I have it for GC (I assume it's pretty much the same game), and it's fun in spite of borrowing a lot from a 3D Zelda and StarFox Adventures- it reminds me a lot of SFA actually, may be the color scheme or lighting effects... More combat than the book for sure, but there's also some good old fashioned sneaking worked in there. It's not that "kiddie" really (it's too complicated for, say, a 6-year old to control), it's the color palette that gives it a more cartoony feel.
You visit the same places as the book for the most part, and the environments are big with plenty to explore. And they kept some of the humor, which is a nice touch. It's a good adventure game, and if you don't own it I'd bet it's $5 and sitting in a gamestop near you, might as well try it.
The Two Towers and Return of the King tie-in games by EA were some of the most fun I had with hack n' slashers last gen.
As a matter of fact, with the exception of The Lord of the Rings: Conquest (completely wasted and rushed opportunity), I would say that the majority of EA's LotR licensed games were pretty damn good; Battle for Middle Earth 2 in particular was great. There's a game I wish was on Steam...or for that matter was made available digitally anywhere
Tolkien scholar Thomas Shippey on the enduring success of The Hobbit
It was well received on first appearance, slightly oddball childrens books from Oxford professors being an accepted thing. Tolkien himself reported sardonically that one of his Oxford colleagues had bought two copies, because hed heard that first editions of Alice in Wonderland were now fetching a good price.
But the book created only enough of a splash for his publisher Stanley Unwin to ask for a sequel. The real furore only started when, 17 years later, the much overdeveloped sequel appeared as The Lord of the Rings.
Today The Hobbit has sold 100 million copies and been translated into something like fifty languages, including (two of Tolkiens favourites) Icelandic and West Frisian. One hopes Tolkiens colleague got him to sign those first editions he bought in 1937, and that his children held on to them, for a good copy with a dedication by Tolkien in it went for £60,000 four years ago. Prices will undoubtedly go up once Peter Jackson starts to bring out his Hobbit movies three of them now planned, so we hear beginning late this year.
What has made the book such an enduring success? There are lots of reasons why one would not have expected it to be. Too much poetry! No female characters at all! (How will Jackson get round that one?) A lot of professorial quibbling over words!
But maybe Tolkiens boldest defiance of accepted childrens-fiction practice was that he offered no child figure for the reader to fix on. Its true, the hero Bilbo Baggins is only a little hobbit, so hes a kind of surrogate child, but hes put in positions no child could be expected to identify with.
Like finding himself alone, in the dark, playing riddles for his life with a creature who means to eat him, or being trussed up by a giant poisonous spider, or worst of all, alone and in the dark once again being sent down a tunnel at the end of which he can hear a dragon snoring. Tolkien presents a very cold-blooded image of courage, and expects it to be understood.
He adds to it the element we call moral courage. Bilbo decides (on his own again) that his dwarf companions have got it wrong in their greedy defence of the dragon treasure, and so secretly gives away the greatest treasure of all, the Arkenstone, to his friends besiegers, to use as a bargaining point. And then he goes back to be exposed, in the end to confess, because theyre his friends still.
Anyone could have told Tolkien this is not kids stuff. Nor, for instance, is the death of Thorin Oakenshield. An American lady told me once that she read the whole book to her sons, aged seven and ten, and when they got to this scene, she saw the tears rolling down their cheeks. Until JK Rowling started producing 700-pagers, publishers used to say that childrens books had to be short nowadays, because the kids attention spans were also short.
They were wrong. Just as she brought back length, so Tolkien boldly, or maybe unthinkingly, brought back emotional depth.
Much of this came from the ancient heroic world of epics and sagas, and fairy tales too, which Tolkien drew on so much. His re-creation of Middle-earth has affected every fantasy writer since, even those who struggle to get away from it. If we imagine elves and dwarfs, trolls and goblins and dragons, Tolkiens images will be the basis for them. You can make changes, like Terry Pratchett, whose elves are heartless monsters and whose dwarfs are at axes drawn with trolls, not goblins, but Discworld had Middle-earth as a model.
Tolkien made publishers realise that heroic fantasy was potentially mass-market. Even George Martins Game of Thrones might not have found a taker if Tolkien hadnt made the first breakthrough.
Politically correct, of course, The Hobbit was not and still isnt. One of its most attractive characters in a way is Beorn. Its perfectly clear that he is a were-bear, and his manners are frankly bearish. Hes also, and this is a feature borrowed from Norse sagas, not someone to hang around with once evening comes on. Once Beorn has been tricked into listening to the dwarfs and Bilbos story, and so having to offer hospitality to no fewer than 14 visitors, he warns them not to leave their quarters before sun-up. Anyone can tell this is good advice.
Beorn goes off by night, in bear shape, to check the story of conflict with the goblins, and is in a much better mood on return. The story has been confirmed by a goblin and one of the Wargs, the intelligent wolves the goblins ride. What happened to his informants, Bilbo asks. Beorn shows him a goblin head and a Warg skin. Good guy to have on your side, right. Childrens books nowadays are supposed to have a Problem, but the Problems arent usually dealt with quite as directly as that.
Gollum, too, is a brilliant creation. Why does he call himself we all the time? In the end Tolkien (and Jackson) hinted that he had a split personality, with the old hobbit-self Sméagol lurking underneath the Ring-corroded Gollum, but in 1937 that was far in the future. Tolkien just had ideas which were capable of immense development.
He was good at landscapes, too. He got the name Mirkwood from very old poetry indeed, but his description of it dark, untrodden, spider-haunted, and above all stiflingly airless, like the long-closed room of a very elderly relative is one of the great forest pictures of English literature, which has many of them, from Robins Sherwood to the stoats Wildwood. The Misty Mountains are another borrowing from Norse. And the hobbits Shire is now the worlds image of England. (Not of London: thats Sherlock Holmes.)
Some time in late 1914, Tolkien and three of his schoolmates decided they would bring about a cultural revolution in England, seemingly through poetry. It was a project of astonishing self-confidence for four young men just out of school, and a Birmingham grammar school at that. Within three years two of them were dead and Tolkien was in hospital, invalided from the Western Front. They succeeded, though. Tolkien may not have brought about a revolution, but he did set up a counter-revolution, quite against the literary tide of irony and self-doubt.
He brought back old images of heroism and epic action, old mythic patterns, and fixed them in the modern mind. The Hobbit was his Odyssey, Tolkien an unexpected and unlikely Homer.
The only thing I can think of from the first film that we have seen almost nothing off is Beorn. Could be a reveal for him...but they seem to be building it up as something more.
Doubt it, his design is likely not even completely finished at this point, and revealing him on a magazine cover now when he won't even appear until the second film would be a very odd decision. It actually wouldn't surprise me if Jackson tried to deal with Smaug like the Cloverfield monster until film2 comes out, only showing fleeting glimpses of him until his big-screen reveal.
I don't think the image of the cover will be revealing, more that there will be some gimmick with it. The examples they list are all gimmick covers, 3D/hologram/sound...
Has there been any indication of which locations are getting the HFR/48fps release? I'm seriously considering a pilgrimage if at all possible just to see this as intended.
Has there been any indication of which locations are getting the HFR/48fps release? I'm seriously considering a pilgrimage if at all possible just to see this as intended.
Ok, thats what I thought.. Still, does the Necromancer warrant a cover hype like this? Are there any other characters that are awaiting a reveal? I could have seen it being Gollum if they hadn't shown him yet.
Ok, thats what I though.. Still, does the Necromancer warrant a cover hype like this? Are there any other characters that are awaiting a reveal? I could have seen it being Gollum if they hadn't shown him yet.
Bard hasn't been revealed yet officially, neither has Beorn as Loxley said.
The Goblin leaders Azog/Bolg don't really warrant that kind of hype. Neither does Tauriel (sorry Strafer).
The Necromancer may well end up as the big bad villain of The Hobbit trilogy with Smaug being secondary to him. Just like Sauron and Saruman in The Lord of the Rings.
I don't think the image of the cover will be revealing, more that there will be some gimmick with it. The examples they list are all gimmick covers, 3D/hologram/sound...
When we ran into Billy Connolly last night at the premiere of Won't Back Down, we wondered: Doesn't he need to be back in New Zealand soon to continue his role as Dain Ironfoot in Peter Jackson's newly three-part adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit? "Oh yes!" he confirmed. "I have to go back for that. I haven't done [the battle scenes] yet. I have to get battle-ready! I ride into war on a wild pig!" So, how many times has Connolly read The Hobbit? "I've never read The Hobbit. Never." What about Lord of the Rings? "Never read Lord of the Rings," replied the 69-year-old Scottish actor. "I could never read Tolkien. I always found him unreadable … I didn't read [the books], and I normally don't like people who have! The people who love it, they're kind of scary. They talk all this gobbledygook and they think of it as the Holy Grail."
How, then, does Connolly plan to deal with Tolkien fans who will lob at him obscure questions about The Hobbit for the rest of his life?
"Usually I just make stuff up because I don't know what I'm talking about," Connolly admitted. "But invariably, there seems to be a sector of the press that is consumed by The Hobbit, Lord of the Rings, and it's indicative of that notion, that it's the Grail. So whatever I say is rubbish, but then I become answerable for it! People get all upset, they get terribly upset about anything that has to do with it, as if it were real! It's a story! Just relax! It'll go away and you'll be just fine. Don't panic."
"I mean, the scripts are brilliant, very good," Connolly continued, "but I always disagree with people who think the movie should be like the book. A movie's a movie, and the book's a book." And this movie's going to be great, Connolly promised. "Martin Freeman is absolutely brilliant. That was one of the first things I saw. And I'm going to get into trouble again if I say this, but we're filming faster [at 48 frames per second] than we normally would, with special equipment, and in 3D ... Our 3D just makes it glow. It looks like a cartoon, but the people are real. And it's shiny. And it's real." We thanked him for his time, and he laughed: "Make sure you make it clear you cornered me and forced me to talk so I don't get in trouble!"
Is Beorn going to be in the first movie? I was under the impression for some reason that it was going to end right before they got to his house. Or is it going to end at the gates of Mirkwood?
Is Beorn going to be in the first movie? I was under the impression for some reason that it was going to end right before they got to his house. Or is it going to end at the gates of Mirkwood?
Basically they are slowing down the narrative. Kind of exactly what I was against when they announced a third movie. I am all for the appendixes, but this is uninviting now.
Basically they are slowing down the narrative. Kind of exactly what I was against when they announced a third movie. I am all for the appendixes, but this is uninviting now.
If you look at it this way, three films seems quite reasonable.
An Unexpected Journey
- Prologue, if there is one
- Bilbo and Gandalf's meeting
- The Unexpected Party
- Flashbacks to dwarven history with the goblins
- Gandalf and Radagast meeting up to discuss suspicious goings on (as per Quint's report)
- The troll scene
- The trek from the Trollshaws to Rivendell (including finding Rivendell, which may be stretched out)
- Rivendell with dwarves and Elrond and map
- White Council
- Scenes of goblins catching wind of dwarf journey
- The trek from Rivendell to the Misties
- The stone giants in the rain
- Capture by goblins
- Scenes of what Gandalf was up to while the dwarves were capured
- The entire Goblin Town scene
- Gandal's return and the death of the Great Goblin
- Riddles in the Dark
- Gandalf and the dwarves escape G-town
- Bilbo escapes Goblin Town
- Bilbo meets back up with the company, gets some cred for some expert sneaking
- Scenes of the goblins gearing up to avenge the Great Goblin, with possibly some -Bolg action (perhaps he takes over as leader, and we lose Gundabad?)
- Warg and goblin attack, and fiery trees
- Eagle rescue
The Desolation of Smaug
- The Eyrie
- The Carrock
- Queer Lodgings
- Beorns violent visist to the goblins
- The trek to the gate of Mirkwood
- Gandalfs departure and Dol Guldur adventure
- Journey through Mirkwood part 1
- The enchanted river
- Journey through Mirkwood part 2
- The dwarves leaving the path to investigate the wood elves' feasts
- The dwarves disappearing and Bilbo stranded by himself
- The spider attack
- Thorin being captured and taken to Thranduil
- The dwarves being captured by the elves
- Bilbo wandering around Thranduil's halls/planning a rescue mission
- Bilbo getting the guards drunk/putting the dwarves in barrels
- The barrel sequence
- Arrival in Lake-town
- Politics between Thranduils elves, dwarves and men of Laketown
- The dwarves' recovery/planning in Lake-town
- Politics between Bard and the Master
- Dwarves being feted and hailed as heroes by the townspeople
- Journey to the Lonely Mountain (with the lonely peak in the distance ending the film)
There and Back Again
- Arrival in Dale
- Finding the back door
-The back door debate
-Bilbo enters the tunnel
-Bilbo trades words with Smaug, steals a cup
-Smaug rises, seeks out the company, and then flies off to Laketown
-Laketown drama
-Smaug arrives, and the fight begins
-Bard saves the day
-Aftermath of dragon death
-Dwarves revelling in treasure
-Bilbo finds Arkenstone
- Bard marches to the mountain
- Thranduil marches to the mountain
- Intersperse Gandalf-Dol Guldur stuff throughout
- Intersperse Bolg/Azog stuff throughout
- Thorin defies Bard and Thranduil
- Thorin and Bilbo fight
- Bilbo sneaks off with Arkenstone
- Dain arrives
- BoFA begins
- Gandalf arrives
- The goblins, wargs and bats arrive
- BoFA madness
- Beorn arrives and eagles
- Thorin, Fili and Kili die
- Dail kills Bolg/Azog
- Funeral scene
- Bard reclaims the kingship of Dale
- Master of laketown dies in the waste
- Bilbo returns home
If you look at it this way, three films seems quite reasonable.
An Unexpected Journey
- Prologue, if there is one
- Bilbo and Gandalf's meeting
- The Unexpected Party
- Flashbacks to dwarven history with the goblins
- Gandalf and Radagast meeting up to discuss suspicious goings on (as per Quint's report)
- The troll scene
- The trek from the Trollshaws to Rivendell (including finding Rivendell, which may be stretched out)
- Rivendell with dwarves and Elrond and map
- White Council
- Scenes of goblins catching wind of dwarf journey
- The trek from Rivendell to the Misties
- The stone giants in the rain
- Capture by goblins
- Scenes of what Gandalf was up to while the dwarves were capured
- The entire Goblin Town scene
- Gandal's return and the death of the Great Goblin
- Riddles in the Dark
- Gandalf and the dwarves escape G-town
- Bilbo escapes Goblin Town
- Bilbo meets back up with the company, gets some cred for some expert sneaking
- Scenes of the goblins gearing up to avenge the Great Goblin, with possibly some -Bolg action (perhaps he takes over as leader, and we lose Gundabad?)
- Warg and goblin attack, and fiery trees
- Eagle rescue
The Desolation of Smaug
- The Eyrie
- The Carrock
- Queer Lodgings
- Beorn’s violent visist to the goblins
- The trek to the gate of Mirkwood
- Gandalf’s departure and Dol Guldur adventure
- Journey through Mirkwood part 1
- The enchanted river
- Journey through Mirkwood part 2
- The dwarves leaving the path to investigate the wood elves' feasts
- The dwarves disappearing and Bilbo stranded by himself
- The spider attack
- Thorin being captured and taken to Thranduil
- The dwarves being captured by the elves
- Bilbo wandering around Thranduil's halls/planning a rescue mission
- Bilbo getting the guards drunk/putting the dwarves in barrels
- The barrel sequence
- Arrival in Lake-town
- Politics between Thranduil’s elves, dwarves and men of Laketown
- The dwarves' recovery/planning in Lake-town
- Politics between Bard and the Master
- Dwarves being feted and hailed as heroes by the townspeople
- Journey to the Lonely Mountain (with the lonely peak in the distance ending the film)
There and Back Again
- Arrival in Dale
- Finding the back door
-The back door debate
-Bilbo enters the tunnel
-Bilbo trades words with Smaug, steals a cup
-Smaug rises, seeks out the company, and then flies off to Laketown
-Laketown drama
-Smaug arrives, and the fight begins
-Bard saves the day
-Aftermath of dragon death
-Dwarves revelling in treasure
-Bilbo finds Arkenstone
- Bard marches to the mountain
- Thranduil marches to the mountain
- Intersperse Gandalf-Dol Guldur stuff throughout
- Intersperse Bolg/Azog stuff throughout
- Thorin defies Bard and Thranduil
- Thorin and Bilbo fight
- Bilbo sneaks off with Arkenstone
- Dain arrives
- BoFA begins
- Gandalf arrives
- The goblins, wargs and bats arrive
- BoFA madness
- Beorn arrives and eagles
- Thorin, Fili and Kili die
- Dail kills Bolg/Azog
- Funeral scene
- Bard reclaims the kingship of Dale
- Master of laketown dies in the waste
- Bilbo returns home
