Jackson to do The Hobbit, after all?

[John Reynolds]

"Toes, I love hairy toes," she moaned, forcing him down on the silvered carpet.

[Slainte Mhath]

Shit, I like Rothfuss in general and think he's one of the more talented writers to come into the genre in awhile, but that article was just crazy. Latent sexual issues aside for the moment, expecting a movie adaptation of ANY book to be faithful to all the little nuances that make stories a good read is ridiculous. Viewing is not reading, it is a completly different medium and there simply is not a good way to translate many of the aspects that make a story a good read into a movie that makes for good viewing. License must be taken. That said, Hollywood often takes license, gets it wickedly drunk, convinces it to get gaudy tattoos in awkward places, then sneaks out the next morning and never calls back. At least with Jackson you have a proven track record from his work on Tolkein's Lord of the Rings, which means it's a good bet he'll treat The Hobbit with the same reverance and attention to detail. That's a hell of a lot more than you can normally ask for out of a Hollywood big-budget adaptation, and as a fan of the books I'm quite happy with the situation as is.

I also would really like to see Patrick Rothfuss' Firefox history...

[rhinohelix]

Wow, I cannot disagree with that article more strongly. I never felt the LotR Jackson movies were some kind of ruined high school love.

Exactly. The director's cuts of the movies adds up to what, almost 12 hours? The unabridged audiobook is only something like 18 hours [edit: actually the full trilogy unabridged is 52-55 hours].

No movie can replicate the weeks and months spent reading the books, with your internal movie running constantly 24x7. Jackson's movies are to my mind the best adaptions we could get in theatrical release and an unprecedented achievement when they were made.

People such as these are within a scintilla of unsatisfiable and are more than happy to let perfect be the enemy of great.

We loved the sweet, shy, freckly girl. We still remember her name, and after all these years she lives close to our heart. Seeing her in lipstick and stiletto heels dancing on a pole is like watching Winnie the Pooh do heroin and then glass someone in a bar fight.

[Ed Solomon]

Am I the only one that thinks Winnie the Pooh going Sid Vicious on somebody's ass would be awesome?

[Quaro]

The metaphor is bizarre but it's pretty normal feeling. Any possible adaption of one of your very favorite books will never match the experience in your mind you had while reading it. It's going to someone's else's vision of it so it will be somewhat bittersweet.

In a relative sense though, better Jackson than probably anyone else to make a big budget Hollywood flic out of it.

It will be a good movie. Maybe even a great movie. But it will also be, at best, a moderately okay adaptation of the subtle, sweet book that I grew up loving.

[rei]

Rest easy, neo-fascists are not in your midst. I was born in '88, and hadn't heard that the number had been coopted by Nazis. I mean, I probably should have known, because it's so obvious (that's why everyone said "77" after a game of Warcraft), and your concerns are certainly justified -- why else would anyone use the number eighty-eight, aside from covertly pledging allegiance to Adolf Hitler? Occam's razor, etc.

There's a new production vlog on logistics... you start to understand how these budgets get so big. And the Hobbiton set looks great.

i love how all the crew's apparel logos and signage are intact and not blurred out. they probably will be though for the dvd/blu-ray features.

what's the reason for that blurring anyways? this sort of thing affects visual media as a historical record.

[Major Malphunktion]

The metaphor is bizarre but it's pretty normal feeling. Any possible adaption of one of your very favorite books will never match the experience in your mind you had while reading it. It's going to someone's else's vision of it so it will be somewhat bittersweet.

In a relative sense though, better Jackson than probably anyone else to make a big budget Hollywood flic out of it.

Sure, I admit weeping at the first view of the Shire and Gandalf. Right out of my mind onto film.
As adaptations I love them, even with the occasional warts. I'll always be thankful to SJ just for making it happen, and making it actually work on film. I haven't watched them in a while, waiting for the boys to be old enough to truly enjoy them. I figure I'll hold out until after the Hobbit...'if you liked that...well, here is the REAL story.'

[Scuzz]

Following Rothfuss's logic great books should never be made into movies. Or if they are, they should be acknowledged as somehow deviant.

[Theodore Rex DX]

Something I thought the movie did better than the book:
Characterisation of Aragorn and Boromir.
I liked the Gandalf and Gollum in my head more than what was on-screen though, but ofc they did a great job anyway.

Sure, I admit weeping at the first view of the Shire and Gandalf. Right out of my mind onto film.
As adaptations I love them, even with the occasional warts. I'll always be thankful to SJ just for making it happen, and making it actually work on film. I haven't watched them in a while, waiting for the boys to be old enough to truly enjoy them. I figure I'll hold out until after the Hobbit...'if you liked that...well, here is the REAL story.'

Except The Hobbit is better than the Lord of the Rings. :3

[Theodore Rex DX]

It occurs to me now how many of the most highly-regarded movies are adaptations of books. Film gets way too much credit as a medium in general.

[jason]

Because you'd rather "books that became great movies" instead be "books that no one knows about"?

[Theodore Rex DX]

... no.

[Clay]

Sounds like there is some debate as to whether the 48 FPS technology that Jackson is using actually looks good:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/0...n_1452391.html

I'm sure studios have to make some adjustments to their set design and construction to accommodate the change, similar to what they did with HDTV. Remember how bad make up looked right after the mass movement to HDTV? Anyhow, I hope this doesn't screw up The Hobbit.

[Brad Grenz]

People will just take a long time to adjust to stuff actually being clear. For generations culture has reinforced the idea that blurry, grainy 24 hz is artsy, and 60 hz is trashy.

[Scourge]

While I am not convinced 48 fps is a good idea for 2d movies - what with our conditioning and all - 3D is a completely different story. The strobing effect murders my eyes in 3D. I am one of these people that get headaches from 3d movies. Besides, 3D itself is already a step towards reality anyway. So no need to have double standards about what is realistic, and what is dreamlike.

There is also the simple point of creative choice: if a filmmaker wants to shoot higher frame rates, there is no reason, other than technical limitations, not to let them do that. Increased realism can probably work well with lots of themes. So being able to choose an appropriate frame rate for a film looks like a good idea.

[TurinTur]

People will just take a long time to adjust to stuff actually being clear. For generations culture has reinforced the idea that blurry, grainy 24 hz is artsy, and 60 hz is trashy.

48fps looks weird at first, like "too real", but I don't think it will take "a long time to adjust". It will take incredibly little time to adjust, just watching a pair of movies. Then when you switch to a third 24fps, that will look like subpar and undetailed.

[John Many Jars]

I still can't believe Michael Jackson is doing The Hobbit

[Omniscia]

What is that, some sort of dance move?

[Jora]

Then when you switch to a third 24fps, that will look like subpar and undetailed.

Hasn't happened to me yet. I've seen a couple of movies on one of those new HD TVs and can't take it anymore. I just have to change the settings to make the films seem more cinematographical.

[Murph]

Yeah, I've been hearing reports that initial reactions aren't good, and that makes me a bit sad, and I want The Hobbit to be perfect. I hope they can tweak it a tad between now and then to alleviate those concerns...if that's even possible.

[TurinTur]

Hasn't happened to me yet. I've seen a couple of movies on one of those new HD TVs and can't take it anymore. I just have to change the settings to make the films seem more cinematographical.

New HD TVs? You mean the ones they create fake frames in-between?
That's not the same thing as an original source captured at a higher framerate.

[Farscry]

I absolutely want to watch this film at 48fps. :) 3D at 48fps would be even better!

[rhinohelix]

New HD TVs? You mean the ones they create fake frames in-between?
That's not the same thing as an original source captured at a higher framerate.

"Soap Opera Effect" is the term for it and there are large number of people who dislike it. I personally have no issues with the look. 120Hz TV took a bit to get adjusted to but I absolutely prefer the much better fluidity onscreen now.

[Brad Wardell]

Is there a URL handy to show what native 48FPS looks like?

[Mr. Zero]

Public Enemies had a little bit of this issue. Mann shoots digitally, so the period sets and costumes seemed fake at moments. But that's like saying those color photos from the early 1900s look fake, because everybody knows History Times were in black and white. Seems strange to say that greater fidelity is a problem.

[Scourge]

Is there a URL handy to show what native 48FPS looks like?

http://www.reddit.com/r/TheHobbit/co...egative_48fps/

[Cormac]

Thanks for the link!

[Mr. Zero]

Great find. It's an interesting look -- after a lot of 24 fps, it feels like slow-motion at times.

[awdougherty]

Thanks for that 24fps v. 48fps link. I sort of already guessed what I would think of the footage, and maybe there's something weird about my quicktime, but that 48fps footage looked like ass to me compared to the 24fps footage.

[Teiman]

He guys!.

I have read that cinema don't play at 24FPS, but 48 interlaced.

So perhaps someting filmed at 48 FPS will play at 48 FPS. While something filmed at 24FPS will be played at 48i FPS ( 48 interlaced ) and the differences is not that big.

Possibly, the thing we will miss, is the "trail" that movement lefts on 48i. Things moving will look blurry, while things still will look clear. This is something helpfull to the eye, and the eye as already builtin things to work like that (we ignore details of things moving very fast).

Since 48 has x2 more information than 24, perhaps is possible to discard every odd frame and generate a 24 FPS version from the 48 FPS version, for these that want the old "feeling".

Trolls, no doubt, will discuss this long enough for the light of the morning to show.