Ian McKellen Almost Ditched Playing Gandalf in The Hobbit Movie
- Thread starter Greg Tito
- Start date
.
No, Saruman wasn't technically in the Hobbit. But Gandalf did skip out on the group for most of their journey through Mirkwood to deal with matters "to the south." Tolkien's backstory says that he met with the White Council (The elves Elrond, Galadriel, and Cirdan the Shipwright and the three wizards Gandalf, Radagast and Saruman, amongst others) at this time where they finally decided to assault the "growing shadow" at Dol Guldur.RJ Dalton said:
I don't know how much of that Jackson will show but it's reasonable to assume that if Radagast & Galadriel are in the cast, then the rest of the White Council will be too.
Okay, leaving aside the fact that I never used the word "inauthentic" (seriously, what is it with these forums and people not being able to read?)...JDKJ said:
Fine, get some Spanish or Sicilian extras to put in the backgrounds then - oh wait let's not because they're filming in FUCKING NEW ZEALAND where your choices are either pasty white Colonial or pretty-damn-black Maori. I know the Hobbit has a big budget but I don't think they have the money to import extras from halfway around the world. And if you think Maori hobbits would be "authentic" you're a fucking moron.
MC K-Mac said:
No, you didn't personally use the word "inauthentic." But that Critical Miss strip to which you linked by way of a tinyurl does use that word to describe casting of colored Hobbits as "inauthentic." If you don't endorse the views of the strip's creators, perhaps you should avoid linking to their stip. Or is it perhaps possible that you are the one lacking an ability to read and therefore didn't notice the use of the word "inauthentic" in the comic strip to which you were linking? Seriously?MC K-Mac said:
And you may be underestimating the casting choices available in New Zealand. It was there that a casting director was fired for refusing to audition a brown-skinned woman of Pakistani heritage by the name of Naz Humphreys who responded to a casting call for actors to play the roles of Hobbit extras. Did you not read about that incident? It was well-covered by a multitude of print media outlets, including the Escapist. Or did you perhaps fall victim to an inability to read? Seriously?
Point.JDKJ said:
Of course I read about it, and I fully support the casting director's decision. Yes I'm aware of the fact that there are a few people in New Zealand who are neither white nor Maori, but not enough to fill all of Hobbiton. And you have to be relatively consistent with skin tone when casting for this movie, because there isn't really any ethnic diversity in Middle Earth. Yes, there are Elves and Dwarves and Hobbits and such, but within those groups they look very similar. So, you can cast your Hobbits as all Pakistanis if you really want (and you feel like paying for the expense to fly them all in), but having one brown-skinned person in the background when all the rest are white would be really distracting and would take you out of the movie. And an all-brown-skinned cast of extras would do exactly the same.JDKJ said:
Have you ever read The Hobbit? According to Tolkien and contrary to your assertion, all Hobbits do not look alike. Rather, there is pronounced phenotypical diversity among the three breeds of Hobbits (Fallohides, Stoors, and Harfoots), ranging from the fair-skinned and fair-haired Fallohides to the brown-skinned Harfoots. And while the brown-skinned Harfoots make up the majority of the Shire's population, they don't do so exclusive of the other two breeds.MC K-Mac said:
Have you ever visited New Zealand? According to the 2006 census and contrary to your assertion, New Zealand's ethnic diversity does not break down into two primary groups, one European and the other Maori and, in fact, there are more than "a few" people who do not fall into either group. There are 350,000 self-identified Asians and 270,000 self-identified Pacific Islanders, the product of in-bound immigration in recent decades. You can compare these numbers to the 560,000 self-identified Maori counted by the same census and, perhaps, you'll notice that the total population of Asians and Pacific Islanders outnumber that of the Maori. I don't think that New Zealand's anywhere near as black and white as you try to make it out to be. I suspect that there are sufficient numbers of brown-skinned New Zealanders to cast the marauding hordes of Genghis Khan, if need be.
I said original. I would give you The Lovely Bones, but it was based on a book so...Xocrates said:
Since he started with Lord of the Rings he hasn't done a single thing that was his own original work. That's what I meant. This is a man who made some really good horror...okay, really campy horror, but still good. I think The Frighteners was one of the best horrors involving psychics since Poltergeist. (I'm saying Poltergeist is still better.) Why doesn't he go back to that instead of rehashing old shit?Xocrates said: