THE SIMPSONS NEWS

I called the studio earlier this week. I wanted to know if they had worked out the schedule for the season yet, and if they had, where I fit in it. Well, I was told the schedule is still not quite done yet but it’s possible I might start on the first or second week of July. Unfortunately, this is not set in stone. So until the schedule is official, I might go back to work next month…or maybe not.

MOVIES (The Hobbit)

A while back I wrote about how it was good that The Hobbit movie would be split up into two movies. Turns out that my assumption that both movies would be telling the same story of The Hobbit, was incorrect. It seems that the first movie is going to be a movie version of The Hobbit book while the second movie is going to be completely made up.

Wait…

What?

That’s right, you read right, the second movie being made is going to be completely made up, as in,

“I feel like writing a completely new Middle Earth story that takes place between The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings that Tolkien never wrote.”

There are two places on the internet where you can find out all about this stuff:

Weta holics: Which has an enormous interview with the Producer of the movies, Peter Jackson and the Director of the movies Guillermo del Toro.

The One Ring.net: Which has an interview with Director Guillermo del Toro.

I personally wanted desperately to know the answer to one question. It was actually asked in the Weta holics interview. Here it is below:

WetaHost	2 – Hello Mr. Jackson and Mr. Del Toro! Thank you very much for this time. My question is one that I think you will hear alot of from many of us…from what material will you pulling the second movie from? I know it’ll be great with you two on board, but I am mighty curious. I am a huge fan of both of you and I look foward to more Tolkien films!
Guillermo del Toro	The idea is to find a compelling way to join THE HOBBIT and FELLOWSHIP and enhance the 5 films both visually an in their Cosmology. There’s omissions and material enough in the available, licensed material to attempt this. The agreement is, however, that the second film must be relevant and emotionally strong enough to be brought to life but that we must try and contain the HOBBIT in a single film.
Peter Jackson	I’m really looking forward to developing Film Two. It gives us a freedom that we haven’t really had on our Tolkien journey. Some of you may well say that’s a good thing of course! The Hobbit is interesting in how Tolkien created a feeling of dangerous events unfolding, which preoccupy Gandalf. There’s an awful lot of incident that happens during that 60 year gap. At this stage, we’re not imagining a film that literally covers 60 years, like a bio-pic or documentary. We would figure out what happens during that 60 years, and choose one short section of time to drop in and dramatise for the screen. I’m really interested in how it effects The Hobbit – do we show what happens to Gandalg during his trips away? We’ll see. We may well have seeds for Film Two that we’ll subtly sow during The Hobbit.

Uh…is it just me or did Peter Jackson just totally ignore the question. What sources are you going to use Mr. Jackson? Meanwhile it would be nice to know what “Omissions and material” in the “licensed material” del Toro is talking about. To be honest I don’t like this idea at all. Nearly every time Peter Jackson deviated from what Tolkien had written in some source material, he actually made the story worse, not better. Some things he changed, I could understand, but then there are other things that make me go, “HUH!”? For example:

• Helm’s Deep. There really wasn’t any reason why the elves should have showed up. They all got killed to a man. There was not one Elf left alive at the end of that battle (except Legolas). They weren’t in Helm’s Deep in the book. Why have them there in the movie?
• Then there’s the question, what the heck happened to the Dunedain? In the book, Aragorn had an army of “Aragorns” (A.K.A Dunedain) that were as cool as he was, kicked major butt and turned the tide of the battle in Minas Tirith. In the movie, it was an army of ghosts. In the book, the ghosts simply helped Aragorn and the Dunedain get the ships the they needed to get to Minas Tirith to kick major butt. The the ghosts didn’t go all the way to Minas Tirith. In the movie, the fact that the ghosts did what they did, begs the question, “Why didn’t they just take those ghosts all the way to Mordor then?”
• Then of course, there’s Faramir whose character and personality they changed for the worse because, according to the Commentary on the DVD, “he needed a character arch”. In the book, Faramir was suppose to be the complete opposite of his brother Boromir and through him we were suppose got get a glimpse of what true wisdom and virtue really was. In any case, they at least fixed him some what in the extended editions, so he’s not too horrible, although having Sam and Frodo at Osgiliath just to get attacked by a Ring Wraith was a really a dumb idea too.
• Okay, so everything I mentioned above doesn’t really ruin the movies for me. I could live with those changes. They are still, “in the spirit” of what the story intended. There is one thing thought that just doesn’t fit any “spirit” at all. The worst sin in the movies…the portrayal of Denethor. This bugs me every time I watch the movies he’s in. For two reasons:

1. It is inconsistent with what the writers had established as their style. What I mean is, if they were willing to change Faramir because he needed story arch, WHY TAKE AWAY DENETHOR’S ARCH SO THAT HE’S A ONE NOTE CHARACTER?! (He’s Angry, angry, angry, angry, despairing and angry, he’s dead.) Then to have a scene were Gandalf hits him! What a disgrace. Yes, I understand he’s just a fictional character but it’s what he represents that bugs me. This leads me to reason…
2. In the books, there are many characters that represent wisdom, it’s a motif that is through out the books. Each character represents different kinds of wisdom. Elrond, Galadriel, Gandalf, Aragorn, Faramir, Sam, all, in part, represent a form of wisdom in the story. Denethor also represents wisdom but a wisdom that was slowly lost due to overconfidence and pride. Denethor was a wise and prudent (but very grumpy) leader. He knew what was at stake and what needed to be done about it. The problem with Denethor was that he was a very proud man and this proved to be his undoing. He also had a Palantir (just like Saruman the Wizard) something erroneously cut out of the movies. Denethor knew that Sauron controlled the Palantir but Denethor, through his pride, thought he was strong enough to deal with that fact and used it often. Denethor also knew that the Palantir could not show him false things. So Sauron out smarted Denethor by showing him that, the ships that Aragorn had taken from the “bad guys” using the ghosts, were on the way to Minas Tirith. Sauron hid the fact that Aragorn and the Dunedain were on board. He only showed him that evil ships with black sails were on the way. Denethor thought that more bad guys were coming and that is the reason he went into despair. Denethor thought he knew something no one else did. See, Sauron tricked a good man with false information by using his pride against him. Denethor‘s pride proved greater than his wisdom and he foolishly played mind games with “evil” and lost. That is the lesson you should take away from Denethor‘s story, “Don’t play with fire or you’ll get burned.” Why was this cut from the movies? If they had enough time to film big chunks of story afterwards for the special edition DVDs, why not a scene with a Palantir and Denethor, to explain why he went nuts? As it is, Denethor, in the movies, has no redeeming qualities and no character arch.

Don’t get me wrong. I love the The Lord of the Rings movies. There was far more right than wrong in them. I think, if they would have been written and directed by anyone else other than Peter Jackson and gang, they probably would have been awful. I really want them to make The Hobbit movie because I think, for the most part, they “get it”. The thing I don’t like is the fact that they are making something up from scratch, and I’m too much of a purist to feel comfortable about it.

One thing I am excited about, is that Guillermo del Toro is directing the movies and this means the art direction is going to be a little different. I personally didn’t like that way the Orcs, Goblins, and Wargs were designed in the original movies. Del Toro in the interviews, has already said, he’s going to be changing some of those designs. Especially the Wargs, which are going to look more like Wolves instead of Hyenas, and the Goblins are going to look different also. I’ve seen the trailer for Hellboy 2 and the monsters in that movie look great. I like that monsters in Del Toro’s movie Pan’s Labyrinth also. If The Hobbit movie looks anything like that, I’ll be happy.

ROLE PLAYING GAMES

Dungeons and Dragons 4^th Edition (D&D4E) came out last week on June 6th and at it’s peak the Core 4th edition gift set became the 4th highest seller at amazon.com. Dungeons and Dragons was the first role playing game ever invented. It inspired tons of other games since. Including some popular video games such as, but not limited to, the Final Fantasy series, the Zelda series, the Knights of the Old Republic series and Bethesda Softwork’s Morrowind, and Oblivion games. The role playing style of gaming has really come to popularity with the invention of games like Lord of the Rings Online and World of Warcraft. Now everyone who plays these games knows what geeks like me have known for years, playing role playing games with friends is fun. Not bad for a game that, in the 80s, was erroneously thought to lead kids into Satanism (much like a certain series of popular books about a young wizard named Harry).

Now that there are so many other role playing games out there, both tabletop and digital, why would you care to buy and play this one? Much like the Wii, D&D4E was designed to attract the new gamers. It has taken a lot of elements from some of the best of both the tabletop and digital role playing games out there, and simplified them so that anyone can pick up and play it; and if you’re into World of Warcraft or Lord of the Rings Online, it will be even easier because it has borrowed a lot of ideas from those games as well. There is no better time to get into the geeky goodness of playing games like these.

MY WEEK

Man! I hate being sick. My throat is killing me. I’ve been sick since last week. This weekend I got really sick. I started getting better on Tuesday but that’s when I made the mistake of yelling along with The Munchkin when I was playing with her. On Wednesday I could barely swallow. I’m grumpy and feeling just awful. To make matters worse, the drawing below had to be drawn twice because my laptop over heated and turned itself off as I was just finishing it. I hadn’t save the drawing. It’s all I had the strength to draw. What a lousy week.

COPYRIGHT PROTECTION

Woo Hoo! Some illustrators have actually gone to Washington to fight the Orphan Bill. Hope they can make a difference. Let’s pray for them:

FROM THE ILLUSTRATORS’ PARTNERSHIP

 

Visual Artists Go to Washington, Independent Record Labels Oppose Orphan Works Act

 

Last week over two dozen visual artists, representing illustrators, photographers, fine artists and the arts licensing trades went to Capital Hill to explain to legislators how the Orphan Works Act will harm creators and the hundreds of thousands of art-related small businesses that serve and are dependent on them. At the same time, independent music labels have joined the opposition to orphan works legislation as it currently exists.

 

The Illustrators’ Partnership has stressed that Orphan Works legislation should be limited to true orphaned work and not act as an unwarranted compulsory license imposed on commercial markets. IPA, the Advertising Photographers of America and the Artists Rights Society have joined to offer amendments to that effect.

Excerpted from the Washington Internet Daily/Monday June 09, 2008:

 

The visual-arts community hit the Hill last week to protest what it portrays as a hijacking of the orphan-works issue as it was presented in a 2005 Copyright Office report…

 

The Copyright Office ran a bait-and-switch from its 2005 notice of intent, which focused on facilitating libraries’, museums’ and other nonprofits’ efforts to digitize collections to improve access to them, [Illustrators’ Partnership co-founder Brad] Holland said. Artists want the issue narrowed back to that focus, scrapping commercial use, he said…Copyright Office roundtables on orphan works never addressed alternates to registries, an “untested, untried, unaccountable market system” favoring Google, Getty, Corbis and other commercial aggregators, Holland said. [Cynthia] Turner [also of the Partnership] said artists would incur high costs registering works, and they hesitate to hand over high-res, commercial versions to Google or others.

 

In the same article, Washington Internet Daily also reports that the leading group of independent music labels has broken with the corporate music trade associations. The American Association of Independent Music has published a position paper opposing the current orphan works bills. The article quotes a music industry executive: “I can tell you that nobody in the music business” sought the bill.

 

… the executive said the bill is “de facto… establishing a new compulsory license” by putting unregistered artists at a legal disadvantage in court. The law can’t explicitly require registration or it will violate the Berne Convention, TRIPS and other treaties the U.S. has signed, the executive said. Book publishers and music executives in the U.K. think the U.S. will be in trouble, the executive said, citing a recent visit: “I can tell you there are European commissioners that are looking at this right now.”

 

–Excerpts from “Orphan-Works Bills Scorned by Visual Arts, Indie Labels” by Greg Piper, Washington Internet Daily June 09, 2008

 

Also see http://www.artinfo.com/news/story/27803/visual-artists-and-indie-record-labels-voice-concern-over-orphan-works-bills/

 

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