The Hobbit in Danger Due to Labor Squabbles

[SnipErlite]

I'll probably get my head bitten off by angry, raging mob with pitchforks and torches, but i gotta say - good.

The LOTR movie already ruined the book for me to the point i can only respect it for the fact it brought back the old mythos and pagan believes back to life. When i want to watch pretty sceneries i can switch to Discovery or something without having it interrupted by all the gimmicks.

Leave Hobbit alone, let it rest in peace as a great, fun and enjoyable lightweight little book i can return to one day.

I half agree with you. I love the LOTR films, but then the books were too long winded for me.

The Hobbit however is one of my all time favourite books. I think it's written in a lot better way than the series.....I kinda want to see a film of it, but I'm not sure how well it would transcribe to the big screen. I'm undecided here...

 

[Jharry5]

I really hope this doesn't stop the film from being made, as I loved the LotR trilogy (both the books and the films).
I hadn't heard that Del Torro had dropped out though. I wanted to see what he'd have done with it...

 

[Jared]

Its really silly whats going on - all about money, as always. So, I am looking towards everyone kicking out becuase they dont have enough to buy gold solid boats...

 

[Mr.Gompers]

Someone's is making it so that The Hobbit movie might not be made? "Loads shotgun" Excuse me, I believe I have some work to do in the southern hemisphere.

 

[Keava]

No innovation? The visuals and the fact that the movies were created, was the innovation. The level of production values were deemed impossible at the time. Nobody thought that it was possible to a project a trilogy of movies and be successful. At the time it was unheard of. Not even Star Wars was built like that.

Star Wars was one movie, and if it did really really really well, there could be another movie. It did well and there was more Star Wars.(On release there was no Episode 4, there was only A NEW HOPE) LotR was filmed as 3 movies from the get go. 15 years ago a project like this, would not even be a possibility.

LotR changed the movie industry. Good or bad? Well that's arguable, but it did.Not enough innovation for you? Unless you talking about something else, if so, sorry for wasting your time. ^^

I do dislike the movies too. Except the first one and Gollum in the other two. Yes it's because of the changes they did. Most of them made no sense, and ignored most established character development, in the books, and even the in the damn movies! I could live fine with the first one, now the second one is stupid. "Sam go away" urg!

I mean innovantion in actual artistic form of a movie, not technological innovation, which for me barely matters when i watch the end-product. Did it revolutionize the industry? Honestly, i am not sure. I hear about such changes every now and then, and if i would be to sum them up we would end up in the future already.

Massiveness is odd sort of value, technology moves forward each year and so does implementation of special effects and more advanced filming methods is made easier. You can't really compare them to what was available when Star Wars was first made, or even what was possible 15 years ago, just look at videogames from 1995 and 2000, you will see the difference.

As for the whole filming from the get go, keep in mind it was not original scenario but adaptation of a book written over 50 years before, well established 'brand' that had millions of fans all over the world. Hard to really compare such luxury to Star Wars that was a new idea, still being planned and fleshed out.

 

[pinchy]

That's the key word here. Collective bargaining is completely legal and common in regards to employees in New Zealand- actors however are not employees, they are independent contractors (i.e- they are on fixed-term contracts, they get many tax benefits but don't enjoy holiday pay and some benefits that employees would get. Really there's good and bad points to both working arrangements).

What the union wants is illegal- not to screw workers but to protect consumers. It's like if all the plumbers got together and set minimum prices, it's price-fixing and quite frankly a bad thing. The only thing they stand to accomplish here is to piss off the studios to the stage that they pull out. Instead of getting international exposure by being in a big-budget movie that will hopefully lead to big money Hollywood roles they will get to go back to bit parts on Shortland Street (or go into the exciting worlds of retail and fast food). I really don't see how anything that is going on is actually in the best interests of anyone other than the union.

 

[Bryy]

Effing Unions, they like to ruin everything.

"They like to ruin everything"?
Care to back that claim up?

 

[captaincabbage]

GOD DAMN IT! Why do we have to fuck shit up when it's just getting on track??

Come on guys, don't be arseholes.

 

[Chased]

I mean innovantion in actual artistic form of a movie, not technological innovation, which for me barely matters when i watch the end-product. Did it revolutionize the industry? Honestly, i am not sure. I hear about such changes every now and then, and if i would be to sum them up we would end up in the future already.

Massiveness is odd sort of value, technology moves forward each year and so does implementation of special effects and more advanced filming methods is made easier. You can't really compare them to what was available when Star Wars was first made, or even what was possible 15 years ago, just look at videogames from 1995 and 2000, you will see the difference.

As for the whole filming from the get go, keep in mind it was not original scenario but adaptation of a book written over 50 years before, well established 'brand' that had millions of fans all over the world. Hard to really compare such luxury to Star Wars that was a new idea, still being planned and fleshed out.

I highly doubt you could replicate anything Weta Workshop did or even think of an "Innovative way" of doing it. They used extensive amounts of physical mediums such as costume and make up when they could of easily CGed it (like for the ten billion Orcs in the films). Also much of the stone work and scenery was carved out of Styrofoam! That's flippin' amazing in terms of innovation for set design on a large scale.

Also you say that they didn't provide any "twists or interpretation" but yet complained about them not following the story? Gotta pick one.

 

[Jake the Snake]

*Punches MEAA in the fucking face* THERE! Distraction gone! Now please, please make the damn movie already T.T

 

[LoneGunmanO23]

Generally speaking I'm a big supporters of unions. The first thing that comes to mind here is that we have not heard the side of the story of the unions involved in this, and are pretty much only hearing the side of the employers which is almost always going to be peachy from their perspective. When a corperation is "doing good things" in a situation like this, it's oftentimes a sign that they are scared of the union and are trying to convince people that they really don't need it, and then when the threat is gone they gradually return to however they were operating before.

As far as New Zealand law goes, I tend to feel that things like that are irrelevent. I'm against any law that prohibits collective bargaining, as laws like that are usually funded/pushed through by the companies doing the employing.

How this will end is unknown, simply put people don't have the guts they used to. Back in the old days you might remember you had massive clashes between employees and companies, which even erupted into battles with the police (trying to enforce anti-union laws) and mercenaries going at it with labourers in the streets, and employers trying to pull out of regions only to be run down and attacked due to them closing their factories or whatever to make a "point".

It's an interesting balancing act, because business owners should indeed have some rights, however I feel it's the employees who need the most protection and every benefit they can get. Right now I think a lot of the stuff we see going on right now with company lay offs to inceease profit and the like come from a lack of guts on the part of employees When it comes to unions most of them operate too much within the law (or become corrupt themselves, being bought by the people they intend to regulate), and people spend too much time worrying about the legality of making unions or engaging in collective bargaining.

I see the big problem being that people are too afraid of the law to really take action, which means that collective bargaining has lost it's teeth. Unions are by and large accepted based on threat of force as much as threat of strike. The police can arrest a few agitators, but if you have thousands of people rioting constantly that's something else entirely. Especially if unlike most looting mobs it's semi-coordinated, and armed (anti-riot tactics are far less effective when the people on the receiving end are ready for them).

Of course this is getting off the subject and more into the area of employment ethics and regulation itself. The bottom line is that my gut reaction is to support the union here, Peter Jackson might be a respectable face, but businesses usually have one, and the Hollywood Fat Cats further up the ladder behind him are just like any other group of fat cats.

Wow. Maybe Unionized labor is trying to pass itself off as something more respectable than a bunch of cutthroat thugs nowadays. I see that as an improvement. Personally, I think that the best way to respond to Unionized rioting is with automatic weaponry, but that's just me.

EDIT: spelling

 

[oliveira8]

I mean innovantion in actual artistic form of a movie, not technological innovation, which for me barely matters when i watch the end-product. Did it revolutionize the industry? Honestly, i am not sure. I hear about such changes every now and then, and if i would be to sum them up we would end up in the future already.

Massiveness is odd sort of value, technology moves forward each year and so does implementation of special effects and more advanced filming methods is made easier. You can't really compare them to what was available when Star Wars was first made, or even what was possible 15 years ago, just look at videogames from 1995 and 2000, you will see the difference.

As for the whole filming from the get go, keep in mind it was not original scenario but adaptation of a book written over 50 years before, well established 'brand' that had millions of fans all over the world. Hard to really compare such luxury to Star Wars that was a new idea, still being planned and fleshed out.

Actually, there aren't many changes. It looks like there is, but there isn't. Between Star Wars and LotR, the only significant jump was Jurassic Park. There was plenty of other attempts(like Tron) but none sticked. Even in terms of sets, there was nothing like this since the days of the grand epics like Lawrence of the Arabia or Cleopatra. It was massive.

It was a big jump. One much bigger than most people seem to realize. Avatar? That's nothing compared to what LotR did almost 10 years before. They already did Avatar with Gollum. Actually that was what Weta did on Avatar. Same shit, but with the fancy pants camera of James Cameron.


Also I'm not sure you know how movie industry actually works. Having an already established fanbase doesn't really matter, if what the producer is selling is not that good movie wise.
This was what Peter Jackson was selling in the 90's:

A 3 movie deal. It will cost seas of dollars. It's considered unfimmable. Directed by a B-Movie director. Special effects by the Hercules and Xena crew. It's Fantasy.

Can you name a fantasy movie based on a book, that actually made lots of success before Lord of the Rings? The only one was made 70 years before LotR, and people saw it cause it was the first in colour. Since Wizard of Oz there was no fantasy film that made big bucks. Massive big bucks. They tried. Like Conan. That went okay, not great and Conan has a big fanbase, and the only good thing it did was launching Schwarzenegger career.
Most of them hurt companies. There was much more affluence in science fiction, than fantasy in what comes to cinema. It has been the norm since Star Wars. Science Fiction does better on cinema. Period.

LotR wasn't a good sell to no studio. No matter how much fanbase it had. Star Wars compared to LotR project, is a safe project. Most important Star Wars was made by an independent studio, something that LotR could not be.

From a commercial point of view of a studio, financing this project was like burning cash. Lucky for Peter Jackson, there was a studio that had the amounts of crazy to say "Here have 400 million dollars go nuts with it.". Keep in mind that this was in the late 90's not late 00's. And that Peter Jackson had no real career at that point. "From director of Braindead" isn't a good sell to a major audience.

So that was what Lord of the Rings project was in 1996. Too expensive and no way to be sure that it would be a major success. That's 3 movies. Imagine if the fellowship of the ring was absolute crap, that it would even scare the fans of the book. What then? The studio had two more films done, that would be box office failures. No one wanted to take that risk back then.

By the twist of fate one did, the movies were a major success and a whole new window of movie opportunities was open.

Studios are now taking more risks. Some times it works, others not. Stuff like A Song of Ice and Fire now can be filmed, without LotR, that would never happen. Even the comeback of Super Heroes movies can be attributed to LotR, as studios had more courage to take on these adaptations that would not come cheap.

Lot of things changed cause of LotR.

 

[bue519]

So what the MEAA is doing isn't even legal? According to Jackson.

Will this film ever be made?

We can only hope so. I'm not a union hater, but I just wish they wouldn't get in the way of this awesome movie.

 

[voetballeeuw]

WHY??????? What did I do? I must have done some bad shit, if karma decided to screw me over like this.

 

[Space Jawa]

Lucky for Peter Jackson, there was a studio that had the amounts of crazy to say "Here have 400 million dollars go nuts with it.".

Better than that, even. If I recall the story right, at that point Jackson was ready to say "We'll even cut it down to just two movies" in order to get the project off the ground and instead they told him "No, if it's made from three books, let's get three movies out of it.".

 

[Alar]

*Punches MEAA in the fucking face* THERE! Distraction gone! Now please, please make the damn movie already T.T

My thoughts exactly. This is freaking ridiculous. I have waited for the Hobbit since before the Lord of the Rings was even released as a movie trilogy.

 

[Andronicus]

Jackson himself was to take the reins, but the film still is waiting to be "greenlit" by MGM.

Hang on, isn't MGM bunkrupt anyway, or about to be [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MGM#2009_exploration_of_spin-off.2C_sale.2C_partnerships.2C_and_merger]? If they don't get pulled out of their financial troubles soon, unions will be the least of The Hobbit's worries.

Oh, and Australian unions? Don't be greedy pigs and shut the hell up.

 

[008Zulu_v1legacy]

Effing Unions, they like to ruin everything.

"They like to ruin everything"?
Care to back that claim up?

Sure, I was happy working in my chosen industry, when the Unions decided to step in and make things more "fair", now 3/4s of the staff where I worked have now been fired because of these "fair" new changes.

 

[GiantRedButton]

I mean innovantion in actual artistic form of a movie, not technological innovation, which for me barely matters when i watch the end-product. Did it revolutionize the industry? Honestly, i am not sure. I hear about such changes every now and then, and if i would be to sum them up we would end up in the future already.

Massiveness is odd sort of value, technology moves forward each year and so does implementation of special effects and more advanced filming methods is made easier. You can't really compare them to what was available when Star Wars was first made, or even what was possible 15 years ago, just look at videogames from 1995 and 2000, you will see the difference.

As for the whole filming from the get go, keep in mind it was not original scenario but adaptation of a book written over 50 years before, well established 'brand' that had millions of fans all over the world. Hard to really compare such luxury to Star Wars that was a new idea, still being planned and fleshed out.

Actually, there aren't many changes. It looks like there is, but there isn't. Between Star Wars and LotR, the only significant jump was Jurassic Park. There was plenty of other attempts(like Tron) but none sticked. Even in terms of sets, there was nothing like this since the days of the grand epics like Lawrence of the Arabia or Cleopatra. It was massive.

It was a big jump. One much bigger than most people seem to realize. Avatar? That's nothing compared to what LotR did almost 10 years before. They already did Avatar with Gollum. Actually that was what Weta did on Avatar. Same shit, but with the fancy pants camera of James Cameron.


Also I'm not sure you know how movie industry actually works. Having an already established fanbase doesn't really matter, if what the producer is selling is not that good movie wise.
This was what Peter Jackson was selling in the 90's:

A 3 movie deal. It will cost seas of dollars. It's considered unfimmable. Directed by a B-Movie director. Special effects by the Hercules and Xena crew. It's Fantasy.

Can you name a fantasy movie based on a book, that actually made lots of success before Lord of the Rings? The only one was made 70 years before LotR, and people saw it cause it was the first in colour. Since Wizard of Oz there was no fantasy film that made big bucks. Massive big bucks. They tried. Like Conan. That went okay, not great and Conan has a big fanbase, and the only good thing it did was launching Schwarzenegger career.
Most of them hurt companies. There was much more affluence in science fiction, than fantasy in what comes to cinema. It has been the norm since Star Wars. Science Fiction does better on cinema. Period.

LotR wasn't a good sell to no studio. No matter how much fanbase it had. Star Wars compared to LotR project, is a safe project. Most important Star Wars was made by an independent studio, something that LotR could not be.

From a commercial point of view of a studio, financing this project was like burning cash. Lucky for Peter Jackson, there was a studio that had the amounts of crazy to say "Here have 400 million dollars go nuts with it.". Keep in mind that this was in the late 90's not late 00's. And that Peter Jackson had no real career at that point. "From director of Braindead" isn't a good sell to a major audience.

So that was what Lord of the Rings project was in 1996. Too expensive and no way to be sure that it would be a major success. That's 3 movies. Imagine if the fellowship of the ring was absolute crap, that it would even scare the fans of the book. What then? The studio had two more films done, that would be box office failures. No one wanted to take that risk back then.

By the twist of fate one did, the movies were a major success and a whole new window of movie opportunities was open.

Studios are now taking more risks. Some times it works, others not. Stuff like A Song of Ice and Fire now can be filmed, without LotR, that would never happen. Even the comeback of Super Heroes movies can be attributed to LotR, as studios had more courage to take on these adaptations that would not come cheap.

Lot of things changed cause of LotR.

Interesting read, we got lucky that it got filmed, makes me wonder what other great movies didn't happen because people where afraid to take risks, ehich sounded like the better option in this case tbh.