ThinkGeek says this wizard hoodie is all about Gandalf, with his Dwarf rune for G, Glamdring, and some crossed pipes, but I’m seeing less of a pointy hat and more of a pointy Magika hood. Ahh, well, I bet the hood is a great place to keep snacks anyway. For when you’re done with the pipes.

PAX East was my first real con experience, and it’s been my experience since that it probably gave me a skewed idea of how competent volunteer con staff should be expected to be. The first time I saw somebody giving a New York Comic Con enforcer backtalk, it was like an alien experience. My experience with PAX East enforcers is that they have created a self-perpetuating image: everybody believes that they’re competent and on top of things and so should be treated with respect, which allows them to be maximally friendly, calm, helpful, and communicative to attendees… which allows them to be completely on top of things, which means that everybody believes they are on top of things… and so on. So it does not surprise me one bit that some of them have gotten together, in the wake of a well publicized incident of a disruptive media attendee, to reassure female cosplayers and attendees that they’ve got your back. With a nerdy meme.

At first glance you may not see anything in this photo but a desk but if you look closer you might see history in the making. Or an April Fool’s prank. We’re not sure. What you’re looking at is a still from this The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug preview video Peter Jackson posted on April 1. FirstShowing.net pulled a screencap from 4:51 in which you may notice, is a script to Star Wars: Episode VIII. I think we can say one thing for sure, showing it was not a mistake. However, we don’t know if this was meant as a joke (he does have a great prop department at hand) or meant to drive nerds completely out of their minds. What do you think?

Previously in Star Wars

Following the home video release of The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, Peter Jackson held a live video event where he spilled some details about The Desolation of Smaug. In this excerpt, Stephen Colbert just couldn’t stop himself from popping up to ensure that he’s getting the elves right. You know nothing, Peter Jackson.

There’s some actual information about Desolation of Smaug in here, too. And a bit of Tauriel. And some Billy Boyd! Hi there, Pippin.

(via: SuperHeroHype)

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We’ve known for a while that Clark Gregg‘s dear departed Agent Coulson would be coming back to the Marvel Universe for S.H.I.E.L.D. The question has been how exactly that will happen. Was Coulson’s “death” a set-up by Fury? Might Coulson’s S.H.I.E.L.D. scenes be flashbacks? Could the new Coulson be a Life Model Decoy or a Skrull? Was the Coulson who got stabbed by Loki a Life Model Decoy or a Skrull?

Joss Whedon had something to say about it to a crowd at SXSW. Sadly (or happily—your mileage may vary) it didn’t clear up all that much. There’s still plenty of room for us to be Jossed.

James Franco was on The Colbert Report last night to promote Oz the Great and Powerful. And the Oz portion of his interview is fine. But if you skip to 5:19 you can see the good stuff: Franco tried to tried to trip up Colbert—who is the biggest Tolkien geek Peter Jackson has ever met, if you’ll remember—with a question about The Silmarillion. It doesn’t end well for him.

(via: MTV Movies Blog)

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Here’s a video of Gary Busey explaining Hobbits. Apparently they wear cockroaches as necklaces and hairpieces, the males are indistinguishable from the females (“which must make it interesting for them!”), and they “travel in packs of four” so they can complete tasks (like making second breakfast, I’m guessing) “efficiently and quickly.”

Oh, and if you feel like you may have been a Hobbit in a past life, Busey wants you to let him know so you can “speak about Hobbitism” with him.

I don’t know what to do, my whole brain is crying!

(via: io9)

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The Hobbit, as well as The Lord of the Rings, are lacking in women in a big way. You can blame the guy who wrote the first book in 1937 if you feel the need, but when adapting those stories to film in 2013, the absence is noted. Peter Jackson went so far as to add a new elf, Tauriel, to his Hobbit trilogy but it turns out a few of the women who already existed in J.R.R. Tolkien’s world didn’t make the cut for theater viewings. Sir Ian McKellen explains who.

We saw GIFs of this on tumblr recently, and while the entirety of it eludes me (seriously, the internet failed me just now), I’m glad this video crossed my path because it’s so much better with sound. Now I’ll admit, it would probably take me a while to recite all the dwarves names from The Hobbit but it’s really fun seeing the actors try it. Maybe time yourself first?

(via Empire Online)

Previously in The Hobbit

What, did you think that because The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey has come out we would stop posting The Hobbit stuff? Oh, you sweet summer child. MTV’s Josh Horowitz sat down with Martin Freeman, Sir Ian McKellen, and Andy Serkis for a round of Middle Earth-themed FMK, that most mature of games wherein you must decide which of three people (or people/Hobbit/orc/dragon/fiery disembodied eye, in this case) you would marry, which you would kill, and which you would, er, “have relations with.”

All of them take the questions quite seriously.

(via: A.V. Club)

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