"So tell us, Alex, was the Hobbit the Tokien Phantom Menace?"

As those of you who follow me on Twitter or in real life will know, I love to say "I told you so". With the release of the Hobbit, I have decided that in the spirit of inferior additions to popular franchises, I will write a follow up to my popular 2011 blog post "The Hobbit: Tolkien Phantom Menance?".

Firstly, I have to say this: The Hobbit is nothing like The Phantom Menace. Beautifully rendered, well acted, solidly entertaining and consistently enjoyable, The Hobbit is a good, well made film. Yet it suffers from a couple of the same problems. 

I don't want to blow my own trumpet (if I could I'd never leave the house), but everything I predicted about The Hobbit has come true.

Upon writing, on April 4th 2011, I bemoaned the decision to slice the Hobbit in two. That sounds like what would happen if there was a Lord of the Rings/Saw crossover, but that may have actually been less horrific than this decision. What I didn't know at the time is that Jackson and team would be sharpening their swords once again to chop it into three. This remains the biggest problem with An Unexpected Journey in that there's just not enough going on.

The fact that the Hobbit was never going to reach the heights of Lord of the Rings was true from the start, and is down to the source material. The lighter tone (perfectly captured, I might add) detracts from its epicness, but this is necessary. Basically, they should have made the films the other way round to avoid anticlimax. As I said previously "How is seeing Sir Ian take Tim from The Office to steal some treasure going to compare with the epic battle with the Balrog, or the painstaking crawl up the slopes of Mount Doom?" If you want to add grandeur to a story, hiring that bloke who played various nondescript, interchangeable characters in various things is probably a mistake. Also, having a Goblin King that resembles Boss Nass? You would have thought Star Wars Episode 1 imagery would be avoided at all costs.

The modest source material is comparable to Star Wars prequels being tied down by their explanatory duties, but contrary to Star Wars, the Hobbit turns its prequel nature to its advantage to explain aspects of the Lord of the Rings in a way that wasn't done in the book due to it being written first. Also, the fact that the book was written first means it's a good story in its own right, rather than just a path to what follows.

I also complained about the number of Lord of the Rings actors who were signed on for the Hobbit, whose characters don't appear in the book. I stand by this, and since writing my original blog more were announced such as Christopher Lee and Orlando Bloom. The things in part one that were additional to the book were brief and felt peripheral to the main story, but I still believe they might pay off more substantially in part two and three. But as a standalone film, the scenes in part one with Galadriel, Radagast and Saruman felt irrelevant and didn't go anywhere. (Although as a huge fan I still enjoyed seeing these event put to screen)

So while there are some points on which the Hobbit was like the Phantom Menace, to brand it a failure in the same way is innaccurate and unfair. Its lighter tone is to be expected, and its only real failing is the fact that not enough happens due to being split in three to make more money, slightly akin to the Phantom Menace.

The final point on which I was right was that the Dark Knight Rises would be awesome. I told you so.

Thanks for listening to how right I was. For more accurate future predictions keep reading my blog.

These aren't the toys you're looking for

As those of you who follow me on Twitter or in real life will know, I think George Lucas is a dick. Some people give him credit for making Star Wars, but once you acknowledge that the original trilogy is almost as bad as the prequels, and certainly suffers from the same flaws of bad acting, annoying comedy sidekicks, thin plots etc. you realize that Lucas is just a man who had one good idea once. Like Tim Berners-Lee.

However, one thing the prequel trilogy has in abundance that is really lacking in the original trilogy is racist aliens. During one of the long, long days I have to fill I was looking into racist aliens in Star Wars because there really isn't anything more important going on in my life. During my investigation I discovered this 1999 BBC interview with the man himself.

Lucas first defends Jar Jar Binks. Defending Jar Jar Binks is not something anyone should have to do. Not even George Lucas deserves that. If the government was defending Jar Jar Binks on Newsnight they would send a junior minister. The criticism of Jar Jar Binks that Newsnight chose to focus on was the one that points out how it's kinda racist to have an entire species of stupid, technologically backward, clowning frogmen who live under the sea, play drums and all have mock Caribbean accents. Some people would say that's very racist. Personally I thought it was great, but I am very racist.

Lucas's defence of the character goes as follows:

"Those criticisms are made by people who've obviously never met a Jamaican, because it's definitely not Jamaican and if you were to say those lines in Jamaican they wouldn't be anything like the way Jar Jar Binks says them."

Ok, so far so good. No one who has ever claimed Jar Jar Binks is racist has ever met a Jamaican person ever. Fact. George Lucas says so himself, and George Lucas is an expert. On his gap year he lived with a tribe of Jamaicans in their home under the sea. Also, it's fairly accurate to say that Jar Jar Binks doesn't speak like a Jamaican. What he does speak like is a ludicrous Jamaican stereotype that wouldn't have sounded out of place in a sitcom in the 70s.

"They're basing a whole issue of racism on an accent, an accent that they don't understand. Therefore if they don't understand it, it must be bad."

Once again, good analysis George. If you don't understand something it must be bad. Pretty accurate really. I don't understand Star Wars Episode 1. Star Wars Episode 1 is bad. Spot on.

It's also quite funny that he tries to thwart Jar Jar's critics by claiming Binks is too complicated for them. They don't understand the character. That's the problem. You need to read between the lines.

"The movies are for children but they don't want to admit that. In the first film they absolutely hated R2 and C3-PO. In the second film they didn't like Yoda and in the third one they hated the Ewoks... and now Jar Jar is getting accused of the same thing."

I'm actually with him here. R2-D2, C3-PO and Ewoks are terrible characters too. But way to imply your fanbase, which has made you a billionaire, is made up of backwards, inbred, fast-food eating lardass adult virgins who live in their mother's basement and masturbate over Lara Croft while complaining that the kids films they've devoted their pathetic existences to features a comedy sidekick. That's pretty much what he said. Maybe I'm just scared by such an accurate analysis of my personality.

"it really reflects more the racism of the people who are making the comments than it does the movie."

Star Wars Episode 1 features gungans, the comedy race of clumsy Jamaicans; Neimodians, the greedy Japanese bad guys who blockade a peaceful planet in a trade dispute; and a Toydarian, who owns slaves and is only interested in money and is basically a stereotypical Jew, right down to the little blue wings. But racism is in the eye of the beholder. It's also worth noting that Lucas did away with any new racially insensitive aliens by Star Wars Episode 2. Almost like it was deliberate....

We then discover Lucas's views on the cost of his merchandise, which was apparently set to make $1bn in 1999. George Lucas is "uneasy" about the cost of the merchandise:

"I wish there was a world where nobody had to get paid and people could just do things for free but they don't. All the tens of thousands of people that make the toys and the films, they all have to pay their bills and so they demand to be paid."

I assume he said this in the most sarcastic tone imaginable. Is he suggesting he wishes he lives in a world where the greedy peasants who make merchandise didn't "demand to be paid"? I'm fairly sure the $1bn isn't going to end up in the pockets of Chinese sweatshop workers. By the way, that's a nice BMW there, George.

If, by this point in the article, you think Lucas has taken the biscuit, in his final comment he puts it in his mouth and goes "Om nom nom nom nom!".

"Most people don't like toys and don't think children should be able to play with toys."

Yeah! Fuck you, most people! Why do you hate children?

Is he from Victorian times?

"But I'm a big fan of toys, and I think it helps kids be able to play and expand their imaginations. To contribute to that is I think a good thing."

Star Wars merchandising is basically charity work, isn't it? Lucas for a Knighthood, anyone?

"I'm not ashamed of doing anything"

Clearly.