The Frodo Franchise by Kristin Thompson
 
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July 19 : 2010

Harry Potter and Frodo join forces in an amusing mashup

Anne Thompson, on her “Thompson on Hollywood” blog, has linked to a pretty funny Harry Potter-Lord of the Rings trailer mashup. As she says, it makes bone obvious the LOTR copycatting we all spotted in the recently released HP trailer: “The new Harry Potter 7 Trailer seems vaguely reminiscent of Lord of the Rings.  Granted, both are fantasy films, but the sweeping helicopter shots of magical warriors running across fields and mountains seem a little too similar.”

Not all the juxtapositions work well, but there are plenty of funny ones. So check out Harry Potter 32: The Reckoning: Lord of Fantasy Dimensions. (The video is unlisted, so you won’t be able to find it by searching, only by following the link.) It does make you wonder how many echoes could be found if the maker had been working with the whole HP film, not just the limited footage available in a trailer. Good job!

In case you haven’t seen the HP trailer itself, here’s a good HD copy on YouTube. Watch it first, and you’ll already be picking out the similarities.

At last, a second item funny enough to warrant being tagged “LOTR Humor.”

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    The Frodo Franchise
    by Kristin Thompson

    US flagbuy at best price

    Canadian flagbuy at best price

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    Berkeley: University of California Press, 2007.
    hardcover 978-0-520-24774-1
    421 pages, 6 x 9 inches, 12 color illustrations; 36 b/w illustrations; 1 map; 1 table

    “Once in a lifetime.”
    The phrase comes up over and over from the people who worked on Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings. The film’s 17 Oscars, record-setting earnings, huge fan base, and hundreds of ancillary products attest to its importance and to the fact that Rings is far more than a film. Its makers seized a crucial moment in Hollywood—the special effects digital revolution plus the rise of “infotainment” and the Internet—to satisfy the trilogy’s fans while fostering a huge new international audience. The resulting franchise of franchises has earned billions of dollars to date with no end in sight.

    Kristin Thompson interviewed 76 people to examine the movie’s scripting and design and the new technologies deployed to produce the films, video games, and DVDs. She demonstrates the impact Rings had on the companies that made it, on the fantasy genre, on New Zealand, and on independent cinema. In fast-paced, compulsively readable prose, she affirms Jackson’s Rings as one the most important films ever made.

    The Frodo Franchise

    cover of Penguin Books’ (NZ) edition of The Frodo Franchise, published September 2007. The tiny subtitle reads: “How ‘The Lord of the Rings’ became a Hollywood blockbuster and put New Zealand on the map.”