: What worries me is the characters themselves, specifically who
: will play them and what their accents will be like. If Jackson
: bows to the studio's pressure and mixes in American twang for
: Men, I will be sorely disappointed. This is an English tale,
: and I hope they realize that despite its obvious Ango-bent, it
: still can remain universal and still will be popular. I just
: don't want to be reminded of Kevin Costner in Robin Hood
: everytime I hear Aragorn speak.

Well, the accents issue gets raised every now and then. I oppose gratuitous use of accents, but regardless of what country the author is from, a director/producer should be free to use whatever language or accents he desires in his film adaptation of a book. A Spanish production of the story should not be required to use English accents (or even the English language).

The characters themselves (in the books) don't have English accents, although Tolkien "translated" some things into English idioms. But he did write THE LORD OF THE RINGS for a broader audience than just the UK folks. He was specifically asked to write a sequel to THE HOBBIT because it was doing so well not only at home but overseas.

The requirement that everyone in the movie should speak like they come from England is in a way as gratuitous as the demand that there be American accents in the movie (ostensibly because an American audience will demand it -- which is completely absurd, as the many fans of numerous BBC productions would easily tell anyone if they were asked). The book is not about ENGLISH people or even ENGLISH-speaking people. It's about an imaginary ancient time and Tolkien presents himself as "translator" of an old text.

: Furthermore, I sincerely hope this Sean Connery rumour goes
: away. I would have liked to have seen Ian McKellan as
: Gandalf, but that doesn't look like its happening. Oh well.

Connery has officially taken himself out of consideration. I had grown to like the idea of him playing Gandalf, but I guess that will never be. I have no idea of who most of the actors fans proprose for Gandalf are, including McKellan, so I mean no disrespect to him.

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The LOTR/HOBBIT Movie Fact/Rumor Roundup