The Hobbit

I was a bit depressed when I learned that Guillermo Del Toro was leaving The Hobbit movie and I was even more depressed when - before filming began - Peter Jackson demanded that New Zealand change its labour laws so that the unions would be weakened; but I guess I'm a nerdy fanboy at heart because I'm really looking forward to this:

New Zealand To Revert Back To Colonial Status For Duration Of Hobbit

In a surprising addendum to the agreement signed by Warner Brothers Pictures, Peter Jackson and the government of New Zealand, NZ is to revert back to colonial status for the period February 2011 - December 2012, when the first of the two planned Hobbit films is due to be released. NZ law is to be replaced by a jurisprudential code drawn up by the Warner Bros legal department and a system of military tribunals are to replace NZ's Crown Courts. The New Code will go into effect on February 1st 2011 and is rumored to include such controversial measures as curfews, martial law and droit de seigneur for all Warner Brothers and New Line executives. Under the regulations the NZ police force is be replaced by armed militamen supplied by veteran private guerilla firm Blackwater Security. Further reports say that a new currency featuring Tolkien characters is set to replace the NZ dollar, serfdom (not Smurfdom that's a different film) is to be brought in for all Wingnut Film employees and in perhaps the most shocking of the new developments the All Blacks rugby team will no longer chant the haka in Maori but will challenge their opposition in Quenya.
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Sir Peter Jackson will move up the order of chivalry to become Lord Peter of the Shire and the current Prime Minister will be reduced to the rank of Steward. Blackwater Security will be able to identify the employees of New Line and Wingnut Films by the special inscribed gold rings they will be enslaved with given.
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Surprisingly there has been little opposition to these measures in New Zealand. John Guinness, a teacher from Wellington said yesterday "It's a small price to pay. The Hobbit belongs in this country and if this is what it takes to keep it here then so be it." Clare Fuller from Auckland added "Peter Jackson is a god around here and if he thinks this is necessary then we have to do it." Jamie Theakston from Dunedin, although supporting the measure, did have one reservation "I'm due to get married in March and I'm a little worried about the whole droit de seigneur thing. But that'll all be water under the bridge in December 2012 when I'm lining up to see The Hobbit for the first time! It's going to be awesome!" 
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Contacted through a medium JRR Tolkien said that if The Hobbit was about any one theme it was surely about the power of massive corporations to triumphantly impose their industrial might on an awed and brow beaten populace. "Dark Lord Sauron could not have crafted a better contract," Tolkien chuckled before adding: "Elenna·nóreo alcar enyalien ar Elendil Vorondo," which apparently was not Elvish but merely the late Professor of Anglo Saxon's attempts to clear his throat.

What Gives With Peter Jackson's Anti Australian Rhetoric?

According to Radio New Zealand:

at a rally in Wellington on Monday Sir Peter Jackson delivered another strong blast against an Australian trade union that has been advising New Zealand union Actors' Equity and was behind the international boycott [threat]. He warned against turning New Zealand into another state of Australia under the sway of a "destructive" organisation.

Last week Sir Peter accused the Australians of being "bullies who want to impose their will on New Zealand," and on Wednesday he said that what made him "really angry" was the involvement of the Australian union.

What gives? Well, the issue behind all this is quite simple. New Zealand does not have a collective bargaining agreement for actors. NZ Equity wants collective bargaining so its members dont get ripped off, as apparently they did with Lord of the Rings. (And although Sir Peter called LOTR a wonderful New Zealand home movie, remember that he personally made over 100 million dollars from that fun family project.) NZ Equity are being supported by Australian Equity (hence the bizarre "Australian bully boy" remarks). Sir Peter claims collective bargaining is bad because it means that actors will get paid more and the cost of making The Hobbit will go up and become uneconomic. (Anyone who has read nineteenth century labour history will recognise this doleful argument). Sir Peter insists that the actors stance has put the whole film in jeopardy and Warner Brothers might move production to Eastern Europe, the UK or Ireland. I doubt that. Ireland is out of the question because of the strong Euro, Eastern Europe is utterly impractical and the UK is also too expensive. I think Sir Peter is trying to pull the, er, wool over the eyes of the people of NZ. If you are going to start production in February 2011 you would need to have booked studio space at least a year in advance, the only studio space that has been secured has been in Wellington. Whether the actors get a few more dollars an hour or not will not determine if The Hobbit gets filmed in NZ or not. (Tax breaks and a change to the labour laws banning strikes and residuals might). You have to admire the Sir Peter's cojones, though, casting Australia as the enemy not Warner Brothers or indeed himself. The Aussie villain always plays well in chippy New Zealand which sees itself as the little brother who doesn't really get the attention it deserves from mummy and daddy. The bluff has worked. A terrified and brow beaten NZ Equity has now withdrawn all boycott threats and the Screen Actors Guild has said that its union members are free to appear in The Hobbit.
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You'd think from the news coverage that all New Zealanders are behind Sir Peter over this, but that is definitely not the case. Brian Rudman has a good piece in the NZ Herald, here.
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The clip of course is from Flight of the Conchords. Brett, incidentally, was in Lord of the Rings where he played an elf. (This is off topic and I may be wrong about this, but after watching a lot of Australian TV over the last two years it seems that New Zealanders are quite a bit funnier than Aussies whose humour seems a little broad and slapsticky for my taste.)

Sherlock Holmes

The much hyped new BBC adaptation of Sherlock Holmes finally hit Channel 9 tonight. It's a modern spin on the classic story starring Benedict Cumberbatch (who played the pederast in Atonement) as Holmes and Martin Freeman (from The Office (and if the rumors are true the upcoming Hobbit)) playing Watson. Watson is an Afghan war veteran (like the original) who needs a place to crash in London and by dint of some strained plotting ends up in a flatshare with a chap called Sherlock Holmes who claims to be "the world's only consulting detective" - an amateur who helps the police (I guess he doesn't watch Monk). Anglophile cat owners of a certain age will love this show with its Byronic hero, its English accents, its occasional wit and its supposedly London locations. (Like Dr Who its all mostly filmed in Cardiff, and a Cardiff shout out can be the only explanation for one of Holmes's more tortured deductions early on). I enjoyed the genuine chemistry from the cast in episode 1 and the acting which was uniformly excellent. The script could have been tighter especially the third act which lifted a famous scene from The Princess Bride, as the key plot point. Inconceivable! as Wallace Shawn might have said.
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There were a few interesting action scenes and like Guy Ritchie's movie of last year we got to see how Holmes's mind worked, although I found many of his deductions pretty dodgy (this too, however, reminded me of the original stories).
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On the whole the new Sherlock Holmes isn't terrible which, paradoxically, is not a good thing. It will encourage the BBC to continue digging in the nostalgia mine and we can expect yet more verions of Robin Hood or Pride and Prejudice or another Dickens adaptation and lots more Dr Who. They will all star terribly nice young actors and be well made and done tastefully with just a smidgen of the gothic to thrill you as you watch in your favourite cardigan and slippers. Perfect fodder for everyone who wants to forget for an hour or two that death is coming and it'll be here soon and it will last forever and ever.