Squeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!!!!
I'm sorry! I'm sorry! I'll try to be more professional! I swear!
...
Squeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee....
Hoo! Okay. Okay. I'm good. I'm good. I'm calm now. I got water. Gimme a sec.
Ahem.
So. You guys know I'm pretty hardcore into Disney. And why not? It's awesome. There's hundreds of great movies and TV shows, lots of amazing rides, and most have at least one cool story about their inception and execution. But even I like to branch outside the Magic Kingdom and see what kind of non-Disney things people like. Like that weird sports thing. And sewing. I also hear selfies are a thing.
But all kidding aside, I also love the graphic novel series Bone. When I was but a lad, not quite yet ten, I subscribed to Disney Adventures magazine and read their comics religiously. A few times, they had snippets of the story Bone, but in 1997 or so, they featured a continuous monthly storyline from chapter two all the way to the sixth and last chapter of book one. It was a strikingly compelling story with lots of loose ends that annoyed me greatly...then I found out there were eight other books to the story. The next three I found at my high school library, and I found the remaining chapters in a Borders. (Yeah, I'm old. Shut up). To date, next to Maus, it's my absolute favorite graphic novel.
Bone, written and drawn by Jeff Smith, is the story of the characters, or "Bones" from Boneville. Fone Bone, Phoney Bone, and Smiley Bone are three cousins having been run out of their home town after Phoney ran for mayor and the town didn't care for him and his greedy ways. They ran so far out of the town they crossed a vast desert and wound up in a lush valley, mired in a bygone medieval era. The inhabitants are human, but the valley is also home to talking forest critters, dragons, giant mountain lions, and disgusting monsters called rat creatures. At first, the bones struggle to understand and engage in the bizarre realm, and try to leave it to go back home, but soon they discover not only might Phoney be a key component in an ancient prophecy, but a lost royal lineage is rediscovered, alliances are drawn and redrawn, and a war is brewing.
If that all seems a bit weird to you, let me put it another way: imagine if Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, and Goofy were in Lord of the Rings. Now imagine neither side is softened or hardened for the other: three cartoon characters from modern day Toontown suddenly are in the shire, then get swept up the grueling, bloody battles against monsters of all shapes and sizes. Imagine if they get squeamish and uncomfortable around the deaths and dismemberment of Boromir or Denethor, and those deaths being no less horrifying. Imagine still having fantastic creatures like the ents, the eagles, the wyverns, orcs, Shelob, and Gollum, but equal parts amazing and terrifying, dwarfing three silly characters, but the gravitas completely intact. And of course, the elves, dwarves, wizards, hobbits, and humans gaze in confusion at the anthropomorphized mouse, duck, and dog, and mutter, "What are you?"
If that sounds awesome, you now know why I love the series so much.
I don't intend to be in any way insulting when I refer to Fone Bone, Phoney, and Smiley as being similar to Mickey, Donald and Goofy. The fact is the characteristics and dynamics are there. Fone Bone is short and practical, level-headed, and dedicated to doing the right thing. Phoney is a businessman with questionable ethics, sometimes a coward, but still a temperamental loudmouth. Smiley's tall and simple-minded, friendly and optimistic. So it's not much of a stretch, but to say they're copies of the Disney characters doesn't do them a lick of justice.
But the three Bones are only a fraction of the story. There's Thorn, the self-confident young woman who is the focus of Fone Bone's affections and whose tenacity knows no bounds. The sassy, tough-as-nails, yet kind-hearted Gran'ma Ben, who harbors a painful past. Lucius Down, the burly tavern owner whose grizzled nature belies a sensitive heart. The surly and repulsive rat creature king Kingdok. The haughty mountain lion Roque Ja. The mellow and mysterious red dragon. Each of these characters are solid personalities in their own right, and are enriching in their own enigmatic ways.
And since 2008, Warner Brothers has had the rights to the Eisner Award-winning series, but for various reasons, the project keeps stalling over and over. In the late nineties, Nickelodeon wanted to have the Bones voiced by child actors and feature pop songs, but Smith wisely turned them down. It's gone through a handful of writers and drafts, but as of November 16th, 2016, this happened.
Mark Osborne, who directed Kung Fu Panda, The Little Prince, and the Spongebob Squarepants Movie, is signed on to direct the project. With luck, we could have one awesome future to look forward to.
But then again, this is the same studio that made the DC movies that are so awful. But it's the same studio that made Harry Potter a household name. But they also made Superman suck. But then again, they made the incredible The Lego Movie!...but they still made Jesse Eisenberg Lex Luthor. You see my inner quarrel here?
Still, as a fan, allow me to share my thoughts on the project:
Either make it wholly CGI or damn good cel animation.
In the books, the Bones are short, white, bald, and have big-noses, who have the energetic timing and elasticity of cartoons. The humans are rendered much more realistically, looking more like the human characters from Aladdin or Beauty and the Beast. The two drawing styles are wildly disparate, but because Smith treats the Bones' solidity and volume the same way he does the humans, it never feels like they don't mesh well. He makes Who Framed Roger Rabbit look like amateur hour.
For a while, I wanted to see the film in live action with the Bones rendered in CGI like, well, Gollum. But the look of the Bones may be just a bit too cartoony for this to look good. Plus, many of the human characters are just caricatured enough that it might help bridge the gap between realistic-looking humans and silly little bone 'toons. The best way to do this? Animate everything. Especially they would have to render bear-sized rat creatures, a cow race with close twenty cows, swarms of locusts, and an assortment of talking animals.
The caveat here is that it HAS to look good. While I think CGI might be the best option, if they were to do it with hand-drawn animation, it'd look gorgeous, but only if they pushed themselves past Disney-levels of artistic integrity. This is a story that has to be taken seriously, so detail and scale are key, which leads me to my next point:
Don't hold back the scale.
Bone is HUGE. It has lots of small scenes like Gran'ma Ben's farm, or the Barrelhaven tavern, but there are some scenes that push the scale to extraordinary degrees. The first chapter alone features a massive desert, the Bones getting engulfed and separated in a swarm of locusts, and Fone Bone stumbling upon his first look at the expanse of the valley.
The great red dragon is depicted easily as about 50 feet long. Kingdok looks to be about ten feet tall. Roque Ja about fifteen from snout to tail. A Phoney Bone balloon towers at over 100 feet. But the biggest is Queen Mim of the dragons: when the other dragons attack her, they are hardly bigger than ants on her.
Part of the impressive nature of the story is that it is a big story and really allows the Bones to feel so small and insignificant compared to the grandiose adventures they embark on.
Focus on no-names for the cast
I love seeing my favorite actors like any good filmgoer, but when push comes to shove, I say gimme no-names. Why? Because unless you have a lot of great actors, it can be extremely distracting when you're watching an actor, not their character.
Even though I've read the stories for years and can hear their voices in my head, I can't place certain actors to them. But more importantly, name recognition isn't nearly as important as doing a good performance. Not only will they try harder, but we will see Fone Bone and Thorn and Lucius, not hear actors playing them.
Maintain the tone
Like I stated before, the tone can be pretty heavy. While no one swears, some beer drinking, and there's little regarding anything sexual, it's still pretty intense. Quite a few characters die, and not just "fall off a cliff off-panel". Sliced in half, incinerated by lightning, get an arm sliced off, and stabbed in the eye are just a few of the gory deaths and injuries, but then again, it's not like we see entrails splattered on the ground or anything.
This should keep the films in the much-beloved PG-13 territory, even though it stars these guys:
But softening the intensity does the series a huge injustice to such a big story with a mature tone. There are ideas that get pursued, hard decisions to be made, and if it fails to challenge audiences (especially kids) and doesn't interest adults, then it becomes a massive wasted opportunity to do something great. And in today's day and age, where kids' minds can get expanded from watching shows like Steven Universe, Legend of Korra, Gravity Falls, and more, we can't afford to dumb things down for kids anymore and insult their intelligence. Kids can handle more than we give them credit for, and as long as the violence services the story and doesn't rely on shock value alone, the young ones will be fine. After all, we're not that traumatized by Mufasa and Bambi's mom.
Keep Thorn badass
In the first few books, Thorn seems to be a sort of...well, obligatory eye candy/love interest. She's got a personality, thank God, but the long dirty blonde hair, the lithe figure...it seems as though there might have been editorial mandate for a pretty girl that our diminutive hero to have an unrequited crush on, because a relationship between them raises a ton of questions I'm not ready to answer otherwise.
But as the story progresses and we follow Fone Bone and Thorn, we see her evolve. She discovers her lineage and at first denies it, but she slowly accepts the responsibility, often being the one to draw her broadsword and stand up for what's right. And she does this without some writer's shoddy attempt to make her sexually assaulted, have daddy issues (well, her parents' fates don't play into the story that much), or really even that sexy in order for her to be strong. She's strong purely on her own merit, and that's truly inspiring.
But my favorite moment of hers is in book eight: Treasure Hunters. A little girl is setting up a small shrine to honor the dragons, but because the kingdom's ruler hates the dragons and forbids mere mention of them, his secret police bully the girl and destroy her creation. Thorn, who had to stay hidden, grabs one of the guards, lifts his whole body UP OVER HER HEAD, stares into his terrified eyes, and growls, "That was too rough for child"
Like a boss.
Be super careful when marketing
If you hadn't heard of Bone until reading this article, I'm sure I made the whole "cartoon characters in Middle Earth" thing sound stupidly awesome. On paper, it seems like a failed concept. But Smith expertly crafted it so that as even though "Bone" characters don't look anything like skeletons aside from being white, they are still treated as oddities. Yeah, despite being in a valley of dragons, talking bugs, and rat creatures, the short, humanoid, white, bald creatures with modern sensibilities are the weird ones.
But now, say you have to set up a teaser trailer for the movie. You have to communicate that it's a grand epic. Lots of forests and vast landscapes. Maybe show a shadow of a lurking rat creature or two. Have some narration of an old guy say something like, "What are you?" You with me so far? Then all of a sudden:
Problem one: the title. While I have no problem with it, just imagine what Joe Moviegoer when he sees a trailer of something so big and huge, followed by the title "Bone", it might raise some eyebrows. Is it going to be about death? Is it about people getting eaten and their bones left behind? Is it about the bubonic plague? Who dies? Why's it so morbid?
Now I'm not saying change the title. Heavens no. But even adding the subtitle "Out of Boneville" might make first-timers leery.
Second is the reveal of the Bones themselves. Chances are if they play up the "LOTR epic" angle to draw interest from the fantasy/action demographic, they'd probably downplay the silly-looking Bone characters, assuming they stick to the original designs. (They...had...better!). The ultimate reveal will have to carry the same weight and gravitas, which can be extremely difficult. They might risk looking like a kid's movie, which might result in low ticket sales, which means they won't make as much money, which means they'll stop making the movies before the series is supposed to end, and then I'll be sad and I'll cry and-and be all depressed and -
Sorry. Had to catch myself. Long story short, I don't want to see Bone suffer the same fate as the Narnia series, which not only did Disney give up on after only two movies, but was altogether abandoned when the third one was made by another studio!
Which leads me to my last point...
Don't stop at three!
It seems as though the plan is to turn the series into a trilogy. To this I can only say:
Just for the record, Bone is nine books. Nine! Yeah, that's two longer than Harry Potter, and Smith's sales may pale in comparison, but it's a big story. The pacing, as it stands, works. If they try condense three books into one movie, it's going to be so wildly cluttered it won't have time do what the novels did best: allow the characters to breathe and develop. Case in point, this monstrosity:
Twenty episodes make up the first season of the TV show. And the wretched movie by M. Night Shyamalan was supposed to represent most/all those twenty episodes. In an hour and a half movie! Not only did far too much get spliced out, but the movie relied less on emotion and character than action scenes and exposition. And that sure didn't work out.
A truly great film can rely purely on character interaction without having to be about anything. One of my most favorite movie scenes of all time is in Avengers: Age of Ultron, where the team sits around all compete to lift Thor's hammer. It's not an action scene, but it captures an element of fun and camaraderie most movies lack.
Getting back to my point, though, is that Bone needs the Harry Potter treatment: a good marketing strategy, a good director, a great cast, a capable computer effects team, a strong team of writers, and a studio that's willing to give them all the support they need. If all the right elements are in play, there's no reason why it would fail.
And now, because I haven't given you enough incentive to check it out for yourselves yet, the top ten most awesome moments of the series:
10. Fone Bone has a dream where he's Ishmael from his favorite book, Moby Dick. At the end of his dream, he is shocked to see the great red dragon, a massive behemoth, rise out of the ocean to calmly stare down at him. While this may be par for the course in weird dream logic, the dragon simply tells Fone Bone "Welcome aboard, Ishmael." the following morning though Fone Bone didn't tell him anything about that! Oooh, mysterious!
9. As part of the rural fair, over twenty cows are sent on a race through the woods. Gran'ma Ben doesn't just have her own cows race, but the hardy old woman races alongside them! In book two, The Great Cow Race, aside from having to deal with Phoney fixing the race, and a troupe of rat creatures get caught up in the chaos, it leads to some hilarious results.
8. The Hooded One, leader of the rat creatures, is convinced Phoney is the one referred to in a prophecy that will result in their downfall. When she is set to sacrifice him, she reveals the basis for her convictions: a one hundred-foot-tall balloon of Phoney with the banner that reads "Phoney Bone will get you". The reason it even exists is too funny to spoil here.
7. In book three, Eyes of the Storm, Gran'ma Ben, Thorn, and Fone Bone are out in the middle of the forest during a raging storm. Worse, the woods are full of rat creatures on the prowl. At one point, in a grand show powerful imagery, we see the three huddled underneath a tree, and a flash of lightning briefly shows they are, in fact, surrounded before going dark. A second flash reveals the empty gaze of one staring them down. If shot well, it could be one of the most visually striking moments in the movie.
6. Whenever hordes of rat creatures show up, the bloodthirsty monsters fear nothing...except the great red dragon. He never fully opens his eyes, raises his voice, and almost is never drawn with his mouth open. With just a few choice words and a firm tone, he causes the hairy men to flee in pure terror.
5. In book nine, The Crown of Horns, an oppressive dictator reveals he is horribly disfigured from a battle he endured years ago. The Hooded One, who can manipulate her face to look like anyone, changes hers to look like him...pre-disfiguration. Boasting, "Ho ho, aren't I handsome?", the charade stuns him long enough that she whips out her scythe and cleaves the man in two. (Okay, that may not be awesome exactly, but it's certainly profound!)
4. Thorn's assault on the guard. (see above!)
3. Queen Mim of the dragons awakens after hundreds of years in stone slumber. When she erupts from the earth and is attacked by thousands of tiny-by-comparison dragons, it's incredible powerful (Think How to Train Your Dragon 2 but...epic-er.)
2. After assaulting the guard, Fone Bone and Thorn wind up in prison as the kingdom is under attack from the army of rat creatures. A child informs them that Gran'ma Ben's regiment are getting overtaken, and that information alone sends Thorn into such a rage she RIPS THE CELL WALL APART WITH HER BARE HANDS.
1. In book one, Gran'ma Ben's farm is surrounded by a thousand rat creatures in the middle of the night. She playfully instructs Fone Bone and Thorn to run...then proceeds to PUNCH THROUGH THE WALL, GRAB an extremely surprised rat creature by the fur, YANK him through the wall, and WRESTLE with at least two others of them AT ONCE with nothing but a poker from the fireplace and her bare hands!
If you want to learn more about Jeff Smith, Bone, and any of his other projects, check out his website here and don't forget to read Bone the second you have a chance!