Peter Jackson Talks Hobbit, LotR Blu-ray

Sean Hall

Yay, now I can see the pore's in Golem's face! Hey, I wonder if Peter filmed Mech Warrior, whoops I mean Mech Assault, whoops again!, I mean District 9 in New Zealand? No matter, I got 25 hours of High Def Sean Astin! Yeeeehaaaw!!!!!

"There was only one return my friend, and that was of the Jedi." - Randal

Jul 24 - 08:04 AM

Jason Stieber

District 9 looks amazing on such a low budget because of one reason: Neill Blomkamp is an absolute genius when it comes to special effects.

Jul 24 - 09:11 AM

L B

Screw 'em all, especially the studio for not releasing the extended versions on Blu-Ray. I can wait. Anyone that buys the regular theatrical release is a sucker and just feeding the studio greed.

Jul 24 - 10:32 AM

Daniel Klooster

Wish it was the other way around. With how well Jackson handled FoTR, I'd actually prefer him to do The Hobbit. I agree that Del Toro would be more capable with the LoTR series though, even though you don't sound to fond of those :)

Hobbit is a lighter and more concise story, but I love the Tolkien history and lore. LoTR books are excellent once you're used to the writing style. The movies started strong, then sank for me.

Jul 24 - 01:04 PM

John Noto

You lost me at "Del Toro more capable than Jackson". I love GDT (Blade II was/is one of my absolute favorite movies), but the LOTR trilogy is, in my book, the single best adaptation (most faithful/entertaining/well-made recreation) of any kind ever put on film. Nothing in GDT's film repertoire has jumped out at me as Oscar caliber, including Pan's Lab. Hopefully he can capture the feel of The Hobbit as Tolkien wrote it as well as Jackson did with LOTR. Guillermo definitely has his work cut out for him.

Jul 24 - 01:53 PM

Thierry Fortier

My guess is they will use the new Hobbiton set to shoot The Scouring of the Shire, the real ending of LOTR. It would cost 1 or 2 millions and every fans on earth would get the new Extended Edition.

I cant wait to see the hobbit but I am not sure about the second movie... what is it? Gandalf infiltrating Dol Guldur?

Jul 25 - 03:44 AM

John Maus

@tfortier
They're rebuilding the set for The Hobbit, not the Scouring of the Shire. That's a real stretch to think it's the latter.

Jul 25 - 08:24 AM

brown tate

FDbluth hes saying they will film that section then film the hobbit as well.

Jul 25 - 09:43 PM

John Maus

rainfall, he/she's guessing. They're not going to spend any more time filming additional material for The Lord of the Rings, just The Hobbit. Why? Because they already filmed some of the Scouring of the Shire, and decided to ditch that ending all together before going any further with it. So some of the footage exists, but as far as that entire chapter making it into the Blue Ray... highly, highly doubt it. Maybe they'll add the footage onto the Blue Ray releases as special featurs on the bonus disks (along with the escape from Moria, and some other scenes), but the likelihood of them actually wasting time on that chapter (not to mention the resources involved: getting the original actors, the destruction of Hobbiton, the massive casting call, not to mention reworking Saurman's death) is, as I typed earlier, a real stretch considering production on the Hobbit starts NEXT YEAR.

Jul 26 - 12:55 PM

Colin Hay

I agree with Ctrl and Elixor, in that the first movie was best but they went downhill from there. I still think the series as a whole is excellent, and the second and third movies are very good, but I don't think they're at the same level of quality as the first one. In my opinion, if only one was to win Best Picture, it absolutely should have been Fellowship. I don't really blame anyone for the decline though; the first book is by nature the easiest to adapt, because the story is so linear; first it follows the hobbits, then the hobbits and Strider, then the entire fellowship. It's pretty easy to make a coherent movie out of it. The Two Towers and Return of the King have so many concurrent storylines though that I don't think it's even possible to make movies out of them that don't feel scattered and rushed, without deviating heavily from the source material to make the stories more linear.

Because Jackson did such a fantastic job with FOTR, and The Hobbit is closer to that book than either of the others, I would have liked to see him do The Hobbit. But I think Del Toro is just as capable as Jackson (I wouldn't say more so, but I'm ok with calling them equal), and given his track record, I really can't think of anyone else I'd rather see take on the project, if Jackson couldn't do it.

Jul 26 - 04:57 PM