I'm sure they will in the film. I was thinking a prologue about his destruction of the towns/dwarves would be great - mirroring the opening of LOTR about the ring. They could still do that a bit as characters talk about it I guess.

Preview looks good, though it still looks a little too clean compared to the previous films... I hope it visually has some grain and grittiness to it.

I reckon we won't actually see Smaug until the second movie, a lot like how the kept Gollum hidden during Fellowship of the Ring.

If they do a prologue sacking towns and Dwarves, we'll probably just see flames and shadows without revealing the dragon.

Correct.

what's that black box at the 31 second point in the trailer?

I hope so too, but I'm sure we're seeing how 48fps shot footage looks altered to 24fps.

I definitely hope this is true. I would rather not see any glimpses of Smaug until he's actually revealed hopefully in the second movie. His first appearance is what I'm most looking forward to. I really hope they do him justice. He's pretty much my favorite character in the entire middle earth universe and I've been waiting to see him for the last decade.

I was very much wow'ed by the Balrog, Jackson and his design team really nailed on what I expected it to look like, I'm having my hopes up that they wont disappoint in Smaug's look.

Agreed. The Balrog totally blew me away when I first saw it and is still one of the coolest movie characters I've ever seen. I truly hope Jackson eclipses the Balrog with Smaug, especially since he's a more important character.

The open end of Oin's ear trumpet.

I'm just worried about the lines of dialogue that Smaug utters - hope they don't hire Sean Connery to do the voicing

All I know about The Hobbit is from that trailer. So Smaug is a destructive dragon that speaks? Is he evil or just misunderstood? What is about him that people like so much? I checked wikipedia, but they didn't give me much.

This guy will be doing the voice.

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm1212722/

I don't know much about this guy, but I assume his voice will be digitally altered in some way to make it more "dragony"

I don't know if "people" necessarily like him so much. I just happen to like the character and when I read the Hobbit found myself really wanting to see a live action depiction of him.

I don't know if he's necessarily evil, but he's totally treasure hungry and more likely insane. From what I remember, basically his only reason for living is to guard his treasure that he stole a long time ago. And he goes completely apeshit on anybody that steals from him. But no, it's not like he's good or anything. He's definitely the villain.

Thanks! Wiki did say he slept on his treasure for so long that the gold and jewels have become embedded in his underside forming a type of armour. That seems like a pretty cool image.

I'm sure he was meant as a metaphor for evil, rich and powerful people that take advantage of and steal from "lesser" people and just get fat and wealthy through unethical means.

Yeah, he's just a mean, fat, lazy dragon that that only cares about his treasure, which wasn't even his to begin with. The cartoon made him look ridiculous, so hopefully the live action version can take the description from the book and make him look cool.

Reactions to the trailer:
1. Too much humor. I was half expecting a dwarf fart joke.
2. I'm a little Lord of the Rings-ed out. Maybe it's because I recently rewatched the entire trilogy on blu ray.

Also, in discussing this film, do spoilers apply at all? Is it safe to assume that everyone has read this book at some point?

No. This is an adaptation and not everyone that watches movies cares about the book. Same with the Game of Thrones threads in TV, Harry Potter movie threads, etc.

As much as I don't give a fuck about being spoiled w/ spoilers...yes, this thread needs spoilers. It's a movie that hasn't released yet. Once you go into the reviews thread...I'd say it's fair fucking game but then somebody bitches about spoilers in a goddamn review thread...fucking bitches.

Bilbo gets the Ring and returns home safely, George kills Lenny and nobody shows up to Gatsby's funeral except one Nick and that one drunk guy.

Wow, people get butthurt over anything nowadays.

And you make a lame attempt at a point.

Mock outrage. It's the new thing these days.

The vast majority of the comments on the internet regarding tone think the previews look too dark, so it's surprising to hear this.

Same here, but I still enjoyed the trailer. I think being less excited has more to do with the fact that the first time around released we had no real idea as to what a live-action representation of Middle-Earth would look like. We had the previews, but it wasn't until the final one for Fellowship came that it truly looked like they had it right IMO. There was this whole "I'm finally seeing this" vibe, similar to when TPM was released, but with more positive results overall I would wager.

Count me as someone who was glad to see some light-heartedness in the trailer. Hobbit is a more light hearted story, and I was concerned it would be too LOTR like with its tone.

Glad to see they're going to let us see the

The concept of being burned out on Middle-earth is so foreign to me that I cannot even begin to comprehend it.

Loved the trailer. And I'm glad for the humour. The Hobbit is a far more lighthearted book than The Lord of the Rings. The same exact approach would not have been right. They seem to have struck a happy middle in terms of tone and I'm all for that.