Today's Double News: Flashy new Hobbit name

Here's a double bit of recent movie news for y'all:

http://www.moviescene.nl/p/155362/derde_hobbit_krijgt_nieuwe_naam

http://www.moviescene.nl/p/155325/fox_produceert_remake_flash_gordon

You can't keep a legendary Sci-Fi franchise down forever. Interest in it waxes and wanes, and always it comes back, though it may take a few decades. Flash Gordon is about as classic a name in the genre as they come, currently celebrating his 80th birthday no less. Still, most members of the contemporary audience will probably recognize the name only from being (lovingly) made fun of in Seth MacFarlane's recent comedy Ted. Admittedly, I have never seen or read any of the various incarnations myself (for shame!). I guess I should at least check out the 1980 movie, which is arguably the most well remembered version on the character's tale around. From what I know about the adventures of Flash, the most important aspect of a potentially successful remake is not to make it feel corny and kitsch. Though it cannot be denied that the character has had a great impact on popular culture and the Sci-Fi genre in particular - Star Wars owes more than a few of its narrative make-up to the 1930s' space hero - its familiarity also caused the genre to be looked at with disdain for decades. It was just hard to take this space opera seriously - can you blame it with silly names like 'Planet Mongo' and 'Ming the Merciless'? - and it wasn't until the Fifties that science fiction pictures based around intelligent premises instead of the attractive exoticness of special effects and alien locales started to make their mark on (the cinematic front of) the genre. Ever since then, Flash has had a tough time truly connecting with an audience other than avid fanboys. The 1980 movie failed to built a continuing franchise of movies around the concept, and even the 2007 TV-series proved shortlived. Maybe the wondrous sense of adventure of the space opera is just too outdated and old-fashioned by now, as spectators demand more intelligence form their science fiction these days. After all, John Carter is a very similar sort of space hero, and look how poorly he did at the box office only two years ago. Will Flash Gordon do any better? It may take a few new Star Wars movies to get the public interested in space operas again, but it's safe to say Gordon will return in one form or another even if this new project fails to find an audience. He always has. Hopefully the same will ring true for John Carter...

Now fantasy, that still works. In fact, if you say it's more popular a genre than ever, you may not be wrong. It keeps scoring with the audience, as Game of Thrones reaches new heights in terms of audience ratings (and download ratings too). And at the same time, The Hobbit trilogy carries on, slowly but surely nearing its end as Peter Jackson is in the process of finishing that third and final movie. Which just got a new name, like it or not. There and Back Again it is called no more, as it has received the novel subtitle The Battle of the Five Armies. Can't say I'm a big fan of that one. Granted, it covers the movie's contents well enough, as this is what most of the film will deal with. I'd say it's too blunt a title. The Lord of the Rings movies may already have had their subtitles picked out for them by the source material, but The Hobbit is not so fortunate. Can you imagine the second LotR movie being named The Battle of Helm's Deep? Surely not, as The Two Towers has a more ominous and poetic, less direct quality to it. So I thought it was with There and Back Again, as the book did not provide a catchy enough subtitle itself (The Clouds Burst? Nay!). PJ argues it would have fit a two movie adaptation, but not a three part series, as Bilbo was already 'there' in The Desolation of Smaug. True. But he's still 'there', and he is destined to go 'back again'. So in my mind, it's not a relevant argument. The Battle of the Five Armies is simply too direct, though not without merit of mystery for a lay audience. Whose forces make up these five armies? And how does the dragon, which at one point seemed to be what this series was all about, fit in exactly? Predictable questions that would not arise with There and Back Again, but will not entice the audience any more than the last movie already would have. Truth is: The Battle of the Five Armies sounds like a cheap video game title. I would have preferred something with a little more literary charm to it. Even the other suggested new name, Into the Fire, sounded more intriguing. But hey, I'm not making these movies, I'm only paying to watch them (well, not really) so why should I care about the titles as long as the movie proves as entertaining (or more so) than its predecessors? It's not like fanboys revelled in the second movie's name either. Or even the first. I guess it takes an actual fantasy writer slash linguist to come up with something really iconic. It surely would have helped if Tolkien had split up the original novel in three parts himself.