Return to the Planet of the Apes

Well, here's a review I never expected to be writing. 

That's not because I've been severely absent from my blog since 2019, but because I figured the Planet of the Apes reboots had ended seven years ago with a conclusion that was pretty solid and pretty final. The main protagonist of those reboots had died after all, and the last film had set things up in a way that could easily bring us full circle back to the events of the original 1968 film. What else could there be to cover?

Well, in the spirit of its subject matter, this franchise just showed us again that evolution is a never-ending process. As long as humans and hyper-intelligent apes share a planet, they'll keep finding newer and bigger problems to have with each other — and for screenwriters to write about.

And that's what's so interesting about these reboots: each installment jumps years ahead of the previous one to show us a new stage in the apes' history, so we get to see exactly how they and their problems are evolving. It also gives us the chance to explore a lot of the same themes and ideas from new perspectives since the power dynamics between humans and apes keep shifting. This latest film, Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes, actually has a fairly similar plot to War for the Planet of the Apes, except that the delusional villains who enslave the hero's people this time are other apes and we get a character who's sort of a human version of Koba.

Speaking of characters from the first three films, Caesar, Maurice, Rocket, and a few others have cameos in Kingdom's prologue, but that's it. This film is both a sequel and a soft reboot that jumps ahead "many generations later" to give us a new cast of characters, including a new chimp protagonist named Noa. I'm assuming the writers gave him that name as an allegory since he literally has to save his people from a flood at one point in the film.

We get tons of new world-building this time around. We get a new orangutan character who also steals the show. We get our first mention of gibbons in the whole franchise. We even get a surprise appearance from William H. Macy for some reason, although no casting choice in this series will ever be as much of a head-scratcher as Kris Kristofferson in the Tim Burton film. And of course, we get lots of action, lots of nods to the original film, and even more of what's still some of the best character CGI put to film. All in all, Kingdom is a fun ride.

So how does it fair as a Planet of the Apes film?

As I mentioned before, this installment treads new ground by giving us a large-scale ape vs. ape conflict and also seeming to play with a few allegories. The main villain is an ape who goes by the name Proximus Caesar, a cult leader/dictator whose goal is to advance ape-kind into the planet's dominant race by forcing humans to share the secrets of their history and technology. He's presumably done his research on the name Caesar, since he often references the Roman Empire, but his preachings on the values of Caesar the ape are either sorely mistaken or deliberately twisted in order to brainwash his followers and serve his own corrupt agenda. There's some obvious social, political, and religious commentary there, with Caesar the ape even having become a savior-like figure in the eyes of the current ape clans. Just like its predecessors though, Kingdom handles this commentary with a subtle enough hand to avoid the traps that a lot of other movies fall into these days. 

The same goes for the human side of the conflict. Kingdom gives us a strong female character done right in the form of Mae, a teenage girl who manages to stay engaging and somewhat sympathetic throughout the plot even as her deception and prejudice against the apes slowly reveals itself. She's not doing what she does to be evil, she's doing it because her world has been shattered by the apes and she hasn't seen enough of their good side to accept that there are shades of gray in the struggle around her. Again, obvious commentary that's handled well. What's more, the movie ends her arc on a note that seems to suggest further development from her character if she returns in any sequels. 

I will say though that Kingdom is probably still the weakest of the Apes reboots. Noa isn't as compelling of a protagonist as Caesar, the supporting ape characters (aside from Raka the orangutan) aren't as memorable as the ones from the previous films, and the pacing could stand to speed up in many places. Still, calling a film the weakest entry in this series is like saying The Two Towers is the weakest Lord of the Rings film. It's still something to be proud of.

As a minor nitpick though, if it's even canon, the Planet of the Apes Wiki claims that Proximus is a bonobo just like Koba. Why keep making bonobos the bad guys? They're way less aggressive than common chimpanzees and way more endangered. And could this series please give us a gorilla character who doesn't get killed off? They've been through enough! 

All in all, it's nice to make my own return of sorts alongside Planet of the Apes. I don't know how long we'll have to wait for the next installment, or if any more will come after this, but like the titular apes, I've seen enough strength and evolution along the way to be hopeful for the future.

And remember: if you ever tell Maurice the orangutan that gingers have no souls, he'll simply steal yours.

"The Last Good Man Part 3" Now Available!

The final novel in my "Last Good Man" trilogy is finally here. Check it out on Kindle today and in Amazon paperback on May 18th:

www.amazon.com/The-Last-Good-Man-Part-3

Owen Bronson and his companions are in a fight for their lives. Driven from their compound by the deadly Patrol agents and unable to survive in a virus-plagued world, their only hope is an army base in Ivydale, WV. The soldiers who live there seem helpful at first, but it isn't long before Owen starts questioning the motives of his strange new hosts—and what they could mean for his team's goal of curing the virus.

Meanwhile, Jodi Sullivan is in an even bigger mess. Captured and forced to join the Patrol alongside many other survivors, she's now surrounded by enemies who could discover her connection to Owen at any minute. Things get worse when she learns what the agents are planning: a full-scale assault on Ivydale to steal back the cure and eliminate Owen's team.

Time is running out as the Patrol close in. Can Jodi, Owen, and the soldiers of Ivydale band together to save themselves? More importantly, can they trust one another enough to finally save the human race?

Also be sure to check out the entire trilogy at this link: www.amazon.com/The-Last-Good-Man-Series

Welcome to Everworld

If you were a kid in the '90's, chances are you crossed paths with the book series Animorphs in some way. Written by K.A. Applegate and Michael Grant, this sci-fi/action epic about kids turning into animals to fight off an alien invasion was one of the Scholastic Corporation's most popular IP's of that decade, rivaled only by Goosebumps. It had sixty-four books, numerous video games and toy lines, a TV show that ran for two seasons on Nickelodeon, and even cross promotions with fast food chains like Taco Bell and Pizza Hut that sold Animorphs collectibles with their kids' meals. An official graphic novel adaptation is now in the works, and the series still has a devout fanbase.

And rightly so. I started reading Animorphs at age nine, and to this day, it's easily one of the most powerful and formative works of literature that I've ever read. It was funny but tragic, relatable but imaginative, entertaining but horrific, and it often hit you with a sobering dose of reality that made the message of each book stay with you long after you finished reading. Best of all, its mature themes and ideas about the morality of war have made it just as meaningful and relevant to read as an adult as it did as a kid, so I highly recommend the series.

With that said, I want to discuss another book series that Applegate and Grant wrote during that same time called Everworld.

I occasionally saw ads for this series in the backs of the Animorphs books (exactly four of them), but the ads were always vague, and eventually those back pages were used to advertise other things. A promotional CD called The Everworld Experience was given out in bookstores upon the third Everworld book's release, but if the series was ever sold in Scholastic's monthly school catalogues or at any of its school book fairs, I can't find evidence of that. Botton line, it barely had any of the exposure or success that Animorphs did, and the series came to an earlier-than-planned conclusion after two years and twelve books.

This is a real shame, because now that I've finally sat down and read all of Everworld, I think the series is great. It deals with four Chicago teens (David, Christopher, April, and Jalil) who are dragged by a witch named Senna to a parallel world where the gods, monsters, and famous figures from all of Earth's mythologies live at constant odds with each other. The teens exist in this place, called Everworld, and on Earth simultaneously, with their consciousnesses jumping back and forth from one world to the other whenever they go to sleep. In addition to staying alive, their main goals in Everworld are to save it from an invading alien god named Ka Anor and to keep Senna from transporting more dangerous people to—and from—Earth.

I should start by saying that Everworld was written for an older audience than Animorphs; for high schoolers instead of middle schoolers. As a result, it has a much darker and grittier tone with less, shall we say, innocent protagonists. It shares a few themes with Animorphs, such as the stress of leading a secret double-life and having to compromise personal values for the greater good, but it also deals with themes like letting go of old perceptions as you grow up, realizing the cost of your deepest desires, and deciding whether to keep to the safe life you know or venture into a greater unknown.

Everworld's premise is clearly a metaphor for coming of age, a representation of the crossroads between childhood and adulthood where you need to start finding a direction for your life. For all of its fantastic settings and elements, the series is really about the four main characters' internal conflicts, not the external conflict around them. The external conflict is just a device that serves to make the characters deal with their internal conflicts, and this is important to keep in mind when reading the series. We don't see much of how the teens change Everworld by getting involved in its dealings, just how much deciding to get involved changes them.

As for the characters themselves, I think we're given a pretty well-rounded and relatable main cast. We have David, the self-appointed leader who feels unfulfilled in his normal life and is desperate to prove his worth due to his toxic masculine upbringing; Christopher, the less-than-sensitive class clown who leans on immature humor and sitcoms to cope with his problems; April, the wily, religious idealist who takes care of business when she needs to; and Jalil, the level-headed skeptic who tries to learn the science of everything so he can master it. A huge part of the overarching conflict is these four learning to get along and work together, and once that starts to happen, they become a fun group of friends to go through all of these crazy adventures with.

I've read complaints that some of their early character flaws (especially Christopher's tendencies towards xenophobic humor) turn off a lot of readers after the first few books. That's understandable, but the point of giving the characters those flaws is that they eventually see the error of their ways and reform. I don't approve of Christopher's intial brand of humor, but I actually like him the most out of the four because he undergoes the biggest and most dramatic transformation throughout the series. You see how finding a life goal in a world where he can't tune out reality so easily makes him a better person.

The other major character is Senna the witch, who really serves as the main antagonist of the series. Not that she's a villain; a major part of the story is trying to figure out her motives and allegiances, since she seems to help the four leads as often as she gets them in trouble. We even get a book narrated by her eventually, and that does a great job of swaying you to feel one way about her right before the series yanks you in the other direction. She's not as complicated as Snape from Harry Potter or Gollum from Lord of the Rings (even though she does shape-shift into him in one rather amusing scene) but I found her arc just as engrossing and its conclusion extremely rewarding. The whole series is worth reading just to get that rush at the end.

And that level of engagement is the ultimate reason why I recommend Everworld. It's one of the most immersive works I've read in a while, both in setting and tone. It takes you right back to the '90's from Page 1 with its now-nostalgic pop culture references and laid-back view of the world, and then it slowly pokes at that bubble with an ominous undertone until all hell finally breaks loose. The descriptions of Everworld effectively capture the feel of every location and threat, and Applegate and Grant's tongue-in-cheek humor goes a long way in keeping the series self-aware enough to avoid turning hokey. One of my favorite parts is in Book 4 when the teens try to catch a wild boar for food, only to have it beat them up and then suddenly order them in English to give it what little food they do have. It becomes a running joke after incidents like this for David, Christopher, April, and Jalil to mumble, "W.T.E. Welcome to Everworld," and then move on with their business.

Also, borrowing so many of its settings and characters from preexisting mythologies (with the authors' own creative twists, of course) builds anticipation as you wonder what other pantheons the series might explore as it goes on. It also gives the protagonists some prior knowledge going into each conflict, especially when some of them start using their "visits" back to Earth to research mythology. This helps endear them to readers by showing their proactive sides, as well as their overarching growth throughout the series as they start trying to help Everworld instead of escape from it.

What's interesting though is that the scenes on Earth are also very descriptive and immersive. It's easy in cross-world narratives like this for the "real world" to take a back seat to the more creative fantasy world, but the Earth scenes in Everworld have their own overarching story that also builds into a genuinely suspenseful conflict. This really sells the idea that David, Christopher, April, and Jalil still have some grounding in their normal lives that keeps holding them back from fully embracing their new lives in Everworld.

With that said, I do wish that their families had more of a presence in the series. The families in Animorphs were very well defined and prominent in a lot of the B-plots of some books. This made us like them almost as much as the Animorphs themselves by the end of the series, which raised the stakes tremendously whenever things started to escalate. In Everworld, we see the families occasionally but get very little sense of their personalities or the teens' relationships with them.

I don't think either of David's parents ever makes an appearance throughout the whole series, and I actually forgot for a while if Jalil's mother was even alive until he mentions her in one of the other characters' books. Things like this make it hard to feel the full emotional weight of certain events near the end of the series. I guess the idea is that teenagers going through major life changes like these just aren't always that close to their families, but it still feels like this particular element of the story could have had a little more focus to sell how torn the characters are between their two lives.

It's worth noting that Christopher's parents and brother probably get the most character out of all the families, with scenes as early as the second book showing their interests and personalities as they banter with him. Given his similarities to Marco, the main comedic character from Animorphs, I'm starting to think Christopher was the authors' favorite lead as well.

Also, one of the Earth antagonists in Everworld is named Mr. Trent. This was also the human alias of the main villain on the Animorphs TV show, which predates Everworld. I can't find any information on how both of these characters came to have the same name, as Applegate and Grant didn't write the TV show, but it certainly has me conjuring all kinds of theories about the two book series existing in the same universe.

So why wasn't Everworld more successful if it's so good? Why didn't Scholastic advertise the hell out of it to at least try and hook the millions of Animorphs fans back then?

Sadly, I think the answer lies in the reader demographics. When you're dealing with kids, a couple of years can mean a huge difference in maturity and what's considered appropriate material for them. Animorphs was surprisingly graphic and intense for a children's book series, but it was still written for children. I can't recall a single swear word ever being said in it, and things like drugs, sex, and xenophobia were either very vaguely implied, disguised in metaphors, or presented as problems that the alien characters (not the humans) struggle with.

The very first Everworld book features flashbacks where David recalls seeing a camp counselor molest a child and hearing a football coach call a player the "F" word for not being tough enough on the field—and they don't just say "the 'F' word" in the book either. Add a few dollops of religion, sexuality, infidelity, teen alcoholism, and other adult language throughout each book, and there was no way Scholastic could promote this series to the same kids who read Animorphs. The Everworld books don't even have that bright red Scholastic logo at the bottoms of their covers; there's just a tiny, inconspicuous logo on the spine and an even less conspicuous trademark credit on the back.

Again, I can't currently find any information about this. I'm very curious to know how this situation came to be though. Did Scholastic give the authors more leeway for Everworld because of Animorphs' success and then found out too late how far the pair had run with that? Did the company want to experiment with publishing more adult material but then started getting cold feet closer to Everworld's release?

The worst part of this, if it's true, is that Scholastic may have been right to worry. According to some of the YouTube comments and online book reviews I've read, a lot of kids who read Animorphs in the '90's were barred by their parents from reading Everworld. Some say their parents found the series too dark and inappropriate. Some say their parents took issue with it for religious reasons, due to all the pagan deities that it shows to exist. One person even said they were almost barred from Animorphs too after their parents vetoed Everworld. Not the kind of thing a Scholastic executive in 1999 would have wanted to hear.

I know that Scholastic would go on to publish the Harry Potter and Hunger Games series over the next decade, and both of those saw their share of controversy too. All things considered though, I do side a little with the parents when it comes to Everworld. The topics that I listed three paragraphs ago are important for teens to discuss, and it's realistic to include them in a story about teens, but I feel like the series presents them a little too bluntly for me to totally disagree with the parental discretion. There's an entire book about a lustful underworld goddess who does nothing but capture men and force them to "please" her under threat of castration, and there's an ongoing subplot where April questions what the existence of all the different pagan deities in Everworld means for her own Catholic beliefs. Even if this series had come out today, there would be a legitimate reason for the concerns.

I'll never say to bar your kids from reading anything, but here's a thing to consider: the main characters in Animorphs are roughly thirteen years old at the start of the series, they're sixteen by the last book, and the Everworld characters are sixteen throughout their series. Maybe letting your kids read Animorphs first and giving them a chance to mature alongside those characters is a good gauge for when you think they'd be old enough to read Everworld.

And if they decide for themselves that they don't want to read Everworld, then that's them choosing a direction in life, just like the series would want them to make.

Whatever Happened to Dilophosaurus?

With its twenty-fifth birthday and its latest sequel both coming up this summer, I recently went back and rewatched the film Jurassic Park. It's obviously a beloved classic, and because of its success and popularity, all of its sequels have derived heavily from it. This includes featuring a lot of the same dinosaur species that appeared in the first film,  but there's one species in particular that's been curiously absent in the sequels. That species is the Dilophosaurus.

I can understand if a docile, barely involved species like Triceratops or Gallimimus never made a comeback after the first film (which they have, by the way), but why would one as memorable as the frilled, venom-spitting Dilophosaurus be left out? It's one of the most iconic looking dinosaurs in the whole movie, and it's the only species besides the T-Rex and the Velociraptors that actually kills someone. Heck, it's one of the only dinosaur species in the film that actually lived during the Jurassic Period. What's especially odd is that Dilophosaurus has appeared in several Jurassic Park video games and even had a cameo as a hologram in the fourth film, so it's not like the franchise has disowned it.

The only thing I can figure is that the filmmakers were leery about featuring the species in the sequels. I have two theories for why that is.

1. Too Overpowering

The central conflict in the Jurassic Park series is Man versus Nature. It's about mankind having to use all of its technology and intellect in a struggle for control over forces of nature that it was never meant to exist alongside. If the writers routinely feature a dinosaur species that can launch projectile weapons from its mouth, then they're essentially giving the dinosaurs guns. That's pretty much the end of the story; evasion has always been the human characters' strongest survival tactic against the dinosaurs, and pitting them against a predator that can cause harm from a distance would rub out that advantage and probably take a lot of the tension and thrill out of those scenes.

You wouldn't get as many of those exciting chases or harrowing moments where the predator's teeth or claws narrowly miss a character. If a Dilophosaurus sees someone and they're in spitting distance of it, then that person's dead. End of scene. One of the most entertaining parts of a Jurassic Park film is seeing the dinosaurs throw their weight around and cause physical damage, and a dinosaur that can spit venom at its opponents just wouldn't do something like that. I think the screenwriters were aware of this and found Dilophosaurus a lot less interesting to write about than the other dinosaur species as a result.

Speaking of other species, you could argue that its abilities actually make Dilophosaurus more dangerous than the T-Rex or the Velociraptors. Once again, those species are only as deadly as their ability to catch people, and Dilophosaurus doesn't share that limitation. If the movies threw it into the mix more often, I think there'd be a real risk of it eventually overshadowing T-Rex and Velociraptor as the biggest threat in the narrative. In fact, one of the reasons why it had such a small role in the first film was so viewers wouldn't confuse it with the Velociraptors due to their similar size. Dilophosaurus was only meant to be a side attraction with a gimmick in the story, not a major player, so the screenwriters may have felt they were better off not using it anymore.

2. Too Inaccurate

I'm sure this is news to no one, but the Dilophosaurus in real life didn't have any of the frills of its movie counterpart -- so to speak. It didn't have a neck frill that it flashed to scare enemies, and it didn't spit venom. That was all creative licensing on the part of author Michael Crichton and the filmmakers behind Jurassic Park. There's nothing inherently wrong with this, but because of the timing of the first film's release and its cultural impact, it shaped the way that a lot of people viewed dinosaurs back then. Unfortunately, this also meant that it gave those people a lot of misconceptions about dinosaurs, and paleontologists have been trying to set the record straight ever since.

We've all heard the criticisms about the movie. "T-Rex's eyesight wasn't really based on movement," "Velociraptors weren't really that big," "Brachiosaurus couldn't really stand on its hind legs," etc. People rightly pointed out the inaccuracy of the Dilophosaurus's neck frill and venom as well, but unlike with the other dinosaur species, this one's inaccuracies were the most memorable things about it in the movie. Because of that, Dilophosaurus's biggest claim to fame for a while seemed to be that it was That Dinosaur That Jurassic Park Got Wrong. I actually remember reading children's books about dinosaurs that specifically called out the movie for this false depiction. Not exactly a ringing endorsement.

To its credit, the series has tried to make its dinosaur designs a little more true to science since the first film. Most notably, it gave the Velociraptors feathers in the third film to reflect the discovery that raptors did have plumage in real life. It's possible that since a more realistic makeover for Dilophosaurus would involve stripping away all of the trademarks that the series gave it, the filmmakers may have just decided to not bring it back.

Whether or not these theories are correct, neither one seems to be the case anymore. Not only do we see a hologram of Dilophosaurus in the fourth film, but a tour video in that film mentions that the glass of the visitor vehicles is impervious to the predator's venom. This all seems to suggest that there is a Dilophosaurus exhibit in the newer park, or at least a Dilophosaurus population somewhere on the island. As if that isn't enough, it's now been confirmed that the species is supposed to finally make its comeback in the flesh in the upcoming fifth film.

Again, if my theories are correct, then why is it coming back now? I think it's because the Jurassic Park franchise has, for lack of a better word, evolved since its debut twenty-five years ago. Instead of being more ominous and philosophical, the films are now more lighthearted and adventurous. They don't take themselves as seriously anymore, so audiences today see them as something that's just trying to be entertaining, not as something that's trying to change the face of paleontology. And of course, the series carries a lot of nostalgia behind it now which the newer films clearly enjoy playing to. This could mean that the creative team behind the fourth film always planned to bring back the Dilophosaurus at some point, but maybe wanted to tease or even gauge the audience with a few nods to it first.

It would be interesting to see if the new film addresses Dilophosaurus's absence up to this point. It might even be able to make an in-joke or two about the species, saying perhaps that their frills and venom came from an early gene splicing experiment and that the old park had actually lied about scientists believing that the species had those features. I have a feeling we won't get any explanation, but really, just getting to see Dilophosaurus onscreen again after a quarter of a century would be more than enough for a lot of Jurassic Park fans.

And if its comeback should turn out to be disappointing, don't worry. It will always have that one terrific moment in the film that started it all.

Goodbye, Newman. That's one magic loogie.

Recapping in Sequels

As an author who's published four books in a still-ongoing series, I can't think of anything more imposing to write than a sequel. Not only do you have to keep track of the details from multiple books while writing it, but you also have to keep finding ways to build on characters and storylines in ways that make sense and feel natural without changing the essence of the narrative too much. And if you botch a sequel, there's a chance you'll also ruin the entire series that came before it.

Even the mere structure of a sequel can pose a lot of difficulty for the writer. When you get right down to it, most followup stories are at a disadvantage from the start because their foundations exist in an entirely separate story -- the story that they're a sequel to. Readers typically won't fully understand or appreciate everything that happens in a sequel if they don't start with the first book in a series, so how does the writer get around that?

The most obvious solution, which I want to discuss today, is by reexplaining the premise of the series in the sequels.

I'm sure we've all read at least one book sequel that pumps the breaks in its opening chapters to remind us of who the characters are and what the series is about. It's one of the most aggravating things you can possibly write; you're trying to get on with the story of your next installment, but every time something comes into play that was introduced in an earlier book, you feel obligated to stop and recap what it is, and that just kills your momentum. Even if you clearly number each book on the cover, you still have to assume that most people aren't going to read the whole series in order or remember every detail throughout it. Some might argue that this shouldn't have to be the author's problem, but catering to your audience at least a little does help both of you in the long run.

The question then is how extensively you should try to reexplain things in a sequel.

Literature is all over the spectrum with this. For instance, the sci-fi series Animorphs takes time out of nearly all sixty-four of its books (including the final one) to reexplain its premise. The Lord of the Rings, in contrast, doesn't reexplain anything from book to book. Granted, that was actually meant to be a single book before the publisher split it into three, but the lack of recaps clearly hasn't harmed it.

A lot of factors weigh on which of these extremes you want to lean towards. The age of your audience, the number of books, the length of each book, and how closely the plot of each one ties in with those of its predecessors are just a few. However you decide to do it, the important thing is to keep the recaps as brief as possible. Otherwise, you will kill your momentum and potentially lose readers' interest.

I posted a survey on Facebook a while ago to get some opinions on this subject. The comments ranged from giving a refresher whenever necessary throughout each book to only doing it in Book 2 and then leaving it up to the reader to figure things out in all future installments. One comment even suggested tapering off the recaps over the course of multiple sequels until you reach a point in the series where the readers are most likely fans who don't need reminders anymore.

The strategy I've chosen for my own series, The Rokshena Revolution, is sort of a combination of all these ideas. The overall story is made up of three separate plots that lead directly into one another, and each plot in the "trilogy" has actually been split into two books because of the length. As a result, I give increasingly smaller reminders of things as they come up throughout the series, but I only do it in every other book.

This is obviously a unique case. However, I do think the tapering idea is a good middle ground to go with. It might even encourage people to start reading your series at an earlier point than they might have otherwise since they'll get a more extensive backstory the further back they start.

In any case, the key to all of this is building a strong rapport with your audience. Getting into a series can be a big commitment, almost like a friendship, so much like you would with a friend, you want to show the reader that you're aware of them and help them out every once in a while. If you're inviting and willing to put in the extra effort for them, chances are they'll be receptive and put in the extra effort for you.

"Beginnings" TV Series Teaser Poster

First teaser poster for the show "Beginnings" that I'm involved in. It's based on the post-apocalyptic drama/comedy book series by Jacqueline Druga, who is also our executive producer and screenwriter.

Look for it on Amazon Prime this Fall!

What Comes First? The Hobbit or the Rings?

Prequels pose a rather unique challenge to writers and filmmakers. Not only do they have to tell their own coherent stories, but they also have to adequately set up the events of the installments that came before them. Since they take place earlier in the series, they often can't include a lot of familiar elements from their predecessors, yet they still have to be similar enough to those predecessors to keep from alienating fans. What's more, most books, films, and so on are created without any prequels in mind, and this lack of accommodation can really plague a prequel's storyline and form plotholes and inconsistencies in the overall series.

Peter Jackson's Hobbit films add a layer of confusion to this. Not only are they prequels to a film trilogy that had been made without any prequels in mind, but they're based on a book that was written without any sequels in mind -- sequels which were eventually written and adapted into the Hobbit films' predecessors. It's the book-to-movie equivalent of the "chicken or the egg" question, and this leads many to wonder if the Hobbit and Lord of the Rings film trilogies can really function as one six-film series. Can future audiences view the films in chronological order without confusion, or are they better off viewing the films in the order that they were made?

There are a few inconsistencies between the two trilogies, but not many, so let's get those out of the way first.

Only two notable characters had to be recast throughout all six films: Gloin the dwarf and Bilbo Baggins the hobbit. Gloin's recasting in The Hobbit creates no conflict whatsoever, seeing how he's never identified or given any lines throughout his one scene in the Lord of the Rings films, but Bilbo's recasting is a different matter.

Even though Ian Holm was available to reprise his role for The Hobbit, playing a younger and more able-bodied Bilbo would have been too difficult for him, so Martin Freeman was brought in. Holm still plays the older Bilbo at the beginning and end of the Hobbit trilogy, and while this fits with the way he looks in the Lord of the Rings trilogy, it does create a bit of a plothole.

See, one of the powers that the One Ring possesses is immortality, which prevents its bearer from aging for as long as they carry it. This is said to be the case with Bilbo in The Fellowship of the Ring, but in the Hobbit films, he clearly doesn't look the same age sixty years after finding the Ring. In fact, if you listen closely to the dialogue from Fellowship that's replayed at the end of The Battle of the Five Armies, Gandalf's line about how Bilbo hasn't "aged a day" is omitted from it.

The argument could be made that the Ring in the movies doesn't stop the aging process so much as it slows it down; after all, Gollum's appearance doesn't stay the same throughout his time with the Ring. However, it's still apparent that having Bilbo played by two different actors was not in the equation at the time that The Lord of the Rings was filmed. This is evidenced by the fact that Ian Holm does play the younger Bilbo in a flashback at the beginning of Fellowship, where we see him finding the Ring.

This leads to some other minor issues. Not only does that version of the younger Bilbo look and dress differently from the one in the Hobbit films, but the entire riddle game with Gollum is removed in that flashback. The scene jumps right from Bilbo picking up the Ring to Gollum screaming that his "Precious" is lost, something that Gollum doesn't realize until after the riddle game concludes in An Unexpected Journey. Future audiences will probably be able to tell that both scenes are depicting the same plot point, but the inconsistencies between them are bound to be a little jarring.

Gollum is another character who differs between the trilogies. Since Peter Jackson's team was still perfecting CGI motion capture in the early 2000's, Gollum was mostly kept out of sight in Fellowship. By 2011 though, his scenes were pretty easy to shoot and render. As a result, people who watch the six films in chronological order will get a Hobbit film where Gollum is shown as clear as day, a Lord of the Rings film where he's suddenly shrouded in mystery, and then two more Lord of the Rings films where he's plainly visible again.

This doesn't really detract from watching the films in that order, though. It just slightly lessens the impact of Gollum's reveal in The Two Towers and makes it easier for viewers to tell which order the two trilogies were made in. Gollum's buildup in The Lord of the Rings might even still work, since viewers are given two whole films to forget what he looks like in between his appearances in An Unexpected Journey and The Fellowship of the Ring.

There are other things that can play out strangely to viewers, especially when watching the Extended Editions. It's odd to hear Bilbo calling for Frodo in Bag End at the beginning of Fellowship's Extended Edition when he clearly saw Frodo leave Bag End at the beginning of Journey, and it's ironic that viewers don't get a clear explanation of what a hobbit is until after the Hobbit trilogy is over. A lot of major characters like Radagast, Thranduil, and Tauriel disappear with no explanation halfway through the series, and no mention of Balin's conquest of Moria is given prior to the Fellowship's decision to go there in The Lord of the Rings. People who forget what Moria is from all the way back in Journey might get confused about this plot thread. Once again though, these are minor issues.

With that said, let's discuss how the two trilogies do flow into each other.

As I've said before, the Hobbit films do a very good job of making the book's story and setting more consistent with The Lord of the Rings. Showing things like the One Ring's effect on Bilbo and Gandalf's relationship with other authorities in Middle-earth go a long way in connecting the trilogies, as does the more fleshed-out Necromancer subplot that foreshadows Sauron's return. It's important to illustrate that such dark powers exist in a prequel that is meant to set up a story about those powers. The lack of resolution with Bilbo's "magic ring" by the end of The Battle of the Five Armies also makes a strong case for watching Fellowship soon after.

The Hobbit's mentions of characters from The Lord of the Rings further help to bridge the gap between the film trilogies. Some feel that those mentions can be forced at times, but they do help to establish those characters' relevance in the long run. In case we forget who the minor character Gloin is by the time Gimli is introduced as "Gimli, son of Gloin" in Fellowship, we might remember Gimli's name from its prominent mention in The Desolation of Smaug; in case it seems odd for Legolas to be such good friends with a non-elf like Strider in Fellowship after watching the Hobbit trilogy, we'll remember his father telling him to seek out Strider at the end of The Battle of the Five Armies. Screenplays have to be a lot more tight-knit than books, so it's usually good practice for films to elude to story elements that way.

Lastly, it helps that the Hobbit films get darker and more serious to match the tone of The Lord of the Rings as they go on. This was partly by design and partly by necessity, since the Battle of the Five Armies and all of the major character deaths that result from it really couldn't have happened offscreen in the films like it did in the book. Because of this, the Hobbit films give us a comfortable transition from their light-hearted source material to the more grisly Lord of the Rings films.

And that brings us to our final verdict. At the end of the day, it's pretty obvious that the Hobbit film trilogy, while having its own identity, was meant to be viewed in order with the Lord of the Rings and not as a stand-alone series. The inconsistencies between the trilogies are all fairly minor, and they cease to be a problem roughly halfway through The Fellowship of the Ring. 

It's doubtful that Peter Jackson will ever go back and make changes to Fellowship to better match it with The Hobbit, and most fans of the series likely wouldn't want him to anyway. And really, he shouldn't. As far as prequels go, the Hobbit trilogy is a strong followup that ties in very well with its predecessors, and its shortcomings in that regard should be left intact just to highlight how few of them there really are. If the perfect prequel is unachievable, then the Hobbit films are three of the closer attempts at reaching that.