Viggo Hasn't Heard Anything on 'The Hobbit'

We all know that The Hobbit is a mere three years away, under the direction of Guillermo Del Toro, with Del Toro and Peter Jackson co-writing. And at this point, we know as much as Viggo Mortensen."I haven’t heard anything," admits Aragorn. "I met [Guillermo] once years ago," he tells MTV, insisting he's had no contact ever since. Last year, the 49-year-old Mortensen said he'd love to be a part of The Hobbit series, but unlike Ian McKellen, he hasn't gone out of his way to sew up a contract. "Ian is very proactive. He’s been banging that drum!" Viggo jokes. "It was a very important project to all of us and especially to him I think. He wants to make sure Gandalf is in there and in there early! I’m going to cross that bridge when I get to it." It has been pretty busy for Viggo since being crowned King. He's made A History of Violence, nabbed a well-deserved Oscar nomination for Eastern Promises, and has more movies than anybody this fall, with Appaloosa opening in the major cities this weekend, plus the highly-anticipated The Road, the Nazi-era drama Good, and the documentary Spirit Riders. But he still has hope that he'll be asked to come back to Middle Earth. "Obviously...I would rather have the chance to play that role myself since I originated it on film than have someone else do it."

Comments

[Lengthy Johnson]

The last time I read The Hobbit, Aragorn wasn't in it.

[Orinn]

Yes what percentage of people actual red the books for these movies?
Would they ever really know what was change?

[John M.]

It has been several years since I've read the Hobbit, but if I remember correctly, Bilbo was still a fairly young and adventurous hobbit at the time of the story. Once he possessed the ring, his aging slowed. In the Lord of the Rings, once he passed possession on to Frodo, he aged very quickly into an old hobbit. This would suggest that a long span of time had passed between The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. If this holds true, then Aragorn would not have even been born or would have been very young during the time of the Hobbit. So even if they could somehow come up with an alternate story line that places Aragorn in the The Hobbit, how would it make since for Viggo to play that part? It sounds to me like they are already trying to figure out how to ruin the story. Maybe Viggo can play the voice of the Dragon. It had some dialog didn't it?

[Get The Big Picture]

I think it's in the stories Tolkien wrote between The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings and they're being used for the second movie, to help bridge the franchises. I would suspect they'd throw a couple scenes in the first film just to make the connection and then draw them out in the second film.

[Lengthy Johnson]

Not being a Tolkienologist, I am not aware of any fully developed bridge story between the Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. There are of course some fleeting references to the intervening years in the trilogy.

I don't really like the idea of a bridge story anyway. The Hobbit has a lot of content and could actually use two full-length films for a faithful adaptation.

The Bridge story is quite simply that nothing much happens until Gandalf shows up to test the ring.

I do hope that Jackson and del Toro know what they are doing so we don't get another bastardisation of Tolkien's stories.

I did get very concerned that the writing team behind LotR would pen the screenplays for the prequels, considering that the script is the real weakness of the trilogy films.

I guess we must hope for the best and prepare for the worst.

[Doug Hall]

Maybe the reason Viggo hasn't heard anything is because Aragorn isn't in there.

I have only read The Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings. I've never read The Silmarillion or anything else. But as I also recall, Aragorn isn't in the Hobbit.

I'm disappointed they didn't make The Hobbit sooner and that apparently Ian Holm won't reprise Bilbo. Nice that Ian McKellan is back as Gandalf though. I just checked online to confirm and I should also mention that Elrond is in the book as well; probably briefly, but it would be nice to get Hugo Weaving back as Elrond.

Haven't read how LOTR movies were one per book and The Hobbit rates 2 movies... but at 4hrs, the LOTR movies could be argued to be 2 movies per book as well.

[Radio_chango]

i think the up coming movies are going to be great, despite the comments about aragorn, i asure that all fans will be delighted with the idea of see aragorn and many of the heroes in another movie (even an apocryphal script, even the purists) however i think they cant indeed place Aragorn in the hobbit, but Legolas can perfectly be there in Thranduil realm and Gimli replaicing Gloin (a youth Gloin) we need to remeber that the films are just an interpetation of a bunch of fans and we MUST remember that they did a flawless job even if they cheat a bit, so we can suffer a film with the king elessar and Co. and cheer it, well, i think we can.

Namarie

[Viktoria]

In fact, Aragorn per se isn't in The Hobbit - but his people are mentioned in a few passages. If I remember correctly, Bilbo was 50 years old when he set out to kill Smaug the dragon with Gandalf and 13 dwarves. When he leaves the ring to Frodo, he is 111 years old. This means that between the two stories, roughly sixty years went by. In the third LotR movie, Aragorn says he is 87 years old (he is a Dunedain and is blessed with longevity - he looks younger than his age and lives longer than a human). This means that when Bilbo went on his first adventure, Aragorn was already a 27-year old young man. This also means that, when Bilbo went to Rivendell in The Hobbit, Aragorn was in Rivendell as well. I wouldn't be surprised if in Tolkien's mind, Bilbo met Aragorn and even Arwen at that time, since Bilbo's party stayed in Rivendell almost a week.

The LotR trilogy strayed from the books in many ways. For example, there were wargs in The Return of the King - there were none in the book. These creatures were borrowed from The Hobbit. Also, Arwen didn't race the wraiths in the Fellowship - in the book, it was Haldir, whom we first see in The Return of the King movie (and in the book, he doesn't die, if memory serves). However, I don't feel any of these differences ruin anything. As you can judge just from this discussion, most people who have seen these movies have either never read the book or read it a long time ago and can't remember such details. So, it doesn't really make a difference if the filmmakers stray slightly from the book or not. The point is to create a fun movie experience, which I believe they have done with the trilogy.

If they do the same thing with The Hobbit, then I am sure I will have as much fun watching The Hobbit as I had watching LotR. And that's saying a lot, as Bilbo would say. ;)