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RPT-Beatles wanted to do Rings film in 1960s - media
Thu Mar 28, 8:19 PM ET
WELLINGTON, New Zealand (Reuters) - John Lennon wanted to play the grasping, thieving
creature Gollum in a 1960s Beatles version of the "Lord of the Rings," New Zealand movie director
Peter Jackson told Wellington's Evening Post newspaper.
Jackson, whose own version of the first book in the fantasy trilogy, "The Fellowship of the Ring,"
won four Oscars (news - web sites) this week, told the newspaper that the Beatles' idea fell flat
when author J.R.R. Tolkien rejected the plan.
Ex-Beatle Paul McCartney, who was to play the hero Frodo in the movie, told Jackson about the
plans at the Academy Awards (news - web sites) in Hollywood, the Post reported.
"It was something John was driving, and J.R.R. Tolkien still had the film rights at that stage, but he
didn't like the idea of the Beatles doing it. So he killed it," Jackson told the newspaper.
George Harrison was to play the wise wizard Gandalf who advises the hobbit Frodo in his quest to
destroy the evil golden ring at the center of the epic tale of good versus evil, one of the most
popular books of the 20th century.
Ringo Starr was to play Frodo's devoted sidekick Sam, while Lennon would take the part of the
hobbit-like creature that tracks the heroes throughout the story, trying to get his hands on the
powerful ring.
"There probably would've been some good songs coming off the album," Jackson said of the
Beatles' plan.
Jackson is currently working on the second film of the trilogy for AOL Time Warner Inc.'s New Line
Cinema.
"The Two Towers" is due out in December and the last film, "The Return of the King," will follow
next year.
Reuters/Variety
And, according to reports, guess who John Lennon had all set to direct?...Stanley Kubrick!!!
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old hand
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GAAAAAHHHHHHH!
O thank GOD the Beatles didn't get their hands on The Lord of the Rings! I can only imagine it and it AIN'T PRETTY! Don't get me wrong, I luuuurrve the Beatles - but not as Gollum, Frodo, Sam and Gandalf.
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I imagine the score would've produced some good and intriguing music in keeping with The Beatles astounding compositional skills (and I'd love to have another album of original Beatle tunes!). But, yeah, seeing McCartney as Frodo in a Kubrick flick would've been stranger than strange!  Although, somehow, I can see John getting away with Gollum. 
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I can hear Gollum singing to Frodo:
I wanna hold your hand
(and then cut the ifnger off!)
And then the Beatles could do a new rendition of
When the Ents Come Marching In.
Or The Ents go marching two by two.
Or one of the many dead teenager songs featuring high school class rings.
Or even: Whose a Frodo? The Big Bad Wolf?
The Nazguls could become 76 Strong Clones
I... must... control... myself...
TEd
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I'm guessing it could make a nice musical, though, in the right hands.
k
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After all, if they could do it to Aida...
But then, Prince Igor did OK as Kismet, and The Taming of the Shrew as Kiss Me Kate, and Romeo and Juliet as West Side Story - maybe we shouldn't scoff :-)
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old hand
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AAAUUUUGGHHHHH! (as Charlie Brown would say) My brain is in pain. The Lord of the Rings as a MUSICAL?! I could see someone trying to turn it into an opera. But a MUSICAL?! Can't these entertainment types show some restraint! 
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Well, why not a musical? I can just hear Paul's ballads: "There was a little elven maid, A stenographer by day ..." (Sorry, Bored of the Rings!) 
The idiot also known as Capfka ...
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entertainment types Huh? And, gee, what if some innovative creative minds were daring enough to take an artistic risk like, say, Walt Disney, who turned a Grimm's Fairytale fantasy into a musical called Snow White and the Seven Dwarves, or the folks who decided to take a shot at turning an L. Frank Baum children's fantasy called The Wonderful Wizard of Oz into a musical film?...our lives and the world would be so much the poorer for being desecrated by such generic fluff! O the horror! the horror! "O the horror! the horror!"???...hmmm...yes, yes!...I bet Stephen Sondheim could turn Conrad's The Heart of Darkness into a musical of distinguished caliber...let's put him on to it immediately!  And those other "entertainment types" like Lerner and Loew, who had the audacity to transform Pygmalian into My Fair Lady, or Rodgers and Hammerstein who took Michener's Tale's of the South Pacific and made it into a (gulp) musical play, or Cole Porter turning The Taming of the Shrew into that pulp piece Kiss Me Kate, or Loesser and Loew or took classic Damon Runyon stories and came up with that travesty Guys and Dolls, or Lloyd Webber who dared insult us by turning a horror story like The Phantom of the Opera into an operetta, and Leornard Bernstein and Stephen Sondheim who utterly defiled Romeo and Juliet by cloaking it in a modern setting and coming up with (gasp!) West Side Story ...and the list just goes on and on... These "entertainment types" who assault us with such things as Three Penny Opera, Showboat, The Man of La Mancha, Les Miserables, Fiddler on the Roof, The Sound of Music, A Chorus Line, Sweeney Todd, A Little Night Music, Cabaret, Camelot, Pippin (a hobbit's name, wouldn't'cha know?), The Fantastics, Porgy 'n' Bess (da noive of dat Gershwin! ), and so many others, should be stopped immediately from this continued barrage against our integrity! Damn them all!
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