Middle Earth Comes to Calgary

To continue my recap of the Calgary Comic Expo at the end of April, I recount what might possibly have been my favourite bits: Billy Boyd (Pippin in the Lord of the Rings trilogy, and three of the dwarves from the Hobbit. Jed Brophy (Nori) Dean O'Gorman (Kili), and Mark Hadlow (Dori) were the dwarves who came, with the bonus of Jed's son Sadwyn Brophy, who played Aragorn and Arwen's son in the Return of the King.

Billy Boyd was HILLARIOUS. SO FUNNY. If you ever go to a Q and A and get a chance to ask him a question, start by telling him your cat/dog/hamster/whatever is named Pippin. Apparently he gets that a lot. :)

Billy's interviewer was a lady called Greendragon, a moderator of the biggest LotR fansite, The One Ring. I forget her real life name, but she moderated all of the Middle Earth panels, and she was fab. Kirsten, maybe?

 



My brother getting a henna tattoo, in Elvish.

The Being Dwarvish panel. It was SO MUCH FUN.

 

Sean Astin

Sean's panel turned into a bit of a bummer, because somehow the topic got onto bad experiences he had working on the films, and it was a bit depressing!

Unfortunately I wasn't able to find any good videos of any of the panels, but I assure you, Billy and the dwarves were a barrel of fun. (Ha!) My only disappointment was that because of the special Middle Earth super-panel that you had to pay extra for, Billy wasn't allowed to sing at his Q and A, and at the dwarvish panel, the actors didn't want to re-tell stories that they'd already told at the super-panel. It's one thing to sell tickets for this extra-special multi-media event, but another thing to take away from the main event to do that. So that was sad.

The only thing missing was Martin Freeman, who'd been in Calgary filming Fargo for most of the winter, and who left just weeks before Expo started. So sad! Depending on how the season of Fargo ends, maybe he'll be back next year...hint, hint...

Ok, I think that's it for my Comic Expo re-capping this year - we also saw Garrett Wong, Adrian Paul, and Tom Felton, but alas, my memories are fading and I'm not sure I have anything to share at this point. It was nice that Tom finally made it to Expo though! :)

The Hobbit

Perfect Hobbit is Perfect
Source

Have you seen the Hobbit yet? We went on Friday, to a noon matinee in IMAX 3D. To be honest, I'm not sure what I loved most...the nine minute preview of Star Trek Into Darkness, or the Hobbit? I felt like I'd had my $20 worth after Into Darkness, and the Hobbit was just the icing on the cake.

I'm not usually a fan of 3D (the glasses over my glasses annoy me, and I don't find the 3D that exciting), but I'd heard something about some new technique they were using that was supposed to make it 'too real', which made me curious. And it was amazing! I lost count of how many times I jumped and ducked, and I definitely screamed twice. It was like riding a roller coaster - a roller coaster of beautiful New Zealand scenery and adorable Martin Freeman. I can't imagine anyone else playing that role - Freeman IS Bilbo - have you seen the photo of him with his Lego minifig?!

(I should point out that I'm not a Tolkien purist by any stretch of the imagination, so I'm not comparing the movie to the book at all.)

At the beginning, when Bilbo meets Gandalf, is invaded by dwarfs, and eventually decides that maybe he does want to go on an adventure after all - well, I could just live in that chunk of the movie and be content to just stay there forever. It's warm and vibrant and funny and just...perfect. And I totally empathize with Bilbo loving his peaceful life and orderly home. The scene where the group of adventurers encounters the trolls was very funny - not quite Monty Python funny, but definitely funny by Peter Jackson standards.

After that it departed a bit from the lighter side and got darker, like the Lord of the Rings movies, although the Goblin King provided a bit of comedic relief. There was maybe a wee bit too much of Thorin doing the smolder, but it was only minorly annoying. :) I won't say where it cut off, but it was a good ending, with not too much of a cliffhanger, which was nice.

We don't get to see much of Smaug this early, or the Necromancer, which was disappointing, because I'm really excited about seeing Freeman and Benedict Cumberbatch together in something other than Sherlock. So I guess I'll just have to watch Sherlock again while I wait for next December!

Anyway, the short of it is that the Hobbit in IMAX 3D is definitely worth the price of admission, and you should go see it, like, right now! Go on!