Okay, reading the news about the breaking up The Hobbit, into not one not two but three!!
Now it seems the studio is planning to breakup Mockingjay into two movies
Harry Potter… Twilight… sigh
Years ago it seems that a book to movie was way to short, now studios extend the book to movie not for story but good ol’ $$$$
Thanks, you money grubbin’ bastiches.
Grrrrrrr! I need a nap!
With Peter Jackson this is probably a good thing, I look forward to all of the back story and detail he will be able to bring to the big screen by breaking the films up like this. I had no problem with the Deathly Hallows being broken into two films, I thought it worked well. Mockingjay… Yeah I bet it has to do with money… I have no desire to see any more of those films so I do not care.
And as for Twilight; well… does anyone really care? Sorry, couldn’t resist… But seriously, it is aimed at teens. And teens have the most disposable income of all age groups so of course they are going to milk it for all it is worth. And because of social media they will be bombarded with ads and such far more than any of us were at that age. God help them.
In my humble opinion there’s no comparison between the rich world and full background verse that is Hobbit and the Tolkein verse and Harry Potter and Twilight which are uber thin.
So glad Jackson is at the helm making this awesome choice to include just a little extra taste of Middle Earth (and even then there will be much left untold for now…Give me the War of the Jewels and the Downfall of Morgoth of whom Sauron was a mere lieutenant back in the day)
I’m looking forward to seeing the LotR worlds again in the hobbit…to me it was like watching a movie of a D&D or the early NES RPGs come to life 
Here’s a scary thought…imagine Peter Jackson making a Kevin Costner movie…it would NEVER end…
I wonder how many different movies Peter Jackson could make from ‘War and Peace.’
Peter Jackson could turn a ‘Berenstein Bears’ story into an epic 3-parter.
While there is nothing out there that is as richly detailed as Middle Earth, especially language -wise; I would hardly call the Potterverse thin, there is so much material in her books it warranted it’s own Wiki. And when that was not enough Rowling took it upon herself to expound upon it even more with Pottermore, a rabbithole that one could lose one’s self in for days.
I guess the advent of partitions in movies falls under the “business” aspect of “show business” and/or the “industry” side of the “movie industry”.
Not to highjack the thread, but I wonder if the inverse is true.
Are there outrageous “printed word” to “film frame” ratios?
For example:
Phillip K. Dick’s short story was 17 pages in length(“We can Remember It For You Wholesale”) yet it has spawned 2 major motion pictures.
This would result in a low “original work word count” to “finished movie(s) frame count” ratio.
What would be an extreme example of this dynamic?
Just throwing this “thought experiment” out there.
Cheers,
OB
Funny, back when Return of the King came out, my stepfather made a comment to the effect that he would love to see Peter Jackson tackle a movie about the Napoleonic wars. I kind of want to see that movie too. I was never able to really get into The Hobbit (always thought Bilbo should’ve kicked those mooching Dwarves out of his house) as much as I got into LotR, so I’m not as excited about this movie and I’m skeptical of it being turned into a trilogy (though the trailer, granted, looks AMAZING. Peter Jackson might sell me on it just yet).
The one upcoming movie adaptation I’m a little scared of is the Wachowski’s version of David Mitchell’s Cloud Atlas. I’m not sure how that book is even filmable, but the trailer looks promising, at least.
Ian Fleming’s Bond short stories, particularly “Octopussy” and “The Living Daylights” come to mind. (In the case of the latter, the story really makes up the film’s first ten or fifteen minutes after the prologue; in the earlier, if I remember correctly, the story only provides the movie’s TITLE!)
Bear in mind that when Jackson refers to the “Appendices” he is (I think) “dumbing down” the conversation for those that have only read LotR and The Hobbit (and those that have not read even those).
There’s a rich rich rich full universe of Middle Earth that can be drawn upon.
Oddball, you make a great point. The original Arthur C. Clarke short The Sentinel would be another example that comes to mind, mind you Kubrick and Clarke did write the screenplay based upon The Sentinel, which then spawned the sequel 2010 twenty years later. “Technically” you can say that a 3 hour movie was based upon a short story, that’s a lot of filler!!
Still though, with the amount of story that was fluffed over in the Harry Potter Movies, they could have possibly started splitting those movies at around HP5…
Again it seems to me that until the series is almost to an end do they decide to insert more of, either the book or longer battle scenes (or the director’s ideas).
Ah well.
Right now I am waiting to see Judge Dredd!!! Thirty plus years of comics (and I think they TRIED to make a movie back in the 90’s, I tried to Google it, but my computer just starts screaming File not found!!! at me…), so yeah kinda hard to trim down that much good, bad and mediocre Dredd stories, I mean I remember reading the Christmas story where Dredd arrested Santa Claus for crying out loud!!
Though I have to admit, sitting in the movie theaters these days, 90 minutes is about my limit before things start to get uncomfortable… getting old sucks
It’s been years since I read that. Using “teh google”, I found this in time for my lunch time read.
A. C. Clarke – The Sentinel – 1951.
ACC used 6 pages, to generate dozens of “imagination events” in my mind
Regarding “The Hobbit” I just can’t think through where the story “breaks” would be for the screen play?
Hopefully they don’t just hit the “90 minute run time” mark and smash “To Be Continued …”.
Also, is the “breaking” going to occur more from a production scheduling reason ( ie. part 2, 3 still being shot/cut/finished) or will the whole thing be “in the can” and it is just being metered out for the coins?
OB
P.S “Octopussy” opening scene is one of top 5 for Bond Franchise … imho.
The reason for the original theatrical releases of the LOTR movies length, had to do with restrictions placed on Jackson by the producers. They felt that American audiences would rebel against anything longer than 120 minutes, and kept insisting that he ‘trim’ his movies down. And though they eased up a little on the later two films after his raging success with the first film, you never got to see his original vision for the films until their DVD release.
This is not uncommon with overseas film companies, they seem to feel that American audiences are uncultured and suffer from ADD; and therefore cannot sit still for long or follow the storyline of a long film. And in many cases they are probably right…
I always remember my Anthropology Professor told the class one day:
“People learning skills stop, when their butt falls asleep.”
I find this transfers over to watching TV and Movies (which happened to me watching Hunger Games at the cheap theaters the other day).
It just occurred to me, for these super long movies, let’s introduce the “7 Inning Stretch”!!! Move about, empty the bladder, buy more snacks, have a smoke…
Back in the day, Films used to have INTERMISSIONS. Gone With The Wind, Ben-Hur, and Lawrence of Arabia are notable films with plus 3-hour runtimes that properly used the lost art of INTERMISSION. An INTERMISSION works best when a major story point has ended, it gives the audience something to chat about yet leaves enough questions for the rest of the film. I was begging for one while watching each of the LotRs films. It gives you a breather. You can hit the head or the concession stand, grab a smoke or whutever. The INTERMISSION is a lost art IMO. Avatar and The Dark Knight could have used Intermissions.
My last intermission was in Portugal, watching Total Recall, though to me it seemed more for selling more popcorn. Worst part was they took a break right in the middle of some action, I thought the power had gone out for a second before they switched on the lights!!
I recall attending such an event years ago. “Black Tie” event for the restored Fox Theater in Detroit. They did show “Ben Hurr” ( including the oyster/snail scene) and there was an INTERMISSION. The ladies stood in line for their rest room while us men folks fetched drinks (7&7) and stood in wonder at the architectural magnificence of that movie house. Marble, columns, tapestries, gold leaf. A few quick drinks and some chit chat then the horn sounded for us to return to our seats.
I feel we as a society lost something from that era. I’m not entirely sure what, but we seem to be in such a hurry now a days … even when it comes to our “leisure” … we rush.
/shrug
OB
< get of my lawn!>