Territorial Hobbitses

[bloodyrosemccoy]

I really loved the Lord of the Rings movies--I even think some of the character arcs were better in them--but I can totally understand Christopher Tolkien's issues with them. If I'd spent my entire life in my dad's world and all sorts of other people started barging into it and crashing around, I'd be a bit territorial, too.

This also made me realize that I am far more worried about The Hobbit than I was about LotR, because I am far more invested in Bilbo as a character. He's a brilliant character, possibly the most relatable hero I've ever come across. And he's very hard to get right--I adored the hell out of There and Back Again, Pat Murphy's awesomely insane space opera remix of The Hobbit, but Bailey Beldon is no Bilbo. And I don't know if Martin Freeman could be, either--though if there were somebody I'd want to play him, Freeman's at the top of the list. Right under a magically age-reduced Sir Ian Holm, really. But even with Freeman playing him, it's a question of whether it'll work. We'll just have to see.

Comments

[padparadscha.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I give him a hard time, too, because he seems a little bit over-territorial--like he doesn't want us actually enjoying it unless we do it HIS way. I really don't agree with him about the movies/pop culture presence--I think it's great--but his grievances are also totally justifiable.

[bunnyjadwiga.livejournal.com]

I don't particularly like territorial copyright heirs myself, but given that within the first 15 minutes of the LOTR films, I was thinking, "you can tell that this is the ultimate result of 40 years of cinematographers and special effects people masturbating themselves to sleep thinking about filming this..." I'm not on their side either.