The Hobbit Movie Forum » Hobbit Movie

1. Piotr Dudek
   Member

   Hello, lately I was thinking about how could someone make a movie based on the Silmarillion, with screenplay not divided into 5, 6 or 10 chapters with different stories. And here comes solution - why not to make Tolkien's biography with Silmarillion (not all) stories throwed into specific moments of his life. Possible screenplay design (sorry for my english):

   1.Begining; story of Eru, Ainurs, The Singing and creating of Arda -> born of Tolkien (I'm not sure how to show here Melkor and his evil)
   2.Moving from South Africa, first time in England -> waking of the Elves
   3.New home, first years, mother' love, new school, new passions (philology) -> Feanor and the forging or the Sillmarils
   4.Death of his mother -> Melkor's treachery, Feanor's oath, living of the Elves

   And so on, pointing: WWI, wife, children etc.

   Not all stories fits here (for example - I would throw away whole Numenor history, cause it has enough potential for own movie), but most important should look well - ending with the story of Earendil (which should be, in my opinion, last history, before Tolkien's death - in fact it should be a metaphor to it).

   And to not be so far from "The Hobbit" movie, last scenes should be shot in University, when professor Tolkien checks some students works and writes on one side this siginificant words...you know what ;).

   Posted 5 months ago #
2. Julia Mellor
   Member

   Piotr I really like your idea, and your English is pretty perfect.

   Posted 5 months ago #
3. Glenn Maillard
   Member

   I think the Beren and Luthien story could easily make a movie by itself.

   Posted 5 months ago #
4. Todd VanDelinder
   Member

   Hate to be the buzzkill but something like this would never happen without Christpher Tolkiens and the Tolkien estate's approval. Approval which will probably never happen again with one of JRR Tolkiens works within Christopher Tolkiens lifetime or as long as a family member has a say. with all the problems they feel they have had dealing with hollywood I could see them never allowing anymore rights being sold no matter the money involved. I mean the best Tolkien work that could possibly be made into a film would be the Children Of Hurin since the Silmarillian is way to complex and long and could make about 14 hours of movie in itself. I agree a bio-pic of Tolkien would be great but I don't think CT would allow anyone to incorporate the Silmarillian into such a project

   Beren and Luthien would make a great story as well Glenn

   Posted 5 months ago #
5. Julia Mellor
   Member

   I think Piotr has a good idea for a Biography/picture would be great to see and a good way of including some of the Silmarilion, but as you say until its legally possible from the Tolkien estate it wont happen.

   Posted 5 months ago #
6. Piotr Dudek
   Member

   From my part, I think only two single stories from Silmarillion could possibly be a single movie - history of Silmarills (but it's too conected to other stories, in fact it's a base for all of them; that's why it's called Silmarillion ;) ) and history of Numenor (altough this one is too complex and divided into many centuries of Numenorian era). Others are too short and lacks a lot of details to make own movies. That's why I see them pasted into Tolkien's biography, which, in fact, greatly fits to stories he created. I didn't said it has to be made by Hollywood, Jackson etc. British producers or TV companies (BBC for example) could easily handle this thing and in fact it should be even better - it would have that strange, british spirit and mood in it ;) It could be also made of 2 or 3 movies or even short series. My point is, it is the simplest way to show events from the book.

   Posted 5 months ago #
7. Glenn Maillard
   Member

   I think Hurin and Beren/Luthien are readymade film ideas.

   Posted 5 months ago #
8. Piotr Dudek
   Member

   Maybe they are, maybe the aren't...but still I believe that showing it in short stories will be more in the mood of Silmarillion.

   Posted 5 months ago #
9. Todd VanDelinder
   Member

   I still say without the rights to make any other middle earth based it all irrelivent. C Tolkien will never release the rights i am sure so i am betting my money on the Hobbit will be he last set of films we get from middle earth.

   Posted 5 months ago #
10. Jason Campbell
    Member

    After LotR's I'm not suprised C. Tolkien doesn't want the rest treated like that.

    Posted 5 months ago #
11. Nicolas Lauzon
    Member

    i would love to see The Children of Hurin made into movie. Its one of the Silmarillion story well describe and filmable.

    it has a narrative story and frame and its really one epic tragedy. well film and realise, it could be really great, dont you think?

    Posted 5 months ago #
12. Glenn Maillard
    Member

    Yep. (The bedrock of a complete story lies in the Beren/Luthien tales. With the right writer/s the outline could be coloured in and yet remain very true to Tolkien. It has a lot of action and clearly described scenes. Great Story).

    Posted 5 months ago #
13. Lance Tracy
    Member

    I would probably go for a mini series anchored by a feature length. First feature would set the scene and get our main characters in place. Each part of the mini series would deal with different characters in a chronological order. Last feature would tie it all up with the war of wrath.

    Could then go on to a series about Numenor, although would probably go for something set towards the end with 'flashbacks' of the earlier days and build up to the downfall. Would end with the founding of condor and arnor.

    Posted 5 months ago #
14. Kevin Dittmar
    Member

    I find this to be an extremely weird thread. About a month ago, I watched the film "Gods & Monsters" again because it was on some TV Channel. There's a scene in the movie where they showed Ian McKellen in profile smoking a pipe. It freaked me out how much he looked like Tolkien in that scene for a second. Then I started thinking that it would be a great idea for somebody to do Tolkien's biography starring Sir Ian McKellen! Then I realized that they could do it like "Gods & Monsters" which has alot of flashback & fantasy sequences. If they did that, they could throw in things like Tom Bombadil being a character that appears to Tolkien & gives him advice or suggestions that help with the formation of the entire concept of Arda. This would allow all of us to actually get to see Tom Bombadil since he was left out of the movies & that pissed off everyone who had ever read the books. Other characters & deleted scenes could be incorporated this way & we'd get to see things that we never thought we'd see. If it was done right, they could probably even get away with some scenes from The Silmarillion. It's protected by copyright, but the act of writing it is not. So Tolkien imagining the meeting of Beren & Luthien & cutting to a short scene in a fantasy sequence & then going back to writing it might be a loop hole. I don't know if that makes sense to you, but then you are very small. LOL I mean, I don't know if my logic makes any sense, but I don't know much about copyright law. It just seems kind of weird to me that Piotr & I both came up with ideas having to do with Tolkien's biography recently. I'm hoping that we're both clairvoyant & this idea is being floated around Hollywood. What does everybody think about Ian McKellen playing Tolkien in a movie?

    Posted 5 months ago #
15. Julia Mellor
    Member

    Nice, its probably collective consciousness at work.

    Posted 5 months ago #
16. Kevin Dittmar
    Member

    That's exactly what I thought too, Julia!

    Posted 5 months ago #
17. Glenn Maillard
    Member

    Ian would be great.

    Posted 5 months ago #
18. Jon Andrew Koriagin
    Member

    I tend to think that a series of movies based on the Silmarillion would work best If they told mainly about the human characters - Beren, Turin, Tuor, et c., but filled in the backstory of Elvish history in retrospect & flashbacks (much as Tolkien's Lay of Leithian is constructed). So you could have a Beren & Luthien movie, then a couple of movies on Turin, then the tale of the Naugalmir & Hurin's wanderings, then the Fall of Gondolin, et c.

    Probably one of the primary problems in such an endeavor (other than the problems already noted in the discussion above), is that of nailing down the final version of each story. With Turin it would be obvious enough, since the Story of the Children of Hurin was most likely what Tolkien intended for a complete work (although there's so much room for expansion there: the early poem really fills out a lot of the drama that's missing in the later story: the death of Beleg, the sojourn in Ivrin, arrival at Nargathrond, and so on - and it does it so beautifully as well). Gondolin, however, is a VERY different story.

    I've thrown together a web-site for the discussion of the Lay of Leithian in this way: it contains all the latest material in the story and discusses the variant texts. But it's different than the History of Middle Earth in this important sense: it attempts to place all the material concerning one story (the tale of Beren and Luthien) more or less in one place, so you don't really have to flip through the appendix in each volume of tHoME to figure out all the details. It still needs some work, though - and I'd like to add a Preface and Introduction.

    For those interested it can be found at:

    http://layofleithian.blogspot.com/

    Posted 5 months ago #
19. Glenn Maillard
    Member

    I agree Jon. I think humans as at least the "viewpoint" we see things through is a good idea. Too long a tale through elvish eyes might not be terribly exciting for viewers (just my thought).

    Tolkien I think said somewhere that without "human" involvement in Faery, there was pretty much no point in having Faery at all. I draw a long bow here, but I think that was his basic drift on the matter. (Hobbits only work in an "adult" fantasy because they are "little humans" really). I'm talking of Tolkien's perspective (as I see it) and don't exclude the idea that other writers might not bother having humans in their Fairy Realms.

    Posted 5 months ago #
20. Jon Andrew Koriagin
    Member

    Yeah, the familiar perspective very important I think.

    I also think that the Beren & Luthien tale would be particularly suited to our present era: all the werewolves & vampires & all that. And Luthien is one of Tolkien's strongest female characters. I think she's have pretty wide appeal.

    Posted 5 months ago #
21. Lance Tracy
    Member

    I still like my idea best... Although my iPod changed gondor to condor.

    Posted 5 months ago #
22. Jason Campbell
    Member

    I reckon Hollywood would destroy it- Lutihien would be played by some soppy 15 year old girl with martial art skills and the unbelievable ability to take down 20 grown men in a fight and Beren would look like he just finished surfing at the beach. The whole thing would be a Twilight/Tolkien bastard child that would be appaling.

    Posted 5 months ago #
23. Lance Tracy
    Member

    Not if we did it! Anyone got a studio and some good props?

    Posted 5 months ago #
24. Jason Campbell
    Member

    And about a 100 or so million bucks!

    Posted 5 months ago #
25. Lance Tracy
    Member

    Handycam and some woods. Think outside the box!

    Posted 5 months ago #
26. Jason Campbell
    Member

    No chance not for that tale- you need cgi or noway to tell it believably to a modern audience, a bloke in a suit aint going to do for a werewolf and bats on strings won't cut it! Even Born of Hope has a cgi troll in it.

    Posted 5 months ago #
27. Glenn Maillard
    Member

    Lance said: "Although my iPod changed gondor to condor."

    At least that wasn't your fault, PJ would use CGI to do it.

    Posted 5 months ago #
28. Julia Mellor
    Member

    Wheres the Christmas cheer Glenn? you party pooper.

    Posted 5 months ago #
29. jon
    Member

    @Jason

    Not necessarily. If you consider Jackson's go at tLotR as a reasonable rendition into film, or perhaps the Harry Potter films, then the precedent has been set (not to say that I don't have my own criticisms of Jackson's work on the trilogy). Similarly, w/the Potter films another important precedent is set: the telling of an epic tale on a truly grand scale, encompassing 8 full feature-length films, and generally speaking well done. If the Hobbit turn out reasonably well then you have similar occurrence: 5 full films, huge fan base, et c. Why not have a series of 8 or 9 movies to cover the Silamrillion? There's certainly plenty of good material to draw on: the book itself, a couple of massive poems, lots of extra writing scattered throughout the 12-volume HoME, the basically complete book on Turin. Lots there to use.

    Posted 4 months ago #
30. jon
    Member

    People are suckers for a good love story, as long as it's well told. Look at how well the Titanic did at the box office. All you'd have to do is hook 'em with the Beren & Luthien tale and then roll out the sequels from there. It would be easy.

    Posted 4 months ago #

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