The Hobbit.

[919191]

Plus "The Hobbit" shows how the ring, the story behind it, which is the center piece of the whole series, first came into the possession of a Hobbit via Bilbo and then passed on to Frodo. It was the stage setter.

I would love a movie of The Silmarillion, to part concerning the Elves and the Silmirils.

[GAC]

Does anyone know at which point in the story they are splitting it into the two movies?

I'd assume that since part 2 is titled "There and Back Again", which was the title of Bilbo's book about his adventures, that part 2 will center more on the diminishing role (aging) of Bilbo, and the "passing of the torch" to Frodo.

[Literati]

I wasn't sure if it would be something like that or more of splitting the journey in half, like after Bilbo gets the ring from Gollum...

[Will M]

I'd assume that since part 2 is titled "There and Back Again", which was the title of Bilbo's book about his adventures, that part 2 will center more on the diminishing role (aging) of Bilbo, and the "passing of the torch" to Frodo.

Here is what I would do: split the movie in two about the time they enter Mirkwood or maybe after the giant spider attack. Part 1 would have the trolls, the goblins, gollum & the werebear. Part 2 would have Mirkwood, the spiders, the wood elves, the mountain, the dragon & the big battle.

[top6]

J.R.R. Tolkien apparently created the whole of Middle Earth as a linguistic hobby. And wrote "The Hobbit" as a children's' story. When it exploded in popularity in the 1970's the LOTR quickly followed it into print as a "grown-up" continuation of the story. All are great reads in their own way. 'Bout time "The Hobbit" got the attention it deserves.

This is sort of what happened, although it was actually the 1950s when LOTR was published.

Here is my understanding (which I only confirmed by browsing these Wikipedia articles, so take it for what it is worth):

Tolkien started developing Middle Earth (and basically writing what would become The Silmarillion) in 1914. He continued to work on it throughout his life. Essentially, this book was a history of Middle Earth, and although I have not even read the whole thing my impression and understanding is that it is basically the same in style as the appendix of Lord of the Rings: in other words, somewhat dry, VERY detailed, and with a heavy emphasis on languages (which is not surprising given that Tolkien was an English scholar at Oxford).

In the 1930s (by which time he was already a fairly established "serious" literary critic), he started writing The Hobbit, which was basically a children's story that took place in the same world (and wasn't really related to any of the main plots). It was first published in 1937, and was immediately popular. Importantly (well, if you are a dork like me and consider any of this stuff important), the first published version of The Hobbit did not place any emphasis on the importance of the ring, and in fact Tolkien in no way planned for the ring to play an important role in Middle Earth's history. In the first published version of The Hobbit, in fact, Gollum willingly gambles the ring with Bilbo in the riddle game, and willingly lets Bilbo take it when he has lost.

Due to The Hobbit's popularity, his publishers asked for a sequel. My understanding was that Tolkien basically said, "great news! I've got a wonderfully detailed history of this fictional land complete with made up languages and maps already written ready to be published!" The publishers basically said: "um, no, that sounds terrible, you're going to give us a book with more hobbits." This is what caused him to start writing The Lord of the Rings, which he started writing in the 1930s, which he wrote as one book, but which was ultimately published in the 1950s in three separate volumes. It was, again, immediately popular, and I believe today is the most popular book ever published (except The Bible).

However, the story of The Lord of the Rings required retroactive changes to The Hobbit. He therefore rewrote The Hobbit, changing the scene with Gollum so that Bilbo tricks him into giving up the ring (which is the version that everyone on this thread has almost certainly read, unless you are in possession of a very rare early edition). Apparently, this was somehow explained by Tolkien as the original version being a lie that Bilbo told so that it would not be clear how important the ring was to him.

Tolkien eventually started reworking the whole history of Middle Earth to make it consistent with The Lord of the Rings, but he never finished it. His son did, and it was published in various forms as The Simarillion in the 1970s, 80s and 90s, although from what I gather there are vigorous debates as to how much of this is actually Tolkien's (the dad's) work.

I think it's so interesting that he went back and changed The Hobbit. If someone did that today (like, say, for a TV show, or in A Song of Ice and Fire, or see the general reaction to Lucas's changes to Star Wars films), there would be widespread outrage. But the greatest storyteller of the 20th century (not the greatest author, but greatest storyteller, imo), realized it was much more important to tell a great and compelling story than it was to make a book consistent with something you published 20 years ago. There is an obsession now (see Lost, the aforementioned ASOIAF, basically every ongoing comic series), with making everything consistent with past volumes, and focusing on continuity and having a grand master plan, such that the basic art of telling a great story gets lost. Thank god Tolkien, despite his focus on the most mundane details imaginable, didn't have that obsession.

[Reds/Flyers Fan]

Watched it earlier today and part of me actually wishes I didn't watch it because now it's going to be quite a long year waiting for this movie to come out. It simply looks amazing. Of course, it may actually inspire me to sit down and watch the LOTR trilogy again at some point this winter over the course of a couple days.

Or you could watch the LOTR extended version over the course of a few weeks.