Peter Jackson on how Tolkien stopped a Beatles LOTR film (2021)
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Re: Peter Jackson on how Tolkien stopped a Beatles LOTR film (2021)
#2A 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.
Re: Peter Jackson on how Tolkien stopped a Beatles LOTR film (2021)
#3A 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.
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.
Re: Peter Jackson on how Tolkien stopped a Beatles LOTR film (2021)
#4On 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.
Re: Peter Jackson on how Tolkien stopped a Beatles LOTR film (2021)
#5This 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]
Re: Peter Jackson on how Tolkien stopped a Beatles LOTR film (2021)
#6This 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) […
How is that film just available for free like that?
Re: Peter Jackson on how Tolkien stopped a Beatles LOTR film (2021)
#7This 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) […
> 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."
Re: Peter Jackson on how Tolkien stopped a Beatles LOTR film (2021)
#8(2021)
Noticed the Weta Digital mention and was very confused
Re: Peter Jackson on how Tolkien stopped a Beatles LOTR film (2021)
#9> "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.
Re: Peter Jackson on how Tolkien stopped a Beatles LOTR film (2021)
#10Wish 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?