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findemaxam48
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Post Interesting Hobbit Movie Facts and Trivia!
on: May 15, 2014 12:21
Hey all!


I found a ton of interesting fun facts about the two Hobbit movies and thought I would share them with you so It didn't look like I was frittering my time away on Google...

1-The only time Legolas blinks is when he realizes he has been wounded. This is in keeping with the character, as the only time Legolas blinks in the Lord of the Rings trilogy is when he is strongly surprised.
2-At the beginning of the movie, Peter Jackson repeats his cameo as carrot eating bystander in Bree. He previously had a similar cameo in The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001).
3-Benedict Cumberbatch suggested to read the Necromancer's Black Speech backwards to make it sound diabolic and unholy.
4-Bombur doesn't speak for the entire movie.
5-As the company has entered Beorn's house, Dori (Mark Hadlow) tells Ori (Adam Brown) to stay away from the door, and then says: "It's not natural. None of it." This is the exact same quote as Samwise Gamgee (Sean Astin) says to Frodo Baggins (Elijah Wood) after climbing down their Elvish rope in the beginning of The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (2002).
6-Orlando Bloom is two years older than Lee Pace who plays his father, King Thranduil.
7-It took one processor-week to render a scale from Smaug's body. In other words, if a single computer processor were used, each scale would have taken a week to render. Fortunately, Weta Digital used a large server farm of multi-processor machines for its effects rendering.
8-Aside from providing the voice of Smaug, Benedict Cumberbatch also supplied motion-capture performance to portray the dragon. However, since Smaug's body is impossible to motion-capture fully, only Cumberbatch's face, upper body and arms were captured and the rest of the body was completed in keyframe animation.
9-After the barrel riding sequence, as the Orcs continue to search for the Dwarves, one of them dips his finger into a pool of blood on the ground and tastes it, spitting in disgust and says "Dwarf blood!". This mimics a scene from The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (2002) where Gimli dips his finger in a similar fashion into some blood left on some leaves and tastes it, only to spit out in disgust and say "Orc blood!"
10-Laketown is also called Esgaroth by dwarves and elves. Esgaroth is a word that means "bed of reed".
11-During filming, Ian McKellen had to spend hours in a box with nothing but a microphone and pictures of the dwarves for company (the footage would be edited in to make him look taller than the dwarves), and was so upset by this that he exclaimed "This is not why I became an actor!" The microphone was still on and everyone on set heard him as a result.
12-Benedict Cumberbatch studied iguanas and Komodo dragons at the London Zoo's Reptilian House to prepare for the voice of Smaug, aiming for a tone that would "bridge between animal and human, a deep and rasping guttural dryness to the voice."
This mystery is solved...

13-Thranduil's sudden scars reflect a little-emphasized facet of Tolkien's lore: elves' "Fëa" (a metaphysical concept analogous translatable as "soul" occasionally influences the "Hröa" (the fleshly, physical body), particularly under moments of extreme stress. This can manifest as extreme physical changes that reflect the mind's state, in this case deep war scars. In addition, according to Tolkien's texts and books, the last battle where Thranduil fought was the last alliance at the end of the Second Age (about three millennia ago), where Sauron was defeated. The scars, a creative liberty of the writers, represent a symbol of Thranduil's endurance by war.

14-In a midnight screening in São Paulo, Brazil, one of the cinema's speakers broke after Smaug's first roar.
15-Martin Freeman and the Elvish actors all play characters who cannot grow facial hair. The actors, however, not only grew facial hair, but had a complete five o'clock shadow by the end of a day's filming, even if they were clean-shaved at the beginning of the day. This shadow appears blue on film. Rather than shave repeatedly during the day, the actors had orange make-up applied, which canceled out the blue shadow.
16-Orlando Bloom performed all his own stunts.
17-The roles of Sigrid and Tilda, the daughters of Bard, are played by Peggy Nesbitt and Mary Nesbitt, the daughters of James Nesbitt (Bofur).
18-Bilbo steals the keys to the prison from an Elf addressed as Elros. Elros is also the name of Elrond's brother. The two brothers had both human and Elvish ancestry on both their mother's and father's side, and as such were perfectly half-Elf and half-Man. While Elrond chose to be an immortal Elf, Elros chose to become a mortal man. He thus became the progenitor of the Numenorian race, and an ancestor of Aragorn.
19-The budding romance between Kili and Tauriel was not a part of the original footage shot in 2011-2012; it was added to "beef up" the second film during re-shoots in 2013.
Back with more in a bit!

-Maxie
We were one in the same, running like moths to the flame. You'd hang on every word I'd say, but now they only ricochet.
findemaxam48
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on: May 15, 2014 12:26
Round Two!
20-This is the only movie in the Lord of the Rings world to not feature Frodo and Gollum
21-The insult Thorin screams at Thranduil in Khuzdul basically translates as "I dump my feces on your head." (Wonderful.)
22-Lawrence Makoare, who plays Bolg, played the Uruk-Hai's leader Lurtz in The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001), and Witch-King of Angmar and the Orcs' leader Gothmog in The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003).
23-Originally Doug Jones was meant to play King Thranduil, but Peter Jackson cast Lee Pace, of whom he was a big admirer since watching Pace's film The Fall (2006).
24-Martin Freeman and Benedict Cumberbatch filmed their roles while on hiatus from Sherlock (2010). Stephen Fry played Sherlock's brother Mycroft in Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows (2011), while Christopher Lee played Sherlock in Sherlock Holmes and the Leading Lady (1991) Sir Henry Baskerville in The Hound of the Baskervilles (1959), and Mycroft Holmes in The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes (1970), which also featured Robert Stephens (Aragorn on BBC Radio) as Holmes.
25-To prepare for the role of Tauriel, Evangeline Lilly underwent training for swordplay and archery, as well as studying the Elvish language.
26-Jed Brophy appears in The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (2012) and The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug (2013) as Nori. His son Sadwyn Brophy appeared as Eldarion in The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003).
27-A pair of Megaloceras (Irish elk) antlers flanks the Elf king's throne.
28-At one point, Bilbo and the company of Dwarves arrive at Laketown, which was mentioned in a conversation between an aging Bilbo (Ian Holm) to Frodo (Elijah Wood) in Rivendell, in The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001).
29-The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (2012) and this film, its sequel, wrapped on July 6, 2012 after 266 days of principal photography.
30-Christopher Lee (Saruman) commented that he would have loved to voice the dragon Smaug in a film adaptation of 'The Hobbit'.
31-Robert Kazinsky was cast as Fili and had filmed a few scenes, but left the project and returned to England about a month after filming started due to personal reasons. He was replaced by Dean O'Gorman.
32-Luke Evans (Bard the Bowman)'s performance was dedicated to Paul Walker, who he co-stared with in "Fast & Furious 6"
33-While the novel and the previous film are mostly told through Bilbo's point of view, this film shifts the perspective to mainly Gandalf and Thorin with little involvement from Bilbo in many major scenes.
34-According to WETA VFXpert Joe Letteri, classic European and Asian dragons (particularly the European wyvern) served as inspirations to design Smaug.
35-Both Lee Pace (Thranduil) and Luke Evans have been the lead in a fantasy epic directed by Tarsem Singh.
36-There is a fan theory that the Arkenstone is actually one of the lost Silmarils, from Tolkien's "The Silmarilion." Changes in the visual design of the Arkenstone from how it is described in the book seem to indicate Peter Jackson (or one of his design team) subscribe to that theory.
37-Evangeline Lilly (Tauriel) briefly dated her Lost co-star Dominic Monaghan, who played Merry in the Lord of the Rings series.
38-Alan Lee: The conceptual designer appears as one of the musicians, when some of the Dwarves and Bilbo leave Laketown. He also appeared as one of the 9 kings of men in the intro of The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001).
39-Katie Jackson: as the barmaid serving Thorin and Gandalf at The Prancing Pony
40-
According to Kili, the black stone he carries was a gift from his mother to remind him of his promise to return to her. When he is looking at it in Thranduil's dungeons, runes can be seen on it, which translate as "inikhde", a word in Khuzdul (the dwarvish language, created by Tolkien) which means "return to me".
And next for round three!
We were one in the same, running like moths to the flame. You'd hang on every word I'd say, but now they only ricochet.
findemaxam48
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on: May 15, 2014 12:30
41-Gloin takes great insult that the portrait of his bearded wife is mistaken for being his brother. In the extended edition of The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (2002), his son Gimli notes that Dwarf women are often mistaken for men, on account of the beards.

42-When Bilbo first confronts the dragon Smaug, he explains who he is in various nicknames. He says that he comes from "under hill" to which Smaug replies, "Underhill?". This is the name by which Frodo Baggins covered his true identity "The Lord of the Rings" as per Gandalf's request.

43- Thranduil makes it clear that he doesn't consider Tauriel to be worthy of his son, Legolas, but the film avoids explaining why. In the books, it is established that the wood-elves of Mirkwood are Silvan, but Thranduil and his family are Sindar ('Grey Elves'), a more noble ruling class of elves. This difference is also alluded to in the film by the fact that Thranduil and Legolas are blonde, while all the other Mirkwood elves have darker hair ( although Legolas' hair colour was never declared in the books).
44-When Bilbo puts on the Ring in the black forest of Mirkwood, he can understand the giant spiders. In The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001), Frodo could hear the Nazgul when both met in the Weathertop.

45-The Arkenstone in this film is presented as a symbol of Dwarf kingship. In the novel, it was just a family heirloom.

46-When Legolas fights against Bolg and the rest of Orcs in Laketown, he uses Thorin's sword ("Orcrist", the Goblin-cleaver), which he kept after disarming Thorin and the Dwarf company when they were captured in Mirkwood.
We were one in the same, running like moths to the flame. You'd hang on every word I'd say, but now they only ricochet.
~nólemë~
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Post Interesting Hobbit Movie Facts and Trivia!
on: May 15, 2014 01:57
findemaxam48 said:
13-Thranduil's sudden scars reflect a little-emphasized facet of Tolkien's lore: elves' "Fëa" (a metaphysical concept analogous translatable as "soul" occasionally influences the "Hröa" (the fleshly, physical body), particularly under moments of extreme stress. This can manifest as extreme physical changes that reflect the mind's state, in this case deep war scars.


Interesting. I wasn't aware this was mentioned in Tolkien's texts. Can you provide the source?
---------- Image "If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world." J.R.R. Tolkien - The Hobbit
Gandolorin
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Post Interesting Hobbit Movie Facts and Trivia!
on: May 16, 2014 11:54
findemaxam48 said:Hey all!
18-Bilbo steals the keys to the prison from an Elf addressed as Elros. Elros is also the name of Elrond's brother. The two brothers had both human and Elvish ancestry on both their mother's and father's side, and as such were perfectly half-Elf and half-Man.
-Maxie

Nonononono!
Elros and Elrond's parents were Eärendil and Elwing.
Eärendil is the son of Tuor and Idril, daughter of Turgon King of Gondolin, a Noldor, so he is half Man, half Elf.
Elwing is the Daughter of Nimloth, a Sindarin Elf of Doriath, and Dior, son of Beren, a Man, and Lúthien Tinúviel.
Lúthien is the daughter of King Thingol (one of the three ambassadors of the Elves to Aman and thus a Teleri light Elf) and Melian the Maia (!).

So just taking Human, Elf and Maia as categories, these brothers are:
37.5% (3/8ths or 6/16ths) Human
56.25% (9/16ths) Elf
6.25% (1/16th) Maia

If anyone REALLY has too much time on their hands, you could also factor in that the Elf side includes Noldor, Teleri and Sindar, and don't forget that Beren is descended from one line of the Edain (Atani), while Tuor is two generations down and descended from the same line as Beren as well as from a second line of the Edain.

Have fun!
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Cenor
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on: May 18, 2014 03:17
My mom and I wonder where Legolas got the horse so he could chase Bolg.
Image "Every good pirate has an alias" Felix glanced down, looking at contraption around the stump of his wrist. "Hook," he answered. "My name will be Hook."
tarcolan
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on: May 18, 2014 05:11
He booked it in advance, Cenor. Through Hortz Rentals.
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findemaxam48
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on: June 06, 2014 05:29
tarcolan said:He booked it in advance, Cenor. Through Hortz Rentals.


Naturally. Where else would he have gotten it?
We were one in the same, running like moths to the flame. You'd hang on every word I'd say, but now they only ricochet.
Elfeawen Lomiondil
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Post Interesting Hobbit Movie Facts and Trivia!
on: May 27, 2015 05:04
~nólemë~ said:
findemaxam48 said:
13-Thranduil's sudden scars reflect a little-emphasized facet of Tolkien's lore: elves' "Fëa" (a metaphysical concept analogous translatable as "soul" occasionally influences the "Hröa" (the fleshly, physical body), particularly under moments of extreme stress. This can manifest as extreme physical changes that reflect the mind's state, in this case deep war scars.


Interesting. I wasn't aware this was mentioned in Tolkien's texts. Can you provide the source?


I would love to know the answer to this. Actually, it dosn't matter to me whether it came from Tolkien or the filmakers, because it is such a fascinating idea and much better than the explanations I had.
"There shall be war between the Children of Iluvatar and the Ainu Melko. What if we perish in our quest? The dark halls of Vê be little worse than this bright prison" ~ Fëanor
findemaxam48
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on: May 28, 2015 06:34
I saw reference to it in Unfinished Tales.

Once again, I have no idea of the validity of these facts. They came from the internet, which may not be the most accurate source of information.
We were one in the same, running like moths to the flame. You'd hang on every word I'd say, but now they only ricochet.
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