[HN Gopher] Peter Jackson on how Tolkien stopped a Beatles LOTR ...
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Peter Jackson on how Tolkien stopped a Beatles LOTR film (2021)
Author : Caiero
Score : 62 points
Date : 2024-05-10 18:18 UTC (2 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.bbc.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.bbc.com)
| TillE wrote:
| A Hard Day's Night is great because it's basically just them
| goofing around. The rest of the Beatles films have their charms,
| but they're not actors. I really can't imagine that the idea was
| to do a straight LOTR adaptation, it must have been some kind of
| parody. The whole appeal of the Beatles on screen is that they're
| funny.
| dhosek wrote:
| No doubt, Help! also fits into the Beatles goofing off schema,
| and I think a Beatles LotR would be similar, but admit it, it
| would be fun, like the 1967 version of Casino Royale.
| tetris11 wrote:
| _Yesterday_ painted them as literal Gods, instead of just
| decent musicians at the right place at the right time.
|
| To this day I go out of my way to ward people away from that
| terrible film.
| vips7L wrote:
| I thought that movie was fun for what it was.
| arnavpraneet wrote:
| Did we watch the same movie? It was more about their cultural
| impact than painting them as gods
| dhosek wrote:
| On a related note, Let It Be was just re-released via Disney+ a
| week or so ago. It's a bit redundant in the wake of Jackson's Get
| Back, and it was interesting to see what Lindsay-Hogg did with
| the material, but I have to say it was generally inferior to Get
| Back in just about every way.
| lchengify wrote:
| This only would have worked if it was animated. The 1977 Hobbit
| film which was produced for NBC [1] was a excellent adaptation,
| and Yellow Submarine is in the same style. I would argue Yellow
| Submarine also has many of the same themes, if not more absurdist
| than fantasy.
|
| Also fun fact I just realized you can stream Yellow Submarine for
| free on archive.org [2]
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hobbit_(1977_film)
|
| [2] https://archive.org/details/yellow-submarine-1968_film
| jl6 wrote:
| How is that film just available for free like that?
| ghaff wrote:
| Presumably because no one's made them take it down.
| dudinax wrote:
| Almost any released movie of any note, and a great many of no
| note are available for free.
| KineticLensman wrote:
| > The 1977 Hobbit film which was produced for NBC [1] was a
| excellent adaptation
|
| I've not seen the 1977 Hobbit film, but I note that your
| reference [1] prominently says: "The Tolkien scholar Douglas A.
| Anderson called the adaptation "execrable"; the author Baird
| Searles called it an "abomination" and an attempt that had
| "failed miserably", regretting the quality of the animation and
| of the soundtrack, and the omission of key plot points."
| ianbicking wrote:
| The 1977 Hobbit has its issues, but having watched it
| recently I feel like it does well with capturing the vibe of
| the book, especially the first half (it does really fall
| apart later). I personally find Peter Jackson's version of
| the Hobbit unwatchable for the same reason... he takes the
| LOTR vibe and imposes it onto a much more innocent story.
| aiforecastthway wrote:
| The thing that I like about the Hobbit 77 film is that it
| realizes the material is a child's fantasy book. It's a
| breath of fresh air in a our current era -- where VCs seem to
| understand that any attempt to profit off of the American
| taxpayer's defense spending requires some Tolkien reference
| in the company name.
|
| The existence of the '77 animated adaptation is our last
| reminder that the Generals green-lighting all this spend are
| literally mid-witted man-children.
| Affric wrote:
| The Beatles had nothing to do with the production of Yellow
| Submarine apart from money until the end.
| pityJuke wrote:
| (2021)
|
| Noticed the Weta Digital mention and was very confused
| karaterobot wrote:
| > "Ultimately, they couldn't get the rights from Tolkien, because
| he didn't like the idea of a pop group doing his story. So it got
| nixed by him. They tried to do it. There's no doubt about it.
|
| I'm a Beatles fan. Tolkien was right to be skeptical, it would
| have been terrible. No doubt in my mind: campy, perfunctory,
| self-mocking. Please recall how "nerd" material was treated
| before the 2000s, if you'd like some precedent for what this
| would have looked like.
| dudinax wrote:
| Sure, but it's wrong that he was able to stop it.
|
| We lost what could have been an interesting piece of art.
|
| We should have more adaptations in the world not fewer.
| rcstank wrote:
| It's his own creation. He had every right to stop it. I don't
| see how this is wrong at all.
| drob wrote:
| He owns the IP, but we all lose out from this system.
|
| Art has asymmetric upside - bad art doesn't really harm
| anyone (usually just gets forgotten) but good art enriches
| millions of people's lives.
|
| It might have been amazing. It might have been bad-but-
| interesting. We'll never know!
| kayodelycaon wrote:
| [delayed]
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| If it would have been done poorly, no one might have
| funded Jackson, it's hard to judge in hindsight.
| Drunk_Engineer wrote:
| They wanted Kubrick to direct, so it could have been a serious
| effort (Kubrick declined).
| api wrote:
| I'm not 100% sure Tolkien is right for Kubrick. Maybe but I'd
| be concerned that he'd make it a little too ponderous and
| symbolic. He'd nail the spooky dark aura around the ring
| though. But with the Beatles? Nah no way.
|
| Peter Jackson's adaptation was so authentic it looked at
| places just like my mental imagery looked as I was reading
| the book. That's a tough thing to pull off in and of itself.
|
| Spielberg would have made it campy. Lynch would have made it
| surreal, might have been cool but like his Dune would be a
| weird cult film take. (I like Lynch's Dune but it's weird.)
|
| For some reason I think Ridley Scott could have done it if he
| could have gotten his head out of sci fi.
| Keyframe wrote:
| Ridley Scott for sure could've worked in a collab env, like
| he did with Spartacus (yeah, he distanced himself from it
| though). If you're interested in how Ridley Scott version
| might've looked like, look no further than Legend.
| Drunk_Engineer wrote:
| Kubrick did Spartacus (I think you meant to say). Kingdom
| of Heaven might be a better example from Ridley Scott.
| bombcar wrote:
| One of Jackson's smartest move was hiring all the various
| Tolkien illustrators to work on set design mockups. Really
| made everything feel right for many people.
| usrusr wrote:
| I really think you are right, but there's a contrarian part of
| me now imagining something that is almost identical with that
| Ballad of Bilbo Baggins video that was allegedly forced on
| Leonard Nimoy by terrible TV producers, magically turned good
| through the Beatles touch.
|
| Who knows, as unlikely as it certainly is, perhaps knowledge of
| the Nimoy TV sequence was what made Tolkien protect The Beatles
| from embarrassing themselves on middle earth.
| Animats wrote:
| Yes. The breakthrough was "Batman", 1989, which redefined the
| fantasy/superhero genre. Before that, fantasy/superhero stuff
| was silly, unrealistic, or both. "Batman" changed that.
|
| Of course, where that got us was franchises with endless
| sequels.
| ants_everywhere wrote:
| I don't know, the Peter Jackson LOTR seems to owe a great deal
| to the 1973 Ralph Bakshi animated version. Some shots are
| nearly identical. And 1973 < 2000.
| karaterobot wrote:
| Well, I disagree with you about the non-camp quality of the
| 1978 Ralph Bakshi _Lord of the Rings_ , but even if that were
| true, are you saying that changes the track record of SF and
| fantasy movies in that period?
| duxup wrote:
| Wish we knew what that even would have been like. Did they really
| imagine a 60s/70s stylized LOTR with more modern music?
|
| Had they gotten the rights, would it even have been made?
| jmbwell wrote:
| This was my question. The article mentioned the project was
| proposed by a producer. I gather the Beatles at the time were
| throwing money into all kinds of things that would go nowhere.
| I could see this as an earnest attempt to make the film, but
| also as an attempt to lock in access to the funding, rights to
| future works, who knows what else from a business perspective.
| Buying things just because it would be cool to have them. Let
| someone else figure out the details...
| VelesDude wrote:
| I wonder if they would have gone down the path of many bands in
| the late 60s and have those long spoken word poetry stretches.
| That said, thanks to things like that I do love how often you
| see Michael Moorecocks name popping up.
| cyclecount wrote:
| Article is from 2021
| s_dev wrote:
| The real tragedy is we'll never know how Guilermo Del Toro's
| version of The Hobbit would have turned out. Studio screwed up
| scheduling and had to get Jackson back in.
| prpl wrote:
| If it only it was Led Zeppelin instead
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