THE HOBBIT films as "sausage fest"

So, setting aside the whole Radagast and prequels thing, now that AN UNEXPECTED JOURNEY is out of theatres, interest is beginning to build in the second of the three HOBBIT movies, THE DESOLATION OF SMAUG. No trailer yet, at least that I've seen, but here's a description of what Jackson showed folks at a recent 'making of' event:

WARNING: if you've been avoiding spoilers, 

now's a good time to stop reading.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/life/movies/2013/03/24/peter-jackson-the-hobbit-desolation-of-smaug-first-look/2015561/

For a more in-depth look, here's a link (posted by Alana Joli Abbott to the MythSoc list on 3/26) that puts things in context more:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/filmblog/2013/mar/25/hobbit-desolation-smaug-sneak-preview?utm_source=Publishers+Weekly%27s+PW+Daily&utm_campaign=b0304aa247-UA-15906914-1&utm_medium=email

The idea of introducing Bard a little earlier harkens back to the similar decision to give Arwen Glorfindel's role in Jackson's FELLOWSHIP; more interestingly, it seems likely to offer chances to juxtapose THE HOBBIT's two kings-in-exile, who share such similar backgrounds and yet end so differently. I can't recall ever seeing a piece comparing and contrasting the two, but it's such an obvious topic, once it's pointed out (like the Theoden/Denethor pairing in LotR, first highlighted by Jane Chance Nitzsche, or the Turin/Tuor pairing noted by the late great Paul Kocher) someone must have worked it up at some point. If not, then this might be one of those cases where Jackson's films send us back to reconsider the text, with his changes helping to highlight why Tolkien did things the way he did in the original.

I do have to say, reading through this list of things that are to appear in the second movie (and mentally adding in all the things I already know are part of the second film from bits and pieces in the production blogs and design books), it seems to cover everything from the Carrock to the death of Smaug. Which really leaves only the Siege of the Mountain and The Battle of Five Armies for the third film -- unless they expand the 'And Back Again' part, which seems rather unlikely. Perhaps the third film will simply be shorter than the first two (say, an hour and a half rather than close to three hours). Time will tell.

Unfortunately, THE HOBBIT recently got drawn into a minor flap set off when at an awards show Dame Helen Mirren (one of the greats) used the occasion to belittle another honoree's speech for not having been politically correct enough (he'd given shout-outs to specific scenes and directors that had inspired and moved him; she criticized him for not including movies directed by women among them). Which prompted film critic Robbie Collin of the TELEGRAPH to take up what he imagined to be Mirren's point and, in passing, denounce Jackson's HOBBIT --which had just won Best Science Fiction/Fantasy film, as well as Best Actor (Martin Freeman)-- as a "tedious fantasy sausage-fest"

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/film/9951740/Empire-Awards-Dame-Helen-Mirren-on-Sam-Mendes-and-sexism-in-film.html

I think R. Collin must hail from the F. R. Leavis school of critics, who strongly focus on trying to prevent people from reading (or in this case, watching) and enjoying works of which the critic disapproves. Although elsewhere* he identified himself as a Tolkien purist and criticized the movie for not being faithful enough to the original, now he's reversed himself and is  blasting Jackson for choosing to remain true to the book in keeping with Tolkien's all-male cast of characters. As well criticize PRIDE AND PREJUDICE for its lack of Napoleonic battle scenes as THE HOBBIT for its lack of female characters, sez I.

Jackson himself is of course well aware of the problem of no female characters: note how the scenes at Dale, in Hobbiton, at Rivendell, where he can fill in, include a large number of women.** And the team he's assembled to make these movies are not some Old Boys Club: the scripts are largely by Fran Walsh and Philippa Boyens, as had also been the case with his earlier LotR movies; both women are also among the new film's producers, along with several other women; six of the seventeen assistant directors are women. Maybe R. Collin will be satisfied by the addition of Tauriel in the second movie, a deliberate departure from Tolkien's original to try to redress the imbalance. But I rather doubt it, given that Collin's criticism ignores the simple fact that Jackson's Tolkien films have been hugely popular among women.

--JDR

current reading: TOLKIEN'S BAG END by Andrew H. Morton (2009)
(quote for today: "In fact, [the real] Bag End was a substantial Elizabethan manor house" --p.18)

*http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/film/filmreviews/9730525/The-Hobbit-An-Unexpected-Journey-movie-review.html   --He even hates Martin Freeman's Bilbo ("who makes exactly one-third of a good job of portraying the character "), reserving his praise only for Serkis's Gollum.

**there's also some indication that Belladonna Took will appear in the extended edition of AN UNEXPECTED PARTY

Radagast Is Not Jar-Jar

So, the first HOBBIT movie has now come and gone, after having brought in about a billion dollars as it moves on to the second-run cinemas (where I saw it again on Thursday). The special tables devoted to Tolkien at the Barnes and Noble stores are gone (as of the last week of February), and in general things have quieted down a bit on the Peter Jackson / Tolkien films front -- at least till things begin to ramp up again in anticipation of the second movie (and extended edition of the first).

Now that the film's out on dvd I've had a chance to watch it again several more times (five times in the theatres, four times on dvd since the 19th, and then once in the budget theatre on the 28th). I feel like I've come to know it fairly well, so thought I might weigh in on some of the criticism I've seen aimed at it.

In general, the consensus seems to be that the movie is good, but my impression is that people are less excited about it than they were over THE LORD OF THE RINGS films twelve years ago. Part of this is the difference between a known and an unknown quantity. People coming to see THE HOBBIT more or less know what to expect from a Peter Jackson Tolkien film, so the wow factor is a little less. It's like a rock musician releasing a first album that wows everybody; the follow-up album, even if as good or better, often gets denigrated as 'more of the same'.

Also, those fans who were swooned over Wood, Bloom, and Mortensen don't seem to have all made the transition to Armitage and the guys playing Kili and Fili. That they get to see more Ian McKellen in this movie than any of the previous ones doesn't seem to make up the difference, nor the returning roles by Blanchett, Lee, Weaving (who's allowed more than one expression this time), Holm, or Serkis. Some of the most devoted LotR movie fans I know haven't bothered to go see THE HOBBIT film yet, or only saw them once and were done with it. So another factor is that the HOBBIT movies haven't captured all the LotR movie fans.

Finally, THE HOBBIT is not THE LORD OF THE RINGS: LotR is universally hailed at Tolkien's masterpiece, while some people who like LotR don't like THE HOBBIT (and vice versa) or view it as an enjoyable but lesser 'prelude'. Thus the built-in audience for these new Jackson/Tolkien films, while huge, is arguably smaller than that for the LotR films. The latter also benefited from 'Author of the Century' synergy of Tolkien's work finally breaking through into acceptance through winning so many 'best book of the century/millennium polls. Some (like me) think THE HOBBIT is Tolkien's other masterpiece, but this is not a universally held position.


Some of the criticism of the new film, however, seem to me less a judgment on its merits (I'd argue this film is as good as the earlier LotR ones) than a manifestation of the phenomenon that people hate success. They love to see those who have succeeded in the past fail spectacularly in new ventures, and gloat over their downfall. How else otherwise to explain repeated comparisons of Radagast to Jar-Jar Binks?

For the record: Radagast is not Jar-Jar. Jar-Jar is a racist stereotype, a high-tech Stepin Fetchit, an offensive parody of a specific ethnic group. Radagast is a goofy character included for comic effect. Remove a few details -- the guano on his robes (a detail borrowed from T. H. White's Merlin), the stick-insect stunt, and the smoke-scene -- and his character wd be greatly improved. Even as is, the character still achieves everything the movie needs him to, including a rather impressive one-man exploration of Dol Guldur (which in the book had been achieved by Gandalf himself).

Those who can't get over flashbacks of bad DR. WHO episodes can comfort themselves that, while Jar-Jar plays a major role in THE PHANTOM MENACE, Radagast only appears in ten minutes, total, of THE HOBBIT film. Which is another reason why comparison between the two is so inapt.

Up Next: Peter Jackson Is Not George Lucas

--John R

Meanwhile, Back In New Zealand . . .

So, yesterday I finally managed to get hold of the 20th anniversary issue of EMPIRE magazine ("June 2009"), with its joint interview of Peter Jackson and Guillermo del Toro (pages 136-140). The two men do a good job of describing the upcoming films in broad terms, and their answers are clearly meant to reassure the nervous that the project is in good hands.


Where They're At:
They've finished the story outlines and 'treatment' for both parts of the two-part HOBBIT film, and the studios have signed off on their treatments. This means they're now ready to begin work on the scripts (and, the interview having been some two months ago, are probably well into this stage by now). Having the 'treatment' locked in means they now pretty much know what the film will include at a scene-to-scene level. This being the case, they're ready to start casting, since they know now specifically which characters will be included. They're already been at work on models (maquettes) and will soon do the location scouting for filmed-on-location outdoors scenes (one of the features everybody agrees Jackson & company did a splendid job with on the original trilogies of movies). They have oral agreements from McKellan and Serkis to reprise their roles as Gandalf (the Grey) and Gollum, respectively, but apparently don't have contracts locked in yet. Rather to my surprise,* Howard Shore is returning to score both films, proving that the Tenniel-&-Carroll analogy holds after all. Perhaps he's realized that the Jackson trilogy will be the film scores he's remembered for, and perhaps he'll find del Torro easier to work with. Also, Alan Lee and John Howe are back as part of the design team and starting work "very soon" (again, by now they're probably already at it).


What Will They Keep?
They specifically criticize the Rankin-Bass film for eliminating Beorn, and reject the views of "some people" that the Spiders of Mirkwood shd be cut. "We wanted to keep every iconic moment" seems to be their mantra. Hence the expansion to two films rather than cutting to fit into a single one: "We just decided it would be a mistake to try to cram everything into one movie". Del Torro also calls out at one point the interesting feature of THE HOBBIT being that almost all the villains Bilbo encounters can speak, as opposed to LotR "where monsters were not often articulate" (e.g., Shelob and the Balrog, the Nazgul and their winged mounts).


What Will They Add?
A significant amount of screen time will be devoted to Gandalf's activities when he's not with Bilbo & company. Both meetings with the White Council** and Gandalf's explorations into Dol Guldur will be on-screen, and there's mention of Jackson & del Torro "having to deal with Sauron . . . how exactly he manifests himself and what form he's in", which suggests at least on-screen glances at The Necromancer, whether or not he and Gandalf have an upclose and personal encounter. Also, there's mention of including Thrain's backstory. Their general procedure seems to be nicely summed up in the line "we're sort of fleshing out The Hobbit and expanding it sideways, up and down". Although it's not specifically stated, it sounds as if all of Thorin & Company will be there, though Jackson states their intention to develop "five or six" to concentrate on in their interactions with Bilbo. This of course is v. close to what Tolkien himself did: we have much stronger impressions of what Thorin, Balin, Fili & Kili, and Bombur (and to a lesser extent Dori and Gloin) were like than, say, Oin or Bifur. There's no mention of whether they have David Salo or another Tolkien linguist at work on creating them either some dwarven dialogue (for scenes of dwarves talking to dwarves, either on Thrain's expedition, in the Kingdom Under the Mountain before its fall, or even whispered conversations between Thorin's dwarves) or more Sindarin (for overheard elf-talk during all those weeks and weeks when Bilbo is trapped being a permanent burglar in the Halls of the Elven King) or even Black Speech (at Dol Guldur).
Also, on a 'look and feel' note, I was surprised to see that Mike Mignola and Wayne Barlowe have joined Lee & Howe on the design team. I hope this doesn't mean the appearance of Bilbo's world will be dragged off into a more cartoony or alien-techy direction.


What Will They Change?
"We are trying to make the book a little less random" -- in large part, it seems, by telling some of it from Gandalf's point of view rather than keeping to Bilbo all the way through. This makes a lot of sense from a filmmaker's point of view, and there's also the market pressure to consider in that fans of the original Jackson trilogy will want to see old favorites appear if they can be worked in. Then too most viewers will come to the film(s) having already seen the LotR movies, and not fresh as a new reader to the world as most first experience THE HOBBIT as a book.

For me, their approach runs the danger of making a movie that's less like THE HOBBIT than "The Quest of Erebor" or even "The 1960 Hobbit". So it'll be interesting to see how they guard against that peril.


A Few Good Quotes:
"the beauty of The Hobbit is that, ultimately, the point of view is a smaller adventure in a very rich world"

"We've done a lot of things we hope Professor Tolkien would have approved of" -- a forlorn hope, I suspect (I don't think Tolkien cd ever have brought himself to fully approve of any adaptation of his works), but it will serve them well to have this as a good goal to shoot for.

So. We'll see. They start shooting in March (2010), with the first film to debut about two and a half years from now in December 2011. But make no mistake: a lot of people are already hard at work on this one (del Torro mentions "six, seven hours every day for the last few months"), and will be at least through the dvd release of the second film (say about the end of 2013, assuming we get expanded editions again with THE HOBBIT as we did with each film that made up Jackson's LotR).

--JDR
....................................
*and proof that Douglas Kane got it right in his comment on my previous post about the film(s) back in April

**a good excuse to work Galadriel and Saruman into the story, along with more Elrond, but does this mean we'll finally get to see Radagast the Brown, himself and in person? Callooh, Callay.