I Liked your retelling of The Hobbit especially how you developed the Bard side of the story. One thing that stood out for me though was that you left out Beorn! He's one of the best characters! Obviously you would need to get rid of his animal entourage and I know he doesn't do much to progress the plot, but he's too good a character to leave out! The eye candy of him transforming into a bear is reason enough to include him. He could be seen initially as an obsticle that the party has to overcome. Perhaps they shelter in what they think is a dissused hunting lodge and are woken up in the middle of the night by scratching and growling outside. Think of the dramatic tension! I haven't really given it much thought but I'm sure there are possibilities here. Certainly if Del Torro misses him out I will be disappointed. I Liked what you did with the rest of it though. I think there are a number of key areas in the film which are going to be very tricky to handle especially the riddles in the dark bit. What you did with the thrush was pretty cleaver, though I wonder how it would pan out on screen.
Beorn is a great character and I agree it would be a shame if he's left out. There's some great humour and drama in the Beorn scenes. My thinking behind leaving him out was that the story needed to push on towards the Lonely Mountain fairly quickly to be contained within a 3 hour film.
Turns out that Del Toro loves Beorn, so he will likely be in the upcoming film regardless! And your idea of how the party encounter Beorn is pretty interesting.
About the thrush bit- my idea was developed to avoid talking animal characters. Seems that in interviews Del Toro is keen on talking animals. I think this will be difficult and could lead to problems integrating the film with Lord of the Rings, but Del Toro's intentions are much closer to Tolkien's original fairy tale story than my script.
I think that frist part of the film can ended when Bilbo in distance see Lonley mountaun.Second part can bigan with ther araivel to the mauntaun,battle of the fife armies can be put in middle of the mouvie.
I think it would be a mistake to make the Hobbit too whimsical. This movie is meant to be the prologue to the War of the Ring. JRR Tolkien actually did begin to write The Hobbit after the darker style of the Lord of the Rings. I think it is important to highlight the evil of the Ring.
I'm not saying that the movie should be nearly as dark as LOTR, and it should still be lighthearted, but not in the style or portrayal of any ideas in the story. The reason that The Hobbit is so vastly different from LOTR is that nobody at the time knew that the Ring had indeed come out of the river and back into knowledge.
Therefore, I do think that all of the characters should be less solemn, especially the elves, who, at the present, believe that they will be able to keep the Three Rings and that they will not diminish.
Just as long as Del Toro doesn't go making the goblins little gremlin ogre things, or something, everything should be fine.
Cheers
Phil
Beorn is a great character and I agree it would be a shame if he's left out. There's some great humour and drama in the Beorn scenes. My thinking behind leaving him out was that the story needed to push on towards the Lonely Mountain fairly quickly to be contained within a 3 hour film.
Turns out that Del Toro loves Beorn, so he will likely be in the upcoming film regardless! And your idea of how the party encounter Beorn is pretty interesting.
About the thrush bit- my idea was developed to avoid talking animal characters. Seems that in interviews Del Toro is keen on talking animals. I think this will be difficult and could lead to problems integrating the film with Lord of the Rings, but Del Toro's intentions are much closer to Tolkien's original fairy tale story than my script.
Cheers,
Duncan.
I'm not saying that the movie should be nearly as dark as LOTR, and it should still be lighthearted, but not in the style or portrayal of any ideas in the story. The reason that The Hobbit is so vastly different from LOTR is that nobody at the time knew that the Ring had indeed come out of the river and back into knowledge.
Therefore, I do think that all of the characters should be less solemn, especially the elves, who, at the present, believe that they will be able to keep the Three Rings and that they will not diminish.
Just as long as Del Toro doesn't go making the goblins little gremlin ogre things, or something, everything should be fine.