The Short n' Sweet Thread {little nuggety moments you hope make it to the screen ...}

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DamienEngland

Rivendell
[:)] Nope, not really a thread to discuss the bigger issues or the obvious movie set-pieces, as such. Plenty of that elsewhere on the forum, I'm sure. Instead, I thought it would be a nice, upbeat and positive way to spend a little of our waiting time discussing the smaller visual, dialogue, and character moments punctuating Tolkein's narrative you have your fingers crossed will make the transition to the screen. My own top ten, INPO, are as follows. Drumroll, if you please ...



1./ Mirkwood moths the size of hands and Bilbo's sighting of the "black emperor" butterfly.

Because Guillermo loves his insects.


2./ Gandalf:- "What do you mean?" he said. "Do you wish me a good morning, or mean that it is a good morning whether I want it or not; or that you feel good this morning; or that it is a morning to be good on?"

Best answer to "good morning!" ever written in the English language.


3./ General going ape of the goblins and Great Goblin at the sight of "Orcrist Goblin-Cleaver" TM.

Because you just know the look on their faces will be like Mel Gibson's evil Incas having their beheading session interrupted by a full solar eclipse in Apocalypto.


4./ Bilbo at the end of "Out of The Frying-Pan, Into The Fire" in which he is described dreaming of home and wandering in his sleep: "into all his different rooms looking for something that he could not find, nor remember what it looked like."

Perhaps the first real moment the insidious nature of the ring in his possession, burrowing deep into his subconscious becomes apparent, foreshadowing events which are to come.


5./ Gollum having a "bat-wing" in his pockets as well as his flustered reactions at being out-riddled by not guessing what's in Bilbo's

"Handses?" - Just cracks me up every time.


6./ Gandalf lighting up the pine cones up the tree and attacking the Wargs with them as fire-crackers in red, green & blue

Because there's only one way to top the visual ingenuity of his fireworks displays in Fellowship, and that's pine cones.


7./ The high-comedy of Gandalf's gradual reveal - ("... and bless me, here they are! Two more!" etc ..) - of all 13 dwarves to Beorn.

If McKellen's comic timing is on the money, has the potential to be even funnier than his lines to Pippin outside Denethor's throne room about keeping his mouth shut.


8./ Beorn subliminally shadowing the group in bear-form to check they keep their word about returning his ponies.

"Beorn may be your friend but he loves his animals as his children." Beautiful little character moment.


9./ The general fact a shape-shifting man-bear keeps bees to make himself honey.

Sorry, but it just reminds me of The Honey Monster keeping sugar puffs.


10./ Gandalf to Bilbo: "You are a very fine person Mr. Baggins, and I am very fond of you; but you are only quite a little fellow in a wide world after all!"

Because I love that line so much, and who needs Enya over the credits when there's Maxi, right? --------> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cgn78fCZkbk




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Smeagol's story is one thing I'd like to see atleast alluded to during the "Riddles in the Dark" sequence.

As in, there's a couple of places where we're told that Gollum was not always a "creature" but was, at one time, one of a river folk. We get to learn a bit about what he was as a person a long time ago, with happy people and pretty sunflowers, and showing some nice sunny scenes juxtaposed in-between the dark cave scenes might make for a good filmic effect (or not! [crazy])

Also, it'd be another chance for Andy Serkis to play himself, and that can't be bad.

Also, as an aside, I've always thought Dame Judi Dench would make a great matriarch in Gollum's grandmother.
 
Although I'm easy since it was pretty well covered in ROTK. Nice point of connection though.

Speaking of river folk, I've just thought: Dwarves in barrells heading rapidly downstream. That's comedy gold right there.

Actually, that'll probably be a key action sequence, so not really applicable for a thread on smaller moments. [;)]

I just want to hear them cussing, grunting and "NO-HOH-HOHHHHHHH!" ing their way through rapids, various obstacles, and diving kestrels. You name it. Nobody flotsams a dwarf ...


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4./ Bilbo at the end of "Out of The Frying-Pan, Into The Fire" in which he is described dreaming of home and wandering in his sleep: "into all his different rooms looking for something that he could not find, nor remember what it looked like."

Perhaps the first real moment the insidious nature of the ring in his possession, burrowing deep into his subconscious becomes apparent, foreshadowing events which are to come. ____________________________________
Click to expand...


That's some really good insight there. I don't think I thought much of that dream when I read it. Way to point it out. :-)
 
[:)] Hmmm, few other little moments I'm hoping for, cinematically:


- Fili's disgust at his barrell stinking of apples, and him never wanting to eat another apple as long as he lives.

- The thrush banging the snail against the rock.

- The dwarves not being able to compete with Bilbo's stealth in the tunnel and making a big deal of "puffing and shuffling, which echoes magnified alarmingly."

- Fili and Kili playing the golden harps.

- Smaug's breathing heard by Bilbo from the tunnel described as a mix between: "the bubbling of a large pot on the fire and the purring of gigantic tom cat."
(coupled with the fact that on hearing it, and before he even sees Smaug, Bilbo psychologically "fought the main battle in the tunnel alone")

- And last but not least, Smaug's vast bones visible at the bottom of the river shedding old gemstones that had stuck to him over time, but that no one ever dared to swim in to retrieve.



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By the way, it was her perforance as Lady Catherine de Bourgh in Pride and Prejudice that got me thinking of this [:)]

But eggses! [sly]
 
That in the script that it keeps in the several attempts by the drawves to gatecrash the elves and that they dont, for the movie, have it only happen once. I especially hope that they keep in Bilbo calling out all thirteen names as he crashes through the trees.

I also hope that they keep in the stag, this is also something that could be re-written for film, but would prefer if this little moment is kept as is. One other thing I hope is kept because I feel it is tonally important and important character wise, is the almost-discent amongst some of the dwarves to Thorin's reaction to Bilbo during the Arkenstone incident.
 
Seems to me that Gandalf introduces the dwarves to Bilbo the same way he introduces them to Beorn. A few at a time. I need to go back and see if they come in the same order?

I love this part because it shows what a fussy old maid Bilbo is before his adventure. Really lays the ground work for his change at the end. I still laugh at the whole Handkercheif issue!
 
4. Bilbo at the end of "Out of the Frying-pan into the Fire" in which he is described dreaming of home and wandering in his sleep: "into all his different rooms looking for something that he could not find, nor remember what it looked like."
Perhaps the first real moment the insidious nature of the ring in his possession, burrowing deep into his subconscious becomes apparent, foreshadowing events which are to come.
Click to expand...

Your interpretation may be right -- now. But it wasn't that way when Tolkien wrote and first published the passage, when the Ring was just a magic ring with no sinister aspect.

Some earlier thoughts about the dream description were expressed here.
 
for sure that Tolkien had not started thinking in a very early stage about what became LOTR, when he wrote The Hobbit?
 
After The Hobbit was published, Tolkien was asked to write more. First he offered his publisher the "Silmarillion" material he'd been working on (which was in a rather different state from what appeared in 1937) and that was turned down, with a request that he write more about hobbits. He protested that he felt he'd used up his ideas for that kind of story, but would give it a shot, and from the drafts published in The Return of the Shadow (the sixth volume of the "History of Middle-earth" series) we know that it was a little while before he came up with the idea that Bilbo's ring would be central to the plot -- and even then he wrote at first that it was "not very dangerous".
 
wanting to have "more" - but I was thinking a little about Tolkien - since with a creative mind like his, who knows?

What would an accurate interpretation of bilbo's dream be?
 
Well, Tolkien. He's the one whose earliest drafts for LOTR do not feature the ring as a major element.

As to Bilbo's dream, there are several possible interpretations at the link I provided.
 
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