Bethesda would allow a TES movie with Peter Jackson

[Crawldragon]

How about The Elder Scrolls-- done with The Muppets.

I've seen Jim Henson's Creature Company do some pretty nifty things. One of my favorite television shows is actually The Storyteller, which was a big vehicle for the Creature Company. If you haven't seen it check it out; if it's not a cult classic it [&@%!] should be. Also watch The Dark Crystal if you haven't already; it's required watching, honestly.

Anyway, they have some very creative people in the Creature Company lab and I'm confident that they could do some really cool things with an Elder Scrolls movie. I'm not sure if they're still doing practical effects work, though. I hope they are, because being able to see an actor actually interacting with a Wnged Twilight or Hermaeus Mora would be very cool to see.

EDIT because I forgot to reply to this first time

Guillermo del Toro and Alejandro G. Iñárritu would be my top picks. Del Toro was originally supposed to helm The Hobbit, and after watching Pan's Labyrinth I think he could take a TES movie in a really cool direction.

I haven't watched Pan's Labyrinth yet. I tried to, and I was very impressed with what I saw, but the opening of the film was very dark and I couldn't take it at the time. Now that I'm older I'll probably go and watch it, because it looked like a very compelling film, and I want to see what del toro can do.

[Imbalance]

Robert Rodriguez

[Bauglir100]

I don't care who DIRECTS the movie, since it's ultimately up to who WRITES it. I'll be happy as long as they don't do a repeat of the DOOM movie, and hire some dead-beat that knows absolutely nothing about the series to write the script, and have him try to turn it into some cheap clone of another popular franchise. But then again, that movie was made before id Software was bought by ZeniMax. And they would certainly know better than to let some film company butcher their work like that.

[AngryNord]

Personally I really would NOT want Jackson doing a TES movie... There's the danger of it ending up as "Lord of the Rings in Tamriel" (yes, TES has a bucketload of inspiration from Tolkien - but it's just that - INSPIRATION. It ISN'T Tolkien...). And then of course his films, especially the Hobbit ones, had a mixed reception among many LoTR fans because of some questionable interpretations of lore, and add-ons to the story. Didn't Tolkien's son even try to get the films stopped because he thought they departed too much from his father's works?

[The SheoDovah]

To be fair, Jackson faced a lot of meddling with the hobbit films and was brought in after pre-production. He seems to work better when he is involved from the very start. But that said, Hobbit trilogy was disappointing and lots of questionable/sometimes contradictary content.

I think, (may have mentioned it before) an approach similiar to HBO's A Game Of Thrones would work for TES. More then enough lore to be based on and the Empire's politics tend to not get shown that well in the games.

[HatofMadness]

I think I should star in this film.

[The SheoDovah]

As a Skooma addict?

[Crawldragon]

Didn't Tolkien's son even try to get the films stopped because he thought they departed too much from his father's works?

Peter Jackson improved upon the original books tremendously. First of all he was able to use the medium of film to tell the story in an extremely condensed manner (the big reason I didn't read LoTR as a child being the extremely long exposition sequences) and he removed a lot of stuff that wasn't necessary for telling the story, like Tom [&@%!] Bombadill. Given that Tolkein started writing to tell stories to his kids, I can understand why his son would be butthurt about it, but the Tolkein Estate knew what they were getting into when they signed a license for making the film.

The Elder Scrolls faces a similar problem: There's too much lore. On the surface this isn't such a big deal, but if you pay attention you'll notice that in each and every game the developers have to go out of their way to exposit information on the game's pantheon and religions, the Empire, the various interested Guilds, etcetera, even if it means having an NPC standing around whose only job is to explain what the big deal is about the Bard's College.

I think, (may have mentioned it before) an approach similiar to HBO's A Game Of Thrones would work for TES. More then enough lore to be based on and the Empire's politics tend to not get shown that well in the games.

Precisely this. Everyone seems to be expecting a story taken straight from the computer games, but a film will more than likely be based on the lore that you see in the background, in books scattered throughout the games, etcetera. The problem is that the director will need to be a huge fan of the series and be able to convince producers that he can make it work with a mainstream audience. Peter Jackson pulled that off once; no reason to think he couldn't do it again.

[Bauglir100]

Didn't Tolkien's son even try to get the films stopped because he thought they departed too much from his father's works?

Peter Jackson improved upon the original books tremendously. First of all he was able to use the medium of film to tell the story in an extremely condensed manner (the big reason I didn't read LoTR as a child being the extremely long exposition sequences) and he removed a lot of stuff that wasn't necessary for telling the story, like Tom [&@%!] Bombadill. Given that Tolkein started writing to tell stories to his kids, I can understand why his son would be butthurt about it, but the Tolkein Estate knew what they were getting into when they signed a license for making the film.

The Elder Scrolls faces a similar problem: There's too much lore. On the surface this isn't such a big deal, but if you pay attention you'll notice that in each and every game the developers have to go out of their way to exposit information on the game's pantheon and religions, the Empire, the various interested Guilds, etcetera, even if it means having an NPC standing around whose only job is to explain what the big deal is about the Bard's College.

I think, (may have mentioned it before) an approach similiar to HBO's A Game Of Thrones would work for TES. More then enough lore to be based on and the Empire's politics tend to not get shown that well in the games.

Precisely this. Everyone seems to be expecting a story taken straight from the computer games, but a film will more than likely be based on the lore that you see in the background, in books scattered throughout the games, etcetera. The problem is that the director will need to be a huge fan of the series and be able to convince producers that he can make it work with a mainstream audience. Peter Jackson pulled that off once; no reason to think he couldn't do it again.

I'd love to see a movie/miniseries based on Uriel Septim V's conquest of Akavir. Perhaps how he took over the island nations on the way there.

[Finn Wolfshorn]

Peter Jackson improved upon the original books tremendously.

*takes a deep breath and exhales slowly to compose himself*

First of all he was able to use the medium of film to tell the story in an extremely condensed manner

...so he was able to insert more pointless fanfic like
- Aragorn falling over a cliff and believed dead only to return to life after being snogged by a horse
- "Arwen is dying" (why?) "Her life is tied to the Ring" (how?)
- Elves at Helm's Deep
To say nothing of the way he consistently misrepresents and over-simplifies Tolkien's characters, making them appear weaker, less noble and less likeable than in the books; points in case:
- Théoden, rather than being misdirected and poisoned by Wormtongue, is shown as literally possessed by Saruman and magically rejuvenated after Gandalf's exorcism;
- Denethor, rather than a noble ruler undone by pride and self-importance turned into despair, is shown as a weak-willed tomato-munching tyrant;
- Faramir, rather than following his mentor Gandalf's teachings and wisely rejecting the Ring, acts like a would-be Boromir at first, then changes his mind and lets Frodo go after (get this!) watching him almost handing the Ring to a Nazgûl (which would have convinced any sensible person that the Ring wasn't safe in Frodo's hands);
- Ents are shown as stupid and gullible, not seeing the need for action but tricked into acting by Pippin as easily as you'd flip a switch;
- Frodo sending Sam away. (No. Just no.)

To give Jackson his due, the trilogy's visuals were a glory and for the most part spot-on, which makes it all the more deplorable that the writing was such a disaster. Fellowship was mostly nicely done, but it got worse from there with every movie.

That's not saying he might not produce an enjoyable TES movie if working with a sensible script writer.

[AKB]

Trying to determine if the books or movies is better will always be a matter of opinion for LOTR. I personally despise Tolkien's writing style, I think it's dry, uninteresting, and absurdly drawn out. The characters are almost all one note, entirely unrelatable, duplicated ad nauseum, or a combination of the three. There isn't going to be convincing me otherwise of this, I'm fine if you like it, but I've already determined I don't like it. In fact, I would say The Silmarillion is near the top of the list of my least favorite books.

Furthermore, I like the movies a lot more for so many reasons. He took a ton of characters I couldn't care less about and made them likable, improved the villains, the pacing, the story's structure. I'm also fine if you disagree with me on this.

[Crawldragon]

[snip]

I understand where you're coming from, but the thing is that there's a reason why there are more fans of the Lord of the Rings films than there are of the novels, and there's a reason why I used the term "condensed" to describe the movies. Obviously there's a lot of stuff that needed to be changed to tell the stories using a medium like film, and that can be a good thing as AKB pointed out or a bad thing as you pointed out. I like Tolkein's writing style but the big problem I have with the man is that once he got going he just never stopped.

I still haven't read The Lord of the Rings, and I am a voracious reader. My local library gives you something like three weeks to return a book and I regularly return books within two or three days. I could not get through LOTR. Tolkein's storytelling is just so dense and rich with detail. Even reading The Hobbit it's clear that he holds himself to a very high standard, but his writing often leads to a lot of dead ends. For example, the entire plotline with Gollum being corrupted by the ring was an afterthought; in the original version of The Hobbit (as in the first editions that were published before The Lord of the Rings was ever being planned), Gollum hands over the ring to Bilbo after losing the riddle contest and he just drops out of the story from there. That's just not good storytelling, and it would certainly never have flown in a feature film.

Going back to the Elder Scrolls, if a movie was made in which a powerful necromancer was mentioned and built up as a huge threat to an adventuring party but not only did the necromancer never appear but his presence was never even felt, how would you feel about that? What I'm trying to say is that artistic license is going to need to be invoked when making an Elder Scrolls film just like with a Lord of the Rings film, and that's something that you can choose to take in stride or not, but the thing is these are the kinds of sacrifices you make in order to keep an intellectual property alive and breathing through multiple generations.

[Finn Wolfshorn]

I'm also fine if you disagree with me on this.

Same here.

Crawldragon, I'd maintain that Tolkien's work was 'alive and breathing through multiple generations' way before Jackson came along, or the movies would never have been made in the first place. I agree that things need to be changed in transferring a story from fiction to film, but in my opinion Jackson changed the wrong things the wrong way for the wrong reasons. As I see it, the main problem with the man seems to be a lack of trust in anything or anyone but himself: he doesn't trust a story that has sold more than 150 million copies worldwide to grip an audience without him inventing new subplots and stuff, he doesn't trust his audience to get a plot point without being beaten over the head with it, and he doesn't trust his actors to get things across without special FX (in the case of Théoden's exorcism).

The main problem here seems to be that Tolkien's mode of writing is fundamentally different from that of contemporary genre pageturners, which in turn is largely modelled on the principles of Hollywood script plotting; but that doesn't make him worse. The Hobbit was originally conceived as a children's fairytale, even though elements of his preexisting mythology crept in during the writing; fairytales can be episodic in nature with characters disappearing after they've played their part, and no problem. Another thing, I actually think T. was wise in never having Sauron appear in person, but although we never get any closer to seeing him than when Frodo sees the Eye in Galadriel's mirror, or Gollum's ramblings about him only having nine fingers on his black hand, his presence can be felt throughout the book - in his works, in the description of the land he shaped, in the hatred and fear of his servants, and most of all in the influence of the Ring (which is really just an externalized part of Sauron's self forged into metal) on the characters. I concede it's a tough challenge to convey all this in a movie, but actually seeing Sauron on screen was rather underwhelming to me - too little subtle horror, too much action figure.

I don't expect to convince you, and I'm fine with us agreeing to disagree about this. I don't want to derail this thread into a Tolkien-vs-Jackson discussion (at least not more than I already did). If you'd like to continue talking about this feel free to PM me (and if you read LotR to the end some day and feel like discussing it, pay a visit to The Barrow-Downs Discussion Forum; I'm Pitchwife over there).

[The SheoDovah]

Didn't Tolkien intend to rewrite The Hobbit after completing LOTR with the reason being that he wanted to tie it into LOTR?


Regarding TES and Jackson, I could see it being based on Skyrim(annoyingly) due to Skyrim being the title that launched TES into the spotlight of the mainstream and well, the plot is easy to condense into a 2.5/3 hour film.

I would love to see a TV series based on the Arcane University. Politics, magic, adventure, the occassional undead wright trying to take over Nirn.

[Secret Magic User]

Listenlistenlisten. Guys.

I think in order to really capture an Elder Scrolls experience and convey that to the public, 3 need to give the movie to no less than 5 different directors, and have them all choose their own way to portray the protagonist and how s/he triumphs over the antagonist. And they all get released at the same time. And they're all the real story. And they all have the same budget.

On the original question, please no Peter Jackson. The 4th Era protagonist will end up having a love story with St. Alessia, who is actually just an elf according to PJ.

[Dark Spark]

Didn't Tolkien intend to rewrite The Hobbit after completing LOTR with the reason being that he wanted to tie it into LOTR?

I know that he painted himself into a corner when he finished The Hobbit with Bilbo living happily ever after, because Lord of the Rings would retcon that ending. Hence the need to create a nephew for Bilbo who would get roughed up.

...the occassional undead wright trying to take over Nirn.

Zombie coachbuilders are hardly that ambitious.