Xhonzi said:

Part of the rumour I heard was that Jackson & Co. had access to the partial rewrite (as far as I know, it's not publicly available) when formulating the new movies.  It makes me wonder what parts of the movie come from there, especially Bilbo's reasoning with the trolls.  But if he were rewriting it, why would he leave the silliness in?

I was under the impression pretty much anything anyone could want to see/read of the two versions of The Hobbit was covered and published in the nifty two volume History of the Hobbit released a few years back, but I could very well be mistaken.

darth_ender said:

Anyway, yes, I'd heard he had been at least planning for a rewrite, though I didn't know he'd made much progress. Interestingly, another thing I'd read was that he planned on changing all references to "goblins" in the Hobbit to "orcs," as they are supposed to be the same creatures. However, many have interpreted them to be smaller and less fearsome, given their more childish nature in the books. But initially the distinction is not so clear.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orc_(Middle-earth)#Orcs.2C_Goblins.2C_and_Uruks

Thanks for the link!

Right after seeing The Hobbit I mentioned to my three friends I saw it with that I thought it was interesting that the film split orcs and goblins into two different creatures, when in the books they are the same thing, having been called goblins in The Hobbit, and changed to orcs in LOTR (including Tolkien's forward, which recounts events of The Hobbit, now using the term orc in place of goblin). Upon mentioning this, all three of my friends slowly turned their heads toward me, eyebrows raised, and two of them in unison said, "No they're not! They've always been different!" They then explained that the Uruk-hai were a cross breed between goblins and orcs, and that goblins are stronger than orcs, but die when exposed to sunlight, and that the significance of the uruk-hai were that they had the mixed strength of goblins along with the orcs ability to walk in daylight.

What??? Where did they get this from? Their sureness and detail on the matter made me highly doubt what I thought I knew on the subject, but Ender's link confirms I was correct. Is this alternative take on the two species and origin of the Uruk-hai explained in the LOTR movies or something? I've read the book numerous times, but I have only seen the movies a couple of times, and the only extended edition I have seen is Fellowship, meanwhile my buddies are LOTR film fans and have never read Tolkien's works.

I encourage you to read the books, xhonzi.

Seconded, though you've already read them. I'd encourage anyone who hasn't read them to give them a shot.

For years you had two kinds of people, those who have read LOTR, and those who hadn't. The films have created a kind of annoying frustrating situation where you have thousands of of die hard "LOTR fans" who have never read the books and admit they rather hate them.

You might enjoy the differences and the resulting approaches Jackson and Co. took to the different films. I think splitting it (as Kbrana said) was the right choice for Jackson, and the only childishness that really did bug me was the bird poop on Radagast.

That annoyed me a bit too, seemed a little over the top. I also hated the inclusion of the anachronistic golf and croquet references. I think the golf joke worked fine for the book, but in a film made to be a prequel to the Lord of the Rings movies, it was really out of place.

Another specific complaint I had was the "good morning" conversation between Gandalf and Bilbo. It was such a fun little conversation in the book that really setup the quirkiness of Gandalf's character, and they absolutely butchered it.

Bit of trivia: Gandalf can't remember the names of the two blue wizards in the film. This is likely because their names were not completely consistent, and the only sources for their names are from incomplete stories. It was a joke based on the two different versions of their names.
Source: http://lotr.wikia.com/wiki/Blue_Wizards

That was my assumption too, but maybe Akwat's take on them not owning the rights is accurate, I hadn't even thought of that myself.

I knew you did, because I am pretty sure we've talked about them before. I just followed Ender's lead without thinking, then right after making my post, I read yours saying you have, realized of course you have, and edited my post. Must have missed my edit.

I think your comments on having just learned The Hobbit underwent major revisions struck us an something that would come from someone who was not yet a Tolkien initiate. Must be one of those guys who skips all the forwards and other pages at the beginning of a book and skip right to Chapter One, otherwise you would have read Tolkien's in universe explanation of the true events that took place in The Hobbit and Bilbo's lies that were found in the book and found yourself scratching your head because the true events were what you read in the book. In other words,

C3PS said

"I encourage you to read the forward to the book, xhonzi." 

Fixed.

Oh yeah, and the appendices are fun too.

darth_ender said:

@C3PS, in The Fellowship film, Saruman says the Uruk-hai are a cross of orcs and goblin-men. In the novel they are said to be a cross of orcs and men. I'm assuming your friends were relying on the film as their source. As for goblins being stronger, I've never read anything, nor remember seeing anything on film that implied that; goblins have always appeared to be weaker when any distinction was made, it seems. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uruk-hai#Adaptations

Yeah, they are definitely 100% dependent on the movies for anything they know about LOTR. That is weird. Any ideas where Jackson came up with the orcs and goblin-men thing? What the heck is a "goblin-man" according to the movies? In the book "goblin-men" is what some characters actually call the Uruk-hai, IIRC. So they are basically claiming Uruk-hai are a cross between orcs and uruk-hai, right?

Anyway, I guess that means they were completely right then, following Jackson's lore.

The History of the Hobbit...hadn't seen that before. That looks really cool!

I know, right! That was a book I was extremely excited about and couldn't wait for in the months prior to its release. Then volume one finally came out and I figured I could wait an extra few weeks to get it at a reduced used price off amazon. I guess I got sidetracked or used to waiting for it, now it has been out for years, and I still haven't managed to get it. Still really want it.

darth_ender said:

    What do you think about ommitting the Scouring of the Shire and Tom Bombadil?

I think it is good Tom got cut. The scouring of the Shire is one of my favorite parts of the book. In fact, sometimes I will just pick up the book and read that section when I feel like a small dose of Tolkien without a big commitment.

I feel like it is a really important part of the story and really shows the growth and maturity the hobbit characters went through during their adventure. They left scared and nervous young hobbits, and returned to something their former selves would have once considered a nightmare, but now they laugh in its face and run it off. However, ROTK already felt a bit bogged down at the end, it would have been hard to find a place to put it, and it would have messed with the pacing of the film. Like Akwat said, it would have been pretty anti-climactic being shoved in after the climax of the film.

@ Akwat. I've always wanted to do an edit that follows the book chronology of events. Did you do that in yours?

In fact, since I am very ADHD and have a very hard time sitting through 3 hour plus long movies in one sitting, I've always wanted to edit all three extended editions of the LOTR films into 40-50 minute episodes like a television series, ordering and editing together each episode as closely as possible to chapters from the book (for example, for a whole episode we'd follow Frodo and Sam, rather than flipping back and forth between various character's stories every few minutes as done in the films. Also wanted to add a brief title intro to make them feel authentic.

Watching The Hobbit has kind of re-sparked my interest in doing something like this, only now with the three Hobbit films as season one of the series. I'd be a lot of work though.

Akwat said:

Goblins and orcs are just two different names for the same creature. Cross an orc with a human, however, and you get a half-orc. Saruman's Uruk-Hai are a particular breed of half-orc that were stronger, smarter, and larger than regular orcs and could also withstand sunlight. Another product of Saruman's "orc husbandry" was a race called "goblin-men" which are only mentioned once or twice, and about whom very little is known. Most likely, they too were a specific breed of half-orc, distinct from both Uruk-Hai and from garden-variety half-orcs. (In the FOTR movie, Gandalf tells Elrond that the Uruk-Hai are a product of Saruman's cross-breeding orcs with goblin-men. I'm pretty sure, from a book standpoint, that this is erroneous.)

Ah, I knew of the few different breeds of half-orcs, but I thought goblin-men was used to describe Uruk-Hai when told from the perspective of characters who didn't know what a Uruk-Hai was. I took it as more of a descriptive name for something that appears to be a cross between an orc/goblin and a human (which of course, was a Uruk).

And yeah, I am sure the films saying they are a cross between goblin-men and orcs is entirely erroneous from the book standpoint. Clearly Jackson and Co made the decision to separate the species of goblins and orcs long before An Unexpected Journey.

I also hated the inclusion of the anachronistic golf and croquet references. I think the golf joke worked fine for the book, but in a film made to be a prequel to the Lord of the Rings movies, it was really out of place.

Ordinarily I would agree on this point. But seeing as how these references were straight out of the book, somehow I can't bring myself to fault them. I couldn't help but smile when I heard these references in the theatre.

I know they came from Tolkien, and I think they fit fine with the tone of the book just fine. I just fell they were something that made it fit poorly with the LOTR films. Leaving them out of the movie, when they left out so many other things, would have been preferable to me.

Is Kerr's edit decently edited? I'm not a huge fan of fanedits. The problem is anyone who has a computer can make one, and more often than not they are painfully amateurish and extremely poor quality.