The trailer for Peter Jackson’s long-awaited Hobbit movie is now available:
No word yet whether the movie incorporates any of the recently discovered scientific evidence for the existence of prehistoric hobbits.
On a slightly more serious note, I like the look and feel of the movie, as depicted in the trailer, though the trailer itself could have been better designed.
Blogger Amber Taylor has a fascinating Institute for Humane Studies podcast on themes of liberty in George R.R. Martin’s Game of Thrones fantasy series (which has now also been turned into an HBO series). Amber previously wrote about Game of Thrones for a symposium in the Atlantic. I agree with most of Amber’s points, but I’m not entirely convinced that the Starks are more favorable to liberty than their enemies, the Lannisters. There doesn’t seem to be more than a modest difference in the way the two sides treat the common people who come under their control. By contrast, I think Amber is right to suggest that Daenerys Targaryen is a quasi-libertarian heroine, with her devotion to the abolition of slavery and the promotion of freedom more generally (which, however, as Amber notes, coexists with a devotion to the divine right of “legitimate” kings). I commented on the series here.
For those who may be interested, I have done two IHS podcasts on political themes in science fiction myself: one on Star Trek, and one on Battlestar Galactica (covering both the new series and the 1970s original).
The full-length trailer for the Hunger Games movie is now available here. In a post earlier this year, I wrote about why Suzanne Collins’ popular science fiction series might well make an even better movie than book.
If the trailer is any indication (perhaps a dangerous assumption), the movie will not disappoint my expectations. The producers have done a good job of capturing the look and feel of Collins’ dystopian fictional world. And Jennifer Lawrence seems believable in the key role of the main character, Katniss Everdeen. Unfortunately, the trailer also incorporates one of the weaknesses of Collins’ world-building (which I noted as a problem in my earlier post). As in the book, the population of District 12 seems far too small to mine all the coal needed to provide energy to a society as advanced as the oppressive Capitol seems to be (note that the District 12 miners are forced to use fairly primitive mining methods, even though the book is set in the distant future). That said, it looks to be a very good movie.
CONFLICT OF INTEREST WATCH: Actually, there isn’t any conflict of interest. Sadly, the studio isn’t paying us a cent for all the valuable publicity their movie is getting on the Volokh Conspiracy. However, we would welcome any contribution they might care to make to the blogger bailout fund.
UPDATE: The original version of this post mistakenly referred to actress Jennifer Lawrence as “Amy Lawrence.” I apologize for the mistake, which has now been corrected.
Like co-blogger Eugene Volokh, I read and liked Lev Grossman’s Magicians series. It has interesting ideas and strong characterization. Some have compared the series to J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter book, because part of it is set at a school for aspiring wizards. The real parallel, however, is with C.S. Lewis’ Narnia books. Much of the plot is taken up with the protagonists’ efforts to find a Narnia-like parallel world called Fillory. Grossman addresses the question of what would happen if some of the humans entering Narnia were more willing to abuse their power and refused to go home to Earth after completing their quests. Grossman weaves an interesting and fine line between building on Lewis’ vision and critiquing it. He is certainly superior to Lewis in terms of character development and style, though his work is necessarily less original because partly derivative of its predecessor. Overall, Grossman’s series is a fine addition to the new trend of darker, grittier fantasy novels which includes the work of George R.R. Martin, Joe Abercrombie, and others. On balance, I would actually say that Grossman is actually less pessimistic than some of these other writers.
I do have a few reservations about the series. The principal one is that Grossman, like Suzanne Collins, is often weak on world-building. Like the Harry Potter series, Grossman’s world features a hidden society of magicians who wield enormous power yet are unknown to normal humans, whose history they have little effect on. In the Potter series, however, there is a very powerful wizard government that prevents wizards from revealing their powers to Muggles and trying to dominate the world. The magical authorities in Grossman’s world are a lot weaker. It therefore strains credulity to believe that powerful sorcerers have been around for centuries, yet have never revealed themselves to normal humans, seized political power, or had any impact on history. Grossman’s Narnia analogue is also poorly developed and there is little sense of how this society functions and why we should care about it. World-building was also a relative weakness of C.S. Lewis’ Narnia books, and it’s possible that the thin development of Fillory is an intentional commentary on Lewis’ original (though Fillory is actually even less well developed than Narnia was).
Other reviewers have also commented negatively on the obnoxious and unsympathetic personalities of most of the protagonists. This bothers me less, as their stories are still interesting. Nonetheless, until late in the first book, the problems faced by the protagonists seem so trivial compared to the enormous privileges they derive from their status as magicians that it’s hard to enter into their concerns as much as the author intends us to do. This is much less of a problem in the last part of the first book and in the second, as the characters mature somewhat and start to face more serious issues.
Overall, I think it’s a very good fantasy series, but not quite a great one.
UPDATE: Sci Fi/Fantasy critic Abigail Nussbaum has a more negative take on the first book here. I agree with some of her points, but by no means all.
During the 2008 presidential campaign, I took issue with Victor Davis Hanson’s claim that John McCain is like Gandalf. Today, McCain is praising the Tea Party for their role in the budget debate. Nevertheless, the fact that he previously derided them as “Tea Party Hobbits” is telling. Gandalf would never think that “hobbit” is a term of abuse. After all, he chose hobbits as the people best able to destroy the Ring of Power and save Middle Earth.
The Institute for Humane Studies has posted a podcast I did for them on the politics of Battlestar Galactica. It is available here, and covers both the recent series and the original from the late 1970s. The podcast is a follow-up to my IHS podcast on political themes in Star Trek.
For previous blogging on political themes in Battlestar Galactica, see here and here.
The Institute for Humane Studies has produced a podcast in which I discuss the politics of Star Trek, especially it’s favorable portrayal of socialism, which I previously wrote about here and here. I single out Star Trek: The New Generation as the Trek series most committed to socialist ideology and most unwilling to give any credence to criticisms of the Federation’s ideology, while noting that Deep Space Nine is much better about presenting alternative points of view in an interesting way, and raising questions about the Federation.
As a bonus, there’s a discussion of Star Trek’s replicator technology, and why it is that some things can be replicated while others cannot!
For a contrasting perspective on the politics of Star Trek, see this recent series of posts by science fiction critic Abigail Nussbaum, which analyze The New Generation ((like me, she is more fond of Deep Space Nine). Nussbaum makes many good points, but I disagree with her bottom-line view that the Federation is a “cultural imperialist” projection of present American and Western values into the future. She reaches this conclusion in part because she simply ignores the Federation’s socialism, which is of course antithetical to much of present-day Western society. Thus, for example, she argues that series is based on a Cold War analogy with the Federation playing the role of the US and the villainous Romulans that of the Soviet Union. But once you take due account of the fact that the Federation is socialist, while the Romulans have a relatively capitalist economy and a political system based on that of ancient Rome (the precursor of the modern West), it is far from clear that her analogy works.
Instead, it is the Federation that turns out to be a sort of kinder, gentler Soviet Union. Both are multicultural, federal, socialist states with an official ideology of egalitarianism. But the Federation lacks the Gulags, secret police, and mass murder (or at least we never see them on-screen!). Meanwhile, the Romulans represent several of the negative qualities that many leftists associate with the present-day West: elitism, arrogance, and intolerance for other cultures. The same can be said of many other Star Trek villains, such as the Ferengi, who represent the supposed evils of capitalism. At some level, of course, Star Trek is a projection of Western values. After all, egalitarian socialism is a Western ideology. However, Trek is far more hostile to the present-day West than Nussbaum and some other left of center critics recognize.
Despite these criticisms, I actually like several of the Star Trek series, and admire them for taking on some big issues. My beef with the producers’ approach to socialism is not so much that they take a more positive view of it than I do, but that they don’t even consider the possible problems with the system, despite its horrendous historical record.
NOTE: The transcript accompanying the podcast includes many small errors in transcription (e.g. – the Ferengi currency is “latinum,” not platinum).
The Atlantic has an online symposium on HBO’s adaptation of George R. R. Martin’s Game of Thrones. Here is an assessment by blogger and fantasy literature connoisseur Amber Taylor (the page that has Amber’s essay also includes links to the other reviews in the symposium):
HBO’s new adaptation of George R. R. Martin’s bestselling series of fantasy novels is yet more evidence that television, not motion pictures, is now where truly sweeping, complex stories are being told. Although I’ve been an evangelist of the books for years (even going so far as to have spare copies of Game of Thrones for ready lending and conversion), it’s heartening to see a fantasy narrative given a respectful and serious airing. Because magic is so peripheral in the early episodes of Game of Thrones, the fantasy trappings are not a long leap from these already familiar to viewers of shows like Rome, The Tudors, or The Borgias. And after they’ve been hooked by the characters and complex plot, even people normally allergic to swords and sorcery won’t be able to change the channel.
The other reviewers are also overwhelmingly positive. I can’t wait to watch the series myself!
For those who may not know, Martin’s still-unfinished series is a landmark in modern fantasy writing. As Amber points out, it takes a cynical and realistic view of medieval-like societies, and has lots of strong character development. I have a few reservations about it. For example, I think there are too many different viewpoint characters, and some of their stories tend to drag. Overall, however, it’s one of the greatest fantasy series of all time.
For constitutional law buffs, the series also makes some interesting points on constitutional political economy. Historically, one of the most important arguments for hereditary monarchy is that it is supposed to be efficient and that it reduces social conflict. Both points emphasized by Thomas Hobbes, among others. In more recent times, scholars such as Eric Posner have argued that monarchy was a more efficient form of government than a republican state in the ancient world.
Martin’s series explores what happens when the hereditary succession is disputed and people cannot agree on which pretender to the throne is the rightful ruler. He addresses the issue in a much more sophisticated way than any other epic fantasy. In the real world, succession crises have often dissipated the peace and efficiency that monarchy is supposed to provide. Conflicts over the throne were probably the most important cause of the fall of the Rome Empire, for example. Obviously, Martin is far from the first fiction writer to focus on the problem of monarchical succession. But his treatment of the issue may well be the best.
UPDATE: I have now watched the first episode, which was quite good. I think people who have not read the books should be able to follow it, despite the complex plot.
Suzanne Collins’ Hunger Games trilogy is one of the most popular new science fiction series of the last several years. And now there is going to be a Hunger Games movie, with Jennifer Lawrence recently selected to play main character Katniss Everdeen. I had been hoping that Hailee Steinfeld (another finalist for the role)might get the nod because of her excellent work in True Grit. But perhaps Lawrence will turn out to be as good or better.
Hunger Games could well make an excellent movie. Its strengths and weaknesses are the opposite of those of the stereotypical science fiction novel, which is strong on world-building but weak on characterization and literary technique. By contrast, Collins’ series is strong on the latter and weak on the former.
The core plot of the series is unoriginal to the point of being cliche: In the far future, what’s left of a post-apocalyptic United States is ruled by a tyrannical central government (the “Capitol”) that oppresses and exploits twelve subordinate districts. Every year, each of the districts must send two teenagers (a boy and a girl) to participate in the Hunger Games, a nationally televised game show where they fight each other to the death until only one survives. The government uses the Games to entertain the public and divert their attention away from its oppressive nature, while also reminding the districts that any attempt at rebellion is doomed to failure. Main character Katniss Everdeen ends up in the Games after she volunteers to take the place of her younger sister, who was chosen in the selection lottery.
The idea of an oppressive regime that uses violent televised game shows or sports to quiesce the population has been done to death in science fiction. Running Man, Death Race 2000, and Rollerball are just a few of the better-known examples. Collins’ treatment of the concept doesn’t add much to these earlier works. In addition, there are lots of plot holes and implausibilities in the way the fictional world is developed, which I won’t describe in detail in deference to those who worry about “spoilers.”
As a commentator on the portrayal of federalism in science fiction, I should note that one of the few original features of the story is the use of asymmetrical federalism in an SF setting. But Collins’ use of the concept isn’t especially interesting or insightful.
What Hunger Games lacks in world-building it makes up for in outstanding characterization. Katniss is a fascinating character and Collins is the rare SF writer who knows how to make good use of first-person narration. Several of the other characters are also well-done. In addition, Collins does a great job with the details of the Hunger Games themselves; the parts of the story set in the “arena” are particularly riveting. Despite my critique of the world-building aspect, I still found the books to be mesmerizing and read all three in a short period of time.
Hopefully, the movie will showcase the strengths of the series, while minimizing the weaknesses.
It’s been awhile since we did any Monday bear-blogging. So it’s time to bear the bear-blogging burden once again.
Here’s an interesting discussion of English literary portrayals of bears vs. American ones by blogger Erica Grieder. After surveying several well-known examples of literary bears from both countries (Winnie the Pooh, Paddington, Yogi Bear, and others), she concludes that “American bears are, for the most part, more assertive and autonomous than English bears.”
Unfortunately, it’s not clear whether Grieder has adequately sampled the relevant populations of literary bears. On the British side, she omits Philip Pullman’s armored bears, as well as the Bulging Bears of Narnia. Both are as assertive and independent as any American bears. On the American side, she omits Gordon Dickson’s The Right to Arm Bears, which however probably supports her thesis.
The definitive study of Anglo-American literary bears remains to be written, even as its absence gets ever more unbearable.
Robert Heinlein is best known for being one of the founding fathers of modern science fiction and for his libertarian political views. William Patterson’s fascinating new biography of Heinlein shows that an encounter with political ignorance played a key role in Heinlein’s life, setting him on the path to becoming a writer rather than a politician.
In the 1930s, Patterson recounts, Heinlein wasn’t yet a libertarian and was in fact active in left-wing politics in California, working for Upton Sinclair’s EPIC movement. In 1938, he ran for the Democratic nomination for a state representative seat in the Los Angeles area. Unfortunately for Heinlein, around this same time pro-Nazi Sudeten German leader Konrad Henlein was making headlines with his efforts in support of Adolf Hitler’s campaign to annex the Sudetenland. Heinlein’s district contained many Jewish voters, and some of them apparently confused Heinlein with Henlein. Heinlein and his political advisers thought that the confusion was a key factor responsible for his narrow defeat in the primary (he lost by about 500 votes). While the two names are indeed similar, it should not have been hard for voters to figure out that it was highly unlikely that Henlein or any close relative of his would be running for a Democratic state representative nomination in California.
Political ignorance also may have hurt Heinlein’s campaign in two other ways. First, Heinlein believed that he was harmed by the fact that the Communist Party had endorsed him. Although a leftist himself at the time, Heinlein was very hostile to the communists in the 1930s, denouncing them as “red fascists” no better than the “brown fascists” of the far right. On But most of the voters probably didn’t know about Heinlein’s record on communism, and the communist endorsement may have led some of them to think he was a communist or fellow traveler himself. Heinlein and his allies thought that this contributed to his defeat as well. In addition, Heinlein’s victorious opponent in the Democratic primary was in fact a very conservative Republican (California electoral rules allowed him to run in both the Democratic and Republican primaries and he ended up winning both). Although Patterson doesn’t consider the issue, I wonder if some of the Democratic primary voters who voted against Heinlein didn’t realize that they were voting for a Republican right-winger.
The experience of the 1938 campaign helped sour Heinlein on politics and eventually led him to become a science fiction writer. It probably also contributed to his later ideological evolution towards libertarianism. Heinlein was a far more talented science fiction writer than he was a politician. So in this case, rational political ignorance actually produced a beneficial result. In most other situations, unfortunately, it does a lot more harm than good.
In any event, I couldn’t pass up this rare opportunity to write a post that combines my interest in science fiction with my interest in political ignorance.
UPDATE: For the benefit of readers who may not know, it’s worth pointing out that Konrad Henlein was often in the news in 1938 because he was a central figure in the Munich crisis that arose from Hitler’s efforts force Czechoslovakia to cede the Sudetenland to Germany. The resulting confrontation nearly caused World War II to break out one year early until Britain and France capitulated to Hitler’s demands that fall and forced the Czechs to give up without a battle.
For those readers who may be interested, I will be giving two talks this Saturday at the Students for Liberty International Conference.
I. “Democracy and Political Ignorance: What the Voters Don’t Know and Why it Hurts Them” – 2:15-3:15 PM
II. “Harry Potter and the Rings of Power: Liberty in Fantasy and Science Fiction” – 3:30-4:30 PM
Both will be held in Room 308 at the Marvin Center at George Washington University. VC readers very much welcome, and encouraged to stop by and say hello. Other conference speakers include a variety of prominent bloggers such as Tyler Cowen and Megan McArdle.
UPDATE: The conference organizers inform me that, unfortunately, attendance at the conference has hit capacity. Therefore, these events are closed to students who have not already registered for the conference. But you are welcome to if you have registered.
The Cracked.com website has an entertaining article on why alien invasions of Earth portrayed in Hollywood movies virtually always fail. It lists six typical alien invader “blind spots”:
Hollywood has fed us a steady stream of alien-invasion movies since the 1950s…. [T]his is a good time to ask ourselves why exactly the alien invasions we see on the silver screen always seem to end in disaster for the invaders, despite their ridiculously advanced technology.
With that in mind, we have some words of advice for any alien civilizations thinking of vaporizing us and stealing our brains….
#6 Wear Something
So you’re a wormhole-surfing, intergalactic warrior civilization with invisibility shields and lasers that evaporate people under their clothing? That doesn’t mean you can just skip over the basic stuff. It’s absurd to imagine a technologically advanced civilization that goes extinct because they all forgot to breathe, so why are alien invasions so consistently foiled by the invaders’ neglect to so much as slip on a jumpsuit before they expose themselves to our toxic environment?….
#5 Do Your Research
In the War of the Worlds remake, the aliens bury their tripods at the sites of major cities before the cities exist, and humans learn that they have been planning their attack “for a million years.” Let’s ignore the fact that humans did not exist a million years ago and simply note that this is a really, really long time to plan an invasion. It’s kind of a spectacular oversight not to notice that we have germs here….
Obviously, the real object of criticism here is not the alien invaders but Hollywood screenwriters. In their defense, I would point out that the writers face an almost insoluble problem. An alien civilization capable of sending an invasion force over interstellar distances would be so much more advanced than we are that they could not help but defeat us easily, barring truly extreme stupidity on their part. Their technological advantage would probably be much greater than that which Europeans enjoyed over stone age-level Australian aborigines (firearms and other 19th century tech vs. primitive stone tools) and certainly vastly greater than what Cortez had over the Aztecs (horses, early firearms, and steel weapons versus more primitive metals). The realistic outcome of that kind of alien invasion would be a swift victory for the aliens, or perhaps the humans wisely deciding to surrender. Obviously, that’s not the happy ending that most viewers want to see.
You can tell an interesting story focusing on humans forced to live under the rule of vastly superior aliens. Several science fiction writers have actually done so, notably Arthur C. Clarke. But it’s not easy to do, and the resulting story won’t have nearly as many exciting battles as Independence Day.
UPDATE: Various commenters point to books like Niven and Pournelle’s Footfall, where the alien invaders got their technology for interstellar flight from others, and therefore aren’t much more advanced than humans in other ways. I am aware of several science fiction works along these lines. This is a possible solution to the screenwriter dilemma I described above. But notice that it requires exploring the aliens and their society in some detail (including their relationships with other alien races), which most Hollywood alien invasion movie producers don’t want to spend screen time on.
Of the various radio and TV and internet items today related to MLK that I heard, the one that caught my attention most was an interview with Nichelle Nichols, who played Uhura on Star Trek. I heard it on NPR, but here is a transcript from the Wall Street Journal Speakeasy blog.
It sounds like you put a lot of thought into the part. Why did you want to quit after the first season?
After the first year, Grace Lee Whitney was let go so it became Bill and Leonard. The rest of us became supporting characters. I decided to leave the show after the first season.
What convinced you to stay on?
I was at a fundraiser and the promoter of the event said there’s somebody that wants to meet you. He is your biggest fan. I stood up and turned to see the beatific face of Dr. Martin Luther King walking towards me with a sparkle in his eye. He took my hand and thanked me for meeting him. He then said I am your greatest fan. All I remember is my mouth opening and shutting.
What was that like?
I thanked him so much and told him how I’d miss it all. He asked what I was talking about, and told me that I can’t leave the show. We talked a long time about what it all meant and what images on television tell us about ourselves.
Did you know then how much of a role model you’d become?
Oh, god, no. I thought of it as a stepping stone to Broadway. I went back to Gene and told him what had happened, and that I was staying. He smiled up at me and said, thank god for Dr. Martin Luther King.
My feeling exactly.
The New York Times recently published an article on the Law and the Multiverse blog, which focuses on legal issues raised by superheroes and supervillains.
The article includes some commentary by yours truly. In conjunction with my analysis of the law of Dungeons and Dragons (see here and here), constitutional federalism in Star Trek and property law issues in the Lord of the Rings, I think I have carved out a niche as a pundit on legal issues in science fiction and fantasy worlds.
If any film producers are reading this, it’s not too late to hire me as a legal consultant on your next SF or fantasy film. Rest assured that I will keep my promise to work cheaper than the overpriced Hollywood lawyers who mucked up the important legal issues in Superman Returns.
Earlier this year, I wrote about a Seventh Circuit decision that denied inmates the right to play Dungeons and Dragons. In addition to being regulated by the law of the state, D&D also has an elaborate legal system of its own. For some thirty years, Dragon magazine ran a “Sage Advice” column where readers could write in with questions about the meaning of the rules and their application to various situations.
Sadly, the column recently shut down (superseded by the internet). But there is a searchable online archive of all the questions and responses. The Comics Alliance blog reprints a few of the most interesting ones, including some that are clearly relevant to constitutional law.
Like the US Supreme Court, the Sage was reluctant to give a definition of marriage:
Q: My male paladin wants to marry a chaotic-evil lady magic-user. Is this OK? [note by IS: the rules require paladins to be lawful good].
A: This question is actually very complex. To answer it, we would have to defined marriage itself. [which the Sage then conspiciously fails to do].
Evidently, the issue of interalignment marriage was such a divisive one in the D&D community that the Sage was unwilling to risk its political capital by addressing the issue. Similarly, the US Supreme Court ducked the question of interracial marriage bans for many years, and more recently has tried to duck the issue of same-sex marriage. And of course the Court has never yet defined marriage in any comprehensive way.
On the other hand, Sage did take a position on a question related to the Second Amendment right to bear arms:
Q: In Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, how much damage do bows do?
A: None. Bows do not do damage, arrows do….
The full answer does explain that bows can do damage after all if the archer hits an opponent with the bow.
Sage’s position is nearly the opposite of the well-known NRA slogan “guns don’t kill people, people do,” though perhaps he would fault the bullets rather than the guns as such. A ban on missile weapons (or at least on their ammunition) would seem to be constitutional within the D&D legal system.
The Comics Alliance post also includes a variety of questions relevant to family law, especially regarding what to do if characters want to have children or become pregnant. Sage also emphasized the limits on the Dungeon Master’s power to address such matters, much as the Supreme Court has occasionally emphasized limits to the enumerated powers of Congress, including over family law:
Q: One of my players wants to have a baby; what should I do?
A: Your question had me momentarily confused. If one of your players wanted to have a baby, you, the Dungeon Master, should be the last person she should talk to.
The Sage archive contains answers to many other legal questions that have come up in the real world, such as whether or not good characters can use torture (paladins are categorically forbidden to use torture, but chaotic good characters may torture enemies “if the end result is good and it cannot be achieved any other way”), and how to get a divorce.
Senior Conspirator Eugene Volokh recently linked to a Law and the Multiverse post suggesting that Batman may be a state actor under current law. Back in 2006, I summarized a lot of evidence suggesting that Superman is a government agent as well. If so, the use of his x-ray vision and other powers to gather evidence against criminals might well run afoul of Fourth Amendment doctrine, such as Kyllo v. United States, which restricted the admissibility of evidence gathered by thermal imaging. Superman’s X-ray vision is surely a much greater intrusion on reasonable expectations of privacy.
Josh Blackman has posted some fascinating excerpts from the oral argument in Schwarzenegger v. EMA, the violent video games case. I’ll leave the analytical heavy lifting to our resident free speech experts, such as Eugene. My own view (uncharacteristically in line with conventional wisdom) is that the state government should lose this case and probably will.
On a lighter note, I can’t resist noting the role of Vulcans in a question by Justice Sotomayor:
JUSTICE SOTOMAYOR: Would a video game that portrayed a Vulcan as opposed to a human being, being maimed and tortured, would that be covered by the act?
Perhaps California’s lawyer could have argued that video game portrayals of torture of Vulcans are distinguishable from those that depict torture of humans on the grounds that Vulcans have much stronger constitutions and higher pain thresholds. To the extent that Trekkie video game players recognize this, they would be less likely to be inspired to engage in real-word torture of humans as a result of playing the game.
Co-blogger Eugene Volokh recently referenced some criminal laws relating to Buffy the Vampire Slayer. In this 2007 post, I considered the implications of the show for property rights and “quick take” condemnations. Unlike Eugene, I managed to incorporate Faith into my legal analysis as well. As I pointed out, eminent domain abuse is an excellent example of the rogue slayer’s “want, take, have” philosophy in action. Faith eventually realized the error of her ways. But many state and local governments so far have not.
Various commenters on my recent post about Peter Jackson’s upcoming movie version of The Hobbit lament the fact that it is impossible to make a movie based Tolkien’s Silmarillion, the book that describes the history leading up to The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. The idea that the Silmarillion is impossible to film has become conventional wisdom. But I’m not sure it’s true.
I don’t doubt that it’s impossible to make a movie version that incorporates the entire Silmarillion. It covers several thousand years of history with numerous stories that are only loosely connected. But it is surely feasible to make movie versions of some of the individual stories, several of which are self-contained and have well-developed characters. The Tale of Beren and Luthien is an obvious choice. It’s a great tale of love and adventure, one of Tolkien’s own favorites among his works. The story of Turin Turambar is a great heroic tragedy, and could also work as a standalone movie (though Hollywood might not like the absence of a happy ending). Turin’s story has now been published in an expanded version based on Tolkien’s previously unpublished notes: The Children of Hurin. I blogged about it here and here. There is easily enough good material there to make a movie version.
These stories are almost as compelling as The Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings. Moreover, there is a built-in audience for movies based on them, since there are so many Tolkien fans out there (including many new ones attracted by the earlier LOTR movies). Once you drop the assumption that a Silmarillion movie must cover the entire book, it becomes a much more feasible project.
I doubt that either Peter Jackson or any other Hollywood bigwig reads the Volokh Conspiracy. Even if they do, they are probably (rightly) skeptical of film-making advice from legal scholars. Still, I hope they would consider the idea of a Silmarillion movie, on the off-chance that they do hear about it.
UPDATE: As at least one commenter points out, a TV series based on the Silmarillion or one of its component parts might also work. Indeed, it might be even more appropriate than a movie, since it would not have to be limited to just 2-3 hours and could tell a longer story.
There is plenty of bad news in the world today. But one recent piece of really great news is that Peter Jackson’s film version of The Hobbit, has finally been greenlighted and is scheduled to begin filming in February 2011 [HT: fellow legal academic Tolkien fan Steve Bainbridge]. Apparently, Jackson has managed to settle the labor union problems that threatened to further delay production.
As Tolkien might have said, this is truly a sign that “A light from the shadows shall spring.” Not all those who wander are lost, including Peter Jackson.
Perhaps it’s not too late to include a part for co-blogger Randy Barnett, who has previous experience in sci fi/fantasy roles. I myself would be happy to sign on as a consultant on Middle Earth property law.
On a (slightly) more serious note, I can’t wait to see the movie. Jackson did an excellent job with the Lord of the Rings films, and I have high expectations for this project as well.
I have previously noted Lord of the Rings director Peter Jackson’s plans to produce a movie based on The Hobbit. Sadly, the production of the film has been delayed by various factors. The latest obstacle is labor union opposition [HT: Danny Sokol]:
You can be forgiven for being skeptical that “The Hobbit” will ever be made. Back in October 2007, Entertainment Weekly announced on its cover that Peter Jackson would be putting together a prequel to his “Lord of the Rings” films based on the J. R. R. Tolkien book series. Since then, everything has gone wrong: Jackson sued New Line over the rights to the film; the Tolkien family then sued them as well; MGM, one of the two studios planning to distribute the film, ran into the money woes…; Guillermo Del Toro, who was supposed to direct, worked with Jackson for two years before dropping out last May and handing the reins back to him. With Jackson taking over, and Ian McKellen, Andy Serkis and Hugo Weaving signed on to reprise their roles, the film was expected to finally be back on schedule.
But now Jackson has a more serious problem: The International Federation of Actors, along with the Screen Actors Guild, is discouraging actors to work on the film because of the non-union labor in New Zealand. This is serious business for SAG: Essentially, actors who work on the film, like McKellen and Weaving, would be in violation of the union’s bylaws and subject to expulsion from the union. The Hollywood Reporter notes just how rare it is for SAG to be so strident about a big-studio picture.
Jackson himself smells an Australian plot behind the labor problems:
Jackson said the wrangle was a “grab for power” and “an attempt by the “Australian bully-boy” to exert influence over New Zealand’s film industry. “It feels as if we have a large Aussie cousin kicking sand in our eyes… or to put it another way, opportunists exploiting our film for their own political gain.”
It would be very unfortunate if nassty unionses or Aussiessss hurtss my Preciousss movie!
Co-blogger Ken Anderson asks my opinion on property rights in Rings of Power. I refer Ken and other interested readers to my thorough May 2008 post on this subject, which includes links to some of the other commentary on this important issue. Nasty Hobbitses have no property rightses in our Preciouss!
As many of our readers know, I have long been fascinated by robotics, and have a particular interest in battlefield robotics and related questions of law. I felt I was late to the cyberwarfare field – and don’t know enough about it – and so have left it for others. But robotics … well! Robotics and the law, well, well! However, one of the important features about Predator drones and UAVs as the US has developed them is that they involve important overlaps between robotics and cyber fields, because the UAV has to be controlled somehow from halfway around the world. If the classic conceptual parts of a robot are
then, in the case of how the US uses UAVs, we need to add a fourth, the cyber component of communication and control over long distances. At that point, questions of cyberattack on the robotic system become live.
This brings me to a movie I just watched last night on Netflix, Surrogates – from the comic book series of the same name to the Bruce Willis movie. It manages to combine robotics with cyber. Not bad – I thought the critics were overly tough, frankly, but then I have both low standards and low taste in movies. I liked it. I think it is a movie that Jack Goldsmith and anyone else working on cyber and robotics issues should see (I will assume that Glenn Reynolds has already watched it … twice). With popcorn.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zl_h9RaL0es[/youtube]
(Robots as caregivers have suddenly been surging to the front pages of the newspapers – the Wall Street Journal, followed by the New York Times. I’ll say more about the implications of that later.)
The New Scientist cites proof that the prehistoric “hobbits” whose fossils were recently discovered by scientists in Indonesia were actually a distinct species, and not human [HT: Instapundit]:
Case closed – the “hobbits” that lived on the Indonesian island of Flores only 13,000 years ago were a unique species of hominid.
This was the first thought when the remains of a tiny, 18,000-year-old female were uncovered in 2003. Then in 2008 Peter Obendorf of RMIT University in Melbourne, Australia, claimed the remains were of a modern human with cretinism, a disease caused by iodine deficiency.
“I have put that claim to rest,” says Colin Groves of the Australian National University in Canberra. He compared the Flores bones with those of 10 people who’d had cretinism, focusing on anatomical features that are typical of the disease. He found no overlap…. William Jungers at Stony Brook University Medical Center in New York agrees the study finally puts that idea to rest.
This provides additional scientific confirmation for Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings. After all, Tolkien’s hobbits were clearly a distinct species as well, one that did not interbreed with the other hominids of Middle Earth. We already had proof that the prehistoric hobbits “travelled half a world,” which is evidence that at least some of them were on an epic quest to destroy the Ring of Power just as Tolkien described.
Tolkien’s theories are gathering more and more scientific support all the time. I look forward to equally rigorous proof of the existence of elves, dwarves, balrogs, and orcs. As I pointed out in my first post on this subject, we in the blogosphere have already sighted numerous trolls even more ferocious than those described by the great author.
Frodo lives!
UPDATE: I should add that this is further proof that we should be more concerned about orcs than zombies. If hobbits are real, orcs can’t be far behind.
