The Hobbit: Cubed

* This was originally posted on another blog I used to write for back when extending The Hobbit into 3 movies was just announced. The Hobbit: Battle of The Five Armies is now just about to be released and evaluated by the world. So we will all see how this decision ultimately panned out. *

***

As has been widely reported already, Peter Jackson recently announced that looking at the finished first film in post, and thinking about the story with his writers, has convinced him to make his adaptation of The Hobbit a Trilogy. Cue instant internet nerd fanboy rage.

I. Am. Angry. Right. Now. Peter. Jackson. I. Will. Find. You. And. Kill. You.

I can't even trust you anymore. I cannot believe you're doing this to us. NO NO NO.

And that was my just my first reaction to this news. Now that I've had time to think it over...nope. Still the same. Betrayal might sound a little overly dramatic, but there is NO WAY to turn this into a trilogy without bringing in a bunch of stuff that was not IN the book.
Unless they want to delve into the history of the ring thoroughly...Silmarilian story pieces maybe. But I JUST AM SO MAD.

- bowties2

 Now this decision could be many things; it could be either solely a business decision (sort of like these things) , or possibly Peter Jackson's decision to fulfill his vision and tell more of a complete story. Most people tend to go with the former reason in this debate and the discussion calls into question the real worth and existence of a director's vision and where that sits versus the need for a director to make movies so he/she can do things like buy food and sleep in a house. But that's a subject for another article entirely and I'm not talking about that here.

What I am talking about is the nerd-fanboy-rage loaded upon Jackson and crew in the wake of this announcement and whether it is entirely justified? Are they pointing their fingers in the right direction?

A good place to start, as ever, is at the beginning:

In 1937 J.R.R Tolkein first published The Hobbit, after some years beforehand finding a scrap piece of paper in a student's Exam and writing down "In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit." Nowadays that famous origin sentence is recounted in pop culture circles alongside stories like the invention of the Nike swish on a restaurant napkin, and back in the 30's and 40's the impact of the book was no different, it was an absolute smash. The Hobbit was quickly heralded as a classic work of children's literature and after its huge success Tolkein's publisher soon started requesting a sequel. Around this time J.R.R began writing more myths and tales of Middle Earth and its history, he showed these to his publisher who then after reading these early notes suggested he write more about the Hobbits. This was possibly at the time purely a business decision and in some ways a sign of things that shall come to pass.

Tolkein saw his Publisher's point and agreed and soon after adapted and reworked his tales of old wars and more specifically the Ring of Power and began to conceive The Lord of The Rings almost as a remake or retelling of its predecessor, sharing elements of the same basic plot and themes somewhat akin to Sam Raimi's Evil Dead 2, Nintendo's Super Metroid, or Robert Rodriguez's Desperado.

After The Fellowship of The Ring was first released (in 1954) it was easy to notice the darker tone of it versus The Hobbit and this is reportedly because Tolkein cleverly wrote the Lord of the Rings for the same audience as had read The Hobbit previously, so those who were children when The Hobbit was published were then adults when it came time to read Lord of the Rings. Much in the same way that the Harry Potter series became progressively deeper and darker in tone as the series and its readers both developed and of course grew.

Certain readers and critics began to notice and comment on this stark difference in tone between the two works and this influenced Tolkein and his publishers, and this is where we get the Star Wars Syndrome style troubles really starting to begin.

  In order to try and make The Hobbit fit in more with the style of LOTR he began to retcon (a word learned and almost simultaneously vehemently despised by the Star Wars fanbase) The Hobbit in later editions to foreshadow themes and tonal aspects of its sequel. Most famously changing the character of Gollum in the 'riddles' chapter, making him much more aggressive and adding in dialogue to explain his reaction to losing his 'precious' ring: "Thief! Thief, Baggins! We hates it, we hates it, we hates it forever!"

In the late 1950's, on the strength of the success of The Lord of The Rings saga, J.R.R Tolkein began writing a sequel called The New Shadow, set almost a century later in the time of Eldarion, Aragorn's son, but ultimately abandoned this work after only just 30 pages. Perhaps Tolkein received some of the mid 20th century's equivalent of 'nerd fanboy rage' and as a result of it he knew when to quit. I imagine that 'nerd fanboy rage' might of been something like an angry letter addressed to Tolkein or some strongly worded phone calls inciting discussion on a local station on the wireless. This is all of course pure speculation with entirely no basis in fact, but it is plausible to think that at some point Tolkein himself might've realised that he had done enough and should really move on.

Unfortunately history tells us that he didn't move on entirely though, not from all his previous works anyway. In 1960 he began a new version of the Hobbit, attempting in a last ditch effort to finally and properly adapt The Hobbit to match its sequel. However he abandoned the new revision at only chapter three after he received criticism that it "just wasn't The Hobbit", implying it had lost much of its light-hearted tone and the overall spirit of the original. Now this evidence of 'nerd fanboy rage' was officially documented...well, I got it from Wikipedia you see.

Many years after The Hobbit's publication, and indeed a few years since Tolkein's death, Christopher Tolkein took over the reigns from his father and helped publish a work entitled Unfinished Tales that included a retconned backstory for the Hobbit along with many other stories, ruminations, and expansions on the mythology of Middle Earth that J.R.R. may or may not have ever intended to release to the public. This collection of posthumous publications, which began with the hefty and overly wordy The Silmarillion in 1980, then later included a 12 volume History of Middle Earth (pictured above), and most recently has ended for now with a two part History of the Hobbit in 2007, has really made George Lucas' engorgement of the Star Wars mythos appear in comparison not quite as offensive as everyone says and really quite ordinary.

Perhaps the further mining of Tolkein's literary archives could be 'blamed on' by some, and 'attributed to' by nicer others, to the popularity of Peter Jackson's films but where are the people telling Christopher Tolkein to just stop already? Where is the bedroom/basement nerd rage that's currently being hurled at Jackson and crew for deciding to make just one more movie? Surely he's not the one that really should be blamed when it's the source material he's using that is arguably unnecessarily inflated and almost sucked dry in this scenario? 

Now I would like to start this next paragraph by saying that personally I am really excited about The Hobbit becoming three movies. I'm of the camp that has faith in how Jackson and crew can serve the story and mythology and I agreed with every single deviation from, and indeed expansion upon, the source material that the filmmakers used to help shape the original trilogy. But really it's the particular source material that Jackson has been quoted saying that he's using for the basis of his third Hobbit film that bothers me. As I have previously illustrated here there is an immense wealth of brilliant mythology to draw from for this film that is said to act as a bridge between the two cinematic trilogies, The Quest of Erebor in Unfinished Tales comes to mind, so I can't understand why Jackson would say that he's mainly using the Appendices from The Return of the King as his main inspiration.

I have read those Appendices, I was on a high after finishing Return of The King so I just kept going. But as good as they are, making a movie based around some of the plot elements in those Appendices is the equivalent of expanding Harry Potter into another movie and basing it on content within Quidditch Through The Ages and Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (*2020 edit* Haha! That happened!). Both The Appendices and these Potter companions books are just examples of pieces of writing to expand upon the universe the work created. Sometimes adaptations in other media of these outer realms of a particular mythology do work, the Nintendo 64 game Shadows of the Empire or the Cartoon Network's Star Wars The Clone Wars series for example, but most of the time they're a complete waste of time, i.e the video game adaptation of one of the mythology expanding novels to a video game series: Halo: Reach.

Nobody remakes or adapts a videogame incorporating extra story elements from the original's instruction manual (please correct me if I'm wrong), or covers a single and includes extra lyrics from the original releases' liner notes. That second one is a little far fetched I know, but I think my point still stands.

I guess in conclusion, very little so far is known about what will ultimately become the third movie in the Hobbit trilogy. It could easily be patchy and fragmented as a result of its source material, but over on the flipside it could also serve to piece together the entire story and be absolutely brilliant. Not to mention create an incredible Movie Marathon. So I'm not angry or upset at Peter Jackson, or experiencing the pain of my blood boiling because of the mythology of Middle Earth being expanded upon in the world of Cinema. Instead I'm completely fine with this announcement because Jackson and his team are amazing at what they do and Jackson is the perfect director to make sure it is done right. As we've seen from the output of J.R.R. Tolkein and his progeny there is now a little too much mythology in the Middle Earth universe, but a great deal of it is worthy of being retold again by a talented storyteller like Peter Jackson.

Then again, I suppose he's still got time to do something stupid like hand over the third movie to Del Toro...

Danny

Review: Jaws

*This article was first published on another blog back in 2012, presented here slightly edited*

The other day I went down to my somewhat local cinema in North London and sat down to watch a new restoration of Jaws (Spielberg/1975).

A poster I would very much like framed.

This is a huge deal for me, not just going to the movies but rather seeing Jaws on the big screen. Being an unashamed fan of Blockbuster spectacle films I was hugely excited to see what is commonly regarded as the first modern Blockbuster and considered to be a real turning point in cinematic entertainment. There had of course been movies prior to Jaws that loads of people went down in their droves and packed streets to see, but Jaws brought about our whole mega popcorn-stuffing, coke-guzzling bombastic movie culture, a movement that would of course go on to be taken into overdrive two years later by Star Wars (Lucas/1977).

  It's always struck me as odd though how Jaws holds this place in movie history, because when compared to most other blockbuster type fair it's actually quite an understated subdued film, with at some times a very slow pace and some truly excellent cinematography. As the movie begins it all kicks off like a wonderfully crafted and suspenseful horror movie with many nods to that particular genre. For instance, Horror film fans will instantly recognise the first half of the name of the film's fictional setting, Amity Island. Yes I will admit, it does in the first half briefly dabble in being an all-out monster movie but for the most part what you're treated to is a lot of small town politics and general small town based humour, some amateur oceanographic studies, and some genuinely touching family scenes all equipped with a surprisingly great deal of depth.

Here we see local-body politics juxtaposed with urban vandalism.

  In the first couple of acts the movie does of course have to tell the story of a massive shark terrorizing a small town because that is after all it's main purpose, but alongside that it also tells a well constructed story of Amity Island's Government fighting basic ethics against tourist demand to keep itself financially afloat (*2020 edit* How prescient are those themes now?!) how the shark attacks impact the local community, and how a big-city cop and his young family adjust to small town life and all that entails. These elements, bought in at the beginning of the movie, are what start to set Jaws apart from most monster movies or scary movies in general. In it's opening acts Jaws establishes itself a very believable and engaging backdrop for the attacks, and setting all this in such an environment makes the whole scenario all the more relatable for the viewer and of course in-turn all the more a scary experience, or even beyond that, a downright terrifying trip to the cinema.

Major plot details and secrets to follow.

The story of the movie is moved along most by three major characters (well four if you count The Shark), and the primary acting trio portraying those characters are all absolutely incredible. First, we are introduced to Police Chief Brody (Roy Schieder, rip) and it's not fully explained why he left New York to move to Amity and run the island as it were - I always assumed it was a promotion to a higher position in a smaller district - , but with the Shark Attacks he is confronted by something far out of his depth (no pun intended), far beyond the usual petty theft and 'neighbour's trees encroaching over boundaries cases' he is used to. Roy Schieder plays this role in the start of the movie masterfully, he is clearly not entirely sure of himself but at the same time very aware and proud of his authority within the community. His overall interaction with the inhabitants of Amity Island is portrayed by Schieder with such an ingenious balance of disdain and humility. In his heart of hearts he's a big city New Yorker but duty always outweighs those feelings and even deeper than that he always knows what he has to do.

  This commitment to duty and high skill in his job makes Brody come to the realisation that he is truly in need of proper mainland/outside world help so he calls the Oceanographic Institute and we are next introduced to Matt Hooper (Richard Dreyfuss, who would go on to be used later again by Spielberg in the also excellent Close Encounters of the Third Kind), a young Marine Biologist who at first seems as if he's probably done a lot more theory at a desk than practical field work in his career so far.
  There's a particular scene, after the town goes Shark Hunting Mad (which I'll go more into later) and a tiger-shark is caught, in which Brody and Hooper are given permission to do an autopsy on the captured beast to inspect what it has digested and prove whether or not it is indeed the town's aquatic serial killer. During the procedure Dreyfuss/Hooper is seen gagging at the smell of the Shark innards and completely disgusted by what he's seeing. Acting wise he's not only illustrating his inexperience as a Marine Biologist but he's also directly echoing the feelings of the viewer and bringing us into the movie. He thinks it's disgusting and so do we, and with this imagery on the screen we can imagine the smell. Matt Hooper/Richard Dreyfuss in that moment is representing the outside observer in the story, which is rather extensionally us, so in some small way we become a part of the movie. There are just so many powerful things about this scene and Hooper's character in general. I love it when a character or an element in a movie does this and this is one of the best examples of this technique that I can think of in movie history. It's simply impeccable visual storytelling.

This is drawn to scale.

  Back to the story for the second: the fallout from the Shark Attacks coupled with the Mayoral office's need for a bumper beach season all culminate in a local town meeting, where its The People versus The Council discussing the issue and hopefully agreeing upon a solution. As is so often the case this quickly erupts into a shouting match and the room is silenced by our third introduction in the Jaws cast trinity, a deafening scratch on the chalkboard by the lovably eccentric, Quint.

At this stage we don't know an awful lot about Quint, but in a brief community exchange we find out that he his known by the Mayor as a local celebrity, some say he is a hermit-like recluse, and in other circles he's a fishing legend.
  He offers to find and kill the shark at a price and the mayor responds to this by announcing a reward for the beast's capture and makes this available to all local fishermen. Hence the whole going Shark Hunting Mad thing I eluded to earlier. After the tiger-shark is caught and exposed for what it isn't, Brody convinces the Mayor of town to commission Quint to go on a proper Shark Hunting expedition. We are quickly shown Quint's house which cleverly visually illustrates that this guy is the real deal, and Brody decides he should go along to rein Quint in and also decides to bring along Hooper for some real scientific expertise. So the three of them set off out to sea and all of this expository plot babble I've been doing sets up my favourite part of the film and arguably the best Third Act in cinematic history.

Brody is bummed out because he forgot his blue shirt today.

This third act is now what truly sets Jaws apart from just about any other movie I can think of. It's just completely indescribable but I am going to attempt to do so anyway. I don't know what genre it makes the movie become but in truth I don't really even care, I just love this part of the movie so much. I love the three characters getting to know each other more, I really love the scar swapping stories and the seriously bone chilling monologue that follows, and I am always blown away by the insanely clever use of the barrels to represent the shark. Just the simple scenes of the boat being driven and being tended to, or Quint constructing his fishing apparatus make this whole sequence seem almost zen like, only with an ever present undercurrent of extreme suspense. It all thematically serves to strip the movie all the way down to it's bare roots: it's not the perils of a town versus a shark anymore; it is just a trio of men taking on a formidable adversary, which then ultimately becomes simply, and exactly as it should do, just a one-on-one contest - Man versus Shark.

During this almost hour long act we are never shown or even told about any of the townspeople anymore, in fact we never see any of the other supporting characters again, the movie ends with two of the main cast still at sea on their way back to land. Jaws in it's third act becomes just about the three characters we cared about in the first place (again, four if you count the Shark) and I really wish more movies would do this. It is this movie's equivalent of the leader and remaining hero confronting his nemesis in Predator (McTiernan/1987), John McClane just ending up on the top floor of the building to confront Hans Gruber in Die Hard (McTiernan/1989), or after everything that has come to pass, The Hobbits farewelling dear Frodo on the shores of The Grey Havens (The Lord of The Rings, Jackson/2001-03). But like so many things about this movie, this is in my opinion cinema's best example of this narrative structure. It's so wonderfully elongated and so uniquely engaging. I can't express enough, or even adequately find the words to describe, how well this works and how it so brilliantly serves the story.

"Smile, you son of a bitch!"

Jaws was an incredible trip to the cinema for me. I had loved it for years but now I think I love it even more. I always try to do this with movies of my youth which I only ever saw on a small screen: In 1997 I saw Star Wars (in it's first of many revisions), back in 2001 I rather appropriately saw 2001 (Kubrick/1968), and then when both ET (Spielberg/1982) and I turned 20 in 2002 I took my little brother to see it, sadly with the now infamous lack of swear words and gun replacing walkie-talkies.

This game changing monster-movie blockbuster with oh so much more on offer is one of my favourite movies ever and without any shred of hesitation it fully deserves  

Five Shark Bites out of Five

Gosh I went through this whole review and didn't even go into the film's visual effects. So in short: the shark looks awesome.

 In theaters now (in the UK at least) *Well, it was in theaters back when I first wrote this article*
 

Bonus fun Plot Comparison: The Giant Jam Sandwich