Review: The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies

Count me among the people who regret that The Hobbit films were stretched out into a trilogy. There is so much unnecessary filler and extra nonsense in these movies, and in The Battle of the Five Armies especially, that this third movie is all third act. There’s not enough material for The Battle of the Five Armies to stand on its own, with nearly everything – especially the emotional impact – tied to the first two films. And since an entire year has passed, none of that emotion or interest has carried over.

The Battle of the Five Armies is entertaining at the barest, baseline level, because it’s still a well-made film telling a story that I like. But The Hobbit trilogy has been stretched too thin, like butter  scraped over too much bread.

Movie Review: 5/10 – Alright.

I suppose in one long, 9-hour viewing, The Hobbit as a whole might be a good movie. But who has the time or energy to watch that sort of thing? Who could have the desire? I’ve never read any of author J.R.R. Tolkien’s original works, so I don’t speak from a literary perspective. As a movie-goer, as someone who loves The Lord of the Rings movies deeply, I feel that The Hobbit was just too jammed up with nonsense. Fights were long, characters were uninteresting, story arcs were uninspired, and nothing hit with the same impact as The Lord of the Rings. Director Peter Jackson tried to make too much out of too little, simple as that.

Personally, I’m more than willing to blame the studio, which probably pushed for the trilogy in order to make more money. Cynical things like that definitely happen. And I suppose Jackson and his team of writers, actors and producers did their best to make this trilogy work. But The Battle of the Five Armies is a slog. They don’t even try to make it it’s own movie.

Join me after the jump for the full review! There will be SPOILERS from The Battle of the Five Armies!

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Let Them Fight

A couple Internet geniuses put together this rather awesome fake trailer for a Marvel vs. DC movie! It’s making the rounds on the Internet today, and I thought I’d share.

Quality work by Alex Luthor. There’s some great editing, and matching various scenes together. It all works pretty spectacularly.

DC wishes they could make movies the Marvel way though.

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Little Girls Love Star Wars Too

The Internet is home to all manner of adorableness.

Posted by Adam Buxton, I’m pretty sure his 5-year-old daughter just won the Internet this weekend.

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Hench-Sized Comic Book Reviews – 12/20/14

Happy Holidays, Henchies! We’re deep in the heart of Hannukah right now, and next week is Christmas! Whatever you celebrate, I hope you have a good one. I’ll be going home to see my family, and we’ll have a good time, like we do. We’ll talk comics, movies, cartoons; maybe I’ll get some new TV show recommendations! Oh, and presents! If I get any good presents, I’ll let you henchies know.

This week was pretty full of interesting comics – both good and bad! Marvel delivered the one-two punch of both Captain and Ms. Marvel, the former capturing Comic Book of the Week for the first time in awhile, thanks to a detour away from stupid outer space. In bad comics, DC continues their assassination of Wonder Woman, and Batman Eternal is as bad as it’s ever been. But Robin is back, so that should count for something. Too bad it’s not the Robin I wanted.

He makes this look good

Oh Harper Row, you had such potential. But I will never give up hope!

Comic Reviews: Batman Eternal #37, Batman and Robin #37, Captain Marvel #10, Ms. Marvel #10, Scarlet Spiders #2 and Wonder Woman #37.

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Gamer Girl & Vixen – Making the Page

I’m happy to announce that work has begun on the first issue of my comic, Gamer Girl & Vixen! Our artist, Gemma Moody, is hard at work penciling the opening pages of our first issue, and from what I’ve seen so far, she’s gotten even better than when we first discovered her! This comic is going to look gorgeous!

In fact, here’s a sample of Gemma’s work! It’s the new social media cover image she drew up for us!

As I mentioned before, we’re looking to put out a single, stand alone issue on our own, then we’ll be launching a Kickstarter next year to produce a full-length graphic novel (which will include that first issue as a first chapter!). Gemma’s already got a few pages done from when we first started the project and tried to pitch it around to publishing companies.

So for this week’s behind-the-scenes look at the making of of Gamer Girl & Vixen, I’m going to share with you the process of going from initial page sketches to completed work! I think it’s a really nifty process to witness, and I’ve dug up some of Gemma’s original work to share with you all after the jump!

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