So what has me worried about Peter Jackson's upcoming "Hobbit" trilogy? Let's call it the "Return of the Jedi" factor. That film was humming along magnificently when suddenly, out of the redwood forests came the Ewoks. It's at that point that the original trilogy came to an end for me. To this day Return of the Jedi is the one film of the original trilogy that I can't watch because the Ewoks represent the point at which Lucas looked beyond the fans in the theater to the kids at the toy store. The effect was like being out on a date with a hot babe and having her suddenly lock gazes with some guy behind you. At least with the hot babe I can tell her I have to go to the toilet and then bolt, leaving her with the tab. No such recourse exists for the movie fan.
When the first stills were released from the set last year showing Jackson's take on the dwarves for The Hobbit I got an intense sinking feeling in my gut. "I've waited a decade for that?" Take a look at the image below where I've juxtaposed the dwarves from "The Fellowship of the Ring" with the dwarves from "The Hobbit". How did those wonderfully crusty curmudgeons of Fellowship with their layers of world-weariness morph into the lovable plush dolls of The Hobbit?
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| The dwarves of "Lord of the Rings" (top) and those of "The Hobbit" (bottom). Images copyright New Line Cinema. |
Subsequent blog posts, trailers and TV clips have gone some way toward mollifying my concerns and settling my stomach but I can't help thinking that it's all an elaborate ruse, a multi-million dollar misdirection campaign, and that before I've finished my popcorn the bastard spawn of the Ewoks will have commandeered the movie, Smaug, uh I mean Jackson, will have added my coin to the pile he's sitting on and somebody behind me in the theater will be thinking "You know, I'll bet my 4 year old would love a plush dwarf doll for Christmas!" Nothing against 4 year olds mind you. What I'm talking about here is the sanctity of the film experience and whether or not Jackson will honor the unspoken pact between the theater goer and the film maker or will he become the trollop with the wandering eye ala Lucas? To be absolutely specific about things: was toy marketing the driving force behind the radical redesign of the dwarves for The Hobbit? Because if it was then Jackson has willingly chucked his integrity out the window.
Jackson could, I suppose, have built an escape clause into his Hobbit project's initial release. Just look at the title: "An Unexpected Journey". Jackson may be covering himself for the inevitable backlash. "Hey, the film's called 'An Unexpected Journey'. What's more unexpected than a three hour long ad for premium action figures?" It's possible and I'll tell you why.
About a decade ago Bob Dylan released one of the great albums of the last 20 years. Dylan called his album "Love and Theft". After its release it was revealed that some of the lyrics from Love and Theft bore a striking resemblance to passages from Japanese writer Junichi Saga's book "Confessions of a Yakuza". The Bard's response to the storm of criticism that followed was basically to direct people's attention to the title of the album and get on with his life. Is Jackson planning something similar? (In the case of Love and Theft the theft Dylan alludes to in the album's title didn't in any way compromise the quality of the finished musical product. I bring it up merely as an example of someone covering themselves in what, in hind sight, seems a perfectly obvious way but which at the time didn't necessarily seem obvious at all.)
One more thing. I'm well aware Tolkien's manuscript is essentially a young people's book. I get that. I've also read the book and know that it's complex enough to lend itself to a treatment that could and should satisfy both young and not so young people. Just because it's not full of sturm und drang doesn't mean it must therefore become a three hour get-out-the-customer drive for Toys-R-Us. While most major films these days have some form of marketing tie-in to outside products the important thing is whether or not those tie-ins constitute the major justification for making the film, as was the case with Lucas' uber-cynical Return of the Jedi. I can live with action figures appearing as a consequence of a great movie. Where I balk is when the movie exists primarily to move action figures. Which category The Hobbit will fall into is anybody's guess at this point.
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