I hate to just stop by and "ditto" in the thread. However... Ditto, Parks3 and Brego. Good stuff. Perhaps a reshaping of the head and face to reflect the wolfish nature, more grey in color, etc.

I think the Misty Mountains Wargs should look more like Wolves

Re-designing the LOTRs Wargs for The Hobbit is not so problematic in my opinion, partularly if you parallel their creation with Saruman's Uruk-hai hybrid of Orcs.Wouldn't surprise me if Saruman didn't actually breed and modify the LOTRs Wargs also to look like Hyenas.

For GDT to make the Wargs of the Hobbit look more wolf-like (perhaps as in Chronicles of Narnia) would be consistent with the World of Middle Earth as the Wargs of the Misty Mountains were a completely different breed to the Wargs of Mirkwood or Mordor or the monsters bred by Saruman!!!(More wolf-like)

Parks White (Auckland NZ)

Rohan looks like Africa and there's no hyaenas in Europe? I sort of see what you mean, but that argument falls down a bit because, terribly pedantically, Rohan's obviously a temperate grassland / steppe environment (look at the warm clothes the Rohirrim are all wearing, plus the fact - despite their longhouse being made of wood, there're no bloody trees), it's not a tropical savannah like you get in equatorial regions....Also there were hyaneas in Europe, after the last Ice Age certainly. Probably not hyaenas living in forests admittedly, but then wolves are very adaptable creatures and do rather well in temperate grassland areas as well as in forests, so they're your go-anywhere medium-sized carnivore, really.

Personally I would say the wargs in LOTR were made to look like hyaenas simply because not many people think hyaenas are pretty to look at, and of course wargs are supposed to be big unpleasant beasts. Designing warg appearance to fit in with the local terrain is a nice idea but I don't think it entirely holds water based on the previous films.

On the other hand, I'd be surprised if the wargs in 'The Hobbit' as redesigned by Mr Del Torro's team DIDN'T look a bit more wolf-like, because - from what I've seen in 'Pan's bleendin' Labyrinth' at least he is quite the afficianado of people having frights in the deep dark woods and there's you wolf-perception-in-Europe archetype right there, isn't it?

Unfortunately I have never seen a CGI wolf / aslatian wearing make-up in a film that didn't look totally shite and unconvincing, there's a long history of people represneting these animals really very badly on the screen so personally I think wolfifying the wargs, if that's what's intended, is likely to be a mistake. Though I'll be very happy to find I'm mistaken in that if /when the film comes out.

i see where you're coming from, jeff, there are no hyenas in europe, but just look at jackson's Rohan. it looks more like africa. he wanted his Wargs to look like they fit the terrain he was filmming and that part of new zealand in which Rohan was filmed looked african. jackson wanted continuity on screen as much as he wanted continuity w/ the books. generic wolves would have looked out of place in jackson's Rohan.

i think it's perfectly normal for the wargs to be redesigned. peter jackson gave the wargs a hyena-like appearance in LOTR because we saw them in the foothills and the plains of Rohan. the wargs we will see in the Hobbit are not close in geography or climate/terrain/etc and should be different. the Wargs in the Hobbit should be wolfier..... when was the last time you saw a hyena in the forest? to me it makes perfect sense.

I think that the wargs should be basically the wame as in LOTR, but ith thicker fur on the tail and shouldes, longe ears, and maybe a more wolf-like coloration. Fans of the movies would likely recognize it as a more forest-adapted subspecies of wargs while they would still retain Peter Jackson's unique design that sets them apart from normal wolves. I loved the hyena look he gave them; it made them seem more evil than normal wolves.

Funny you should mention the wargs, I have to say that the wargs were my least favorite creature design in the LOTR. They looked like Hyenas which are from Africa. The inspiration of Middle Earth is Europe - it just didn't fit for me - they were from the wrong continent. I'm glad they plan on changing them. Just for the record, the Balrog and Nazgul exceeded my expectations. They were realized much better than when I visualized them when I read the books back in '76.

Im doing a school project on Wargs and i need lots of Information Do you where to get some good information?!

What are Wargs!!

also many of the viewers of the film will have been fans of Tolkien's books from childhood rather than having been introduced to LOTR by the film - so as many or more people will prefer the films to stick to the books - i.e wargs as giant wolves

Tolkien described wargs as giant wolves - not hyenas. The change to the hyenas in LOTR was one of the things i didn't like about the film, which was good in many ways. The best scenes were the ones that stuck most closely to the book- like the charge of the Rohirrim at Minas Tirith. I'd like to see The Hobbit film show wargs as giant wolves. Otherwise the scene with bilbo and the dwarves and gandald hiding in a tree from goblins on wargs and the battle of the five armies won't look right.

i really really like pj's visualization of the wargs. we see monstrous wolves in movies quite regularly. i don't ever recall seeing hyena-esque creatures before. they were really frightening and wild and blood-thirsty. to me it gave the setting of rohan more believability just because wolves are way more common, every day animals and hyenas are foreigner and fit better with the terrain and such. i think that if we see the wargs in a more forested setting, a more wolf-like breed of warg would be fitting, but otherwise i would hate to lose 'hyena' wargs.

I feel same, just keep everything the same. Most viewers of the Hobbit will be the same viewers of LOTR and they will surely notice.

i agree with VSP , i hope they don`t mess with them to much cause in the two towers they really really did look what my minds eye pictured them to be , and i think thy should be kept the same IMO

VSP, you're welcome if I actually did anything. I couldn't remember where I'd heard that phrase from, but I'm taking the summer and rereading every piece of Tolkien I own. Just finished the Sil, and started Hobbit this week.

Draylon, if I might suggest, if reading the Sil is giving you trouble don't read it. There is a good unabridged CD set out, and I find it much easier to listen to than to read. The language is a bit thick, and if I'm reading the book background sounds distract me and I spend too much time trying to figure out how words are pronounced. Try the CDs, and have fun.

the answer!
thanyou ethelwynn
gandalf specificially calls them "wild wargs of the mountains"
perfect
they better not be too different though

draylon dont worry it took me forever
i only finished reading the whole thing after i read the children of hurin
before that i just read the beginning and interesting bits
also, i kinda agree with you about the kinslaying, although you must read the silmarillion. there are loads of times elves do evil things
in fact too many to list. i think its just that in the third age the elves are good BY COMPARISON (why the hell cant we use italics!)

More re. personal appearance vs. actions in Tolkein. You make your point well, Ethelwynn and they're good examples you've given - but I'd argue that they are in the main that, exceptions that 'prove' the Tolkien rule. Yes, there are examples of Elves gone bad and while Elves are capable of negative or even evil actions (no, Very Smart Person, I'm afraid I'm one of these superficial acts who hasn't quite managed to get their head round 'Silmarillion' yet, although one day, I'm determined to give reading it another darn good try) I don't see that as being how the majority of them conduct themselves. Aside from the named bad apples, a race they are portrayed very positively on the whole, certainly in the LOTR books, in which their fine physical appearance is commented upon as frequently as they are described as being wise and noble, to the extent of this (arguably) being one of the defining characteristics of (goodness and) Elvishness - and conversely, in the same books we have evil men and Orcs repeatedly described as 'swart', 'slant eyed', ‘crook-legged’ etc. till the opposite becomes true.

I don't know enought on the subjects to comment on what point Tolkien might have been making re. Elves and the kinslaying / Gondolin questions but suspect (cynically) it might have had something to do with the storytelling aspect? In that an account of a race of folk who sit around being uniformly nice to each other for centuries might be said to lack something in terms of narrative drive. But as I say, I am ill-qualified to speculate on this, and would be interested to know what other people think.

Regarding the Prancing Pony altercation, I seem to remember the other Hobbits being quite ready to condemn Aragorn - partly as the innkeeper had warned them against him, but wasn't it mainly because of his ruffianly appearance? That incident being important as establishing Frodo as somebody a bit special who is willing to look beyond appearances for the good in people, which of course we see developed in his interactions with Smeagol later on...and I suppose that directly contradicts the point I was making in the first place. Heigh **.

As for the beauty=skin-deep='peeled of skin' argument - I'm not disputing this in principle, but this is very much a late 20th century viewpoint, isn't it? And as such it mayn't have so much pertinence in a discussion of good looks in Tolkien's books because as quackingtroll pointed out, if in Tolkien, good looks don't matter, why did Sauron bother with a disguise in the first place? The discussion so far leads me to believe the subject may not be as clear cut as I once imagined, but I still think there's something in it. The point about the dwarves possibly substantiating this...while not described as raving beauties, their looks aren't described overtly negatively, and while they are ‘flawed’ creations many of them are good…

Onto something completely different – Neolithic beasts in ‘Return of the King’ – at first I thought – what is this person on? But no! You’re dead right! Excellent!

Apologies for gargantuan post. It’s an interesting discussion.

"...'I think one of his spies would - well, seem fairer and feel fouler, if you understand.'
'I see,' laughed Strider. 'I look foul and feel fair. Is that it? All that is gold does not gitter, not all those who wander are lost'..."
One of my favourite quotes, well remembered!

Thanks, Kao. I knew it was in there somewhere, but I didn't have the book to hand so couldn't find it.
Back to the original question: The audience is definately going to notice a change in the Wargs. Some are, at least. But the Orcs of Moria looked different than the Orcs of Mordor and Isengard, and I don't remember a lot of objection there. Maybe Gandalf could call them "wild Wargs of the mountains" to emphasize that these Wargs haven't been selectively bred by any higher mind.
Great question, by the way, QT.