Sorry y'all but I promised Heno I'd drop by this thread today to talk “The Hobbit”
I'm only geeky about a few things: NMA, Discrimination and Tolkien..................
The Hobbit films are not the book I've read so many times over the years. There's an awful lot of dramatic licence and a lot of storylines that were never in the book – they weren't even hinted at: The love interest stuff for a start. So as a faithful depiction of the story on screen – it's crap.
But I loved the films. Superbly crafted and realised – bloody well should be there was 3 LOTR films for the buggers to work out what they were doing. As for the CGI, how brilliantly realised was Smaug?
Master Ray mentioned that The Silmarillion would be next, well I think they've already brought a lot of that book into The Hobbit and it works really well. They included parts of it to flesh out the back story and give depth to the history and story of Middle Earth. You really do get a feeling for the ongoing eternal struggle between light and dark. I also think that anybody who in the future comes to the whole “franchise” as a virgin and watches the films in order from the first Hobbit film through to The Return Of The King will just think “******* Hell – Epic!, Awesome”.
I don't know of any other 6 movie series that can hold a candle anywhere near these films but I'm not a movie geek by any definition. For god's sake I forget the name of films I've watched and the actresses/actors in them 5 minutes after I've watched 'em.
From my reading the other book series that could deliver a similar scale and longevity are:
The Dark Tower by Stephen King– nearly got commissioned but deals fell through. Gutted because after LOTR that is my ultimate favourite.
Otherworld (et al) by Tad Williams – Brilliant stuff if you don't know it and frighteningly prescient given the way we're descending into this Brave New Virtual World
There is a hell of a lot of other Sci-Fi/Fantasy series that could translate to film but those 2 are my personal choices.
Apologies if my last few points have taken this thread off on a tangent.
