DBWI: The War of the Jewels trilogy has been confirmed for 2013:

At least the release of the first installment. Evidently after the success of The Lord of the Rings Peter Jackson has decided to turn Tolkien's second trilogy into a work of film also. Unfortunately he didn't adhere to Tolkien's original wishes and include the Downfall of Numenor as a part of the trilogy, though he said it was for time and space. The same reason he excluded Bombadil from the LOTR trilogy.

Thoughts? I did think casting Liv Tyler as Luthien Tinuviel was a brilliant choice, though I'm kind of dubious about Michael Fassbender as Beren. OTOH, I do think having Feanor be portrayed by Christopher Hemsworth is both epic and a sign he may be being typecast for roles in certain films.

I look forward to seeing how they portray Morgoth, as motion-capture CGI sounds like a good way to do him as the giant that kills Fingolfin. I'm not sure how they'll handle Huan and Carcharoth, though concept art of the latter at least is pretty badass.

I also thought it was interesting that they cast Jake and Maggie Gyllenhaal for Turin and Nienor. I wonder how that's going to work out?

Do you think this trilogy will be as good as the original or do you think it might be clunkier?
 
When I heard the news, I immediately donned sackcloth & ashes. Guess this scuttles the planned HBO mini-series of same. They had managed such a satisfying conclusion to "Game of Thrones", too. Better than the books!
 
Frankly, the downfall of Numenor belongs as part of its own series about the Second Age, as it's simply far too removed in time and "historical" context from the rest of the naritive.

It would be as if someone were filming a movie trilogy about the War of Power from Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series using Rand's Flashbacks in Book 4 and the accounts from The Complete Guide to Rober Jordan's Wheel of Time as the basis, but then being forced by either Harriet McDougal or Mr. Jordan's will to include the Fall of Manetheren.

The real question is, who are they going to cast for Elrond so that he looks like a younger Hugo Weaving? Mike McGlone would have been perfect ten years ago, but not now.
 

AndyC

Donor
I think the choice of material was right, but I do fear for the voiceover at the start to set things up. As they're going straight into the three Tales of Men, it'll take sophisticated scriptwriting to set the scene without a lot of "as you know, Bob ..." stuff.

But yeah: The War of the Jewels 1: The Nightingale should be good. I guess the death of Fingolfin will be at the start of that. I did wonder at the choice of name but "The Tale of Beren and Luthien" would be too stodgy, and "Tinuviel" would be a bit daft for a film name, I guess.

Which implies that The War of the Jewls 2: Morgoth's Curse will kick off with the Battle of Unnumbered Tears. I wonder if they'll get any of the stuff on Hurin's wanderings at the end or if they'll stop straight with the suicide of Turin.

I want to know if The War of the Jewels 3: The Fall of Gondolin will end depressingly with the loss of the city and the refugees fleeing, or if the Voyage of Earendil and the War of Wrath will be included. Does anyone know? Mind you, the news that they are looking to cast a young Elrond is optimistic for this.
 
I think the choice of material was right, but I do fear for the voiceover at the start to set things up. As they're going straight into the three Tales of Men, it'll take sophisticated scriptwriting to set the scene without a lot of "as you know, Bob ..." stuff.

But yeah: The War of the Jewels 1: The Nightingale should be good. I guess the death of Fingolfin will be at the start of that. I did wonder at the choice of name but "The Tale of Beren and Luthien" would be too stodgy, and "Tinuviel" would be a bit daft for a film name, I guess.

Which implies that The War of the Jewls 2: Morgoth's Curse will kick off with the Battle of Unnumbered Tears. I wonder if they'll get any of the stuff on Hurin's wanderings at the end or if they'll stop straight with the suicide of Turin.

I want to know if The War of the Jewels 3: The Fall of Gondolin will end depressingly with the loss of the city and the refugees fleeing, or if the Voyage of Earendil and the War of Wrath will be included. Does anyone know? Mind you, the news that they are looking to cast a young Elrond is optimistic for this.

I think the War of Wrath is supposed to be in the film, though this may explain why it's the longest of the three. I look forward to Fingolfin's duel with Morgoth.....:D
 

AndyC

Donor
I think the War of Wrath is supposed to be in the film, though this may explain why it's the longest of the three. I look forward to Fingolfin's duel with Morgoth.....:D

Excellent. They'll probably go through the Voyage of Earendil pretty quickly, but the fight with Ancalagon the Black will hopefully be epic!
It's definitely the third one I'm most eager to see: Tuor and the coming to Gondolin, the betrayal of Maeglin, the Fall of Gondolin itself (and Glorfindel's fight with the Balrog), Earendil's Voyage and coming to Valinor, the War of Wrath and the destruction of Beleriand.
I bet they have something about Sauron nearly surrendering but sneaking off as well.
 
Excellent. They'll probably go through the Voyage of Earendil pretty quickly, but the fight with Ancalagon the Black will hopefully be epic!
It's definitely the third one I'm most eager to see: Tuor and the coming to Gondolin, the betrayal of Maeglin, the Fall of Gondolin itself (and Glorfindel's fight with the Balrog), Earendil's Voyage and coming to Valinor, the War of Wrath and the destruction of Beleriand.
I bet they have something about Sauron nearly surrendering but sneaking off as well.

Well, they have Kate Winslet listed to play Sauron, so maybe they'll be bringing in that un-used concept for the last LOTR film in the last scene of this one. :eek::D
 

AndyC

Donor
Well, they have Kate Winslet listed to play Sauron, so maybe they'll be bringing in that un-used concept for the last LOTR film in the last scene of this one. :eek::D

OOC :D:D

Ah, that's already been covered on the blogs - in order to conceal who they've got playing Sauron, PJ apparently said "Just put Kate Winslet down; that'll get them excited".

Real rumour has it that Patrick Stewart will be Sauron ...
 
OOC :D:D

Ah, that's already been covered on the blogs - in order to conceal who they've got playing Sauron, PJ apparently said "Just put Kate Winslet down; that'll get them excited".

Real rumour has it that Patrick Stewart will be Sauron ...

Now *that* would be awesome. :D
 
OOC: It took me three tries and a full day off to do it, and I have a lot of patience for dry, difficult to read books. :p

OOC: I loved LOTR, though I remember the movies better than I do the books.

IC: Meh. I could barely force myself to watch Peter Jackson's last film series, why should I expect this one to be any better?
 
*Searches Internet for information*

John Cho as the Easterling big bad (OOC: forgot his name :eek:)? And a Jeremy Lin cameo? Emma Stone as Earendil's wife? FUCK YES! :D

Marc A

P.S. OOC: pretty freaking ASB, eh? :p
 
I read that Jackson has gotten a hold of Tolkien's unpublished papers and intends to use some materials from them that Tolkien didn't include in the actual published War of the Jewels books. I understand that Tolkien actually wrote many versions of the tales before he novelized them in the 2nd Trilogy.
 
I was just over at the IMDb page for the films and it had James Franco down playing not only Earendil, but also playing both Huor and Tuor. Does anyone else find this weird having only one actor for three characters, even though they are grandfather, father and son?
 

AndyC

Donor
OOC: It took me three tries and a full day off to do it, and I have a lot of patience for dry, difficult to read books. :p

Yeah, the Silmarillion is basically a synopisis like the Appendices for LoTR. Tolkien intended to write a trilogy in the War of the Jewels based on the three titles I gave for the three films; the first half of the Silmarillion is basically the setup for the three Tales of the Edain. (Beren/Luthien, Hurin & Turin/Nienor and Tuor/Earendil). Most of the second Tale has been published as "The Children of Hurin" (there's more in the 11th History of Middle Earth volume "The Wanderings of Hurin" which trails off unfinished; it was to tie up with The Dwarves Necklace and the fall of Thingol but Tolkien wrote himself into a corner).

The first Tale is mainly in the Silmarillion, but if you don't mind the poetry and the antiquated and sometimes superseded concepts, the third volume of HoME (The Lays of Beleriand) has The Lay of Leithan which is much of Beren and Luthien set to verse.

For the last Tale, we only have the short fragments of "Tuor and his coming to Gondolin" which was the abandoned rewrite of The Fall of Gondolin (the only full-length version of that is the extremely outdated and superseded story in History of Middle Earth volume 2). The wanderings of Earendil are there as well.

Unfortunately Tolkien was psychologically unsuited to rewriting and polishing the story; he always reconceived it as well and got too tied up in the philosophical and world-building elements (he got diverted into the "Myths Transformed" phase of his writing of the Silmarillion towards the end of his life - where he totally abandoned the world-building background in an attempt to reconcile the Elven myths with true astronomical reality.
 
Top