I hope the time Frodo and Bilbo's pre-event chat is minimal in the amount of

AinurOlorin

AinurOlorin

Half-elven
screen time it eats up. I am okay with the framing as a device, but I hope it doesn't extend beyond the five minute mark or so. We will need to spend a lot of time in The Shire, both to properly introduce Hobbit Timeline Bilbo and his background, and, of course, for the Unexpected Party, so I don't think it would be well to spend an additional ten to 15 minutes of wandering The Shire BEFORE we start exploring The Shire within the parameters of the actual story.
 
they have 3 films to play with now... theres always room for Frodo... Or is that jello [crazy] I get confused sometimes[angelic]

I agree AO I hope they keep all the added fan stuff to a minimum[;)]
 
As the useless crap that it is.

Of all the things we've heard about these films, the inclusion of old Bilbo and Frodo is the one I hate the most. [evil]
 
I can't imagine it being more than a few minutes, maybe 10 at the most?

Maybe it'll be the intro ala after the Hobbit title than as it transitions, it'll show the An Unexpected Journey title...
 
I'm not entirely sure how they're going to make it relevant across the second chapter, of all of them, or if they're going to pull a TTT and have basically no connections in the middle piece of the trilogy. However, I wouldn't fret about how long they'll take up. I don't think PJ's so blind about Frodo's return that he's going to spend a lot of time trying to establish the connection. Just remind people of LotR, show Bilbo writing his book and then get on with it. It shouldn't be that big a deal and it probably won't. I don't find it as shoehorning as others might because it's incredibly Tolkien, when you think about it, and the whole lot is unobtrusive.
 
And I can see how having the framing works. But the first movie is already ending sooner than many of us would like. I would find it really a bit of a salt in wound rub, if a significant fraction of the film's total running time were eaten by excess meandering about in the LOTR timeline. Show the shire, show Bilbo chatting up Frodo, cut it short around the five to 7 minute mark, and start the actual story. lol. I would rather see Gandalf in The Old Took's Shire than in Frodo's as far as Shire focus goes.
 
It's not likely to be any more than 5-7 minutes.

They'll probably have one at the beginning of AUJ, one at the end of TABA, and perhaps one in between the barrels and Lake-town in DOS.
 
The actual narration of the story, its editing (involving his original and corrected versions in parts), and its passing on to other hobbits are all a part of the story. The process of writing the story tells some of the story in this case.

I know it is not typical to have a large framing in general but there are some precedents where this worked well, in my opinion:

The Princess Bride
The Never Ending Story
Labyrinth
Fried Green Tomatoes

I wouldn't just stick a frame onto any movie to add to the screen time of it, but if like these other stories (and like the story as it is told across several books) the narration itself plays a part in the story's telling, then by all means, include it, I say! Not to mention that this is a quick and dirty way to get a lot of relevant appendix material in - if done carefully and artfully. It's not the only way - flashbacks work for those parts that happen before The Hobbit. But a frame can be used in many more creative ways and is great for making bridges to other things if that is part of what they are trying for here.
 
The Hobbit is written from the perspective of a person who seems to know what Bilbo is thinking. The narrator occasionally says something like, "even though Bilbo couldn't understand, this is what Gandalf heard..." This suggests that Bilbo is narrating and found out the stuff he didn't understand at a later time. Rather than having the prof narrate the story for us, we will have old Bilbo. So you will probably see him pop up from time to time (perhaps at the beginning and end to avoid interjecting throughout). Moreover, I think this is a natural way to interpret TH; so some folks should just stop with the hate. Old Bilbo relating the story is perfectly in line with the way TH is written.
 
found in those works. The one was meant to be a tale told by a grandfather to his grandson, with leeway for and tongue in cheek nods to potential inaccuracies et al. Neverending Story involved The Reader. His reading of the story was a part of the overall tale, as it increasingly became his story as well, its reality enhanced by his interaction.

Labyrinth wasn't really bookended any more than a Narnia Film or The Wizard of Oz. She started off in one space/time continuim and ended up in another one, then came back again. She isn't being told a story, she is living it in different stages.

I just hope they don't get carried away in the framing. I don't want the frame to be so massive that it edges in on the picture.
The actual narration of the story, its editing (involving his original and corrected versions in parts), and its passing on to other hobbits are all a part of the story. The process of writing the story tells some of the story in this case.

I know it is not typical to have a large framing in general but there are some precedents where this worked well, in my opinion:

The Princess Bride
The Never Ending Story
Labyrinth
Fried Green Tomatoes

I wouldn't just stick a frame onto any movie to add to the screen time of it, but if like these other stories (and like the story as it is told across several books) the narration itself plays a part in the story's telling, then by all means, include it, I say! Not to mention that this is a quick and dirty way to get a lot of relevant appendix material in - if done carefully and artfully. It's not the only way - flashbacks work for those parts that happen before The Hobbit. But a frame can be used in many more creative ways and is great for making bridges to other things if that is part of what they are trying for here.
Click to expand...
 
I honestly hope we don't see old Bilbo or Frodo until the end of TABA. I think it would be best to start out with just a voiceover of Ian Holm at the beginning of AUJ. This way we would avoid being introduced to the shire... before we are introduced to the shire during the hobbit times.

Anyways I think it would be best just to have Holm narrating the beginning part and then show him at the end of TABA with Frodo to kind of show that he's been telling him this story or whatever. This would make it flow the best as one long continuous story.

But I'm not sure how they plan on doing this. Whatever the case is, they ONLY need to be shown at the beginning and end of the whole trilogy. I think it would be quite awful to have them pop up here and there throughout the story with narrations (we've all joked about the princess bride).
 
but I would hate to have them meandering around The Shire and wasting time, when the time to show of The Shire should come within the beginning of The Hobbit Time Frame. I also don't want superflous LOTR timeline shire moments to steal from too much of the time that should go to The Hobbit's own timeframe.

And I totally agree with you about beginning and end framing only. What worked wonderfully for The Princess Bride would be horrible here, because of the very different premise.
I honestly hope we don't see old Bilbo or Frodo until the end of TABA. I think it would be best to start out with just a voiceover of Ian Holm at the beginning of AUJ. This way we would avoid being introduced to the shire... before we are introduced to the shire during the hobbit times.

Anyways I think it would be best just to have Holm narrating the beginning part and then show him at the end of TABA with Frodo to kind of show that he's been telling him this story or whatever. This would make it flow the best as one long continuous story.

But I'm not sure how they plan on doing this. Whatever the case is, they ONLY need to be shown at the beginning and end of the whole trilogy. I think it would be quite awful to have them pop up here and there throughout the story with narrations (we've all joked about the princess bride).
Click to expand...
 
but I see how it could be long.

  • In LOTR he is shown at one point telling stories of his adventures to little kids.
  • Frodo is known to be aware of the stories of his adventures - in fact Bilbo is a little bit famous (infamous?) for telling those stories. It could be part of Bilbo's character arc, even (not necessary - but possibly - see the examples I gave before).
  • At some point in the writing of the appendices that are being included, all kinds of people would have had conversations in both Rivendell and Bag End about what happened almost certainly and possibly other places as well (as per the Quest for Erebor - which is not officially part of what they have the rights for as I understand).
  • It was important to the plot of LOTR that Gandalf get to the truth about Bilbo's story (and also important to a few other folks as well). The actual way that Bilbo recorded, shared, and told others his story mattered to some degree to the pathway of the fate of the ring. While I don't think The Hobbit should become all about the ring all over again, the fact of Bilbo changing his story seems worthy of keeping. People can make their own connections and draw their own conclusions but it is still a fascinating (to me) detail and a major window into the character of Bilbo.
  • If there are any spots where they want to just go ahead and have a narrator tell something instead of needing to use the greater strength of film in showing for the sake of time or some other reason (it might be nice to be able to actually follow the books original structure in this way at points), why not have a narrator set up ahead of time? Take your pick of who is talking to who, where, and for how long - but I think the book-end / framing structure works better when it adds to the story as the examples I gave do. Adding to the story in more than a hand-waving extraneous manner tends to take a little bit of time (more than 5 minutes).
We will see! There are only two things that I, personally expect here:
*Frodo and Bilbo talking at least briefly in at least one frame (as we have seen in some advertising material)
*to be surprised by the way they do it somehow
 
but I would hate to have them meandering around The Shire and wasting time, when the time to show of The Shire should come within the beginning of The Hobbit Time Frame. I also don't want superflous LOTR timeline shire moments to steal from too much of the time that should go to The Hobbit's own timeframe.

And I totally agree with you about beginning and end framing only. What worked wonderfully for The Princess Bride would be horrible here, because of the very different premise.
Click to expand...

I would be okay with a bookending scenario with Holm and Wood introducing the story via flashback as long as it doesn't take up too much time and as long as they don't ahve interjections of the two throughout the trilogy.

But this brings me to question; have the filmmakers said for sure that it will be a bookending type of scenario? They said it will be a framing device but does that mean it has to be shown at the beginning and the end?

Because I just think it would be perfect just to show the shire during The hobbit times with narration from Holm talking about when he was young etc. and then just to have him and frodo introduced at the end of TABA as sort of a segway framing device.
 
However I don't think thats how we are getting the framing, the line "I may not have told you all of it' simply won't work at the end of the films.

I'd prefer Holms narrating the beginning of the film starting with the classic "in a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit" line and we start right off in the time frame of the hobbit and then end with LOTR shire and we finally see the aged narrator after the entire story has been told but again because of what was seen in the first trailer I don't think that's what we'll be getting.

So knowing that I'm not sure how much time I want them to spend showing older bilbo and frodo or if I want to see them at the start and end of each film. honestly since this isn't how I would have preferred it I'm just going to wait and see before I cast judgement here, I might want to see a lot of LOTR shire I might just want a quick look at it, I'm waiting to see how it's handled.
 
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