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AinurOlorin
Gondolin
May 28 2012, 5:03pm
Post #51 of 58
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Feanoriel has the right of it. The main difference is the face, but the face makes a WORLD of difference
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If the LOTR film wargs had borne such faces, there would have been few if any complaints about the creatures not looking like wolves, and certainly no suggestions of "hyena face". There may have been passing comments about how they could have been a little shaggier, or how the tail could have been more fur covered etc. but you wouldn't have had the "what the hell?" reaction which many people had to the wargs. The main complaint has been that these creatures, clearly and repeatedly described as monstrous wolves, completely lacked the faces of wolves in the films and looked far more like deformed hyena. A face akin to the one in the Howe drawing Sinister7 shared would have tabled such objections. Howe's design is a lot better than the final film versions, but I don't think they are that disimilar. The major difference is the face.
"Hear me, hounds of Sauron, Gandalf is here! Fly if you value your foul skins, I will shrivel you from tail to snout if you step within this circle!"
"Do not be to eager to deal out death in judgement. Even the very wise cannot see all ends."
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AinurOlorin
Gondolin
May 28 2012, 5:12pm
Post #53 of 58
(3945 views)
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I suppose we all have our varying pet peeves
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The hyena look of the wargs doesn't get my ire and hackles up the way Peter's total snubbing of Glorfindel (as constrasted against his careful inclusion of other, more minor, bit players) or the absence of a few of Gandalf's more spectacular moments, or the failure of Galadriel to make the connection (as she does in the novel and in the animated movie) between the One Ring and The Three and how that relationship effects the decline of the Elves. . .
That said, it still rankles me more than many other alterations (even including the Elves at Helms Deep, which I actually would have rather liked, had they not all mysteriously managed to get themselves killed, despite all being supposedly phenomenal warriors). The books describe them explicitly as wolf-creatures. It even calls them wicked wolves, repeatedly. So seeing hyena. . . it bothers me in the same way it would bother me to see Beorn shift into a giant badger instead of a giant bear. Faenoriel and I were merely discussing the perils of grafting the natural history of our primary world onto Tolkien's secondary world, a sidebar conversation, if you will. It would seem the original issue is the inevitability that PJ's The Hobbit, like The Lord of the Rings, is ultimately an interpretation of JRRT's originals. Per my first comment to your OP: I may bemoan certain aspects of PJ's vision of Tolkien's legendarium (primarily character assassination of a few players and Sauron-as-Lighthouse)... I also bemoan the jarring moment in The Two Towers when Aragorn is dragged over the cliff by the offendingly-designed-non-lupine warg. Although not quite as bad as Frodo castigating Sam and telling him to "go home," it was a deviation from the text that bugged me (although I suppose it has cinematic justification) and far overshadowed the hyena-like critters (which do indeed bear some resemblance to Howe's sketch as Daniel aptly points out). Even though I, like you, had lupine creatures in mind (and when I read the texts, that is always the case), I recognize (am resigned to?) the fact that PJ et alia will make changes to fit the cinematic story. Some changes I will accept, maybe even like (re: the hyena-like creatures), some I will overlook, and others will cause me to go all geordie-like and declare: "Scupper 'em. Scupper 'em, I say." So, speaking for myself, wolves to hyenas is a minor concern, i.e., one of those "I can accept, even like" changes. "What-the-fudge" deviations from plot or Bilbo (or Gandalf or Thorin...) acting out-of-character is a much greater concern. With regard to the latter, what I have seen so far is reassuring (esp. M. Freeman as Mr. Baggins). What wargs and lobs look like is icing on the cake — or not, depending on your viewpoint. Its (sic) like if the book spoke of a pre-historic giant lion (which did exist in known earth palentology) Well, hey, thanks for schooling me! 
"Hear me, hounds of Sauron, Gandalf is here! Fly if you value your foul skins, I will shrivel you from tail to snout if you step within this circle!"
"Do not be to eager to deal out death in judgement. Even the very wise cannot see all ends."
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AinurOlorin
Gondolin
May 28 2012, 5:31pm
Post #54 of 58
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As suggested in other posts, there would have been complaints, but not about the fundemental nature of the beast
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People might have complained about lumbering movement, or cgi not being as good as one might wish for, but people would NOT have been saying "I thought wargs were giant, evil wolves? That isn't a wolf. That's a damn hyena. . . an especially ugly, malformed hyena, at that."
Bad CGI is one thing, but that was a design choice. They CHOSE to have the wargs look like something distinctly different from what the books describe, so I think while many of their detractors on the matter would have been inclined to give them a little more leeway on imperfect CGI or a lumbering gait, and simply given a faint complaint of "I think they could have done that a bit better with a little more effort," one looks at what they came up with and says, "they HAVE to know that looks much more like a hyena than anything remotely akin to a wolf." They even went so far as to give the beasts hyena like colouring and markings/patterning of fur. Even the relatively minor change of having had the beasts be coloured in solid greys or blacks would have led to a more wolf-like appearance. The face plus the markings together fell just short of slapping a label on the creatures flank, reading "giant freakin hyena." Lol.
You read the books, with talk of huge, shaggy, grey shapes, dread wolves with gleaming, evil eyes. . . then you look at the mottle patterned fur, beady/cross eyed hyena in the movies and one almost has to wonder. . . "did you guys read the same passages in these books that I was reading?"  lol
The design could have been better, but I attribute that in part to the CGI of the time, e.g., the wargs' faces, jaws, etc. were kind of static. More mobility would have helped (just as it does in CGI'ed human faces, the uncanny valley and all that) and at least in part might have alleviated some of the machine-like qualities. As pointed out above, the gait was odd, too. With all that in mind, I'm not convinced a more lupine-like creature would have been an improvement given the technology at the time. I am sure we would have found something to carp about even if the critters were more wolf-like. On a semi-related note, the CGI'ed dire wolves of HBO's Game of Thrones are decent renditions to my eyes: realistic, but with a fluid, almost otherworldly quality, very fitting for the atmosphere. They come across as beautiful, graceful predators, but I surely would not want one snarling in my face. Anyway, the improvement of technology is evident in GoT's Season 2 dire wolves versus LotR hyenas. So perhaps the latter might be improved, too, in the pending Hobbit? My guess is that the wargs will not be identical to those we saw in The Lord of the Rings.
"Hear me, hounds of Sauron, Gandalf is here! Fly if you value your foul skins, I will shrivel you from tail to snout if you step within this circle!"
"Do not be to eager to deal out death in judgement. Even the very wise cannot see all ends."
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Sinister71
Dor-Lomin
May 28 2012, 11:54pm
Post #55 of 58
(3925 views)
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they could also make the ears longer, but its definitely better than hyenas
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AinurOlorin
Gondolin
May 29 2012, 1:53am
Post #56 of 58
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I think that is the basic consenses
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The same drawing, perhaps with larger ears, a more bushy tail, and a more shaggy pelt, and that beast would have been just fine. And black or grey fur, instead of the mangy, muddy, patterned swirl that showed up on the filmed hyena.
"Hear me, hounds of Sauron, Gandalf is here! Fly if you value your foul skins, I will shrivel you from tail to snout if you step within this circle!"
"Do not be to eager to deal out death in judgement. Even the very wise cannot see all ends."
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imin
Doriath
May 31 2012, 1:04pm
Post #57 of 58
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The wolves from The Grey were CGI
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They were made bigger and more bulky but still identifiable as a wolf, its how i think the wargs should look and how they should have looked in LOTR.
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AinurOlorin
Gondolin
Jun 1 2012, 7:25pm
Post #58 of 58
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I think the LOTR and Hobbit films could make longer fangs, more vibrantly malicious eyes etc, but the basic look should still say "wolf." Evil, giant, monster wolf, bordering on being a werewolf, maybe, but still wolf. Hyena should not come to mind at all, and they certainly should not be the FIRST thing to come to mind. lol
"Hear me, hounds of Sauron, Gandalf is here! Fly if you value your foul skins, I will shrivel you from tail to snout if you step within this circle!"
"Do not be to eager to deal out death in judgement. Even the very wise cannot see all ends."
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