I have to admit that I love Peter Jackson’s bloated adaptation of the Hobbit. Even though it pads the material shamelessly, it’s never boring, and it has a lot of style and visually interesting devices.
One of the more bizarre elements of the last installment, The Battle of the Five Armies, was the appearance of Dain – riding on a battle-pig, with tusks woven into his moustache. He sure as heck isn’t described that way in Tolkien.
Then I remembered something similar. In the 1969 Harvard Lampoon parody, Bored of the Rings the Ringwraiths (there called the Nozdrul, instead of the Nazgul) rode on pigs instead of horses or Tolkeinian pterosaurs. They’re described thus at considerable length, and even appear that way on the original Signet book cover (drawn by future Sesame Street and Muppet artist Michael Frith)
You could argue that Jackson’s crew came up with it on their own, but there’s no way that they were unaware of the earlier parody – they researched the hell out of King Kong when they were doing that film, and I can’t believe they weren’t as thorough for The Hobbit. I can’t prove that they were influenced by Henry Beard and Doug Kenney’s prose and Frith’s illustration, but it’s certainly plausible.* Jackson reportedly said “If you were a dwarf, why wouldn’t you want to ride a pig?” But whence the idea and image?
Another case of such parodic influence, I maintain, is Slave I, Boba Fett’s spaceship in The Empire Strikes Back. Nilo Rodis-Jamero, assistant art director on TESB and designer of the ship, said that he based the design on a radar dish, squashed in on the sides to become elliptical. It also closely resembled the streetlights outside LucasFilm, so the idea was circulated (and printed) that the streetlights influenced the design ( I recall reading this, back at the time) ( List of Star Wars spacecraft - Wikipedia )
Here’s the ship:
Here’s a Radar Dish
https://www.google.com/search?q=Radar+Dish&biw=1920&bih=932&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=fNsCVajiDJfbsATNkoKwCQ&ved=0CB0QsAQ#imgdii=_&imgrc=lndgSGyzvpAlHM%253A%3BqTTCTX85AncXNM%3Bhttp%253A%252F%252Fhqwallbase.com%252Fimages%252Fbig%252Fradar-dish-wallpaper.jpg%3Bhttp%253A%252F%252Fhqwallbase.com%252F17922-radar-dish-wallpaper%252F%3B1920%3B1080
Here is a street lamp that looks sorta similar
And then there are these:
Ernie Fosselius’ parody Hardware Wars came out in 1978, months after the release of Star Wars. It was made cheaply, on a shoestring budget, but that’s part of the charm. In the film, many of the ships are “played” by ordinary clothes irons (including one in black and white with flashing lights as a “police” iron) – hence the parody’s title of “Hardware Wars” (there are other pieces of random hardware thrown in as space stuff, including a waffle iron and an egg beater).
Again, I can’t prove influence, but George Lucas is on record as saying that Hardware Wars was his favorite Star Wars Parody (in 199, after Spaceballs came out Hardware Wars - Wikipedia ) . He’s also the one who urged Rodis-Jamero to squish in the sides of his originally round “radar dish” to make it more elliptical, like a clothes iron. So you tell me – was Lucas paying homage to the parody that paid homage to him?
Any other cases you can suggest?
- Jackson’s image of Dain on a Pig inspired a parody song, Dwarf on a Pig. It’s all part of the Great Circle of Parody.
The Esgaroth Three - Wikipedia
