"Lucasing", or "Artists Gone Wrong"

The creative experience is often most-brutal once the creation’s finished. For one, you’re putting yourself out there, which makes you vulnerable. But two, often artists feel like their work’s incomplete because they’re so attached, something that gets worse with time. It gets so bad that, in many instances, the artist will go back and either “expand” or “improve” on their work. It’s gruelling, thankless and often annoying, ruining the original experience by making it too continuity heavy. And it insults the fans.

I’m seeing a lot of this now. Initially, it was only George Lucas tinkering with Star Wars, tweaking details in the original films that didn’t need it and unnecessarily-expanding on the lore with the prequels. This is how the concept became known as “Lucasing”, but while it wasn’t unique to Lucas, JRR Tolkien re-wrote The Hobbit in his later years to better-fit with the Lord of the Rings books, it’s really only taken off in the last few years. Or maybe it only feels that way because it’s impacted some of my favourite franchises.

Take The Hobbit. When it was announced that a certain, famous film trilogy would be getting a prequel trilogy based on this book, fans, myself included, were excited; after all, The Hobbit’s one of my favourite books, and I was anxious to see its best scenes on the big screen. Think about it: Bilbo and Gollum exchanging riddles! The story Gandalf tells to Beorn about the dwarves! The confrontation with Smaug! So much was begging for a cinematic treatment, and given how far technology had progressed…

I know it was unrealistic to get my hopes up, especially considering the numerous behind-the-scenes complications, but I was incredibly-disappointed by the end-result. Not because it was awful, because it wasn’t. And not because there wasn’t enjoyability to be had, because there was. Rather, it was because the movies felt like big-screen video games. Considering that the actual video game based on the book, aka The Hobbit, had already covered the same material in an engaging manner, the films also felt extraneous.

I’m not kidding when I say that, either: the scene where Bilbo and the dwarves float down the river could’ve come from a Donkey Kong Country game, while the confrontation with Smaug was so laughably-silly that I’d have been remiss to think of the Spyro the Dragon franchise. Even the final battle, which was more of an afterthought in the book, felt too video game-y for its own good, such that I was expecting an enemy counter to appear on the top-right corner of the screen.

I think the reason for why The Hobbit films felt overly-zany was because Peter Jackson and company didn’t care. The books that the Lord of the Rings films were based on were often dense and padded, but there was enough to stretch out for three films. The Hobbit, on the other hand, was a single, short book. It may have been dense and padded too, but it didn’t have enough content for three films. Maybe a 3-hour film, or two 90-minute films, but not three. And Jackson knew this, hence filling in the cracks with nonsense.

This really bothered me. I didn’t need to know that The Necromancer was “Sauron in disguise”, and how the films resolved that contradicts what happens in the Lord of the Rings films. I also didn’t care for the subplot between Thorin and the leader of the orcs, since it felt like filler. Also, the romance with Kili and Tauriel? An admirable attempt to flesh-out an admittedly-bland character in the book, but it felt empty. These kinds of details made for shameless additions, ruined an otherwise serviceable story and left little to the imagination. And they were the worst parts of the films.

But the most-egregious offender right now is JK Rowling. For those unaware, I love the Harry Potter books and movies. I love them so much, in fact, that they were the springboard for a rant that I wrote two years ago. I think Rowling’s a brilliant writer, which is why it pains me that she can’t leave her creation alone. If you don’t believe me, here are some examples of how Rowling’s gotten herself into hot water:

Shortly after writing Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, JK Rowling was asked if Albus Dumbledore had a romantic interest in his youth. To this, Rowling responded that he was gay, verbally retconning details in the books that contradicted this. If it seemed like a last-minute attempt to placate to queer readers, well…it gets worse. Rowling, who was the executive producer of the Harry Potter films, made sure any future entries downplayed Dumbledore’s love-life and kept his sexuality open, to the point of confirming that Dumbledore was, in fact, gay and had had a romantic relationship with in-universe villain Gillert Grindelwald. Fast-forward to the unnecessary Fantastic Beasts movies, and Dumbledore’s gayness was erased entirely. Did Rowling have a change of heart?

A few years back, Rowling was asked by a Jewish fan if Hogwarts, an inherently Christian school, had a Jewish witch or wizard attending it. Instead of answering “no, I didn’t think about that at the time”, she made up a Jewish wizard named Anthony Goldstein. A neat idea in theory, but why didn’t we see overt mentions of this before? The Fantastic Beasts movies had Tina and Queenie Goldstein, but they feel like damage control.

Speaking of Tina and Queenie, there’s the North American wizarding school, Ilvermorny. I can’t say much about Ilvermorny, having never visited Pottermore, but I know that Native American fans of Harry Potter have taken issue with this addition. Also, why is there only one wizarding school in all of North America? The continent proper might only have three countries, Canada, The US and Mexico, but those countries are huge and incredibly-diverse! You’d think Rowling would understand this, but nope!

On the subject of not understanding, Rowling’s most-recent retcon is making Nagini, Voldemort’s pet, a Maledictus who started off as an Asian circus performer. Not only is this unnecessary and confusing, it also plays into a racist trope called “the subservient Asian”. It robs Nagini of her agency, so making this part of the Harry Potter mythos without first consulting Asian communities is another stain on Rowling’s legacy.

Of course, there are other changes that test fans’ limits. Rowling’s insistence that Harry would be against BDS, while noble in theory, comes off as shameless pandering to Jewish fans, with her reasoning feeling more so. Her insistence that Ron and Hermione would’ve “needed couples’ therapy” to stay together feels like slap in the face to the books, while her vague claim that “Hermione might’ve been black”, true or not, has often felt like it was cheap bait for her black fans. All these wishy-washy additions come off as pandering, and even bigoted, fan-service, and having them then be changed or altered on a whim is worse. It’s as if, in trying to stay relevant, Rowling has become that “out of touch granny who embarrasses her grandchildren while trying to be hip”, and it shows.

I’m not against world-building on pre-existing franchises if done well. The Avatar Wan episodes of Avatar: The Legend of Korra have accomplished that, as have Disney via Star Wars. Franchise-building, when utilized successfully, can enhance the overall experience, but it needs to work while still leaving certain elements up to the imagination. And Lucasing your own creation definitely doesn’t help matters.

But this is the world that we live in now, so…