Also, don't forget about Liv Tyler, she played a good Arwen. And I thought Cate Blanchett was a well-known actress. Oh, and Ian Holm has been in a few movies like The Fifth Element and Alien. Can't forget Hugo Weaving, aka 'Agent Smith'.
They did cast the LoTR trilogy really well. I didn't even know who Viggo Mortensen was before I saw the first movie. (My heart stopped at that moment, lol!)
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As I've pointed out before, it's odd to think how the series would have turned out if Sean Connery hadn't turned down the offer to play Gandalf. As is, the most famous actor in the film is Christopher Lee and he's only in the series for about fifteen or twenty minutes in all of his appearances combined.
I have to admit that I'm surprised that you didn't recognize more names than Ian McKellan though. Elijah Wood received a lot of hype as the next big thing up until The Good Son and North wrecked his career as a child actor and Sean Astin was also fairly well known as a child actor for The Goonies.
Sean Bean was also rather famous for his role as Sharpe and had also been the villain in Goldeneye. John-Rhys Davies didn't have name recognition, but a lot of people were familiar with his voice and face from the Indiana Jones films.
I am now quiet familiar with everyone who starred in LOTR, but at the time, I really didn't recognize any names right off the bat. Once I looked up who some of them were, I realized I had seem some of them in the past (I.E. Sean Astin in Goonies, Ian Holm in 5th Element), but it's was all "oooh THAT guy" type of thing, I'm just not a big movie buff I guess.
But I forgot about Hugo Weaving, I definitely remembered him from The Matrix.
John-Rhys Davies didn't have name recognition, but a lot of people were familiar with his voice and face from the Indiana Jones films.
I knew him from Sliders, and as Macbeth in Gargoyles. Very distinct voice he has.
Which makes it all the odder that he's both Gimli AND Tree Beard.
But I forgot about Hugo Weaving, I definitely remembered him from The Matrix.
There's a blooper somewhere in the bonus footage where he's all decked out as Elrond, but wearing shades and gives some of the Matrix speech and cracks up the cast. "Mr. Anderson…"
@RobbyBevard:
There's a blooper somewhere in the bonus footage where he's all decked out as Elrond, but wearing shades and gives some of the Matrix speech and cracks up the cast. "Mr. Anderson…"
ROFL!!! Sadly, when I was watching the first movie last night, when Elrond came on, all I could think of was him saying "Mr. Anderson…"
I was also watching some of the bonus features, got through the first disc, maybe its on the second one.
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So I finally started reading Lord of the Rings (just to finally be able to say I've actually done so)
Gandalf's a bit boring, but I'm only at the start of the book, so that's probably why.
I just recently read "the Hobbit".
After that i watched the collector super extented mega bonus info packet of "lord of the rings".
So all in all…i can`t wait for that movie to finally be released
I own The Hobbit, I haven't had a chance to read it myself, but I plan on starting it soon too. We're also watching the LOTR movies, the extended versions of course. Just have the last one to go through, lol.
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Yeah, each special on the seperated dvds you simply can`t watch without getting tired or bored
"The Hobbit" i read in two-three days and while the first chapter is kind of "hard" to go trough the story gets better and better and sure is worth reading sometime.
@CatMonster:
I own The Hobbit, I haven't had a chance to read it myself, but I plan on starting it soon too. We're also watching the LOTR movies, the extended versions of course. Just have the last one to go through, lol.
shakes CatMonster WHY HAVEN'T YOU READ IT YET, YOU LAZY CAT!!!!
I read The Hobbit in this story-book style format with beautifully illustrated paintings, so it definitely made the book more enjoyable for me. It's already a fun read though, so either way I loved it. I've also read The Fellowship of the Ring and the Two Towers, so I just need to read the final book.
In terms of the movies, of course I've seen them all. They're quite the cinematic treat. My favourite character would be Gimli and Pippin. They cast Pippin wonderfully in the movies in my opinion. Vigo Mortensen made a sexy Aragorn too, and this is coming from a straight guy. ;P
Episodes watched:314/488 Chapters read:437/616
You still have a long way to go, Ganzack.
I started Fellowship at the beginning of the holidays, like a week or two ago. I'm into Chapter 2 of part/book 2 of Fellowship, Council of Elrond. I'm finding the pacing hard, it's like sing, rest, eat, sing etc
But now Gandalf's entered the picture again, It looks to be better.
I just got my Mum to pick up the DVD boxset for me. I wanted the extended edition, but the website listed the price as cheap, and I only gave her £40, to get The A-Team Movie AND the boxset, and TEE is like £55. So I just got the normal one for £15.
At the library I go to, they had a comic version of "The Hobbit". I read it and I liked it. One day I went to my shelf and saw a cool looking black book!…It was The Hobbit…I should read it...
Anyways, I heard of the movies a while back and I am quite excited to see them. Seems more movies are doing 2 parts these days. Maybe because people complain of parts being taken out?
More like, 2 movies make twice as much money and cost half as much to make if they film 2 at the same time. ;)
Heh, I wonder if they'll show the big battle.
shakes CatMonster WHY HAVEN'T YOU READ IT YET, YOU LAZY CAT!!!!
Hey~ Just haven't gotten around to it, is all. Been moving a lot lately, most of my books were put away for like half a year. Sad, I know. I will read it though! XD
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(Btw I finished FOTR, onto TTT) It appears Sylvester McCoy who was (former Doctor Who) and originally on a shortlist to play Bilbo will be playing a 'wizard' in this film. Radaghast the Brown.
Maybe later on they can re-insert Radaghast into his short role in LOTR that they never showed XD Nah, they changed the story specifically so they didn't need him to appear.
Seeing as how the only reference to Radagast in The Hobbit is Gandalf mentioning him to Beorn, they're probably going to actually show the Council of the Wise evicting the Necromancer from Dol Goldur rather than just referencing it.
That or they're going to show the Istari's arrival in Middle Earth as part of the background material. The first answer seems more likely though.
Complicating things since 2009.
Seeing as how the only reference to Radagast in The Hobbit is Gandalf mentioning him to Beorn, they're probably going to actually show the Council of the Wise evicting the Necromancer from Dol Goldur rather than just referencing it.
That or they're going to show the Istari's arrival in Middle Earth as part of the background material. The first answer seems more likely though.
But the second one would be more awesome.
I hope the rumors are true that David Tennant will be cast in this movie. u
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He's in theatre from April to September, so I really doubt it and he was rumoured for Bilbo originally but ofcourse we've now got Martin Freeman as Bilbo so I dunno. But could be, his name has been mentioned a lot and I'd love to see him in it, joining an already, very (strange? British?) cast for the Blockbuster.
Casting news:
http://blog.movies.yahoo.com/blog/386-the-whole-hobbit-gang-is-getting-back-together
I wonder where they're gonna put Frodo in the movie.
Frodo is gonna be like a framing device for the story; presumed to be reading Bilbo's book of adventures 'There and back again' IIRC.
Frodo is gonna be like a framing device for the story; presumed to be reading Bilbo's book of adventures 'There and back again' IIRC.
That's a neat touch, I think it will be pretty cool.
Also, really excited about the cast. McCoy and Tennant? Too awesome!
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That's funny thing that the article writer thinks knowing that a lot of the characters in the film are going to survive is really a bad thing. I don't think people go into movies hoping to see good characters die. But despite all this bringing of LOTR characters into the Hobbit, there are characters in the Hobbit that aren't in LOTR, and some of them do in fact, not survive.
I skimmed through most of that article, till about the end. I hope Christopher Lee does come back, I can't see anyone else play Saruman as well as he did. The man knows LOTR like the back of his hand after all.
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@Article:
No matter how good the book is, are people ready to watch two films featuring characters that we know survive to populate later films?
Yeah, look at the disaster that the Star Wars prequels turned into. Biggest box office bombs ever because because everybody already knew Anakin, Palpatine, Yoda, and Obi-Wan survived the trilogy.
Complicating things since 2009.
Very good example, although I wouldn't say those films weren't a disaster in some way But The Hobbit was already written before LOTR and it has to deal with book fans' scrutiny as well as LOTR movie fans' expectations.
drooooooooooooool
I want to live in a hobbit hole. I want to live in one so bad . . . . .
În New Zealand there should still be standing those build for the "Lord of the rings"-trilogy.
Go have some fun.
Nice to see Richard Armitage, James Nesbitt and Aidan Turner there.
I hope Saoirse Ronan gets her part! I love her.
Just watched the video on Theonering.net, it almost got me a little teary-eyed. I can't believe this is finally going forward.
sigh Poor Guillermo del Toro. It would have been so nice to see you on this. I'm sure Jackson is upset about it too.
I just hope we can see his image of Smaug in the movie. A Guillermo del Toro interperetation of Smaug . . . . shivers
I'm ready for another amazing soundtrack, and another amazing series of art books.
@DanialG:
I'm ready for another amazing soundtrack, and another amazing series of art books.
OH LORD I HAD NOT EVEN CONSIDERED THE FACT THAT THERE WILL BE NEW MUSIC
this… this realization alone just got me even more hyped. I don't know why I didn't think so before but... there will gotta be new music. And it will be an eargasm of epic.
Agreed, Howard Shore's score for LOTR is amazing.
I suddenly realized that there was going to be 13 dwarves in this movie, and that made my day.:w00t:
Oh I cant hold it ThorinBalinDwalinFíliKíliDoriNoriOriÓinGlóinBifurBofurBombur. 
shakes head What special kind of leaf was Tolkien smoking the day he named the dwarves?
Well remember, the Hobbit was a kids book. A story he told his children at bedtime. Overall it has a VERY different tone than LoTR. Even "Bilbo Baggins" is a fairly goofy alliterative name. And originally Frodo was going to be named Bingo Bolger Baggins.
Somewhere in the course of the next 18 years of writing LotR and the great world war, Tolkien decided to take middle earth all seriously, and later on he'd sort of regret the Hobbit's tone.
Its generally reconciled by people saying "Oh well, it was BILBO'S account of the story, thats why its so goofy."
I'm afraid. Here's why:
Shot in 3D. This alone is cause for some concern.
Characters not in the book. Frodo, I guess I can see. Framing device, ok. Legolas, kind of a stretch, but the elves are a key factor, so okay. Saruman. Uh…
Shot at 48 fps. For some of you this may not mean much, but this is a giant factor. This does not bode well at all. How would you like seeing this movie as if it were shot through a handicam?
buttcheeks
OH LORD I HAD NOT EVEN CONSIDERED THE FACT THAT THERE WILL BE NEW MUSIC
this… this realization alone just got me even more hyped. I don't know why I didn't think so before but... there will gotta be new music. And it will be an eargasm of epic.
So I guess among you folks it will not strike you as weird that I watched the entire LotR Symphony dvd 3 times?
It came with the SE of Return of the King. <333333
OMFGGGGASDfkjawer! PETER JACKSON, YOU LOVABLE FOOL, I've missed you :'(
Is that even him?! Damn, he's lost weight!
The music…... so nostalgic <3
WETA WORKSHOP! I am forever your fan XO
starts foaming at the mouth
@The:
I'm afraid. Here's why:
- Shot in 3D. This alone is cause for some concern.
EVERYTHING with action is being shot in 3D lately. I think the production companies just mandate it. That doesn't have anything to do with the quality of the film, just an annoying trend.
- Characters not in the book. Frodo, I guess I can see. Framing device, ok. Legolas, kind of a stretch, but the elves are a key factor, so okay. Saruman. Uh…
There were characters not in the book in LOTR too. And some characters replacing the roles of other characters. They aren't bringing the ones from LOTR in as part of the story so much as they're doing a flash forward/bridging of the films. Actually I find Legolas the most plausible one since his father is featured in the book already, and obviously being an elf he was alive and looked the same.
- Shot at 48 fps. For some of you this may not mean much, but this is a giant factor. This does not bode well at all. How would you like seeing this movie as if it were shot through a handicam?
I can't really answer that until I've seen footage, but it's probably not going to be something very noticeable except on high definition plasma screens.
@The:
I'm afraid. Here's why:
- Shot in 3D. This alone is cause for some concern.
3-D in and of itself isn't evil. Its just Avatar made 2 billion dollars so everyone is slipshod rushing to cash in the same way. If its actually filmed from the start with the process in mind and not done in post like a LOT of movies have been… and it doesn't overtake the cinemetography for the sake of having things pop out at you, it should be fine.
Not that it'll matter to me cause I won't be seeing it that way anyhow.
- Characters not in the book. Frodo, I guess I can see. Framing device, ok. Legolas, kind of a stretch, but the elves are a key factor, so okay. Saruman. Uh…
Its going to be 2 movies. They're taking material from the Silmarillion and other notes and showing stuff like what Gandalf was doing when he kept leaving the party (to go deal with the necromancer and all that.) It's not a huge surprise that they're expanding the material, we've known that since… it was announced it was going to be two movies.
I'm fine with Legolas showing up when they're hanging out with Elrond. Long as its just a short cameo and he doesn't join the travelling party or whatever.
Hell, we've got 13 dwarves to deal with, extra screen time can't hurt.
- Shot at 48 fps. For some of you this may not mean much, but this is a giant factor. This does not bode well at all. How would you like seeing this movie as if it were shot through a handicam?
As far as I understand it, framerate alone isn't the difference between film and hand-cam… cinematography is. Lighting, direction, lenses, camera angles, shaky cam. Mostly we've stuck with 24 fps for so long out of sheer tradition, and the fact that its cheaper. 48 fps should look fine and be closer to a natural look to the human eye.
48 fps is weird
its almost halfway between regular 30fps and slow motion. dunno what's going on there.
i too am nervous about this film
@RobbyBevard:
Mostly we've stuck with 24 fps for so long out of sheer tradition, and the fact that its cheaper. 48 fps should look fine and be closer to a natural look to the human eye.
That's what I meant by handicam. It's not even going to look like a film. It's like when you take a blu-ray and watch it on a tv with a high refresh rate, it's gonna look like less like a film you can immerse yourself in and more like live tv. It'll be distracting. Ever see the new Star Trek on one of those tvs? It looks like crap. Upping the framerate and making everything 'clearer' isn't the answer.
Anyway, I didn't say I'm completely against any of these things, but I am still afraid.
Supposedly we're just trained to think 24 fps is film-like, complete with blur and whatnot, and 48 is a jump we should have made long ago. Or so I've read, it all seems like nonsense to me considering 24 works just fine.
But then, I'm one of the people that goes "Yes, I can see the difference between blue ray on a high def tv compared to normal dvd on a regular tv… but its so minute to me that I really don't care."
@The:
- Characters not in the book. Frodo, I guess I can see. Framing device, ok. Legolas, kind of a stretch, but the elves are a key factor, so okay. Saruman. Uh…
Just more proof that we're actually going to see the Council of the Wise evict Sauron from Mirkwood. Beyond that, Christopher Lee isn't going to be around forever; better to get him into as many films as possible in the meantime.
Is Christopher Lee confirmed then? Last I heard he didn't want to make the trip to New Zealand again, because its a huge strain at his age of 88.
Ian McKellan had much the same hesitation about throwing in for another 13 months at his age as well… but he's a much younger 71.
...and Ian Holm is 79, for that matter.
@RobbyBevard:
Is Christopher Lee confirmed then? Last I heard he didn't want to make the trip to New Zealand again, because its a huge strain at his age of 88.
I had heard that his agents confirmed that Lee was in good enough health for it.
I don't remember reading it in the telegraph, but there you go.
 
