Larry Carroll from MTV talked with
The Hobbits Effects Supervisor Richard Taylor over the phone recently. Taylor was fairly forthcoming with information on all things Hobbit.
Here is what he had to say to MTV.....
"The great thing now is that we have experience, which we didn't have last time. We were going into it so green. This time, at least, we have the knowledge of what we learned last time, and hopefully we're wise enough to learn from that."
"The lovely thing about 'The Hobbit' is that the race of the dwarves comes to the forefront in the story, and [we'll depict] the uniqueness of the collection of the dwarves. In the "Rings" trilogy, the only dwarf we really spend extensive time with is Gimli. In "The Hobbit," Bilbo makes his journey with a whole group of them."
"Gimli had an incredible presence, of course. But he was only one character. And it's fantastic to think that we're going to be able to develop the dwarves to such a higher degree... the richness of their culture. The fact that through so many different dwarfs, you'll get to appreciate their cultural differences, where they come from, them as a people."
"We haven't actually started fully on pre-production yet — we're still in the design phase — but it's a wonderful opportunity to work with a unique director in [director] Guillermo [del Toro] and continue to work with Peter [Jackson] as the producer, who is so heavily involved."
On the subject of reported "production delays" Taylor seemed unconcerned.
"It's been an unrushed period of pre-pre-[production], and that's been a pleasure as everyone gets back into the right headspace," he said. "As far as schedules go, you'd need to talk to someone else about that. But from our own perspective, we're enjoying this early phase as it's ticking along."
I believe this movie will be every bit as epic as
Lord Of The Rings When it is finally made.