The 3 Truths About Peter Jackson

- by Señor Editor, 27 December 2012

I have not yet seen Peter Jackson's "Hobbit: The Unexpected Journey", and even though I kinda want to, I'm not sure when I will. But I've read the books as a kid and I've been reading up on all the news stories about the first in the new trilogy of Tolkien movies, and spent an insane amount of time thinking about Peter Jackson. All of this research, coupled with the times I've seen the "Lord of the Rings" trilogy, made me realize the three essential truths about Peter Jackson and his agenda as a movie director. Here they are.

3. PETER JACKSON WON'T REST UNTIL HE HIRES EVERYONE IN NEW ZEALAND

Quick, name the first few things that come to mind when you think about New Zealand!

If you're not from NZ and the first thing you said is "Lord of the Rings" (followed by Flight of the Conchords and the toothbrush fence, natch), then you're pretty much like everybody else in the world.

The Tolkien movies are probably the most beloved works of the director (though one person I know would probably veer towards "Braindead") and definitely the most popular ones. When you take into consideration the number of actors, extras, crewmen, costume creators etc. that worked on the 3 "Lord of the Rings" movies, all the stories about how "everybody in New Zealand at least knows somebody who worked on those movies" are very easy to believe.

The effects of the LotR movies on New Zealand economy are hard to ignore. It was a massive boost, launching the so-called "Tolkien tourism" and bringing in massive amounts of money. Just read this article, or any of the tens of other ones written on the topic.

Is this all there is to it? Peter Jackson making epic (and incredibly long) movies that bring in millions to the New Zealand economy? Or is Peter Jackson just a front for the NZ government, with a mission to make the country millions of dollars from the entertainment and tourism industry, so New Zealand becomes one of the richest countries in the world, channels that money into military, arms their troops in all the weaponry and mithril armor "made for the movies" and takes over the world?

Probably the first one, but if not, you heard it here first.

2. PETER JACKSON DRINKS THE TEARS OF LITTLE PEOPLE

And I don't mean little people like Tom Cruz, I mean little people like in "Willow" or "Time Bandits". Like Warwick Davis or Peter Dinklage. Dwarfs (but not like John Rhys-Davies).

Even though some movie industry people (like the mentioned Peter Dinklage, who I'm a big fan of) have been vocal about their dislike for all kinds of fantasy being the designated genre for dwarf actors (and that's a fair point), there is no argument that for a lot of them this type of movies have been the main source of income for a good while. Remember the '80s? Movies like "Time Bandits"? That movie was chock-full of dwarfs and it rocked. "Willow"? Even more dwarfs. And they were both very good movies that gave jobs to talented actors. Not to mention George Lucas probably did more for dwarf actors than any other director, putting even more of them in the original Star Wars trilogy (Ugnaughts! R2-D2! Ewoks!). The 90s didn't have as many notable movies with dwarfs (though there were some, like the Austin Powers movies, the terrible Leprechaun movies etc.), but they were still there.

Then, the big news came: Peter Jackson was gonna make "The Lord of the Rings" trilogy. If I was a dwarf actor trying to make it big in Hollywood, I'd probably piss my pants right then and there. At least 4 major hobbit roles, one dwarf (the "And my axe!" kind this time), and plenty of background characters that a dwarf actor could play!

But no. No little people need apply. Jackson casts these dudes:

We're hobbits, Merry! Group hug!

...and John Rhys-Davies, with that awkward looking prosthetic makeup on his face.

And with plenty of camera tricks, they're made as short as Jackson wants them, while the depressed dwarf actors are left thinking how they're gonna pay their bills and tell their kids Santa won't be coming this year. This is happening again now, with the "Hobbit" trilogy. Somewhere in New Zealand Peter Jackson laughs, as his plan to take the bread away from all the little people actors' tables comes into fruition.

Look, I only put Will Smith's freak of a daughter in there because Google Images
insists that's what I'm looking for. You win, Google Images.

1. PETER JACKSON WANTS TO TELL THE MOST DECOMPRESSED STORIES EVER

Yeah, yeah, that old thing. You may be disappointed that this is #1, but that's the truth.

I'll give you that: it may have been impossible to make "Lord of the Rings" a movie that takes less than 9 hours. That could be. We will probably never know. Even if somebody tries to do a remake I doubt anybody would watch it, because everybody already sat through Jackson's trilogy and that's probably enough.

But let's talk about "Hobbit". Last time I read it was probably about 20 years ago, so I went and checked my copy and it's about 300 pages long. It's waaay thinner than any book in the LotR trilogy, anyway. I'm a pretty fast reader, and the book isn't exactly what you'd call a "hard read", so if I were to sit down now and read it it would probably take me about 6-7 hours tops? I would go to the bathroom once or twice, have a few smokes while reading it etc.

This means that Peter Jackson may be one of the very few people to ever make a movie (or 3 movies, for that matter, each of them at least 3 hours long) that take longer to watch than to read the book they're based on. That's definitely some kind of an accomplishment.

Why does it even need to be a trilogy? Granted, I read it a long time ago, but I don't remember there being that many major events that would make each movie good as a standalone piece of entertainment. A Death Star didn't blow up on page 100. Gollum wasn't revealed to be Bilbo's father on page 200. You get the idea. It just seems like an awfully long time to tell such a short story. It doesn't seem necessary at all, which just goes to show Peter Jackson just takes some weird joy out of decompressing it into 9 hours.


Well that's that! Three super researched, 100% fact-checked, serious truths about Peter Jackson! With all that said, we're still interested in seeing how exactly Jackson handles "Hobbit", here at Trash Mutant! If you've seen the movie and care to share your thoughts, leave them in the comments section!

Tagged: movies & TV.

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