The Hobbit: An Unexpected Child Labor Scandal
Hey, Peter Jackson isn’t the only dude who can make a Hobbit movie. Sure, he might have the vistas of New Zealand, state-of-the-art special effects from Weta and zillions of dollars, but the Tower House School has a bunch of kids, and I’ll be damned if their Hobbit movie doesn’t look pretty great anyways. Plus, unlike Jackson, these kids have enough sense to keep The Hobbit to one movie, so they have the advantage there. I only hope that THS’ movie has a different design for the Goblin King, because otherwise… it’ll… uh… let’s just say it’ll end badly for everybody. Much thanks to Janine S. for the tip!
About The Author
Robert Bricken is one of the original co-founders of the site formerly known as Topless Robot, and its first editor-in-chief, serving from 2008-12. He brought the site to prominence with “nerd news, humor and self-loathing” as its motto, raising it from total internet obscurity to a readership in the millions, with help from his savage “FAQ” movie reviews and Fan Fiction Fridays. Under his tenure Topless Robot was covered by Gawker, Wired, Defamer, New York magazine, ABC News, and others, and his articles have been praised by Roger Ebert, Avengers actor Clark Gregg, comedian and The Daily Show correspondent John Hodgman, the stars of Mystery Science Theater 3000 and Rifftrax, and others. He is currently the managing editor of io9.com. Despite decades as both an amateur and professional nerd, he continues to be completely unprepared for either the zombie apocalypse or the robot uprising.