Concerning Hobbits, Part Two

Some of Tolkien's work has been an inspiration for my writing, but that's a given to any fantasy literature, I think.  The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings are the bibles of fantasy literature and all writers of this brand can trace their roots back to Tolkien.

Directly, hobbits can claim an inspiration with Morgalla with one and only one thing:  Their height.  Morgalla is short, standing only five feet high (and that's not counting the horns).

Life in Hell was rather...interesting at times.  Often she would be underestimated.

Concerning Hobbits, Part One

The Hobbit was a good movie but I'm still depressed they've turned it into three.  That fact is really the only thing that I'm annoyed with seeing that I went and saw a $5 film.

I think the decision was Warner Brothers and not Peter Jackson.  Movie companies have been known to do this sort of thing to make more money.  Case in point:  Deathly Hallows, Breaking Dawn, etc.

This being the first of three films, it's really padded and it didn't need to be as long as it was.

That being said, I enjoyed the film very much and it was great that Peter Jackson returned to middle-Earth.  The prologue is brilliant on an epic scale.

Thinking back to the 1977 animated film, it really is amazing how loyal that made-for-TV movie was not only loyal to the source material but also brilliantly animated...for TV, that is.

But I thought the goblins and trolls of 1977 were much better done than this version. 

Jackson's goblins and trolls were more like comedy relief if anything else.  Yes they were a tad menacing, but only because of either size or numbers.

 

 

The Dwarves in Jackon's film are WAY better, though.  In 1977 they all looked a like and reminded me more of Disney's Seven Dwarves.

 

But still...

 

At least with Jackson, it looked like multiple artists worked on different characters.  If I didn't know any better, I would say that ONE artist designed ONE dwarf.

 

Good again to see many characters from Lord of the Rings, both Gollum and Saruman.  Even the characters I'm not a fan of like Elrond and Galadriel.

 

Still a damn good movie, though, I cannot wait until they next two.  As for DVD, I think I'll wait for all three to be out, I'm sure they'll have some sort of special package.

 

It was awesome to revisit Middle-Earth, once again.

The Strength of Ian McKellan

So I'm seeing "The Hobbit" tomorrow though I'm annoyed in the fact that they've split it into three movies.  I think the decision came from New Line Cinema and Peter Jackson had little to nothing to do with it.  I want to see all three films, but they'll be matinees and not 3D.

That being said, I'm impressed by Ian McKellan.  I hope only for his health as he has been battling prostate cancer for seven years now.  In that time he not only fought the disease but filmed all three movies. 

My hat is off to him.

The Cover of Book Two

Colored again by the amazing Rex Lokus, thanks for all the amazing work you've done with my drawings.

Called it!

Yup.  Alice Eve is playing Carol Marcus in Star Trek II.

Alice Eve

So the trailer to Star Trek, Into Darkness is out and there's a lot of people going nuts over it.  I'm excited to, but we'll have to wait and see how it turns out. 

I DO like the look of both films, very modern in a retro kind of way, at least most of it.  I hope they fix a couple of minor details from the first.  The Enterprise Engineering for example looked like something from modern-day, nothing at all futuristic.  And the rest of the ship was too "bright" and had too much cgi in it.  But that's just me...

Now there's speculation as to just WHO Alice Eve is playing in the movie, since IMDB has no character name listed.  She was clearly wearing a blue uniform, speculating that she's a medical or science officer, so maybe she's Nurse Chapel.

BUT...

What if she's Carol Marcus?  The love interest from Star Trek II?  She was certainly the most interesting of all of Kirk's love interests, most of whom only lasted one episode.  Her character was underused and we barely only scratched the surface as to what the story of her and Kirk was.  Obviously they were in love, had a child and had an argument as to where that child should be raised.  It could have been a really interesting story and maybe the filmmakers of this new series felt the same.  To see the love story of James and Carol...

Then again she might be someone new.  I guess we'll wait and see.