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Take An Unexpected Journey With The Hobbit!

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Thanks to my HBO Go, I got to stream one of the bigger movies of last year The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey.  I of course saw this movie when it came out in theaters last year, but I thought it would be a good time to revisit it due to the impending release of The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug.  The film was once again directed by Peter Jackson and produced by New Line Cinema and MGM.

The Story follows a younger Bilbo Baggins (Martin Freeman) from the Lord of the Rings as he is roped in to an adventure by Gandalf the Gray (Ian McKellen).  He is trying to help thirteen dwarves lead by Thorin (Richard Armitage) take back their ancient home land The Lonely Mountain.

Tolkien purists are hard on this film because it differs from the book a lot.  They also add in a lot of things from the appendices and other works like The Lost Tales to try and pad the running time.  I quite liked the changes because it fleshes out the movie and gives it all more context.  After seeing the trailer for the new movie , I can tell that they added bunch to it as well.

The story is weakest part of this movie because it doesn’t stand on its own.  We all know that it will be continued this Christmas, but it doesn’t help this movie.  It is three hours long, and lot of things happen, but nothing really amounts to anything.  That may sound harsh, but it is true.  Luckily for us it gets better from there.

The actors are all fantastic, especially the three leads.  Freeman, McKellen, Armitage all breath life in to their characters and play off one another well.  The rest of the cast do what they can with their characters given their much smaller amount of screen time, and they all work great together.

The special effects are wonderful.  From the dark caves to the valley of Rivendell.  It all looks fantastic.  Some have complained that it looks a little too cartoony in places, but I think it works well with the lighter storyline of The Hobbit.  I also like all the random touches that must have been added by Guillermo del Toro.  Like the little goblin that sends messages, or the piece of ax stuck in a dwarf’s head.

It may not be The Hobbit we read as kids, but it is a good interpretiation of it, and bringing in all the random side information makes the story more complete.  Once we get the whole story that is.  This movie suffers from not telling us enough, but I am sure it will be a great part of a whole once the third film rolls.

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I Am All For More Karl Urban In Almost Human!

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Almost Human is Fox’s new future Police Procedural produced by none other than the industry’s current mega media mogul J.J. Abrams.  The show is actually written and created by J.H. Wyman, but adding J.J.’s muscle made sure this show got made, and after the first episode I am glad that it did.

The show is about a cop John Kennex (Karl Urban) who was seriously injured during a police raid, and when he tries to return to the force he finds out that he needs an android partner.  In his case it is DRN or Dorian (Michael Ealy).  Dorian is not like the other androids because he was made to have feelings, this made his generation of robots glitchy, so they were discontinued and replaced by pure logic machines.

The first show is mostly world building, and an introduction to the surly John Kennex.  Urban plays him as a mix between Dredd and Bones, and it works very well.  Dorian we are still getting a feel for but Michael Ealy is likable, so I think it is going to work out just fine.  The leads are the whole reason I want to see more.  They are so good and so likable that even if the show was sub-par, I would watch it, but it looks like the show will be quite good.

The look for the show is like a cleaner Blade Runner which is cool, but it is a shame they couldn’t find their own aesthetic. It does keep them from having to explain the future setting.  Hopefully this will let them get in to abnormal crimes, instead of the usual Law and Order stuff.

I would watch Karl Urban in just about anything, so it is great to have him in his own weekly show.  I hope tonight’s show can keep up the good work.

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Why I Wanted A Next Gen Console!

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The PS4 is out for the press as of yesterday, and out for the general public tomorrow.  The Xbox One will have a similar release next week, but as the reviews are coming in for the games for these consoles the scores look pretty average.  So why did I decide to keep my pre-order on one when there isn’t anything great to play?  Potential.

Consoles generally always start off slow.  They have a limited number of games, and their menu’s need tweaking.  There are always glitches of some kind, but the potential of what people can do once they understand the hardware is always mind blowing.

People have been on COD: Ghosts for only running at 720p on the X1, and 1080p on the PS4 with some major frame rate drops, but you have to remember that this is the first time out of the gate with these new machines.  It took awhile for Xbox 360 games to look better than the original Xbox, but now looking back they aren’t even comparable anymore.

So you would think that after a paragraph like that I would be telling you to wait a year to buy a new system, but I am not.  Being able to try the new ideas and abilities of the machine as the games come out is exciting and fun.  Having the system in hand as developers learn to use the potential of the system is a great feeling!

Plus it really isn’t that expensive.  People look at the cost of the PS4 at $400, and the Xbox One $500 and complain that it is just too much money, but really it is not.  If these consoles last as long as the last ones did, I could be using this thing for eight years, so that is only $62.50 a year.  Plus with the rate of inflation these systems are right in line with the Nintendo Entertainment Systems of old.

I can’t wait for next week (probably the week after that due to shipping) to get and setup my new box of potential.  Developers you have a lot of potential to use, and I can’t wait to try it!

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Use Your Imagination With Scribblenauts Unlimited!

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I have always wanted to play around with the Scribblenauts franchise, and thanks to the recent Humble Bundle I was able to do so very cheaply.  Scribblenauts Unlimited is the fourth game in the Scribblenauts franchise, but the first to come to a home console the Wii U and to Windows PC.

The story is about a young boy Maxwell with a notebook that can create anything he writes in it, but this has made him spoiled.  One day he meets an old man who wants some food, so Maxwell plays a trick on him and creates a rotten apple.  The man is angered by this, and puts a curse on his sister that is slowly turning her to stone.  The only way to fix the curse is to do good deeds for people and collect the Starites that appear when they are happy.  Get enough Starites and save your sister.

The gameplay is very simple.  You walk around and find a challenge or some unhappy people and create things that fix the problem or make the person happy.  You can create just about anything provided it is not copyrighted or vulgar, unless you get the Wii U version and you can summon Nintendo characters.  You can also edit the objects/people around you by either adding adjectives to change the object’s attributes: For instance if you see a beggar you can add that he is a rich beggar, and he will have a bunch of money.  You can also edit them in a truer since by opening the object editor that looks a little like MS paint and change all of the object’s attributes:  Like turning a phone booth in to a flying phone monster.

The one problem with all this power is that it makes the game pretty simple, and for me the biggest challenge is just remembering how to spell what I want to make.  However, it is still very fun just to see what crazy things I can come up with to fix the problem at hand.  The graphical style is quite charming as well, and makes the whole world just fit together.

This game is quite good, and if you have not played a Scribblenauts game before this seems like a good place to start.  It works quite well on the PC since you can use the keyboard to type out your commands.  Due to its low difficulty, it makes it the perfect game to just relax and play around with, or let younger gamers exercise their creativity.  I think the game is currently $20 on Steam, but it is always going on sale, so it can be an affordable addition to your game library.

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Spend Some Time With King Boogie!

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I was presently surprised a few months ago when a friend of mine N.D. Byma started a Kickstarter for a children’s book he was writing King Boogie.  I of course backed the project, and I now have the final book in hand and get to give my impressions of the effort.

The book is about a day in the life of a young boy King Boogie who views himself as king of the household, and his parents as his caretakers.  It is fun to see he how he views his day to day activities compared to what we know the reality would be.

The story is short and sweet, but well written so it is a good length for young readers or listeners.  The art done by L.A. Harper is great, and it is sure to keep little-ones entertained.

The book itself is well made, and it seems like it can handle the day to day wear and tear that young kids will put it through.  I like the seamless binding.  It is a very cool look.

Byma and Harper did a good job on this book, and I am glad that I backed it.  Good on them for getting the book out in a reasonable time frame as well.  I think N.D. has a few copies left, so if this is something you are interested in head on over to the book’s Facebook page.