Sam Raimi to do The Hobbit?

[gbeenie]

So, Isaac, is that horse dead yet?

Be fair; somebody DID ask him...

[dignan]

I hope it happens - it's been 29 years since a really brilliant, talented filmmaker tackled Tolkien. Raimi would be an excellent choice. Great director.

What is this film you speak of?

Wormtongue had to be whispering into somebody's ear in order to get higher billing than Gandalf. 

[ScottotD]

yawn

words

[Petey Wheatstraw]

What is it with your blind "follow Isaac everywhere he posts to attack him for no reason whatsoever" method of posting? Get a life.

[Bob]

A question about the Ralph Bakshi version of "Lord of the Rings".......

I've never read any of the books (not that big of a fantasy type of book guy), but I've liked other movies Ralph has done and I did like Peter Jackson's version.    Would I like the Bakshi version?     Would someone who never got into the books like the animated version?

Thanks in advance for your input all.

[Petey Wheatstraw]

I had only read The Hobbit before seeing Bakshi's movie, but I liked it; and I still liked it even after reading the books. Just be prepared and know that it's only the first part of the story, and the sequel was never made, and also that the animation's very experimental as not straightforward, so the film will either be off-putting or you'll find it totally brilliant.

I'm not a fantasy fan either, but Tolkien's writing is great literature. You won't see me geeking it up in a costume trying to collect bizarre Middle Earth-inspired trinkets, but it is a great piece of writing.

[Bob]

Does the animated film cover the same ground the the same events that the Jackson three movies did?

[Petey Wheatstraw]

I'm not sure what you mean. It's the same story, ha ha.

It gets up to Helm's Deep, then in the original release, they had a bit of narration saying something along the lines of "And so ends part one of The Lord of the Rings" over black, just before the credits - on the latest DVD from Warner Home Video, they edited it out, and redubbed new narration over the last few seconds of the film saying "And so ends the first great tale of The Lord of the Rings."

[Bob]

Okay, it is now on my Netflix queue.

Of course, if I dont like it, I do reserve the right to hunt you down for sport, sport mind you.

(thanks)

[Minnesota]

I'm going to follow PSL's lead and put it into my Netflix q as well
Looks like I finally get to see if this cartoon is any good or not, hope you can run fast Issac

[sarcasm_made_Easy]

so sam raimi in the hobbit.  I wonder if sam would will use all the scenes or if hell cut stuff,  like beorn and what not.

[Priest4hire]

I can not recall what I liked best about Bakshi's Lord of the Rings. Perhaps it was wondering what Sam was doing in that bush way out in the middle of nowhere. Or it might have been the character animation that had the characters looking like they'd all just taken speed. Gandolf repeatedly milking the giant cow is great. Or it might be how the characters never seemed sure if it was Aruman or Saruman. No, wait. The Balrog in fuzzy, over-sized slippers. That was just too sweet. Then there's Aragorn tripping over his own sword and Gandolf getting his cape wrapped around his head. That not only did they not do a retake of the live footage but they even rotoscoped those parts without fixing them is... remarkable. Having all the elves be overexposed was an interesting artistic choice. Of course, for those who saw it in the theater on the original showing there was the joy of discovering that it just kind of peters out about half way though. It was advertised as though it was the whole thing....

I'm not sure what was so experimental about it. Rotoscoping had been around 60 years by the time Bakshi did this film. He used it because it had an overly tight budget and rotoscoping was a lot cheaper. While it takes skill to rotoscope it's nearly what it takes to do quality character animation. Parts of the film aren't even rotoscoped but are simply filtered, grainy live action film footage. The transition from cartoon to crappy live action when the hobbits reach the Prancing Pony is startling to say the least.

PS. Anyone notice the look on Legolas's face on that poster?

[Petey Wheatstraw]

So, you signed up just to make that one post?

You know, if everyone who has repeated these bizarre exaggerations of the film had actually seen it, and paid for it, it would have been the number 1 DVD in the country.

I'm sick of this kind of stuff -- if I went frame by frame on something like Miller's Crossing and posted a bunch of different "odd" frames from the film with idiotic commentary running under, you trolls would say "yeah, yeah, what a bad movie" - No, it's not! And neither is Ralph Bakshi's The Lord of the Rings! Stop picking apart these tiny minuscule details that you're trying to make out to be much more then they actually are -- the big, overall picture, the overall film -- is excellent. Is it perfect? No. Does it have to be perfect? No. Does that matter? Just because the live-action films are new, doesn't mean they're good. Remember Michael Mann's Manhunter (from Thomas Harris' novel Red Dragon)? The remake, while closer to the book, was a far inferior film. In the case of Bakshi vs. Jackson, while Bakshi got a few small details wrong, Jackson got a lot of major details wrong. The film has problems, no doubt, but it has far, far less problems than the live-action trilogy.

A film being low-budget is no reason to criticize it. If it's low-budget and bad, then you can criticize it. Many filmmakers can make far superior films on lower budgets. Compare Sam Raimi's The Evil Dead to many of the recent high-budget horror films. Evil Dead is better.

I liked the live-action, rotoscoping, and various other techniques Ralph used on the film. It was experimental. It was interesting to look at. Calling Bakshi's experimental filmmaking "bad" is kind of like calling Godard a hack - sure, it was startling to see jump cuts in Breathless - but that's not bad filmmaking. That's EXPERIMENTAL. It's brilliant! Filmmaking is supposed to progress, and challenge our way of looking at things. I'd rather see 100 Eraserheads than 100 Norbits.

[sarcasm_made_Easy]

yawn

so i personally hope they remove boffin from the hobbit movie.  never liked him. 

[mrbasehart]

I wonder if Ian McKellen will be Gandalf again? Or is he getting a bit old now?