The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies (2014)

I just wanted to point out that new line had the hobbit split into two movies years before peter Jackson was being considered to direct. After Del toro backed out, new line reluctantly signed on PJ and demanded it be the new lotr trilogy. I'm not saying pj is without fault, just that I think he was grasping at straws to to fill 3 movies.

Granted, the stuff he added ended up needing so much screen time that a bunch of blame ends up right back on him.

j00t_sl said:

I just wanted to point out that new line had the hobbit split into two movies years before peter Jackson was being considered to direct. After Del toro backed out, new line reluctantly signed on PJ and demanded it be the new lotr trilogy. I'm not saying pj is without fault, just that I think he was grasping at straws to to fill 3 movies.

Granted, the stuff he added ended up needing so much screen time that a bunch of blame ends up right back on him.

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I think a different Director would have helped the series out quite a bit. Not that I think PJ did a horrible job and given his work with the LotR he definitely deserved the shot but due to The Hobbit being such a different type of story.

I actually had no idea Connelly's health was the reason for the CGI. I like the guy's previous work and find his humor great. But I also think you need to think of the good of the movie. If the guy is in that bad of shape, its time to move on and find another actor. If they were that insistent to keep Connelly and CGI it, they should have put the same time in on him as they did with Gollum. You know, that multi-award winning CGI character from the franchise that people were blown away with by his realism!!?? Dain just looked like a low budget afterthought done by any other movie house. Not the quality we have come to expect from the LoTR film universe.

Well, I'm guessing that things went downhill pretty quickly. You can just add in the CGI to something that's allready shot instead of doing a casting call, hiring a replacement, putting all the scenes on hold until he learns his lines, redoing wardrobe to fit the new actor, etc.

Sucks though. I love billy connely

Gunnar_sl said:

This doesnt make you a bad person, but it makes you a neckbeard drama queen

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Sarcasm doesn't read well. It's a tongue-firmly-in-cheek line. Hell, that whole paragraph might as well be a parody of distraught fanboy's complaints.

j00t_sl said:

I just wanted to point out that new line had the hobbit split into two movies years before peter Jackson was being considered to direct. After Del toro backed out, new line reluctantly signed on PJ and demanded it be the new lotr trilogy.

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Did New Line demand or was it more of PJ using that as a bargaining chip to get his director's chair back? I remember it changing from 2 films to 3 when it was announced that Del Toro was out and he was back in and thought at the time that was the angle he used.

Royal_sl said:

Did New Line demand or was it more of PJ using that as a bargaining chip to get his director's chair back? I remember it changing from 2 films to 3 when it was announced that Del Toro was out and he was back in and thought at the time that was the angle he used.

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I'll have to look but if I remember the idea was originally to have 2 films at Del Toro / PJ's request but New Line or someone wanted to "bridge" the trilogy. I think it was part of the deal was the Tolkien family would only do so if PJ was involved. (Which I thought was odd and I may be incorrect as I didn't think they liked PJ). There was a series of events with Del Toro leaving, making it 3 films to bridge the two franchises, getting Tolkien consent, and hiring PJ.

Commander Vimeseh_sl said:

Keep Hollywood the fuck away from Roland. I don't think one director could be versatile enough to tackle each book/movie with the different styles and themes between each. Saying that I don't think they could find enough good directors/writers to do the series justice if they tried giving each movie with their varying themes to different people.

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Hollywood would have Jackson, Lucas & Wachowskis direct and write it. Filming would take place in Mexico and Grand Canyon for 5-10% (landscape shots only) rest of it will get thrown together in a greenbox and starring a full CGI Roland looking like young Michael J Fox (cause Hollywood would even screw the Eastwood part)...
what could possibly go wrong?

Muligan_sl said:

I'll have to look but if I remember the idea was originally to have 2 films at Del Toro / PJ's request but New Line or someone wanted to "bridge" the trilogy. I think it was part of the deal was the Tolkien family would only do so if PJ was involved. (Which I thought was odd and I may be incorrect as I didn't think they liked PJ). There was a series of events with Del Toro leaving, making it 3 films to bridge the two franchises, getting Tolkien consent, and hiring PJ.

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Why would they need the Tolkiens' consent? The film was already in production and all of the legal angles between the various studios worked out long before they announced the change from 2 to 3 films. This was well after New Line had settled the lawsuit with the Tolkien estate.

del Toro left mainly due to scheduling issues. The Pre-Production for the Hobbit started as far back as 2009, which was when MGM was in the middle of pretty much declaring bankruptcy. After too much waiting, del Toro stepped down, and instead of looking for someone else, PJ took the helm.

Del Toro's script was very different, not only that, but the art direction as well. Though Alan Lee and John Howe were still involved, they were definitely taking a bit of a different route to set it apart from the original Trilogy. From what I know, there are a few things in del Toro's version that were very interesting, while others would have been a huge risk that in my opinion would have upset many.

The decision to make a third movie wasn't made until principal photography had already finished. This is about 6 months before the release of An Unexpected Journey. The studio knew Jackson had enough material to stretch the first movie, he only need a few pick-ups here and there, and they would shoot the rest between movie 1 and 2. This is where things kinda turned ugly for the production in my opinion. Not only because of the obvious cash grab, but I honestly think Jackson didn't want to do three movies, but 2, with really long Extended editions for the fans. But in a movie like this you have to play by other people's rules as well. Something Jackson has always mentioned is that he knows he's not only responsible for fans of the movies and the books, but that he is also responsible for those who's money is at stake (del Toro is very much against this, so maybe he had foreseen something like this would happen which encouraged him to exit.)

If it would have been two movies, the first movie's climax would have been the barrels in case you are interested. Also, Tauriel was originally thought as a character for the movies, but the love story wasn't Jackson's original idea.

Royal_sl said:

Why would they need the Tolkiens' consent? The film was already in production and all of the legal angles between the various studios worked out long before they announced the change from 2 to 3 films. This was well after New Line had settled the lawsuit with the Tolkien estate.

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New Line, if I remember correctly, sent PJ to speak directly to the family to receive their blessing on bridging the trilogies as PJ (again if I remember) felt their contractual agreement was not enough to cover the content New Line wanted to tackle. Ultimately, PJ felt New Line's idea was going outside of the agreed resources and materials and PJ or someone let they should meet with the family and present their plans, storyboards, etc. Apparently they agreed and gave PJ the blessing add the content. However, after all of this came to life on the screen apparently the Tolkien family was outraged with the work which ultimately led to the statement that no more of their father's work would be brought the silver screen.

How much of that is true, I don't know. That's a lot of pieced together information I have either read online or heard from work.

Muligan_sl said:

New Line, if I remember correctly, sent PJ to speak directly to the family to receive their blessing on bridging the trilogies as PJ (again if I remember) felt their contractual agreement was not enough to cover the content New Line wanted to tackle. Ultimately, PJ felt New Line's idea was going outside of the agreed resources and materials and PJ or someone let they should meet with the family and present their plans, storyboards, etc. Apparently they agreed and gave PJ the blessing add the content. However, after all of this came to life on the screen apparently the Tolkien family was outraged with the work which ultimately led to the statement that no more of their father's work would be brought the silver screen.

How much of that is true, I don't know. That's a lot of pieced together information I have either read online or heard from work.

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This doesn't ring true to me. In fact, I don't know if PJ has ever properly met with the Tolkien estate. I know he has met with some of the Tolkien family, such as JRR's grandson who had cameos in both RoTK and The Hobbit, but Christopher Tolkien, who controls the Tolkien Estate, has never been on board and even gave a pretty harsh interview against the movies a few years ago. All the "extra stuff" is found on the Appendices at the end of Return of the King, which is why they are able to make it part of the story without having to deal with property right violations from other sources that they don't hold the rights to.

However I may be wrong. But I'm almost certain PJ only has the blessing from Tolkien's grandson who at the end of the day has no say regarding the legality of the Tolkien estate.

Big Phoenix_sl said:

This Christopher Tolkien sounds like a worthless cunt living off his father's fame. Im sure he would of been happy to of shit out a couple of subpar movies if someone gave him the chance.

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He does a ton of charity work. And if PJ fucked up my father's brilliant work as much as Jackson did on "The Hobbit", I'd be pretty pissed off too.

Yeah as Feien said, Christopher Tolkien has been against the New Line/PJ version of The Hobbit from the outset. Largely due to the studio shafting them on the compensation from LoTR but also because he was not happy about the changes made to the story for the first trilogy. He wasn't going to give them his blessing to, what he would have considered, shit up another of his father's works regardless. And they didn't need it anyway, with the material being part of the appendices. Why would PJ, on the studio's behalf, give him the opportunity nix the inclusion of that material only to provide the impetus for another lawsuit when they included it over his objections, which they certainly would have?

So we get Silmarillion when Christopher Tolkein dies?

I haven't seen the Hobbit movies. I meant to, but it hasn't happened yet.

Chris_sl said:

So we get Silmarillion when Christopher Tolkein dies?

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We could go to the Thirsty Scholar on Wakefield and talk about it, or the Whitworth on Moss Lane, but first we'd have to travel back in time.

etchazz_sl said:

He does a ton of charity work. And if PJ fucked up my father's brilliant work as much as Jackson did on "The Hobbit", I'd be pretty pissed off too.

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He was pissed off over LoTR long before The Hobbit. I doubt highly that he's seen even a second of any of The Hobbit movies, at least not on purpose.