LADY TOLKEN ELVES ARE BADASSES!

Welcome back ladies and gents! My first novel, tentatively titled One Minute To Midnight progresses each day. Since I'm writing the first and second entries at the same time, you should be able to enjoy these in back to back releases. This was originally a screenplay I wrote titled "Quarantine" but that title got eaten up by a bad remake of "REC" and most of my awesome plot points I had cooked up were used in the remake of "The Crazies."  Shit happens, at least The Crazies was a decent movie. So now I am working on adapting what I've got that still works into another horror film I wrote in an attempt to expand a one off idea into series. I have a third part planned but it'll be awhile before that comes to fruition. 

Also if you happen to be a LaserDisc fan like myself, you will not want to miss my first edition of LaserDiscArchive:RawHeadRex!

Now a little spark of controversy in the nerd realms has been smoldering for a little bit of time. For those that don't keep up with the real news of the world, I am of course referring to the made up female warrior elf Tauriel to be featured in Peter Jackson's The Hobbit: Desolation of Smaug. Before we get to the commentary, lets take a look at the first promo shot released today from Entertainment Weekly shall we?

Wait for it....




HOOOOOOLD!!!!



NOW!

Huh... well, hmmm... okay I can see what Jackson's going for here but why does she look like Link from Legend of Zelda? Now the look of this character played by Evangeline Lilly, isn't the real source of controversy - I'm sure in action she's quite badass and awesome at dispensing rapid fire arrows into slimy orks - no, the "controversy" arises from the fact that she is simply made up by Peter Jackson and friends for this movie. 

While I know a lot of people thought the first film was bloated and can't see the purpose of extending it into three films, I quite liked An Unexpected Journey and I enjoyed the 48fps 3D Imax presentation I caught, so I have faith in this one too. I've been reading a lot of flack about the faithfulness of these adaptations to Tolken's source material and I gotta say, quite honestly, this is a tempest in a teapot folks. Is Jackson making up some of the details now? Sure he is, but that isn't to say that he hasn't been given cause to do so by the - lets be honest - limited presentation Tolken gave in the first place. While I love every word the man wrote in his time, he was to say the least, sparse on descriptive details. So any filmmaker brave enough to venture into adapting his work is in short required to make stuff up to fill the narrative gaps. Now this character of Tauriel is a bit of a special case. Paraphrasing Jackson's own words, he made her up for no other reason than to have another woman to round out the cast. Given that the bulk of these movies follow a Wizard, a Hobbit, and a company of 13 hairy dwarfs, not to mention the numerous male orks, trolls, goblins, and elves; this new trilogy of films was turning into quite the sausage fest if you don't mind my saying! Personally an athletic female warrior elf would be a welcome addition to all the beards on screen! 

However, my approval of this new character doesn't come without the worry of her impact in the greater story. If she's there to serve as a poor replacement for Liv Tyler's Arwen, then it's going to be a misguided effort to say the least. She needs to have a purpose to the proceedings, but as long as her presence isn't a major distraction form the real show of Dwarfs on a quest to kill a dragon and reclaim their homeland, it should be a rousing success... I hope! Fingers crossed. Knock on wood. We'll have to wait for the Holiday movie season to know for sure. Until a new trailer drops, gird your loins fantasy fans and try not to get too worked up about it. 

That's all for now, in case you missed it MST3k fans head on over to Rifftuesday for my review of the first "official" MST3k episode of "The Crawling Eye." As always, be good dear readers and leave your thoughts below!


-MGH