Is there anything to prevent him from being Gandalf in his own time? Does he sometimes don the costume when he goes out to the shops, or if he feels the need to perform acts of goodness? We should be told.

I'm going to have a little picture of Mark Mothersbaugh from Devo. There should be a dedicated Devo icon, with the funny hats they word; the energy accumulators.

I laughed out loud.

\o/

Don't you mean "So maybe if they say they'll stick to the book, they'll stick to the book then?".....

"I am now Gandalf the White. Not brown, or black, or yellow, or any other colour. Pure white, that's me. I am as old as the world is wide... what's that? Sorry, that should have been 'as wide as the world is old'... "

Aside from boringness (which is a matter of taste in any genre) your main objection to the Rings books/movies seems to be... that they're fantasy. Overblown? Of course! Ridiculous? Well, yeah... there's dragons and orcs and stuff.

Yes. It's fan-ta-sy. If you think it's boring, fine, but... ah, whatever. Just go back to watching some 'independent' movie about a drug dealer who accidentally rapes his daughter, tries to kill himself in despair, misses and shoots his boss in the stomach as he walks in, and then fails systematically to prevent the extermination of his family by the outraged kingpin.

That's much more realistic and oh-so-edgy in its legitimacy for people who've never suffered and think themselves enlightened for understanding how bad it must be.

It wouldn't necessarily ruin the film if Sir Ian wasn't cast as Gandalf, whatever the reason, What;s important is that he set a high standard, and Peter Jackson, while his film is flawed, also set a high standard for the quality of the design.

In some ways, >i?Fellowship of the Ring</i> is both the best-adapted part of the book, and the closest to <i>The Hobbit</i>. Match that, and IO think we'll be alright.

Get Jon Woo or James Cameron to direct it ..

Perhaps even Michael WInner could be tempted away from his insurance ad gig to bring The Hobbit to life...?

Just had a thought that Gandalf would make a brilliant driving instuctor for neds/chavs

"YOU SHALL NOT PASSSS!!!!"

My chum Esquire has opined that the film version of LOTR would have been a lot better had the book never been written.

I loved it, because I am irredeemably shallow and believe that "Die Hard" should have won seven Oscars.

I read the book of the movie last year, and it wasn't a bad adaptation. Quite a lot of words, and there was a hell of a lot of extra stuff that the writer made up that wasn't even in the movie, but not a bad effort. I notice that they've released the book of the prequel (The Hobbit Movie or something) before the film's even been released! I'm almost tempted to read it, but I wouldn't want to spoil the ending of the movie when it comes out.

Seriously, though... More important that whether Ian McKellen plays Gandalf: Who'se going to be the young Bilbo Baggins? Several people are almost certain to be vaguely interested...

Excuse me. Would you write tresagenarian, or quatrogenarian? OK, to be a nonogenarian is a feat, and some octogenarians merit praise for doing something that normally only younger men do, but to draw attention to a 60+ actor playing a character from the First Age (i.e. at least 3000 years old) seems bizarre

Erm, it's me. I'm going to put my knees in my shoes and my feet up my arse and waddle around a bit. "Coo! What's that? Could it be a ring? Oh - so it is! Well fancy that!", and so forth.

It's got to be a Musical. Thats what Bilbo Baggans Hates!