With the announcement of the official titles being applied to The Hobbit movies this morning, Peter Jackson is now more willing than ever to start answering our questions about just what he’s up to in New Zealand. We have a lot of questions, and he’s taking them on one at a time through his Facebook page.

Here’s the first one he’s tackling, “Are we going to see the White Council attacking Dol Guldor?”

If you’re not a hardcore fan of Middle Earth that question probably sounded like a riddle. Let me try to break down what the heck this is all about, before giving you Peter Jackson’s answer.

The thing is, a lot of the characters we know have been cast in this movie are not actually in the book it’s based on. For instance we know characters like Elrond, Galadriel, and Saruman will appear in the film though they do not appear in the narrative of the book. The book does, however, make mention of action happening off camera in which Gandalf goes to join a group called the White Council in battling dark powers elsewhere. The White Council is also referenced in the Lord of the Rings movies, it was originally lead by Saruman before he went off the rails and became a tool of Sauron. So the theory here is that Peter Jackson’s movie will actually show us all this off camera stuff happening when the White Council goes to battle evil somewhere else. Is that theory right? Peter Jackson has now confirmed that, yep, it is.

Here’s PJ’s answer:

I'm not going to say just what and when, but I will confirm that both the White Council and Dol Guldur will feature in the movies. And not just in one scene either. Just how to visualise it has been a challenge, but fortunately Alan Lee and John Howe went crazy with ideas, and it should look pretty cool.

To prove it, Jackson includes this image of Gandalf, Elron, and Galadriel on set brandishing their most fearsome weapons.



Expect Jackson to answer more questions from The Hobbit set as things progress. Stay tuned.