The Silmarillion

who would like peter Jackson to direct The Silmarillion in the future ?????

That's a non-starter, for a number of reasons. One is that PJ has never read the Silmarillion and it's absolutely not his style. He's done with Middle-Earth now and didn't even want to direct The Hobbit but circumstances made it necessary when Del Toro dropped out.

The other reason is that the film rights to the Silmarillion will not be available for a long time. They are not for sale and the book will not go into the public domain till nearly the end of this century, so no commercial film can be made.

However, there is a fan film being made of part of the Silmarillion. It may be pretty good:

http://www.theonering.net/torwp/2013/10/11/79490-theres-going-to-be-a- storm-over-gondolin/

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Storm-over-Gondolin/475172875883950

You can see the first production video blog here:

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x1503vh_storm-over-gondolin-video-dia ry-1_shortfilms

I'd LOVE that to happen. Hope it becomes a reality.

"Here are beauties which pierce like swords or burn like cold iron"-C.S. Lewis on LotR

Not me, it's one of my fave books but I have virtually zero interest in seeing it adapted-you would have to rewrite, invent or change so much material for it to connect with the average moviegoer and Jackson's prior films (virtually everything that connects The Sil to LOTR was missed out in the films) it would scarcely resemble Tolkien's book (which as we know it isn't exactly- a posthumously edited hodgepodge of various drafts Tolkien spent his entire life working on)-in that case what is the point?, why not write your own script if the material or existing audience isn't commercial enough?.

Frankly for all his skill as a filmmaker I don't think Jackson has the right visual style or understanding of Tolkien the book deserves (from Tolkien's perspective at least)-Peter Jackson has admitted in interviews he read LOTR once more than 20 years prior before getting the film rights, and he is 'enjoying deviating from the book of The Hobbit', whilst Phillpa Boyens the co writer on the film and supposed Tolkien expert admitted in an interview she hasn't read The Silmarillion in 26 years because she would find it too upsetting to not have access to the material-she didn't seem fussed about reading it on its own merits in the decade prior to her being hired for LOTR (Of course the relevance of such material to the LOTR films is another matter).

If it HAD to be made I'd rather see a new director do a fresh spin on things, hopefully being more respectful to the religious and moral basis of Tolkien's sources in the process, or at least doing something bold enough to match the imagery and style of the source material.

Personally I wouldn't want to see a three hour action film about Feanor doing backflips whilst wrestling Balrogs, and I quite like retaining my own images, even if the films could end up being great on their own merits.

This best sums up my feelings:

I found this in a interview last year, always stuck with me

You mentioned the rights issues with adapting The Silmarillion as a series of films. If the Tolkien estate were amenable to such an endeavor, do you think its numerous stories would translate well to film? Are there any stories from The Silmarillion that you’d personally like to see adapted?

I think adapting any portion of The Silmarillion would be substantially more complicated–and controversial–than adapting The Hobbit was. The Biblical tone of much of the work is likely untranslatable to film, as is the sense of narrative remove and the vast swaths of time involved. I think an adaptation of The Silmarillion that is true to the superlative creative core of that specific text, while also in keeping with Tolkien’s broader vision of Middle Earth, would probably look something like Terrence Malick’s The Tree of Life (2011)–in other words, it would require experimental shooting and narrative techniques and would be panned by most of those inclined to enjoy Hollywood’s present, big-budget take on the epic. So much of what seems dry and factual on the page would need to be presented as ethereal and impressionistic on the silver screen, and I don’t think Tolkien fans would have the patience for it.

To the extent the stories of The Silmarillion are, in situ, a mythological haze that hangs invisibly over Middle Earth–reified in song and statue, yes, but never touched, in their essence, except in the waking and sleeping visions of individual dwarves, elves, goblins, orcs, wizards, and men–you wouldn’t want to falsely crystallize them into what could easily look like a Middle Earth documentary. Shall we tell the story of the Founding of the World as though it were the Battle of the Pelennor Fields? Reimagine Valinor using a simply more sumptuous version of the existing Rivendell set? Can we speak of the beings in The Silmarillion, let alone portray them in film, as just grander versions of the Heroes of the Fellowship? No; if you’re going to cast a film almost entirely with gods, godlike creatures, and legendary personae, you have to employ a visual style that establishes these entities and the events they produce and move through as being somehow beyond our immediate understanding. Jackson would likely not be the appropriate director for such a work, as too many expectations incongruous with such an adaptation already attach, even now, to his projects. We would need, instead, a director, and a screenwriter, with whom our expectations would run much closer to what we’d call an “art house film.”

So I guess I’d say that, failing those prerequisites being met, I don’t think I’d want to see The Silmarillion adapted at all. And so I can’t predict which stories from the book I’d most want to see adapted, as the style of adaptation I’d consider most appropriate would constitute an artistic vision well beyond (at least in cinematic terms) my present understanding or my ability to anticipate.

And this:

http://nerdalicious.com.au/books/why-peter-jackson-will-never-film-the -silmarillion/


Purely my thoughts, it's all a moot point for now and presumably the next few decades anyway so sorry for the rambling rant.

sorry for the rambling rant.

No, thank you, it was most interesting. Who was being interviewed in the passage you cited?

That passage was taken from page three of this interview:

http://philadelphiareviewofbooks.com/2013/01/31/an-unexpected-trilogy- part-three-out-of-the-frying-pan-onto-the-screen/.

I don't think The Simarillion movie would work, however I think he should make a movie on The Tale of Beren and Luthien...

Loriginal #26

Ya, but I think J.J Abrams should do it when he is done with Star Wars.

That would be awesome maybe in 90 years from now some1 will :( :P

I'm Driving on the Grim Reaper Highway, no regrets i do it my way