Dwarves, heroes, and other stuff

The dwarves from The Hobbit are revealed in all their bearded glory, news from Marvel on bringing their heroes to the screen, cool commentary by io9 on a TV show that shouldn't be good, awesome LEGO, and some steps toward becoming Iron Man or Captain America. That right, it's time for another collection of links from around the interwebs.

A great look at the dwarves from The Hobbit

The Facebook page for The Hobbit revealed this picture of Dori, Ori, and Nori, the first real look at the dwarves from the upcoming film (not counting the blurry background of these pictures). Hopefully we'll be seeing more soon, I'm guessing the studio will release something more at Comic-Con, but for now, I'm loving the different looks they've got with their travelling clothes and varied beard and hairstyles. The dwarves seen in The Fellowship of the Ring all looked basically the same with different hair color, and it's great to see that Peter Jackson and Weta have created more diversity in their look, which is going to be critical if anyone is going to be able to tell all thirteen of them apart (from Facebook).
EDIT: Yahoo! has a picture of Oin and Gloin as well, and Gloin looks to be rocking the walking axe Gimli (his son) will use in The Lord of the Rings.

Thor 2 from the writer of Silver Surfer

So that's not exactly exciting news, but days after Marvel announced a sequel for Thor in July 2013, Deadline reports that Don Payne is also one of the credited writers for Thor so that might make up for the second Fantastic Four film. Kenneth Branagh won't be returning to direct, though the split sounds amiable and he may still produce in some capacity. Star Chris Hemsworth will return, and I'd expect that Marvel has him under contract for quite a few more films after that.

Marvel plans short films for lesser known characters

In more Marvel news, /Film and io9 bring me the news that the studio is beginning to produce short films on some of their less well known characters. First up will be shorts on the Thor and Captain America DVDs featuring Phil Coulson. Here's hoping for a Squirrel Girl short.

LEGO Middle Earth

An example of awesomeness is this recreation of Middle Earth with LEGO. It's not only amazing, but it also makes me feel my collection is tiny, and that's no easy task. Things like this make me sad that LEGO didn't get a licence to make toys from The Lord of the Rings films, but I can always hope they'll do The Hobbit (from /Film).

Natural Steroids?

Not really, but this article from io9 shows how beetroot juice can have a performance-enhancing effect. So I guess that'll be added to my diet along with apple peels. After all, with Captain America's super-soldier serum remaining off the market, the natural alternatives are the best option I can see.

io9 claims The Vampire Diaries is well-written TV

And you know, I think they're right. I've seen enough episodes of this show to know that it's not Twilight: the TV show. It takes twists and kills characters and does things I wish other shows would do. And after reading io9's argument, I suddenly understand why I'm able to stand watching it.

I am Iron Man

I found all these stories in my Google Reader feed and they seemed to add up to being the first stage in the creation of an Iron Man-like suite of armor. The rise of wearable electronics, Army wants soldiers heads to control robots, Soldiers guided by buzzing belt, An exoskeleton that helps paraplegics walk. This comes after this article, where several individuals point out that Iron Man is one of the most scientifically plausible superheroes, the difficultly lying in the power source rather than the suit's capabilities. So for now, I'll put this my wishlist with jetpacks and hoverboards.