Jackson: Hobbit films “just a joke”.

[Herald_of_Mandos]

Just saw this! I don’t know what to say…

In an exclusive interview today, Sir Peter Jackson and his co-writers revealed the entire Hobbit film trilogy to be an elaborate– not to mention highly expensive– practical joke.

The idea, says Jackson, was born from his “nightmare experience” visiting one of the many websites devoted to his phenomenally successful Lord of the Rings trilogy.

“At first,” the director admits, “I was frankly appalled. I had no idea so many raving lunatics watched my movies. Worse, a lot of them had formed a weird personality cult around me. They genuinely seemed ready to kill anyone who criticised me. It was… frightening.”

Jackson’s first impulse was to halt the production altogether. “But I couldn’t do that. People were counting on me. These films employ three-quarters of New Zealand’s human population, as well as many of the sheep.

I spent a lot of sleepless nights, and even developed a stomach ulcer. I don’t know what I’d have done if Fran hadn’t made me see the lighter side.”

Says Walsh, “I turned it into a game. We called it “Adaptation Blackjack”. The basic concept was that we’d see just how far we could go before the fans caught on. It was a lot of fun– we’d just sit around brainstorming all the most ridiculous and clichéd nonsense we could think of!”

Lord of the Rings fan-fiction was a major source of inspiration for the trio, which is why the end credits of An Unexpected Journey and The Desolation of Smaug include “additional story ideas” by writers such as gimlisgurl4eva (“Too Short to Love?”) and lara_croft_96 (“tomb of the wichking”). The elven warrior Tauriel, however, was based on a role-playing character created in her youth by Philippa Boyens.

“Not that Phaerytoriel Darksbane was ever a Mary Sue!” Boyens hastens to add.

Jackson continues, “We also included a large element of self-parody– like the deliberately stupid film titles, and throwing in all those references to the evils of greed– as if we were really that un-selfaware! Nobody seemed to notice, though.”

The decision to “come clean” was prompted by the increasingly paranoid and delusional reactions of Hobbit fans. “It was as if they were simply unable to face the reality of what they were seeing. We were trying to give them a wake-up call, but all we did was drive them further into madness. I feel pretty bad about that, actually.”

Asked if he had any other regrets, Jackson said, “The actors. They weren’t in on the joke. Their faces when they saw the lines they were supposed to deliver– it was like seeing puppies being tortured. And they tried so darned hard, we were almost afraid they were going to make the films watchable.

Oh, well. Perhaps we’ll make a real Hobbit movie one of these days.”

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