting my mom, and we happened to watch an old Gunsmoke rerun today.

:D

It was better than I was expecting.

Gollum?



Why do I get the feeling they're going to **** this up in the most epic way possible?



Why can't we have a backstory movie about Gandalf?

Such an iconic series, didn't even get colorized until its 12th season... but thats when the writing took a huge leap, same as the revolving cast of regulars who went on to star in 1000 different tv shows and movies

From Harrison Ford to Slim Pickens, Warren Oates to Burt Reynolds... they all got started on Gunsmoke

The two most annoying things about the LOTR movies were (a) the stupid walking tree things, and (b) Gollum. No desire to see a stand-alone movie about either.

I doubt they have a stand alone movie about the Ents or Gollum lol.

Since they ruined the Hobbit (I loved that book as a kid and it's still great as an adult) I have no confidence in them making up a story about Gollum.

I tried to read the Silmarilian once. It bent my brain inside of 10 pages, and back on the shelf it went.

As I understand it, much of the background material in the original LotR trilogy came from the Silmarillian. I've read LotR a couple of times, and there's a lot in there that's not in the movies (Tom Bombadill being the biggest omission) but they did a great job making the movies. Hobbit was a shit show.

Put a chick in it and make her gay!

The Ents in Two Towers were cool worldbuilding at the very least. And their assault on Isengard was pretty awesome.

https://y.yarn.co/140ca0ec-9e52-4947...a60e3_text.gif

The Ents are amazing.

Oh it’s going to be awful. Jackson can only do so much for a character that no one wants to see. It’s also why they are putting the extended editions back in theaters for a time. It’s their golden goose and they are hoping to milk the franchise for all they can. Greed is going to destroy what Jackson built.

The Ents were good and actually part of the books. While Gollum is, he was never a character that was meant to stand on his own which is why the determination to force him down everyone’s throat is mind numbing.

Gunsmoke is ****ing trash.

Well there’s your problem.. you have terrible taste!

It wasn't so much the concept of the Ents; it was the execution. You had all the amazing special effects and groundbreaking CGI, and tossed into the middle of it was these goofy walking trees that were straight out of H.R. Pufnstuf.

The Ents are amazing in the books.

They're just this sort of overpowered party trick in the movies. Because you don't really understand the weird, sad backstory of them.

That said - "A Wizard should know better!" was still a strangely badass line.

The ents are very frustrating in their slow moving call to action but ****ing badass when they let shit rip finally.

I thought Merry Pip and the Ents destroying Isengard was the highlight of the entire movie trilogy. it was the only fight the hobbits took part in that was feasible.

It was fun but I can’t agree with Helm’s Deep and Minas Tirith on screen.

I really love the whole scene in Moria from Fellowship as well.

What issues did you have with them? Genuinely curious.

he was saying he liked those scenes better than the dam bursting at Isengard

Gotcha. I guess I misread it.