Friday, August 24, 2012

The Hobbit, 2012

My most recent foray into Middle-Earth got me to Weathertop...yeah, that scene gives me the willies in the movie, but I had forgotten just how scary it is in the book, too! Yet again Tolkien's minimalist writing style allows the imagination to fill in the details that he leaves hanging just above your head, ready to grasp, and if you've got a vivid, television-style imagination like mine, it'll put you under the covers waiting for the closet doors to close again. Gah, Nazgul...where'd he come up with those! If Hobbits came from a hole in his carpet, I almost shudder to think what may have inspired the Ring Wraiths...maybe a dirty microwave.

All joking aside, though, I'm just getting more and more geektastically excited for The Hobbit coming out in December. Midnight showing, anyone? Oh yes! I'll wait in line all day if I have to in order to go see that! But recently a friend put up just a section of video blog by Peter Jackson, and after tracking down the Youtube source, I found a full hour and a half of Production Blogs about the filming and creation of the first two movies-- by the way, rumor has spread that the movies will be in trilogy style, but this production blog mentioned nothing of the sort. After the filming of the second movie had finished, they called it a wrap and packed everything up for good. So I'm wondering if that wasn't just rumormongering...anyone with any proof of either side, please feel free to comment below!

In any case, I've never been more entranced by a production film before. Usually you see these things on the 'making of' section of the second disk in your dvd package, and at that point, having already seen the movie, most people don't watch them. But putting them out before the movie is released, now, that's genius. My anticipation has just been building and building all week. If you want to watch them, there are Parts 1-6, Part 7, and Part 8.

The production blogs give you a personal insight into Peter Jackson's work and thoughts, as well as of the artists and many producers, backups, tech-guys, Weta Workshops employees and artists, makeup artists, sound and light techs, drivers, wranglers, actors, creative producers, stunt doubles, size doubles, caterers, truck drivers...the list goes on and on! You really get an idea of how huge the scope of this movie making is-- not just any movie, but a Middle-Earth movie on a Middle-Earth scale! There are so many people invovled it makes my head whirl...

You get to hear from or about Peter Jackson, Andy Serkis (who is involved in directing the film as well), the 13 dwarves ((L-r) Jed Brophy as Nori, Dean O'Gorman as Fili, Mark Hadlow as Dori, James Nesbitt as Bofur, Peter Hambleton as Gloin, Graham McTavish as Dwalin, Richard Armitage as Thorin Oakenshield (center), Ken Stott as Balin, John Callen as Oin, Stephen Hunter as Bombur, William Kircher as Bifur, Adam Brown as Ori and Aidan Turner as Kili), the artists John Howe and Alan Lee (heroes of mine), briefly Elijah Wood and others from the original Lord of the Rings...you learn about the costumes, the prosthetics, the technology as they film for 3D (and watching Alan Lee and John Howe draw in 3D...? There are no words...!), the site search through a half dozen helicopters, the rebuilding of Hobbiton, the workshops in which they create the world of Middle Earth...


Handsome bunch, aren't they? And these are just part of the main cast. Each one has a height double that has a duplicate outfit/makeup/prosthetics...not to mention Bilbo and his height double, and all the other characters and cast members and creatures of Hobbiton and the Misty Mountains, the Goblins and their King, Radagast the Brown, Gollum, and others. With Sir Ian McKellan as Gandalf and Martin Freeman as Bilbo, what a party we shall have!!

Suffice to say, I truly cannot wait for this epic to be released. Just as The Lord of the Rings changed literature forever, and then as a followup the movie triology changed movie-making and also movie-viewing forever, so shall The Hobbit turn heads and alter lives. I can only imagine the young folk of this generation who missed The Lord of the Rings hubub, and who will now be introduced to the chronological first in the Baggins' tales for the very first time. It gives me chills...The Lord of the Rings utterly altered my life and gave me the insight into what it was I wanted to do with it-- to write great tales and stories and to delve into dreams just as thoroughly as dwarves into mountains or hobbits into hillsides. What will The Hobbit (2012) do for those who are waiting...?

Watch the trailer here!

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