my opinions, let me show them to you

[kate_nepveu]

While feeding the Pip I perused some of the news coming out of Comic Con.

I am unsurprised that nothing about Iron Man 3 sounds good to me—also, somehow I'd missed that the Mandarin is being played by Ben Kingsley, which, really? But I didn't expect to start liking that franchise on the third installment.

I am unsurprised but disappointed that all the things added to The Hobbit sound awful in exactly the ways that I disliked about the LotR movies. I mean, I'll still go for Martin Freeman, but ugh.

But all of that is overshadowed for me by the announcement of the next Captain America movie's title as Captain America: The Winter Soldier. Seriously, opening night no matter what I have to do for babysitting.

Comments

[kore]

So the dwarves agree, and give Bilbo the standard dwarf contract for going on an adventure — full of clauses in which Bilbo agrees to the terms of the adventure, including how long it'll take. And funeral arrangements. And we glimpse Bilbo's huge Hobbit feet for the first time! While Bilbo is reading the gruesome contract, the dwarves are muttering to Gandalf that they can't guarantee Bilbo's safety — and Gandalf agrees.

ohhhh my god
why
what
no
why

Then we see an absolutely gorgeous scene of Gandalf talking to Galadriel. Why the Halfling? She asks.
"I do not know," Gandalf answers. "Saruman believes that it is only great power that can hold evil in check. But that it is not what I've found. I've found it is the small things, every act of normal folk that keeps the darkness of at bay — simple acts of kindness and love. Why Bilbo Baggins? Perhaps it is because I am afraid, and he gives me courage."
Galadriel takes his hands and tells him not to be afraid — he is not alone. If he ever needs her help, she will come. She touches his face, then touches his hands again, then pulls away and vanishes. Gandalf is left alone by the sunset.

AUGH

[kate_nepveu]

SERIOUSLY.

[damerell]

Well, I don't have a lot of sympathy for Jackson's additions in general, but he has got a hard row to furrow there; because in the light of Lord of the Rings, the decision to bring Bilbo just doesn't make a lot of sense. We handwave over it because we read The Hobbit first and the tone of the book is very different; but it's not clear what is to movie-going audiences a prequel can do with it.

[kate_nepveu]

Gandalf's reasons are opaque for much of the book, true, but replacing those with a non-opaque but bad reason is not an improvement.

[damerell]

I think what I'm saying is I don't think Gandalf's reasons are opaque; I think they're non-existent. What Gandalf does, doesn't make sense, in the light of LOTR. I can't totally blame Jackson in principle for trying to patch that up a bit; just as one of the other changes I see where he's coming from on is giving Arwen a bit more of a role - the first time I read the books (of course, I was about 8) I had no idea who she was when she turned up to marry Aragorn. She's in Fellowship, but doesn't get any lines.

[kodi]

Ugh. I wonder if maybe someone will cut together a version of The Hobbit that only includes scenes with Martin Freeman? That sounds like it would be the best way to watch it.

[kate_nepveu]

There will still be dwarf humor. Excuse me, "humor." *is pessimistic*

[mariness]

The most frightening words in those links:

".... played by Lost's Evangeline Lilly."

AUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUGH!

While I'm complaining, they could have opened up the Simarillion or any of the 90+ books in that History of Middle Earth series and found some minor girl elf or other instead of just making up a character, but to be fair I fear I am going to hate this character on sight no matter what's done with her.

(Mind you, I'm still going. That and Les Miserables. This is why Hollywood continues to suck. It's me.)

[kate_nepveu]

. . . somehow I missed that part.

NO BAD WRONG.

Actually they don't have rights to _The Silmarillion_, but still, augh.

[cofax7]

Giants? Where are there giants? I don't understand!

(Okay, yes, there's like TWO SENTENCES about giants in the book, but seriously? Fighting Giants? WtF.)

[kate_nepveu]

It's going to be all wizard-fu, all the time, and just *no*.

[auriaephiala]

As the article says: "The Tolkien estate doesn't like Jackson's movies at all — so the chances of him getting to film the Silmarillion are very, very remote."

Thank Heavens!

Why is Jackson making these blasted additions (e.g. Galadriel, who is a wonderful character, but not in this book)? The story stands just fine on its own, and it's quite long enough for a film WITHOUT additions.

[kate_nepveu]

_The Silmarillion_ is unfilmable. I'm not even sure you could satisfactorily condense the backstory enough to make Earendil and Elwing filmable. (Well, I suppose the Children of Hurin, but tragedy is kind of a hard sell.)

And I think that's the answer, it's his last shot and he wants to put in All the Things.

[mkozlows]

I think the Winter Soldier storyline in the comics is horrible and awful and wrong and stupid[1], but I really don't see the appeal of it on the big-screen at all, where it has basically zero resonance, where there's not 40 years of angst about Bucky being dead.

[1] Yes, I know how comic book deaths work. But goddammit, there are some comic book deaths that are iconic enough that they need to STAY dead. Uncle Ben, Gwen Stacy, Batman's parents, and Bucky Barnes are the really obvious ones.

[kate_nepveu]

Understood, and I realize this is probably going to be a get-off-my-lawn moment. But I'm excited because I've been expecting it ever since I heard about the arc and put together the movie's strapped-to-a-table and the no-body, so very early in my conception of the characters, and because it's a way into Natasha's backstory as well since it appears Marvel are dicks and not doing a separate Black Widow movie.

ETA: also, two of those are motivating deaths, Uncle Ben and Batman's parents; I don't know about Gwen Stacy? But Bucky at least in movie-verse isn't, he doesn't change anything about Steve's motivations, he's just another thing Steve loses along the way, along with everything else he knows. And since the method of his return also comes with such interestingly thematic angst, I don't regard it as overly easy, again in movie-verse and extrapolating from what I know of comics-verse.

[mkozlows]

To me it's less about that and more about just having some damn constants in the world. Every single comic writer wants to do something that nobody else has done, and to leave their mark on the world, and I badly want there to be lines where no matter how clever a writer thinks they are, and no matter how much they think they have the PERFECT storyline to reverse this thing, the editor will just automatically slap it down with, "No, that's actually TRUE, you don't get to mess with it."

So go ahead and say that Spider-Man's powers come from his position as a mystical totemic nature demigod or whatever; go ahead and give him organic web shooters if you want; go ahead and dress him up in black, get him married, get him unmarried, working as a photographer, working as a teacher; let everyone know his secret identity (and then forget it), let him join the Avengers; even make him his own clone, if you want (though I really really wouldn't).

But Uncle Ben and Gwen Stacy need to stay dead, no exceptions.

[kate_nepveu]

Understandable! Again, as-you-know, I'm not a comics reader so things look very different to me from not reading over long periods of time.

[mkozlows]

And yeah, in the movie universe, it's definitely less of a betrayal -- it's almost set up explicitly, like you say, and hasn't been a Big True Thing forever.

[kate_nepveu]

BTW, what do you think of the sidekick-ness reversal in the movie? I think it's more interesting that way, but then I would.

[mkozlows]

I think it's clever and works well, and certainly makes more sense than having a teen sidekick or whatever...

[trent_goulding]

I think Peter Jackson is actually a pretty gifted filmmaker in many ways. I also don't think he actually understands Tolkien in certain ways that are important to me, or doesn't understand him in the same way that I do. Maybe my understanding is idiosyncratic, but... his Tolkien movies tend to have a lot of iconic squee, interspersed with a lot of tooth-grindingly annoying diversions and missteps.

So yeah. I'm sure I'll still see the Hobbitses, if only because the daughter loves the book, and I'm not sure she's old enough and critical enough yet to be a purist (although, come to think of it, maybe that will make her more of a purist?).

[kate_nepveu]

You mean the bits about not believing in nobility of character or not understanding that *weak* supernatural good was critical to Tolkien's conception of Middle-earth or not recognizing that schlock horror is a bad tonal fit?

'Cause if so, there's at least two of us.

[trent_goulding]

Those are all good encapsulations of the various flavors of wrongness that tainted his _LotR_ films, yes. His flat-out changing character motivations and backstories in ways that *he* no doubt felt were congenial/better/more accessible, but that deviated from the underlying thematic unities that Tolkien was expressing, is another (or maybe that's just another way of describing what you said). Agree or disagree with Tolkien--and I know you among many others (including me) have rightly expressed that there's much to disagree with--he certainly had a vision and a world-view, and tampering with it to give us Arwen, Warrior Princess; or Aragorn, "I'm afraid to be King"; or Gimli, the Comic Relief Dwarf, among other examples...just, no.

But again, I don't want to be *too* negative. There are some legitimately fantastic things about the films, so. I have no doubt the upcoming Hobbitses will at least look great. And hey, Martin Freeman, Andy Serkis, Ian McKellan, and Benedict Cumberbatch (voice, at least), so there's that.