arminius

It is a big departure from the book. They were just packed in the barrels and were in bad shape when Bilbo got them out at Laketown and the elves did not know they escaped. Here they are having a fine time riding in them
and fighting the elves on the way. Seems like a pointless change.

Also the CGI elves jumping through the trees reminded me of the last Indiana Jones movie.

Dr. DVD

I must have had a lower definition version of the trailer as I didn't see much of Smaug. What I saw was his darkened silhouette with his eyes lit up and shining all over the place, like it was in the book. I thought it was effective, but I also saw a stillshot where his facial features seem more defined. Looking forward to hearing Benedict Cumberbatch's voice. For some reason his "You should have let me sleep" line for Into Darkness seems appropriate.

I didn't really have a problem with the first act of Hobbit, but that was from the standpoint of someone who has read the book a few times and appreciated it being faithful. Especially with the introduction of the dwarves.

Solid Snake

He was credited on the first film's script.

hanshotfirst1138

He looked like Fluffy's head from Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone. I'm wondering why he was attacking them.

I should reread the book, I'd completely forgotten who he was. Jackson's Battle of Five Armies should be all forms of badassery.

In this one or the next? I'm curious how they'll get this into three films. Presumably the White Council stuff will be a significant amount of the second. They'll probably wrap up that all of the post-Smaug stuff (lest I forget, there's plenty of it) in the third.

I doubt it'll be that bad. At least I actually care about these characters. Though there is no doubt that the CG overload in these movies might be costing the action sequences a lot of weight. Why they're doing it that way after having done so many practical stunts in the LOTR trilogy, I don't know.

I...did not hear about that. I'm kind of glad it will be Jackson's vision for all six films, on account of how much I love it. Obviously, for people who don't like his version, probably not so much. But I hadn't heard that del Toro's vision would've been so different. I really don't think that High Fantasy kind of stuff is his sort of thing, so it'll probably be just as well.

He and Freeman must not get much sleep. I'm glad they're both in this, but I want Sherlock season three, goddammit!

Yeah, and he's credited as "creative consultant" as well. Presumably they used some of his leftover design elements here and there and he worked on shaping the script into the form of three films.

RocShemp

So that was him? I wondered since in the book only Bilbo That's a pretty big change if so.

Dr. DVD

I would crack up if Smaug gets a glimpse of Bilbo and instead of getting angry just says : "Watson?"

Sub-Zero

According to TheOneRing.net, the latest trailer for The Hobbit: The Desolation Of Smaug will be released tomorrow, October 1, at 9am EST.

Sub-Zero

New theatrical banner:

Lara Means

Krayzie

Well they do have to sell the lego barrel escape set!

dex14

<iframe width="640" height="360" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/mbOEknbi4gQ?feature=player_embedded" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

islandclaws

Looks better than the last one.

Josh-da-man

Does anyone else think Tauriel (the Kate elf) isn't going to survive the trilogy?

DaveyJoe

Middle Earth: the land of one color.

Why So Blu?

Looks great!

Smaug speaks!

redrum

Awww ya Cumberbatch sounds awesome as Smaug

Dr. DVD

Hell yeah! Perfect choice for that role.


Overall, this looks better than the last one, except....a romantic subplot for Legolas? Why PJ, why?

GoldenJCJ

Gotta add something to pad the run time to 3+ hours.

Dr. DVD

Again, why 3+ hours? I hope that's not the run time and it's more like the 2 hours , 45 minutes of the predecessor. Also, how come PJ can make a 3 hour fantasy out of something minute and it most likely gets to go into release on schedule while Martin Scorsese has to trim his 3 hour version of Wolf of Wall Street?


I actually see this one doing about the same as Unexpected Journey worldwide, but not as well domestically due to the release of Anchorman 2 the week after.

GoldenJCJ

I don't know, I was just being sarcastic.

I'm probably not the best person to ask either. While I enjoyed the first Hobbit movie, I'm still in the "It should have only been two 2 hour films" camp. I don't see the need to add in the stuff from the appendices just for shits and giggles.

RocShemp

Pretty much sealed her fate when they pointed out that Legolas was in love with her.

Dr. DVD

Yep, my guess is Because the first thing on everyone's mind in LOTR was why Legolas didn't have a woman.

Jay G.

There's a few factors. First, The Hobbit films are a prequel to an existing trilogy, one that had films that were 3+ hours long even after cutting material from the books. So there's some expectation that a LOTR film = 3 hours. On a related note, LOTR was already very successful at that length, so the studio has some faith that long prequel films could be very successful at that length as well.

Secondly, the decision to expand The Hobbit to 3 films meant that if each one clocked in at only around 2 hours, people would've complained that they could've easily made two 3 hour films instead. So the late decision to expand it to a trilogy kind of enforced that idea of adding material so that the length of each film justified a trilogy.

Finally, I think there's an expectation that "epic = long." If the story is big in scope (settings, people, effects, etc.), then it should be big in length as well. They've inflated the Hobbit to be the prequel to LOTR, where the actions in these films set the events in LOTR in motion, so they're epics.

taffer

The first thing on my mind was why didn't Gimli ever have a love interest.

Poor Gimli. He needs a female dwarf to .

There are 12 male dwarves in The Hobbit. Why no female dwarves? We need some dwarven orgy scenes!

moviefan2k4

Maybe they're going with what Gimli told Eowyn, about people thinking Dwarf women didn't exist because their appearance was so similar to the men.