December 17, 2014
 
Tolkien & the face-palm guild of Christ:
The absurdity of the Hobbit III
 

Okay friends. Time to address the elephant in the room. Turn your gaze in horror or hide your children, follow along or not, it’s your choice.

In my early 20's I made a ritual on Dec 19th. I saw each premiere of the Lord of the Rings film trilogy in a mega-modern theatre to celebrate the day of my birth. On my birthday, these years, I distinctly remember saying to my theatre-going peers "I've been waiting a decade for this!" And emphatically after the viewing, "That was the movie to end all movies!"

At the time I didn't really know what that last one meant; I couldn't unpack it.

I still don't really know. But somehow, I feel it is true.

 
   
 

At a young age, 11, I was lucky enough to have grade school friends who introduced me to the mysterious (and even dangerous) living breathing world of Middle Earth. I had to hide The Hobbit and Lord Of The Rings from my religious parents who's initial reaction was shock. They thought I had been introduced to an evil, sword-and-sorcery, mind-warping, lose-track-of-reality, RPG-dungeons-and-dragons-suicide-cult book set. (Or maybe they just didn't like the fact that the word Lord was in the title.) Whether that parental fear was justified or not, my imagination certainly was never the same again.

Soon after immersion I found this art poster (above right), immediately purchased it, and hung it in my room. My parents eased up on me slightly as I grew into a voracious bookworm and my drawing practice geared up from a weekly, to a daily obsession.

Much like the authors who defined my world view in my 20's and 30's, Tolkien defined my teen years, influencing my growing creative and intellectual mind, my innocent and wide-eyed imagination, and my art practice - just like so many of my visionary peers today.

     

I certainly cannot speak for them - those now with me in my 30's, my movie going friends in my 20's, or those young peers from my pre-teens, but as another birthday rolls around, Dec 19th, I am not excited, but simply can't wait for the violent commercialize spectacle of The Hobbit III to be over…

Today I feel a great flood of sorrow, as the -- "defining chapter" -- film is released of this children's book, in which this chapter does not even exist.

Dramatic opinions aside, I'm simply at a loss as to what I'm going tell my kids when they ask me to read the Hobbit trilogy at bed time.

I could certainly pull out the Appendix of the Lord of the Rings - which the three Hobbit movies liberally sample from; so as to construct a cohesive narrative that links all 6 movies - but it certainly would not captivate my future kid's young imagination, like the original did mine.

(Thankfully the Silmarillion - Tolkien's life long Middle Earth catch all - remains untouched. Warner Brothers and NewLine Cinema did not acquire the rights to this biblical tome.)

I can already hear the future conversation:
"Okay, start book two daddy."
"Ugh…It's the same as book one honey, it just has a different cover." An observant and bright youngster, I hear the frustrated response, "No Daddy. There are 3 books in the Hobbit. Read the second book. I see it's cover right there. The one with the Eye."
"Ugh… how 'bout we switch to The Magicians Nephew instead? It's Daddy's favorite Narnia book."
"The Magicians Nephew? That's not in the Narnia Series!"
"That's cause it's magic," I respond.

Only recently did I realize that HarperCollins
re-released the Hobbit novel with different movie
tie-in covers to coincide with the marketing of each
successive movie in The Hobbit Trilogy.

 

  Rather than waiting for the usual double-decade of cultural reverberation to publicly re-deliver the material to new virginal audiences - similar to other publishing campaigns of the genius of PKD or Heinlein or Gibson or even classics like Mary Shelley or HG Wells - for Tolkien's work, HarperCollins took the Hollywood pill and upgraded to a compound frequency reverb.

That means: releasing, or at least developing digital release campaigns, to sell the same work of literature 3 times over 6 years with different covers. Acclimatized to a media environment saturated with Harry Potter, The Hunger Games, Mocking Jay: Parts 1 and 2, Divergent, even Star Wars (sigh)…. it is easy to see how a bright young digital native could be deceived into thinking that The Hobbit is a real trilogy.

I understand that now, these new story-film-business models are a necessary adjustment for an unviable storytelling paradigm of monoculture; forcing new youth into a world of specific value systems and an infected, if not dead, imagination. (If you read the book after seeing the film, you will simply be reading a film script, imagining the visual depictions already in your imagination.)

If, like me, you're a sensitive, imaginative, wonder-laden person - a near necessity to enter Tolkien's written environment of magic and myth in the first place - the militant-like psychological subjugation of this last advertising push has you blocking and shielding every loud overwhelmingly nano-vibe design that reaches into your mind; the final echoing of this last mad marching elephant. Breaking down your shield.

I hesitate to even bring you this report, as being inside this world, the New middle earth, I've had to battle a meta dragon worse than Smaug. A monstrous behemoth that has co-opted a cultural treasure, melted it down and alchemically re-forged it into a powerful vacuum of top down institutional soul sucking consumptive mediocrity. I assure you, the level of anger and anxiety that comes up for me, when pondering this abhorrent corporate pollution of creative human essence may not simply be my own personal reaction, but could in fact be a security mechanism embedded in the alchemical vacuum itself.

 

Like the one ring, this vacuum will find a way to get inside and disable conscience and outside critique (hopefully not permanently), take coins, sit asses in seats, and hand out a mental, emotional, and physical pummeling… to the point where it dawns one me; WWI and WWII have been hijacked inside our collective memory and digitized into this mythic war film hexalogy.
 

 

Besides the film itself, there are many other secondary ways for this meta dragon to find your coin as well. Along with relatively tame, somewhat normal movie merch material such as miniature game figurines, bookmarks, and coffee mugs, there are a broad range of smart phone cases to choose from -- depending on whether you identify as Elf, Dwarf, or Middle earth neutral: Hobbit. Also available are beer cosies, a collector beer stein, a wearable hobbit 'One Ring' (that might colour change depending on your mood - to revel the elvish inscription - and may cause you to turn invisible with the right Warner Brothers incantation), a Bofer ball hat, a vibrating toothbrush, and many keys to chose from. Whether around the neck of Thorin on throw pillow or as the stone shaped 3D goggles or as the Dwarf Stone Key pen. Or you can get an elvish upgrade, and purchase the sleek 3D Oakley-Hobbit goggles, as well as wear your Air New Zealand Sock Hobbit feet while you play Hobbit monopoly or the Lego brand X-box video game. Unfortunately there are no elvish puke buckets. However these may be available with Jedi brand in the near future. Keep in mind it takes a much different beast to fully corrupt and pollute a long-lasting signal of purity, rather than develop a mega-media pop culture economic feedback narrative in living time, like Harry Potter, the Hunger Games, or even Star Wars.

     

In fact I wish every time Hollywood gave their pill to a biblical narrative, and retold it as an action blockbuster, they would partner with a publishing company to re-release the appropriate Testament, with a movie-tie in cover as well. We would already have 2 awesomely corporatized versions of the Holy Bible out this year.

It would be stunning to see a handsome Russell Crowe and a helpless Jennifer Connolly (or even Emma Watson) on the cover of the Old Testament, tied to the release of Darren Aronofsky's film Noah (2014). Equally as amazing would be the newest Old Testament release, with Christian Bale and Joel Edgerton on the cover, coinciding with Ridley Scott's Exodus (2014) just in time for the holidays. In a play of surreal masterpiece, Exodus (orThe 10 Commandments reboot) will actually be competing with The Hobbit 3 for your hard earned coin of the realm. (In a parallel universe you could probably even find a 1965 Double Testament edition, with Charlton Heston on the cover of the Old Testament as Moses, and on the cover of the New Testament as John the Baptist.)

     

I think the only reason biblical re-dissemination is not sequenced as tightly as the Middle Earth Hex, the Harry Potter Octo-Gauntlet, the Square Hunger Games, even the Marvel mega-myth empire, is because these ancient stories are the foundation of all others, of western civilization itself, and must last as long, working to maintain it, however mutated civilization or the stories themselves become.

As a species if we're going to destroy our planet, re-write the human genome, merge our consciousness and find physical symbiosis with technology, then of course re-writing our cultural source material to serve the still-living zombie economy that continues to lead the way, is a minor task. That is, simply captivating and distracting from the energy of the real story. Most simply (and most epically) sharing in each others personal triumphs and tragedies, breakdowns and breakthroughs.

 

The one relief that I've found in all this is that actor Viggo Mortensen refused to take up his prescribed role of Aragorn in the based-on-the-Hobbit trilogy; he had actually read and researched the story in full. He knew that Aragorn's appearance in the new movies was inconsistent with Tolkien's original century long narrative arc. To turn down, what I'm sure was, a very large pay check, to help maintain the integrity of a cultural masterpiece is certainly a humble and kingly move. And a great example of right living. For anyone. Hollywood actor, scientist, politician, entrepreneur, or even post 2012-artist.

When I was 11 years old, Tolkien's deeply original soul foundry of imagination opened me up to the world of literature. Just as distinctly as the lines spoken in the iMax theatre in my 20's, I can remember at 11, a bright light bulb turning on in my young mind…. "Oh!.. This is what books are!!!"

I'm very sad today because this is no longer what books are.

I hope you will stand with me, in solidarity with Christopher Tolkien, in turning my gaze in horror, as JRR Tolkien is inducted into the face-palm guild of Christ this Christmas season.

mercy, kindness, and peace
truly yours
Shaun F

Ps I don't have kids.
If you do, good luck with them

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