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Guillermo del Toro's The Hobbit?

Hendryk

Taken back control yet?
Published by SLP
Location
France
One of my failings as a geek is that I'm just not all that knowledgeable about Tolkien's literary universe and its various adaptations. But I'm currently watching a video by Lindsay Ellis explaining how, for about a year and a half, Guillermo del Toro was going to be the director of The Hobbit. His idea was apparently to make it less of a prequel to Lord of the Rings (and certainly not a trilogy), and more of a standalone fairy tale.

So what if the plan hadn't fallen through? Would del Toro's brand of whimsy have taken the project in a different direction? What might have been the public's reception?

Guillermo-Del-Toro-departs-The-Hobbit.jpg
 
It's difficult to say really. Del Toro staying on may create a situation where he has enough clout to prevent the execs from extending it out to three films from two, but on the other hand the entire Goblintown sequence is very much him even in the finished film, and I can't help but think that he'd have introduced other elements that would have similarly annoyed a lot of the serious Tolkien fans.
 
There are probably bits of design in it that are still him but I feel it would have been a slightly tighter film.

It's difficult to say really. Del Toro staying on may create a situation where he has enough clout to prevent the execs from extending it out to three films from two, but on the other hand the entire Goblintown sequence is very much him even in the finished film, and I can't help but think that he'd have introduced other elements that would have similarly annoyed a lot of the serious Tolkien fans.

This was quite a good deconstruction of the difficulties The Hobbit faced, a good film is almost certain to piss somebody off because of the disconnect between The Hobbit and The Lord of The Rings in both tone and length. Things would have been a lot easier for everyone if they'd done The Hobbit first and then built on that.

 
This was quite a good deconstruction of the difficulties The Hobbit faced, a good film is almost certain to piss somebody off because of the disconnect between The Hobbit and The Lord of The Rings in both tone and length. Things would have been a lot easier for everyone if they'd done The Hobbit first and then built on that.

Which was really never going to happen.

But I maintain that there's certain things that you can get away with in text that just couldn't be done in film. Like completely handwaving where Gandalf goes for half the plot.
 
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