Movie of "The Hobbit" coming your way in 2012!
Or so this article says: http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/36836470/ns/today-entertainment/
I'll be delighted if it's as good as the LOTR movies. My main questions are:
1) Will the goblins still get those quirky songs of theirs? Like "Down, down, to Goblin-Town!" and "Fifteen birds in five fir-trees!" Siome think them corny, but to me they actually do a fine job of getting across the evil of the goblins. Villain songs may be a dime a dozen these days in films, but there's just such an over the top cheeriness to the songs the goblins sing about working people to death or burning them alive.
2) Will the Mirkwood spiders still be speaking, or will they just be mindless monsters? I actually prefer the chatty and sometimes bitchy spiders of the original: "Quite right, friend. That meat's alive and kicking!" (said after the spiders web up the dwarves and one bites Bombur's nose, only to get kicked off its branch.)
3) Most important of all... who can possibly voice Smaug the Golden? I loved the Rankin-Bass version of him as a child, and I want to feel that same thrill along my spine when he first speaks. "Well, thief! I smell you, feel your air, and hear your breath..."
Or, "Revenge? You? HAH! I am SMAUG! My armor is like tenfold shields, my teeth are like swords, my claws spears! The shock of my tail is a thunderbolt, my wings a hurricane, and my breath... is DEATH!"
And, "Barrel-rider! Thieving Lakeman! I don't know if your pony was named Barrel, but I do know that those Lakemen had a hand in this. It is time I visited them and reminded them who is the real King under the Mountain!"
I've actually heard Gilbert Gottfried listed as a voice for Smaug. Please let it be wrong. Iago the Parrot as the greatest dragon that ever lived? May it not be!
I'll be delighted if it's as good as the LOTR movies. My main questions are:
1) Will the goblins still get those quirky songs of theirs? Like "Down, down, to Goblin-Town!" and "Fifteen birds in five fir-trees!" Siome think them corny, but to me they actually do a fine job of getting across the evil of the goblins. Villain songs may be a dime a dozen these days in films, but there's just such an over the top cheeriness to the songs the goblins sing about working people to death or burning them alive.
2) Will the Mirkwood spiders still be speaking, or will they just be mindless monsters? I actually prefer the chatty and sometimes bitchy spiders of the original: "Quite right, friend. That meat's alive and kicking!" (said after the spiders web up the dwarves and one bites Bombur's nose, only to get kicked off its branch.)
3) Most important of all... who can possibly voice Smaug the Golden? I loved the Rankin-Bass version of him as a child, and I want to feel that same thrill along my spine when he first speaks. "Well, thief! I smell you, feel your air, and hear your breath..."
Or, "Revenge? You? HAH! I am SMAUG! My armor is like tenfold shields, my teeth are like swords, my claws spears! The shock of my tail is a thunderbolt, my wings a hurricane, and my breath... is DEATH!"
And, "Barrel-rider! Thieving Lakeman! I don't know if your pony was named Barrel, but I do know that those Lakemen had a hand in this. It is time I visited them and reminded them who is the real King under the Mountain!"
I've actually heard Gilbert Gottfried listed as a voice for Smaug. Please let it be wrong. Iago the Parrot as the greatest dragon that ever lived? May it not be!