So the official Thor trailer is out. I actually think the leaked Comic Con trailer gave us a better idea of the story, but this one has lots more of the Destroyer, and has Thor actually using Mjolnir.

Yeah, people were ragging on the costumes, how they looked, and the like. For me, it works well enough. Does it look metallic? Not particularly. Do I care? Not particularly. I think they’ve done a good job of presenting the costume as I know it from the comic. I know it was always supposed to be metallic—or partially metallic—but the costume never seemed so in the comics themselves, so I guess I don’t expect that of the movie either.

I mean, we’re talking the Norse gods—we’re going to quibble over the material of their costumes?

Also? There’s an official poster. You may have noticed it above.

See the trailer here.

As MGM begins to come to terms—legally and economically—with its financial situation, good news is seeping out. First we learned the Hobbit was finally going forward. Now there’s word that not only is the next James Bond film set to move forward, but the big names are still attached to it.

Both Daniel Craig and Sam Mendes are apparently returning for Bond 23 (awaiting cool, or at least intended to be cool title). To me, this is good news. Here’s hoping the hiatus has allowed them to cook up something like Casino Royale but without the Quantum of Solace.

It’s old news now, but none the less interesting: Disney has talked about creating three TV series based on Marvel properties: the Hulk, Cloak & Dagger, and either the Punisher or the Daughters of the Dragon.

There’s been plenty of ink spilled on the Hulk TV program. Guillermo del Toro has been linked to it, so that’s hopeful. The old TV series was pretty good and really had its moments, but was pretty divorced from the comic book property which spawned it. Hopefully we’ll see something even better. Not being a fan of the comic, I could care less if the show deviates from the plot of the comics, given that I can’t even tell you what the plot of the comic is these days—though I did enjoy Planet Hulk.

For Cloak & Dagger, I read the first year of the series that was spawned by Strange Tales back in the late 80s. It never really struck me as being that interesting. Like most Marvel properties, give it to a great writer, you’ll get something great. I can’t even guess what the TV will bring us.

As for Punisher vs. DotD, for this one, I’d go with Daughters. Yes, more obscure, but the talk is for properties to be broadcast on ABC. DotD strikes me as something that could work on a regular broadcast network while the Punisher needs something with a harder edge, like HBO.

The Hobbit is on track for production. Yay! Sir Ian McKellan has signed on. Yay! It’s going to be shot in digital on kick-ass new cameras. Yay! It’s going to be in 3D. Er . . . okay.

I’m so torn about this movie right now. I mean, if Peter Jackson thinks he can do something special with 3D, I guess I can’t fault him. Unfortunately, this doesn’t feel like an artistic decision to me. As I’ve said before, we were told the story was intimate, that it suited 2D, and that was when the film was in the hands of a visual artist, Guillermo del Toro. To my knowledge, the script hasn’t changed. So what has?

It might be the need to play with toys or it might be the need to maximize profits, I really don’t know.

Also, apparently the casting director is under the assumption that the Hobbits are involved in white power. There’s a story that a “dark-skinned” actor was rejected as being too “too brown.” Seriously? We can fuck with the story all we like, but heaven forbid we throw a little colour in there? It’s a fuckin’ fantasy movie, people. Fantasy. There are no real Hobbits, so we don’t know what colour they were. And you know what? It doesn’t matter. Kenneth Branagh cast Denzel Washington as Keanu Reeves brother (half-brother?) and the Duke/Don of Aragon in Much Ado About Nothing. Made total sense to me: dude is an awesome actor with a great presence and the story is some kind of alt-history/who-knows-what.

It’s not lost on me that there was a height requirement for the Hobbits. That is discrimination, yes. I understand that. However, I can understand that requirement—they want Hobbits played by actors that don’t need too much/any CGI—and it is a mechanical one. The skin colour thing bugs me because I find it simply stupid. There is no purpose behind it. I also don’t think it’s malicious, it’s more like passive racism—these people don’t see a multi-racial world, so naturally they have a uni-racial view, that the Hobbits are white, like them.

It’s still stupid. I want to see Black, Asian, Indian, and Polynesian Hobbits, just as it would totally make sense to me to see an Arabic Elf, a Turkic rider of Rohan, or an Aborigine Dunedain. Let’s spice this thing up.
 
And to everyone who says that Hobbits were white in the book, I would mention two things: i) this is for the movie, which has proved it does not adhere to the book and ii) neither the book nor the movie ever indicated or alluded to all Hobbits being white—the ones you saw in the movie were white, but that’s like saying that after seeing The Thin Man that I could say there were no African-Americans in New York in the 1930s.

And did the books ever say all Hobbits were white? Was it even implied?

Article here.