Jackson & The Hobbit

Posted on December 20, 2003    Posted by John Scalzi

One last thought on the whole Jackson/Tolkien thing. On the off-chance the Tolkien estate deigns to allow Peter Jackson to do a version of The Hobbit (which seems unlikely as Christopher Tolkien appears to dislike the films and is not inclined to allow a filmed version of The Hobbit), I think Jackson should consider doing the whole thing CG. The WETA folks showed with Gollum that they can make incredibly realistic and effecting CG characters, and even the best-case scenario for The Hobbit (in which the Tolkien Estate relents tomorrow and allows a film version — and allows Jackson to do it), he wouldn’t be able to do much with it until 2005, by which time computing processing will have taken yet another jump and the WETA folks themselves will have gotten more adept, what with working on King Kong and all. I wouldn’t expect it to be cheap, but at this point, money’s not an object. It’s not like Jackson hasn’t shown that he’s up for a challenge when it comes to working in film. And he’s shown that he doesn’t let effects get in the way of actually telling a story. So why not?