Yes Elbereth, as Galin, with his usual positive slant put it, they have used materials from the Appendices and from what I've read online also from the Silmarillion.

For the record, there's nothing necessarily negative about noting that Jackson might be adding some measure of invented stuff if that is what he is doing -- noting too that I characterized this as a guess, considering an obviously invented character has been added in Tauriel.

And considering that even some Jackson fans have stated they would rather have had just the tale from The Hobbit too, I'm not sure that anyone reading my last post could necessarily tell if I was a Jackson fan or not.

Also for the record, the filmmakers don't have the legal right to use the Silmarillion -- meaning the book published in 1977 by Christopher Tolkien -- as opposed to something noted in The Lord of the Rings for example.

I just have a question and it is this one: how can it be that for this book someone had could made 3 films?

By the way, here are Jackson's statements, in which he mentions Tolkien's intent to revise The Hobbit a combined three times.

Peter Jackson said:

'He was toying with the idea of republishing The Hobbit as a rewritten book that would tie in to Lord of the Rings. That never really happened, but a lot of the material ended up in the appendices of the later editions of Return of the King.'

The '1960 Hobbit' was intended to be a notable revision of The Hobbit that would tie in better with The Lord of the Rings -- this never happened in the sense that Tolkien never finished this version (he didn't really come close).

But this is 1960 anyway -- thus well after the Appendices to The Lord of the Rings were already in print. Jackson here refers to 'later editions' of The Return of the King. Did he have an edition that lacked the complete appendices, and maybe might think that all first editions were like that?

In 1963 Tolkien wrote to Colonel Worskett that there are: 'quite a lot of links between The Hobbit and [The Lord of the Rings] that are not clearly set out. These were mostly written or sketched out, but cut out to lighten the boat: such as Gandalf's exploratory jouneys, his relations with Aragorn and Gondor; all the movements of Gollum until he took refuge in Moria.'

But Tolkien means that he lightened the boat for the published version of the Appendices in 1955, as for example, only a very abridged version of The Quest of Erebor was published in Durin's Folk, Appendix A.

Peter Jackson said in greater length:

'That goes back to JRR Tolkien writing The Hobbit first, for children, and only after did he develop his mythology much more over the 16 or 17 years later when The Lord of the Rings came out, which is way more epic and mythic and serious.

What people have to realize is we've adapted The Hobbit, plus taken this additional 125 pages of notes, that's what you'd call them. Because Tolkien himself was planning the rewrite The Hobbit after The Lord of the Rings, to make it speak to the story of The Lord of the Rings much more. In the novel, Gandalf disappears for various patches of time. In 1936, when Tolkien was writing that book, he didn't have a clue what Gandalf was doing. But later on, when he did The Lord of the Rings and he'd hit on this whole epic story, he was going to go back and revise The Hobbit and he wrote all these notes about how Gandalf disappears and was really investigating the possible return of Sauron, the villain from The Lord of the Rings. Sauron doesn't appear at all in The Hobbit. Tolkien was retrospectively fitting The Hobbit to embrace that mythology.

He never wrote that book, but there are 125 pages of notes published at the back of Return of the King in one of the later editions. It was called The Appendices, and they are essentially his expanded Hobbit notes. So we had the rights to those as well and were allowed to use them.' Said Jackson: 'We haven't just adapted The Hobbit; we've adapted that book plus great chunks of his appendices and woven it all together. The movie explains where Gandalf goes; the book never does. We've explained it using Tolkien's own notes. That helped inform the tone of the movie, because it allowed us to pull in material he wrote in The Lord of the Rings era and incorporate it with The Hobbit.'

And if Jackson is referring to the '1947 Hobbit' -- this did happen, as revisions to Gollum 'giving' Bilbo his ring, plus other changes, were published in the second edition of 1951. So it seems that Jackson doesn't mean this version.

Why not simply say something like: there is material in the Appendices to The Return of the King that can be related to The Hobbit and can be used to beef up the tale -- rather than referring to the Appendices as essentially 'expanded Hobbit notes' and repeatedly noting Tolkien's intent to revise The Hobbit in general.

Yes Tolkien wanted to revise The Hobbit to make it fit better with the world of The Lord of the Rings -- but that doesn't mean that anything found in the Appendices that could be related to Bilbo's tale was meant as part of a revision to the tale proper.

Of course no one knows how the 1960 Hobbit would have ended up, but again neither is there any evidence (that I know of) that Tolkien, at some point, meant to revise the story of The Hobbit in the significant way Jackson has chosen for the films.

My point was rather about Jackson's commentary, which, intended or not, might be seen as him trying to better justify what the filmmakers are doing.

Again, why not just say the filmmakers are drawing from the Appendices to give more background to The Hobbit? If any fan has a problem with adding to the actual tale of The Hobbit, drawing on the Appendices will at least be drawing on something Tolkien actually wrote.

But Jackson repeatedly mentions Tolkien's intent to revise the actual story of The Hobbit, and then he characterizes the Appendices as essentially Tolkien's expanded Hobbit notes -- seemingly the very 'notes' that Tolkien produced when he was 'toying with' a revision to The Hobbit itself.

Jackson's commentary, in my opinion, can misleadingly imply (without clarification) that what the filmmakers are doing is what Tolkien himself, at least at one point, intended to do.

But text meant for the Appendices to The Return of the King is not the same animal as text intended for a revised version of The Hobbit itself. And it can be noted that Tolkien revised The Hobbit, twice for publication, and never altered the story in the significant way the filmmakers are seemingly doing. 

And if Jackson is not trying to conflate things to better justify his version to fans, then I think he could use a brief lesson on the history of the works he says he loves so much, and in any case is choosing to comment about with the press.

Brego wrote: Sounds to me like your simply trying to add fuel to the fire Galin. Picking out quotes to prove what ever point your trying to make to an audience who should and will make up their minds after they see the film. Galin why don't you simply save your negativity until after the film and then you won't have to repeat yourself.

I'm not sure what this has to do with my recent two posts Brego, as they (my posts) are about Jackson's commentary, as I said -- and more specifically, about how Jackson describes, to the press, the external history of The Hobbit and the Appendices.

Nor are my last two posts even negative about what the filmmakers have chosen to do with the Appendices. 

Brego wrote: It has to do with your previous posts because they drip with passive aggressive negativity about the movies Galin.

The subject of my recent posts is Jackson's justification Brego. Please cite anything from the posts in question that say anything negative about the films. 

Or maybe respond to what I posted: for example, do you think Jackson's statement -- that the Appendices are essentially Tolkien's 'expanded Hobbit notes' -- is accurate?

And what revision to The Hobbit -- a revision that did not occur, according to the quote -- is Peter Jackson talking about? Again if he means the 1960 Hobbit, that was begun after the Appendices were in print.

Any comment on what my posts are actually about?

Brego wrote: Maybe you don't realise it, but your posts are always anti PJ, so why even pretend that they aren't.

Well I certainly wasn't pretending, as the posts in question have nothing negative to say about the films. And yes, these same posts do challenge Peter Jackson's statements about his justification for drawing from the Appendices, and I'm not pretending that they don't. Others have challenged the very same statements. 

I would think even Jackson fans who have read the books might wonder about characterizing the Appendices as essentially Tolkien's expanded Hobbit notes, for example.

Brego wrote: It's not the substance Galin its your negative negative attitude.

So you won't comment about the substance or content of my recent posts, nor cite anything negative in them about the films (that you claimed was there).

Why bother wasting time. We know your opinion on the films.

Why does anyone bother 'wasting time' once their opinion of the films is known? Or are you just trying to silence those with a different opinion?

 A new interview...

The story will be expanded with elements gleaned from the appendices in The Lord of the Rings, as well as some ideas of their own. Boyens says she was confident it could become three films on what they had already filmed, including how the characters had been brought to life. Even the first film, An Unexpected Journey, is "surprisingly emotional, even if it is a rollicking adventure", she says.

Boyens was also conscious of the fact the book has no female characters other than as background players. Galadriel – played again by Cate Blanchett – makes an appearance, but is a character from Tolkien's writings. But the fighting elf Tauriel, played by Canadian actor Evangeline Lilly, is from the imagination of Boyens, Jackson and Walsh. 'This is a decision where you move away from being a Tolkien fan and you have to be a fan of film.'

From an interview (now on the web) titled: 'Philippa Boyens: film powerplayer'

Ok boys, I think you've both made your arguments pretty clear. At this point you either agree or disagree.

I just want to add that I agree with both of you :p , but I think the LOTR movies made it clear that PJ isn't afraid to use those sort of overly sentimental gestures with ALL characters, romantic or not. Yet he never changed the story to make it acceptable to do so. So I think it's unfair to assume he WOULD do something so outrageous right off the bat. The thought is obviously there and, you never know, but I don't think it's fair to try and make it seem that way from a 1 second clip before the movie is even out...

Ok, back on the main topic. One thing I'm curious of is if he maybe took parts from the Book of Lost Tales and decided to use those. Of course I highly doubt it, but I can't help but wonder. For instance, more details on the White Council or maiar in general?

I'm also VERY curious to see what he does with the whole orcs/goblins dilemma. I don't think it's been said yet in a trailer?? If he goes with goblins it'll clearly confuse the hell out of the America, but if he goes with orcs, obviously that's just an injustice to the original. Let's see, so hypothetically, imagine the pre-published Hobbit compared to the Book of Lost Tales, had it been officially published instead of LOTR. We all know and love the Hobbit and the term elves, but technically elves were imagined as faeries! So would you rather he go with elves, a term we're all instantly familiar with, still love and respect AND maybe think is more fitting, or faeries, a term which can refer to several mythological creatures that only a small few would recognize? Considering it's a multi-million dollar international Hollywood release, I'm not holding my breath on goblins. But, they say goblins is what the Hobbits initially used to refer to orcs, so maybe since this was written in Bilbo's POV, we'll start with a flashback/appendix scene referring to orcs, but then they'll make it apparent this is Bilbo's story and NOT Frodo's, and he calls them Goblins. You never know!!!

What a terrible situation to be in as a director. This still confuddles even the most informed of Tolkien's followers! I love this article on the subject btw http://tolkien.cro.net/orcs/goblins.html

Honestly, with all this talk of the Hobbit, what I'm most excited about are the LOTR appendices. I loved those when I first read them and am dying to see how he supposedly uses them. I think I have so much faith here because it's a relatively short and easy to understand book put into 3 movies with a little backstory added in. Yeah it MIGHT be overkill, but we have no idea where he's going to go with it. To me it's reassuring that it looks like he's doing as much of the purist route as possible. Here's to optimism!!

Lastly, I still wonder what it'd be like if del Toro HAD directed it. To be completely honest, I'd be willing to bet it would be way less faithful than Peter Jackson's version. Would probably look really cool, but I dunno....

Sorry I don't know how to quote text from others!

But yes I was referring to the romance. I only read roughly 2 pages of that debate and couldn't take anymore so I jumped to this page and it seemed to still be going. Glad that was settled.

And actually I did mean Book of Lost Tales, as in the first two entries of HOME. Hence the faeries analogy later on. But I was using those two more as examples than specific references. And you're absolutely right they don't own those rights. That is, as of the filming the LOTR. Here we are 10 years and one (two?) court case later, which basically gave the Estate full rights to the films (including merchandising). SO, should someone from the estate want to add something in from the outer works, legally...they could. Or PJ could perhaps pitch it to one of them and they'd like the idea so much....I mean, sure they MIGHT have to pull a string or two, find a loophole here or there, but don't tell me you don't think it'd be awesome if PJ would pull little things from either of those works to help fill in random details, in an attempt to appeal to the hardcore Tolkien fans such as ourselves.

And I don't think the writer on that site was saying goblins is a slang term for orcs. His point was that it was only mentioned a few times in LOTR to refer to what were of course orcs. So he said it's a kind of slang, meaning another (lower case) word to refer to the same thing, though specifically in the LOTR books, not ME in general.

And two questions, but just out of curiosity where did you hear the filmmakers specifically say they're presenting a distinction between the two? And also where did you hear Tolkien say orc was used in Frodo's day? No problem, would just like to read it myself and can't find much about it.

I think the question that would answer it all was whether or not Tolkien was basing it off ME or his own....preferences. If it was the latter, then obviously it was simply because he liked orc more. But if it's the former, then the possibilities of why are near limitless... which I'd like to think is the case. If it were, it has to be a case of lost in translation. I think Orcrist is the perfect example. Orc is translated to goblins, thus goblin-cleaver. So it's sort of like the Bible. Over all these years and being passed down through so many generations of Middle Earth and being re-written in at least 4 languages, things were just sort of...mixed up, and here we are today with both.

...Or some goblin got a hold of it and thought it would be hilarious to confuse the crap out of everyone and changed it so all his clan mates were known as orcs instead.

I don't wholly agree with your last paragraph though. Nobody says Tolkien reverted to any anglicized words. All that means is it's the "English" version, the one we read in the book, of the Sindarin term Orch. Though you are definitely right the added -s is an anglicized element that doesn't really fit into Elvish etymology. And just to be nit picky, you said "For Bilbo's diary, the modern fictive translator (JRRT) did often substitute English 'goblin' for orc, and for The Lord of the Rings, in theory he left the word orc alone (but not in every instance)." I wouldn't say he often substituted goblin, when, at least in all the versions I've read, he in fact ONLY used goblin. :p

By the way I understand why the article suggests that orc has been anglicized from orch, because English does not have the -ch- sound as in German or Welsh (or Sindarin).

But that's not why we see the word orc in the book

Well I stopped searching for the filmmakers quote so I found it by accident. I had already posted it at Planet Tolkien too!

[from the new EMPIRE Hobbit issue]...

"Note that it's definitely goblins, here, not orcs. "There's a distinction," insists make-up and hair designer Peter King. Dan Hennah defines it vividly: "Goblins are like lice in the seam of your trouser leg, whereas orcs are much more upstanding and larger in scale."

It wasn't crawling spiders it was lice

Again this is not correct according to Tolkien's world, but that's the quote I was looking for.