TIM WATKIN picks the brains of the experts to predict the headlines of the coming year.
Despite all the effort we put into making the future turn out just the way we want it, we're still always surprised by what it throws our way. To ease that shock and help you to prepare yourself for the coming year, we've talked to the experts, put our ears to the ground and our fingers to the wind to find out what's going to be big in 2003.
In the safe knowledge that we'll be lucky if even half of these predictions come to pass, we give you the chance to look into the Weekend Herald equivalent of Galadriel's Mirror.
Let us entertain you
Seeing we've started with the Lord of the Rings' metaphors, let's cover the fun stuff first.
We don't need Elven magic to predict the third and final Lord of the Rings film in December and its certain success at the box office. It's also odds-on that The Return of the King will be the film that gives Peter Jackson his best director Oscar; but that will be in 2004.
Before that, 2003 will be the year of the superhero as far as Hollywood's concerned. Spider-man's record-breaking success last year has had movie execs everywhere digging out their old comic books, and their newfound passion for superheroes will be seen in Daredevil, starring Ben Affleck (aka Mr B'Lo), The Hulk and X-Men 2.
Alongside those, Matrix 2 will finally appear and the Moulin Rouge of 2003 will be Chicago, the movie of the musical, which is already generating talk of Oscars. Then there's Martin Scorsese's Gangs of New York - years in the making and surrounded by battles between Scorsese and studio head Harvey Weinstein over length and budget - it's been forged in controversy. Initial reviews suggest it's a "near-great movie".
The release of Whale Rider in a few weeks will be the local highlight. Seldom, if ever, has a New Zealand film had such great raps before its even released. Veteran film critic Peter Calder says it has "the makings of a true-blue classic".
The New Zealand music community will be hoping for a pay-off from the world series last year, when our best were paraded before big-label music execs flown in from the northern hemisphere.
The pop power-players agreed there was something "vibrant" going on down here, says Danny Leaosavaii (aka Brotha D), chairman of the South Auckland label Dawnraid, but no-one yet knows what deals may come. Anyway, Dawnraid is busy making its own contacts - and records - with hip-hop folk in New York.
Leaosavaii reckons Polynesian hip-hop will continue to dominate, but he says the sound of South Auckland is broadening, tending towards more soul and R&B, even gospel.
Dubhead, programme director for bFM, agrees New Zealand hip-hop can expect more respect this year, on the back of new albums from King Kapisi and Che Fu. He's predicting big things abroad for Kiwi drum'n'bass acts such as Concord Dawn and Shapeshifter and producer P-Money, but failure for Pacifier in its much-publicised attempt to crack the US.
Overseas, the revolution led by "new garage" bands will fizzle, as will house music (downsizing to "garden-shed music", he predicts). And the sound to listen for? Electronica sneaking into hip-hop. "Mainstream rap stars like Missy Elliot and Eminem will soon be MCing over syncopated drum patterns, peppered with bleeps, whirrs, squelches and clicks," he says.
The powers that be
As Saddam tries to hold out the Americans, Labour tries to hold off complacency, Bill English tries to hold on to his job, the anti-GM movement tries to hold up the end of the GM moratorium, and it's safe to predict a few battles this year.
A mere three letters seem incapable of holding the complexity and horror of what is coming, but war is expected to dominate the year. Historian and former Labour minister Michael Bassett predicts "uncontrollable consequences" if President Bush pushes ahead with an invasion of Iraq.
With their minimal interest in democracy, countries such as Saudi Arabia, Syria, even Jordan will be shaken by war and America's "regime change" intention to force democracy on Iraq, destabilising an already volatile region.
Here, expect oil prices to climb and Labour to follow the US lead, even if that is via the UN Security Council.
"The UN is coming under considerable pressure from the US, and too many countries have too much at stake with the US not to give it the benefit of the doubt, us included."
Helen Clark will be hoping for a quick war, says political commentator Chris Trotter, or risk both the old and new left using her likely complicity with the US to "settle old scores". He says Security Council legitimation will buy her only so much time before her allies in the unions and party rank and file get up in arms.
The end of the GM moratorium in October could be of huge political significance, but if so, that will come from outside Parliament.
The Green Party has nowhere left to go, putting the onus for protest back in the hands of the anti-GM movement. Trotter says "there's a real risk of civil disobedience", like the Springbok tour and anti-nuclear protests of the 80s.
The question is whether that movement has the political savvy of organisations such as Hart and the ability to avoid the eco-terrorist tag and win over an increasingly lethargic public.
Herald columnist Colin James doubts it. He expects race relations to be the bigger issue. Labour will have to beware the growing public perception, often incorrect, that Maori are receiving special treatment. While people are more perplexed than angry, Labour's most challenging task is to find a way to cater to both its core Maori vote and the political middle, he says.
"Suburban New Zealand tends to be conservative with a small c and the Government is looking for a third term and 40 per cent-plus, so it needs to be attentive."
He expects immigration to be less of an issue as Labour tightens up on numbers, and just as in 1996, as immigration numbers fall, so will New Zealand First's support.
All three commentators point to new workplace legislation as a potential minefield.
Employers face new health and safety regulations and unions will be keen to sheet them home by taking some precedent-winning cases to court. Add in reviews of redundancy laws, holidays and the Employment Relations Act, and you can expect more industrial unrest.
Each has a thought as to what sleeper issue might come to prominence this year.
Bassett says business costs are creeping up and they could become an issue if they slow growth in a year when the economy is already struggling.
James says Labour is yet to confront the big questions in health - under-funding and open-ended demand - and avoids them at its peril.
Trotter says if the Right can cobble together Labour's piecemeal constitutional changes - treaty and environmental obligations, a supreme court, republicanism - in the public mind, it could upset Labour's smooth ride, but he wonders if National is bold enough to take the initiative.
Culture vultures
Expect the ethnic styles and issues at the heart of so much New Zealand art to take some interesting twists and turns this year.
Linda Chalmers, director of Auckland's Lane Gallery, is picking the emergence of Asian artists from our art and design schools to be a major development, heralded by Josephine Do's first solo show.
From more traditional, formal, high-density lifestyles, young Asian artists are expected to make an impact.
Pacific art should continue to grow in confidence and respect, but Maori art could head in some new directions. Chalmers is seeing "a strong sense of abstraction" and less traditional form coming through in young Maori artists.
Artist Peter Parakowhai says such modernisation will also become apparent through the rise of video and performance art.
Commercially, Chalmers predicts a healthy year for artists as domestic art, sculpture in particular, becomes a must-have for the homes of the moneyed.
In literature, Victoria University English lecturer Bill Manhire sees significance in the fact that Elizabeth Knox's new book is about vampires. He thinks genre fiction is starting to find its feet - and audience - here.
"New Zealand novels have tended to be about something called literature, something quite apart from, say, romantic, detective or sci-fi novels. That snobbery is passing out of our writing."
The new Prime Minister's awards for poetry, fiction and non-fiction ($60,000) and the multi-year fellowship ($100,000) are expected to make life a lot easier for the lucky few.
Historian and author Michael King hopes the fellowship will mean biographers won't have to travel fast and stay in YMCAs when researching overseas, and that will make for more substantial works.
King's concerned, however, by what he see as a "quick buck" trend among publishers to focus on fewer, more sensational books.
He points to 1421, a controversial supposed-history about the Chinese discovering the unknown world centuries before the Europeans.
Judging by the New Zealand and Australia section, King says the book is "utter nonsense", but its release in the northern hemisphere has been accompanied by heavy publicity and sales.
He fears publishers are favouring controversial ideas over sound research, and good-looking authors who will work the TV chat shows over genuine talent.
"If Janet Frame was writing today, it's a fair bet she wouldn't even be published because she's not a promoter," he warns.
Playing the game
Money will be the ball to keep your eye on next year. Late last year the New Zealand Rugby Football Union was thrilled to tie up sponsors adidas in a nine-year, $200 million contract.
But this year, as the value of broadcast sports rights slumps dramatically around the world, the rugby union will start negotiations with News Ltd over a new, even more important broadcast contract from 2005.
The 10-year deal done in 1995 - worth around $35 million a year - has been rugby's main bill-payer for a decade and the future of the game here will, in many practical ways, depend on how much the rugby union can wring out of Rupert Murdoch. Hence the hiring of business heavyweight Chris Moller as the new, but temporary, CEO.
Ron Palenski, executive director at the Sports Hall of Fame in Dunedin, sums it up: "If they've got the money, they can do things. If they don't, they can't. And among the doing things is retaining players in New Zealand."
Globally, broadcast rights and questions around whether professional sport has peaked financially will remain to the forefront.
One of the biggest will be whether the collapse of ITV Digital and the ensuing threat to English football clubs is the beginning of a worldwide trend showing that other broadcasters and clubs have over-stretched themselves.
The other main sporting issue is likely to come from that uncertain place where professional and amateur sport meets, and it's amateur volunteers who are at risk.
The incoming health and safety legislation has drawn a line between the standards expected by professional organisers and volunteers, but there are still fears the law is putting undue pressure on sports bodies and their volunteer leaders.
That pressure was intensified in December when a Welsh court found an amateur referee liable for a scrum collapse that paralysed a front-row forward. The damages awarded against the referee are expected to exceed $3 million.
As Palenski points out, clubs are already feeling the pinch because other leisure activities - from PlayStation through to shopping - have meant fewer people heading down to the local rugby or netball club to help out. The need for local clubs to find local solutions will be a major challenge this year.
Science or fiction
In what could be one of the biggest issues not just of the year, but of the century, human cloning looks set to move from theoretical debate to living, breathing reality.
The claim by the Raelian sect's Clonaid that the world's first cloned baby has been born has to be put under rigorous scrutiny, but the issue is hot, not least because the world's ethicists and lawmakers simply aren't ready. Only a couple of months ago, attempts by Unesco to have member states sign a binding agreement outlawing human cloning was deferred.
In New Zealand, assisted human reproduction is the more immediate issue; particularly pre-implantation genetic diagnosis (PGD).
At present only non-viable embryos can be tested, but this year we'll have to confront the question of whether parents should be able to have viable embryos tested, to learn if their babies-to-be are pre-disposed to genetic diseases or to choose their sex.
Dr Sylvia Rumball, who chairs the National Ethics Committee on Assisted Human Reproduction, says New Zealand has a "legislative vacuum" and her committee will be seeking public comment and writing a position paper for the minister this year.
Dr David Saul, senior lecturer in the school of biological sciences at Auckland University, says researchers are also close to being able to grow fresh organs from embryos, and an ethical debate is urgently needed.
The GM debate will move from what we put into our bodies to how much we are willing to modify the body itself.
If such thoughts make you turn a pale shade of green, then you might be right on the cutting edge, according to Professor Ralph Sims, head of the sustainable resource management unit at Massey University.
New Zealand's ratifying the Kyoto Protocol means business has to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels by between 2008 and 2012. And that means starting now.
In preparing to meet the Kyoto target, and minimise the levy they will have to pay on fossil fuels come 2007, big business will begin discussing Negotiated Greenhouse Agreements (NGAs) with the Government this year.
Small businesses and farmers too will also have to start finding ways to cut their greenhouse gas emissions. It will be, Sims believes, "a watershed year".
What's going to be big in 2003?
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