The third movie wouldn't be the last part of the Hobbit; it would cover the intervening years between TH and The LotR.

Also, The VotDT is releasing in 2010.

Thanks for those quotes, Eru.

Im really excited about the Script for TH being finally written! I also went to the library yesterday like I thought they didnt have the Sil, so I got Roverandom, and so far its pretty good, Ive gotten up to the part where the Rovers get lost near the dark side of the moon. Its really very interesting!

I finally saw the FoTR EE!!! I think it's just fantastic, and way better the an the TE. I love all the little "nuggets" for book fans, like the S.Bs and Galadriel's gifts. I especially enjoyed "Concerning Hobbits."

oh it's 2010 now? I didn't know that.

awsome QueenSu!! I am glad you liked it! I love the EE's better than the Originals. I just love the extra stuff that is in it.

Hi everyone! Lovely title for the thread!

I'm so glad the lawsuit was resolved and The Hobbit can finally get going!

The third movie wouldn't be the last part of the Hobbit; it would cover the intervening years between TH and The LotR.

Eeesh. That sounds a lot like money-milking to me. And wouldn't the filmmakers have to come up with almost all of the storyline?

Question for you movie experts: I've seen FOTR but not TT or ROTK. Do I need to watch the originals of those two before seeing the extended editions? I'd rather go straight to the EEs, but is there any necessary pacing or the like(at least for a first-time viewer) that gets lost?

have you read the books? if you've read the books, then sheesh, go straight for the EE's.

if not.. hmm... maybe you should just still go for them. All it is is extra information.

welcome to NW, by the way.

This may seem such a small thing, but did it bother anyone else that in the LotR trilogy that Glamdring, Gandalf's sword, didn't glow when orcs would come near? In The Hobbit it says that Glamdring, Sting, and Orcrist would all have the same basic reaction when orcs would be in the area, and it kind of disappointed me that this wasn't reflected in the films.

I noticed several comments about the difficulty of the Silmarillion. It definitely is a challenge. The index is helpful. I also bought The Complete Guide to Middle-earth: Tolkien's World from A to Z and it helped put the events in order. I like the timeline of the first age in it. I’m sure there are a lot of things I missed in the Silmarillion. I heard once that it takes three times reading a book to get all the information. However, I that statement was not made with Tolkien’s works in mind. I just finished reading the Silmarillion and have been reading Unfinished Tales of Númenor and Middle-earth. I usually have more than one book going at a time. I found out the hard way that I should have read the Silmarillion before Unfinished Tales. At one point, I was reading the Lost Tales and Unfinished Tales at the same time without having read the Simarillion and was very confused. (Both book reference the Silmarillion often in the endnotes). I gave up on the Lost Tales (I ran out time on the loan from the library) and started the Simarillion instead of finishing the Lost Tales. I am now working on finishing the Lost Tales though. I think the worst part about Tolkien’s works is that many of the characters and places have more than one name. I have a hard enough time keep characters straight when they only have one name. Then, there are the characters that have similar names and characters that have the same names. Instead of reading LOTR myself the first time, I listen to them being read. I had a horrible time keeping Saruman and Sauron straight because their names are similar.

I’d thought I share so people can make an informed decision about what order to read books in and if they should read more than one Tolkien book at once.

Has anyone read the History of the Rings books? If I understand what they are correctly they tell of different possibilities for what would happen in LOTR. The reason I’m wondering is that it has always bothered me how they changed Faramir’s character in the movie and I want to know if Tolkien ever even considered the possibility that Faramir would take Frodo with him. If anyone has read anything related to possible differences in Faramir’s personality, I would like to hear it.

Shadowlander: I was really disappointed that Glamdring didn't glow like Sting, too. I liked the effect of Sting and it would've been cool on a full-size sword!
Pattertwigs Pal: I've only read The Hobbit and FOTR. And, I'm working on TTT. I was wondering which Tolkien book to read when I finish The Trilogy, so thanks for the info about other T books!

Has anyone read the History of the Rings books? If I understand what they are correctly they tell of different possibilities for what would happen in LOTR. The reason I’m wondering is that it has always bothered me how they changed Faramir’s character in the movie and I want to know if Tolkien ever even considered the possibility that Faramir would take Frodo with him. If anyone has read anything related to possible differences in Faramir’s personality, I would like to hear it.

I made it through the first two, then stopped I think I would've liked them better if I had known the books more. There's a lot in the details (like the order of how the Black Riders show up in FotR) although some of it was great, it has a few different version of Aragorn's poem that are beautiful, and some really, well, weird stuff in it too.(Aragorn was originally a hobbit with wooden feet....yeah).

(Aragorn was originally a hobbit with wooden feet....yeah).

What? Would I be right in believing those weren't written by Tolkien? cuz thats just nuts!

Well, Aragorn, or Strider, was originally supposed to be a Hobbit named Trotter. He didn't have wooden feet, it was wooden shoes. Tolkien did speculate that perhaps he did have wooden feet, because of previous torture.

The History of the Lord of the Rings was written by Christopher Tolkien, and it basically just tells how Middle-Earth came about by JRR Tolkien's thought processes. Tis the mention of the hobbit and wooden feet.

Maybe it's just my eyeballs, but I wished Sting had glowed a little bit brighter, it wasn't very obvious to me, so I never even noticed that Glamdring didn't glow Shadow . But I suppose if the swords had glowed as brightly as I would have liked, people who hadn't read the books would think Jackson was trying to copy Lucas's Light-sabers .

On the casting, the only actors confirmed as yet are Andy Serkis and Ian McKellan. Though Gandalf did let it slip that the actor playing Bilbo had been cast. But He wouldn't say who it was .

GB

Well, Aragorn, or Strider, was originally supposed to be a Hobbit named Trotter. He didn't have wooden feet, it was wooden shoes. Tolkien did speculate that perhaps he did have wooden feet, because of previous torture.

The History of the Lord of the Rings was written by Christopher Tolkien, and it basically just tells how Middle-Earth came about by JRR Tolkien's thought processes. Tis the mention of the hobbit and wooden feet.

oh i am going to read that it is at the end of the first book.(the edition i have)

Maybe it's just my eyeballs, but I wished Sting had glowed a little bit brighter, it wasn't very obvious to me, so I never even noticed that Glamdring didn't glow Shadow . But I suppose if the swords had glowed as brightly as I would have liked, people who hadn't read the books would think Jackson was trying to copy Lucas's Light-sabers.

Indeed! Seriously though, this was a component of The Hobbit's storyline. All three swords glowed (Sting, Glamdring, and Orcrist) and it made frequent mention of this throughout the story. I'm hoping that at the very least it's included in the Hobbit movie that's up and coming. It's minor nitpicking but it always seemed to me a cool little detail from the stories, much like the hobbit's Barrow Blades having been enchanted against creatures of Mordor. Tom Bombadil notwithstanding I wish they'd have put in even a 20 minute Barrow Downs scene, even with Aragorn rescuing the hobbits in lieu of Bombadil if need be. Those were cool swords, as good as the Men of Westernesse could produce, methinks.

Of all the scenes that weren't filmed that was the one that I longed to see the most.