Marvel: Don’t let Spider-Man Go to Your Head.

/ Joshua S. MacDougall / Leave a comment

We’re all excited Spider-Man is going to be in Marvel Cinematic Universe starting with Civil War but the link to the io9 article brings up some good questions.

“How much creative control does Sony have? Does Marvel have any input into the Sony-produced movies? Can Sony use parts of the MCU in return? Will the studios skip the origin story this time around?”

Let’s not forget an important fact, Sony still has the rights to Spider-Man, this is just an agreement and until we get more details who knows if they can pull out on this deal at any time. I mean, what did we learn from Sam Raimi about making a Spider-Man movie, and we’ll probably here this about Amazing Spider-Man 2 in the coming years, Sony executives can’t keep nose out of the creative process when it comes to these movies. The fact that their still going with that Sinister Six movie they have planned, although will probably now have Spider-Man in it, doesn’t make me feel any less cynical about this.

The other part people should remember, if Marvel Studios had the rights to Spider-Man when we started this business of a shared universe, and hey let’s throw the X-Men in there too, we probably wouldn’t have Iron Man, Captain America, Thor or the Avengers. At least, not yet.

Before Jon Favreau and Robert Downey Jr. brought Iron Man to the big screen he was not a popular character or a big draw. In fact, the Avengers only a resurgence in the comics, thanks to Brian Michael Bendis, three years before the first Iron Man movie came out.

Also, I’m sure a lot of people have forgotten but nobody thought the first Iron Man movie was going to be any good. Statements likes Downey Jr. being washed up, Jon Favreau being inexperienced with directing, Iron Man not being a viable character were thrown out there. Marvel Studios success and all their plans were relying on this movie and all because they couldn’t rely on their biggest characters.

IMG_1311

So when they announced Thor: Ragnarok, Black Panther, and Captain Marvel, three films I am far more excited for,  were pushed back my first reaction was definitely pessimism.  Sure, Kevin Feige has the whole three movies a year rule but until I hear or read from him that this was the reason for the push back I can’t get the idea out of my mind they did this to please Sony.

Think about this, if Marvel had Spider-Man from the beginning we probably never would have had Guardians of the Galaxy. I mean, which movie would you make? Another Spider-Man film or who the hell are the Guardians of the Galaxy? Yet that movie, in my mind, was far superior to any of the Spider-Man films so far.

Here’s my hope for the deal. It goes a little something like this: Sony now handles part of the marketing, makes a big part of the profit, but is otherwise hands off. They get no say on what happens to Spider-Man in his guest appearances and no creative control over the movie because if it was up to them they’d put Venom in every movie and each movie would have 23,095,480,324,587,102,935 characters.

So Marvel Studios, don’t forget Spider-Man didn’t bring you success. It was your less popular characters that did so because you didn’t have a choice. You had to make great movies because you couldn’t rely on the name alone. DON’T FORGET.

Louis CK’s Live at the Comedy Store is a Concept Album and an Inside Joke.

/ Joshua S. MacDougall / Leave a comment

Since 2006 with Shameless Louis C.K.’s been producing some of the best stand-up comedy specials. When I downloaded his new special Live at the Comedy Store and watched it several times over three days I thought “Oh no, this is good but not great.”

What I thought about changed when I read this article from Wired Magazine, Louis CK’s Latest Email Is a Fantastic Elegy to Comedy Clubs. According to Vulture  Louie “has described this new special as a tribute to the workshop tradition of comedy-club material.”

“Oh,” I thought, “So it’s like when a band makes a concept album or a group of friends has an inside joke.” Essentially, unless those previous specials this one is more of an experiment. He’s trying to capture what it’s like when you’re developing a setlist at a comedy club and you’re trying out the material in front of a tough crowd.

You can definitely tell. Some jokes are riffed, some are honed material, and others feel like he’s trying them for the first time. He’s not afraid to go off the rails or be silly. The only thing missing is crowd work but C.K. might not be the type of comic.

Still, unless you’re reading his e-mails on his mailing list closely, have a deep knowledge of the stand-up comedy business or are a stand-up comedian yourself you may download this special and not understand what’s he doing. That’s where the idea of it being an inside joke popped into my head. Like an inside joke, this special could be ostracizing to the casual viewer. Then again, considering the sales of the special I don’t think this will matter much in the end.

I just don’t think in the long run, this special will be as appreciated or seen as one of his best. However, I’d rather he try new things then try to stay the same.

 

Changing The Dark Tower – Part I – The First Three Books

/ Joshua S. MacDougall / 8 Comments

When I first read Stephen King’s opus, The Dark Tower, I was much younger and eating through books like gravy and mozzarella covered curly fries while drunk in a diner. I was not yet a writer so my opinions on storytelling was much different.

As I am going through them again I am noticing their flaws. I still cherish this story but some of King’s decisions are strange and I think part of the problem is how long it took to finish the seven original novels.

Granted, this is just my opinion. I am sure some people believe the story is perfectly fine as it is. I am also sure, having done writing myself, that Stephen King is not lying when he talks about how difficult it is channeling Roland’s story and how the story wrote itself when he can.

Still, here’s what I would change going in chronological order of the books starting with books 1-3.

The Gunslinger

– Let’s start with the problem of Marten Broadcloak / Walter Padick / Randall Flagg. I like the idea of Randall Flagg being a cross-dimensional villain in Stephen King’s books but all the names and different identities are excessive. Marten Broadcloak is Randall Flagg is the Man in Black that flees across the desert. No Walter O’Dim, Walter Padick, and all the other names he goes by. It’s just too much.

– Plant more seeds for the Crimson King here. He’s mentioned once by a throwaway character in this book and then we never hear his name again until book four and only on some graffiti.

– All the information doesn’t have to be given at once but more insight into what Roland intends to do when he gets to the top of The Dark Tower should be foreshadowed here.

The Drawing of the Three

– If Nineteen is going to be a reoccurring theme, then start with it here.

– Give the readers hints that Marten (no longer Walter) is not really dead.

The Drawing of the Three / The Waste Lands

– The Drawing of the Three is by far the best book of The Dark Tower series but the best ending for this book is the part one of The Waste Lands. Jake Chambers should have been drawn to Mid-World in the second book. The reunion scene between Jake and Roland was the catharsis readers needed for all that tension in book two.

– Plus, now we learn the Ka-Tet will be following the path of the beam in book two rather than waiting until book three.

The Waste Lands

– With the drawing of Jake in book two where it belongs book three can end where it should, with the beginning of book four and the end of Blaine the Mono.

– Without the drawing of Jake in this book the story is kind of lacking. What it needs is more development of the overall plot. Like in the last book let’s get a glimpse of Marten’s / Randall’s point of view.

– It takes way too long to get to the plot of Susannah’s pregnancy, and not only diminishes this conflict but Mordred as a villain overall. Let’s start addressing it here.

– As early as River Crossing or somehow in the city of Lud let’s have the group find out there is something wrong with the beams rather than later on in the series. It’ll make the journey to the tower more urgent.

– Even more nineteen, that way close readers will start to see the patterns but casual readers will still be surprised in book five.

– With what horrors Roland and his Ka-Tet see in the waste lands, let’s acknowledge that they’re probably from the Prim, the primordial chaos where demons in Roland’s world comes from.

You can navigate to the other parts from here:

Changing to The Dark Tower – Part I – The First Three Books

Changing to The Dark Tower – Part II – Wizard & Glass

Changing The Dark Tower – Part III – Wolves of the Calla

Changing the Dark Tower – Part IV – The Song of Susannah

Changing The Dark Tower – Part V – The Final Book & Mordred: All Hyper, No Substance

 

How Green Lantern Rebirth Changed My Twenties

/ Joshua S. MacDougall / Leave a comment

Back in 2004, freshman year of Suffolk County Community College, I was in a hip-hop group with my three closest friends. Then in November of that year, they kicked me out and would not hang out with me anymore.

It was deeply upsetting at the time, and pretty traumatizing. In hindsight, if it had continued I probably would have quit eventually. I didn’t enjoy the recording process nor did I have any focus for editing or making beats. The part I enjoyed the most was the writing. I had notebooks full of songs that I never recorded or performed but still continued to write new ones. The other part I loved was performing, it was thrilling. The amount of adrenaline you get from performing on a stage even though they were in high school talent show and a music showcase of all the school’s bands the adrenaline you get from it was crazy.

So my bridges burned with my former friends making music, writing music (and writing in general), and listening to the same music I had before left a bad taste in my mouth. I asked myself who was I before music? Well, before I discovered music at fourteen I was deep into video games. I started playing my GameCube heavily. Then I retreated further back remember this little comic book shop my mom used to take me to where I bought Spider-Man, Green Lantern, and The Simpsons comics.

The comics I read as a kid, as far as superheroes were concerned, were weird. Superman had a weird mullet, Spider-Man was a clone and Green Lantern had gone insane and replaced by another Green Lantern. When I walked into that same comic book store I had as a kid not knowing what I’d find what I found was the second issue of a comic called Green Lantern Rebirth by Geoff Johns. I held up and asked the guy behind the counter what this it was.

“Oh, they’re bringing back Hal Jordan from the dead and making him Green Lantern again,” he said. He offered me a deal for the first and second issue together and told me comic books came out on Wednesdays. I would buy comics there regularly for the next six years.

Hal Jordan (43)

I became entrenched in comic books and video games to fill the void listening to hip-hop and writing it had left. Comic books though reignited my love for reading that would spread to novels when my girlfriend at the time brought me to a Barnes & Noble. Before this I had only been to Border’s Book, and not in years. Last time I had been there it was not in good condition. This was two stories of book paradise, one with a graphic novel section that was lacking. Instead I picked up this beautiful leather bound copy of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams  I had seen at one of her friends house and The Dark Tower I: The Gunslinger by Stephen King.

The more I read novels, the more I could see the weaknesses in comic book stories. Reading more novels led to more interest in literature. This led to me majoring in English which forced writing upon me. When I briefly dropped out in 2011 and into a deep depression it was writing that got me out of it and brought the love back I had for it back to the forefront of my brain.

All because I picked up Green Lantern Rebirth. 

GL-rebirth-cv

Childhood Memories of Sports – I

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In my family from a very young age I was taught what teams to root for.

They rooted for the Yankees, the Knicks, the Giants and the Rangers. Both sides too, surprisingly. I had Yankee hats, t-shirts with Knicks logos, Rangers hoodies, and even a Giants Starter jacket. Remember Starter jackets?

It was a hand me down, that I remember, but I thought that Giants Starter jacket was so cool and so comfortable. I remember all the kids telling me the Giants were terrible but it didn’t matter to me. My whole family loved them so I tried to love them even though I didn’t watch a single game. Then in what I think was 4th grade I got out of my mom’s car and walked up to the elementary school around the block wearing my Giant’s starter jacket. As a walker, instead of someone who rode the bus, you would usually arrive early enough that they wouldn’t let you in right away. Some people that I knew were waiting outside when I walked up and everything was normal until one of them pointed out that a worm was coming out of the large front pocket was the staple of those jackets. I don’t know where it came from, how it got there, or why I didn’t notice it before but I didn’t live it down from those guys for a good two months or so which is forever in kids-making-fun-of-you time. Never wore that jacket again.

A more positive memory of sports was Super Bowl XXXII, the Green Bay Packers versus the Denver Broncos. My father and I were going over my uncle’s house for a Super Bowl party. My dad asked me if I wanted to enter the pool, and this was at a time when what little money I had in my kids wallet was few and far between and quite frankly going to more important things like Nintendo 64 games. I was mainly going to see my cousin and watch the halftime show on MTV which was one of the first episodes of Celebrity Deathmatch before it became a regular series. Still, my father was encouraging it and I wanted to be a part of the whole football crowd. Unexpectedly, I was the one who won the pool and I barely watched the game. I had no idea how the pool worked or why I really won it. My dad had just put me in and now I had enough money for about three new N64 games and maybe even a controller.

Lastly, a nice experience followed by a traumatic one all focused around my eyesight. It isn’t that I have no depth perception but very little. So little that trying to catch, hit, and throw a moving ball for me as a kid was next to impossible. In 3rd grade all the guys stopped playing childish things and instead decided to play football. The lead kid who basically ran the football games didn’t make fun of me per se but told me straight to my face that he didn’t want me to play because I was bad at sports. So I didn’t, and was pretty much the only one. I just wandered the old playground where nobody played before. I don’t remember being upset because he was right, I was bad at sports but also I didn’t want to play football either. No, I remember being bored. If I had been then like I am now I would of been reading and writing. Possibly even asking my 3rd grade teacher if I could go to the library.

Instead what happened was I had a friend in the class who taught me how to catch despite my vision and showed my new found skills in front of the lead kid. If he wasn’t impressed he was surprised and allowed me to play. I wasn’t really ever thrown the ball but I still was one of the tallest kids at the time so I played decent defense. Best of all that kid, who I thought hated me, was extremely nice to me ever since even saying hello to me in highschool long after we didn’t really know each other anymore with a warm greeting.

Then 4th grade happened, which was probably the worst grade for me in elementary school. I had the meanest teacher and it took me forever to make any friends  in the class. In gym every year when it got warm we played softball and I dreaded it because I struck out every time and couldn’t catch. This year though we had a new boys gym teacher and he was not satisfied with me striking out. He would not let me leave the batter’s mound until I hit that ball. I begged him after ten swings to just let me be out, after fifteen swings the other kids were getting tired of waiting to hit the ball, after twenty hits he finally let me go to the end of the batter’s line. I dreaded gym after that, crying at night when I knew a gym day was coming up, faking a stomach virus so I wouldn’t have to go. The teacher tried teaching me how to swing with more technique but he didn’t seem to understand that I was swinging where I thought the ball was, not where the ball actually is. Next time, same thing to both the scorn of the other kids and myself but this time I actually hit the ball after ten swings. It was a soft hit and I was caught out pretty quickly but I still did it. I’d eventually get my revenge during kickball when the gym teacher pitched the ball. I kicked it with all my might, not worrying where I was aiming it. My gym teacher’s privates never saw it coming and everyone had a good laugh.

That same year my closest friend in the class and I were the kind of friends who rough housed, push each other, play hit each other and the like. One day in gym when we were going to play dodgeball he took it too far. The gym teacher was in the back room getting out the dodgeballs while my friend I were leaning against the gym wall. Continuing our rough housing he grabbed me by the hand and swung me into the gym wall. It honestly didn’t hurt that bad but my mouth slammed first breaking one of my big front teeth in the process. The gym teacher came back, I told him what happened and I was sent to the nurses office where my mother would soon be called. I remember going back to lunch to wait for when my mom would arrive and the kid being on the verge of tears, apologizing profusely. I really wasn’t mad at him, it was an accident and I was glad he had not gotten in trouble. Meanwhile both that gym teacher and the principal were scarred out of their wits they were going to get sued. I remember telling my mom to do it, because I didn’t know better and so I’d have some money. We didn’t.

The Stand-Up Specials on Netflix You Should Check Out.

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If you like stand-up at all, you’ll have watched all the obvious specials that are on Netflix Instant Watch. Louis CK, Jim Gaffigan, Lewis Black, Aziz Ansari and Patton Oswalt.

If you’ve digged a little deeper you’re probably a big fan of all of the Bill Burr specials, you’ve watched Kevin Hart, Jim Norton, Jim Jeffries, and Russell Peters. Some were for you, some weren’t.

Here is what’s left that you should definitely check out no matter what flavor of stand-up comedy you enjoy.

thinkypainMarc Maron’s Thinky Pain. I know a lot of people listen to his podcast, WTF with Marc Maron but I hardly ever hear anyone talk about his stand-up. In the past I’ve tried listening to previous albums by him unable to get into his jokes or find the Maron that I enjoyed on his podcast or his guest appearances on others. Then I watched his latest special and discovered he’s just one of those you have to watch. This special is done in a small venue, mere feet away from the audience and with no plan what-so-ever. His sits on a stool almost entire time during his set and basically tells stories of his life, his mid-life crisis and pain. Pain being a general theme with Maron but I appreciated it a lot more if I could see his facial expressions, his half open eyes and body language.

“I don’t really know if someone loves me if I can’t make them cry. Isn’t that the test for all of us, really? If you’re with someone and you really don’t know if you can make them cry I would go deeper. Can’t trust that bond.” 

 

 

eddiepeppitoneinruines

Eddie Pepitone’s In Ruins is stand-up comedy brewed with absurdities, rants and topped with an existential crisis. His rants are like a satire on the very serious and political rants of Lewis Black. He manages to take the pain of depression, of the sadness that comes with the absurdities of life and makes them silly with his yelling. There isn’t a lot of comedian who balance silliness with the personal which makes Pepitone’s special rather refreshing.

“Did you ever buy a hat where you like it so much, like, you look in the mirror like holy shit, this hat kind of makes up for a life that wasn’t well lived. Yes, I spent thirty years in a stoned out phrase masturbating to hockey fights but that’s because I didn’t have this fucking hat.”

 

Moshe Kasher - Live in Oakland

Moshe Kasher reminds of a modern day Greg Proops, if Greg Proops had grown up in Oakland listening to hip-hop. In Live in Oakland, where he grew up with his mother, he pokes fun at his effeminate body language, his jewish background and his upbringing while mixing it up with the “I am intelligent and I am going to use it to make fun of you,” style of jokes. Kasher self-depricates enough to be empathetic but cocky enough to let the viewer know he deserves to be the center of attention. He has the perfect mix for a good stand-up comedian. A bit of a nerd with no filter, a lot of swagger and a not-giving-a-fuck-what-you-think attitude from a childhood balancing his drug-filled delinquent life in Oakland with his  mother and his very strict Hasidic Judaism with his father in New York.

Reading YouTube comments on a clip of his joke: “And finally, fuck you, suck dick, never try to be a comedian again you stupid bitch. I hope you die from cancer so you can find out how foul really is, love Dad. That one hurt quite a bit. My dad’s been dead for ten years so it adds a layer of mystery to the thing. I didn’t even know they had the internet in hell. Turns out they do, it’s dial-up.”

Morgan Murphy - Irish Goodbye

 

Morgan Murphy has been a name I have heard spoken of a lot on comedy podcasts for several years but never actually seen until her stand-up special, Irish Goodbye, came to Netflix. The bombastic comedian and the storyteller comedian is so common now that it isn’t often you get the soft spoken straight forward joke teller like Todd Barry or Steven Wright. Morgan Murphy uses storytelling not just to tell a humorous situation with little quips that get a laugh but always ends her stories with a good punchline. Mix this all in with her subject matter which can take just enough of a dark turn that I enjoy and you have a new favorite comedian of mine. There isn’t enough dry wit in comedy.

“How weird is it ladies, how weird is it that we put penises in our mouths? That shit’s crazy. Like ladies and gay dudes but I’m not even including gay dudes because you have one so you get it but… we put penises in our mouths!  Look at your wife, your girlfriend, look at her, your bestie, look at her right now. She has put so many penises in her mouth. Just shoved them in there where sandwiches go. That is sandwich space and we just do instinctively like we’re supposed to do it or something. Like if you put in front of me a mint, a chocolate milk and a penis and asked what does these have in common I’d go they go in my mouth, I’m not stupid.”

Myq Kaplan - Small, Dork, and Handsome

Like jokes about books, language, time travel, comic books, using complicated wordplay and lots of puns? Myq Kaplan’s Small, Dork, and Handsome is perfect for you then. It’s perfect for me.

“From childhood we learn, what’s the story? The Ugly Duckling. What’s that about? A duck was ugly but then it grew and found it was actually beautiful but also a different species. Sort of a M. Night Shyamalany twist at the end there that I don’t know how that is supposed to be inspiring to a kid. Hey, stop crying. Maybe you’re not a hairy ugly child. Maybe you’re going to grow up to find you’re a beautiful chimpanzee. You could be the chimpiest chimp, the chimp of the ball.”

These five specials are on Netflix Instant Watch right now, so go check them out.

If you had an Imagination, Music Videos were always disappointing.

/ Joshua S. MacDougall / Leave a comment

A little over a decade ago, before the rise of YouTube, music videos and MTV were on a slow spiral downward out of relevancy in the music industry. Artists were still making them, record labels were still paying for them and MTV was trying to make programing that could collect nielsen ratings from them. Total Request Live was not the hit show it once was post-Carson Daly, if you can believe it, and pirating music wasn’t going away anytime soon.

Now, music videos aren’t what they once were. Shows like Making the Video were a big deal, videos were often how artists premiered the song entirely, and those premieres felt like big events for the said artists following. Today, music videos are just part of millions of videos on YouTube. Some get a high number of views but it isn’t the same. If you missed the premiere of a music video you couldn’t just type the song into Google and watch it again, you had to wait for it be shown on one of the music channels again.

This may sound like I’m mourning the music video but in fact I rather disliked them. I’m not sure if other people listen to music this way, but when I hear a song I imagine the story behind it. Not what the songs mean but literally a story behind like a movie in my head. I once heard the song Australia by The Shin and had to immediately outline an entire science fiction novel (which I’ve never written.) The story I hear when I listen to a song doesn’t have the band posing while they play into a camera, no budget restrictions and no director deciding what his vision for the video is. My imagination has no limitations while music videos have nothing but limitations.

I guess dislike is a strong word in this case, because for the most part I don’t think about them and honestly don’t even search them out. If it’s the only way for me to hear a new song from a band I like thanks to YouTube I can just like on another tab in Chrome while it plays. It was only in my twenties that I thought about the limitations of video versus my imagination mostly from exploring the adaptation of books but I was teenager when I discovered my disappointment with music videos.

I can recall exactly where I was and what video it was. I was over my former best friend’s house and we were watching MTV waiting for the world premiere of Eminem’s Stan. I remember thinking, I’ve listened to this song at least fifty times. This is not how I imagined it at all. What were they thinking?

I didn’t understand budgets, productions, or the fact that unless you framed around programing there was no way for music videos to make any money because it didn’t count towards nielsen ratings. No nielsen ratings means no advertising means no money means Real World / Road Rules Challenge marathon.

I think part of the reason I loved underground hip-hop so much was because they couldn’t afford music videos so the picture playing in my head was never tainted by bad acting, no money, and poor decisions.

There’s only one music video that matches the story in my head, and I think part of the reason is that the video is so ingrained in pop culture that you can’t help but think of it.

That video is of course Michael Jackson’s Thriller

First Impressions of The Hobbit: Battle of (the) Five Armies.

/ Joshua S. MacDougall / Leave a comment

Right off the bat you are going to be entering spoiler country for the movie which premiered last night / today.

Last chance before spoilers.

Last chance before spoilers.

The biggest complaint everyone has had about the Hobbit movies in general has been either 1) It’s bloated 2) It’s different from the book 3) Too much CGI and 4) It’s not The Lord of the Rings trilogy.

I don’t have any of these problems with the movie. I don’t think it’s bloated because I left this movie wanting more. I don’t care that it’s different from the book, I already own the book. The CGI is a bit much, I’ll agree with that but ultimately hasn’t stopped me from enjoying the movie. Lastly, I don’t think The Lord of the Rings trilogy is perfect either. In fact, there are some things I like better than in the original.

That’s the movies as a whole but the subject of this post is the third movie. I refuse to add that extra the before Five Armies so please excuse me. I’m going to use a system of what I liked, what was so-so and what I didn’t like.

What I Liked

Martin Freeman’s Bilbo, who is revealed to have taken the Arkenstone during his confrontation with Smaug, steals every scene. He’s the voice of reason where Gandalf fails to be and as the hobbit of the Hobbit he brings the everyman perspective to this giant world of lords and kings.

The final fight between Azog and Thorin on the ice. They did a good job of amping up the threat of Azog from the first movie and mostly absent appearance in the second movie. The two felt evenly matched to me where I thought it was going to be rather one sided.

The purpose of why Sauron wants the Lonely Mountain and his hope of returning the kingdom of Angmar to power. I don’t know if it’s accurate to the geography of Middle-Earth but I did find it really interesting. In addition to this, the appearance of the nine men who received rings of power was fantastic. As minions of Sauron to have armor that was like his but suited to each individual one was a thrill to watch.

In the same scene, from Galadriel’s use of her ring of power to watching Saruman and Elrond take on the nine ringwraiths was one of those “We never get to see this, I am so glad we’re seeing this” moments.

I was also joyfully surprised how much of the siege of Erebor and Bilbo’s involvement with manipulating Thorin for peace wasn’t change all that much.

Bard too was a breath of fresh air, much more of a leader and doomsayer akin to his book version than I believe he was in Desolation of Smaug.

Lastly, a part of the movie I swore was going to be cut, the auctioning of Bag End made it into the movie with a cameo by Lobelia Sackville-Baggins and the company Grubb, Grubb, and Burrows.

What Was So-So

The opening scene that led to Smaug’s defeat at the heads of Bard the Bowman was great but I felt like it should have been the ending of the last movie rather than the beginning of this one. I understand why they put it at the beginning of this one but the ending of the second wouldn’t of felt so abrupt.

Also, the death of the Master. Why was Stephen Fry killed off so quickly? Seemed kind of a waste to me.

What I Didn’t Like

Not enough Bilbo and this is in part due to the ending. Far too abrupt for my taste, which I am sure they did in response tot he complaints of Return of the King’s ending. There was no Bilbo being named Elf-friend after returning those jewels to Thranduil. There was no return visit to Beorn’s house. There was no return to Rivendell, where Bilbo would have Sting’s elf runes inscribed on it.

That weird transformation Galadriel went through in fighting back Sauron looked awful. I liked what she was doing but not how she did it. Also, why did Galadriel become suddenly weak but Elrond and Saruman were fine? Don’t say because she used up her power to heal Gandalf because Sauron clearly says to her that she was losing power before that. Thirdly, I was really hoping Galadriel was going to come in with badass armor. She knows how to fight, she isn’t just this wafting faerie with superpowers. When she finally starts acting badass they just screwed it up by giving her this weird dark aesthetic. It did not work for me at all.

One thing everyone can agree on, why did the character of Alfred get so much screen time? If anything he should of been killed by Smaug and his character replaced by the Master. That would of been more in line with the book and Stephen Fry is a very talented actor who would of made a much better comic relief than whoever Alfred was played by.

I didn’t completely hate the Dragon sickness, it is a part of the book I had hoped they would explore but it took up too much screen time. I liked the choice of Thorin starting to sound like Smaug but that scene, and the one where he finally snaps out of it went on for too long in my taste.

A realization that I had during this film about Azog, Bolg and the orcs in this trilogy is that I don’t like the choice to have them only talk in black speech at all. Orcs from Mordor spoke in Westernesse (English or whatever language you’re reading the book in) why do these orcs only speak in another language? I understand why, I just don’t think it was a good choice for all three movies.

Again, I said this in my Desolation of Smaug review but while most people feel tacking on Tauriel was unnecessary I feel Legolas is the part that should be cut. A lot of it was either bad or worthy of being cut in my eyes. The drama with his dad, the information about his mother, the fight with Blog all would of been parts of the movie that I edited out.

In fact, I think Tauriel character serves as a far better foil to Thranduil than his son does. She’s a lower class elf, in the elf king’s eyes, who could of shown him the error of his ways. Instead, Legolas just buts in to prevent her death. The only part I enjoyed with the character was his shooting the orcs in Thorin’s path from the tower, and him giving Orcrist to Thorin to save his life.

Lastly, and this harkens to the ending again, there’s no resolution for so many characters. What happens to Saruman when he says “leave Sauron to me”? Are we just supposed to assume he does something? So Radagast was on top of the eagles, and that’s all we get? No explanation to why he isn’t in The Lord of the Rings trilogy. We don’t get to see the burial of Thorin, Kili, and Fili. We get no resolution with Tauriel. Everyone’s already complaining about the movies feeling bloated, that’s never stopped Peter Jackson before. Now suddenly, he’s had a change of heart and tried to make the ending as brief as possible leaving the ending very unsatisfying as far as my opinion is concerned.

Hobbit sized editions of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings.

/ Joshua S. MacDougall / 9 Comments

Yesterday I received in the mail my pocket sized copies of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings pictured here:

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Also here:

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The outside feels like this faux leather that bends easily like rubber but seems like it could take a lot of abuse.

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Since they are pocket sized of course the writing is small but the type is equal to any hardcover or paperback edition. In fact, it looks almost exactly the same like they were originally larger and went through a shrink ray.

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In fact, I was surprised to find The Return of the King still included the appendices and the index.

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As far as fitting into my pocket is concerned, it fits about as well as an iPhone 6+. They’re definitely not meant for small pockets or tight jeans but fit nicely in the pockets of my coats, sports coats and blazers.

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They’re a nice edition to my collection and I plan on annotating them to death. If you’re buying these books for the first time though I don’t suggest them.