Guillermo Del Toro confessed on his fascination to dragons, how he envisions the dragon Smaug in the film as well as his idea on Wargs.
- Oct 6, 2008
AceShowbiz - As time comes nearer and nearer to the production of "The Hobbit", Guillermo Del Toro let out more interesting tidbits about the J.R.R. Tolkien's novel adaptation. Sharing his idea with Coming Soon during the conversation with New Yorker staff writer Daniel Zalewski, the filmmaker spoke out of his excitement on tackling one of the creatures in the flick saying, "All my life I've been fascinated by dragons. I was born under the Chinese sign of The Dragon."
"It's such a powerful symbol, and in the context of 'The Hobbit' it is used to cast its shadow through the entire narrative," he further explained. "Essentially, Smaug represents so many things: greed, pride...he's 'the Magnificent,' after all. The way his shadow is cast in the narrative you cannot then show it and have it be one thing, he has to be the embodiment of all those things. He's one of the few dragons that will have enormous scenes with lines. He has some of the most beautiful dialogues in those scenes!"
About the creative decision of the mythical creature, Del Toro revealed that the final design has yet to be fixed. "The design, I'm pretty sure that will be the last design we will sign off on, and the first design we have attempted," he said. "It is certainly a matter of turning every stone before figuring out what he looks like, because what he looks like will tell you what he is."
Giving out more bits of details on the film, the 43-year-old addressed also about Wargs' appearance. "My belief on the 'Wargs' issue is that the classical incarnation of the demonic wolf in Nordic mythology is not a hyena-shaped creature. It is a wolf. The archetype is a wolf, so we're going to go back to the slender, archetypical wolf that is, I think, the inspiration for Tolkien," he said in restrain.
An adventure movie about Frodo's uncle, Bilbo Baggins, "The Hobbit" centers its story on his journeys to the Lonely Mountain with a group of Dwarfs to take back the treasure stolen by the dragon Smaug. It will also chronicle how he comes in possession of the One Ring. The shooting is scheduled to start sometime in fall of 2009 in New Zealand, while the first movie is expected to hit the big screen on December 1, 2011 followed by "The Hobbit 2" exactly a year later.
