Late last night the first part of the two-part prequel to Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings trilogy – and Dear Lord, that’s a mouthful. I present the teaser trailer to The Hobbit.
At first blush, I get a distinct “gettin’ the band back together” vibe coming off this thing. Maybe that’s to be expected since Ian McKellen, Andy Serkis, Hugo Weaving, Cate Blanchett, Christopher Lee, Ian Holm, Elijah Wood and Orlando Bloom will all be reprising their roles from the LotR movies.
I know when I saw the title card reading “Next December…” I was taken aback. Mostly because it seems like a long way off to start an advertising campaign. But, when you consider that The Fellowship of the Ring first premiered in theaters almost a decade earlier, I can kind of understand wanting to capture that symmetry of time.
I was also struck by the sheer amount of footage they managed to cobble together for the trailer. With a year to go, it makes me wonder how much effect work is left to lay in? I’m sure WETA’s render farm will be overclocked in 2012.
What’s your reaction to the new trailer for The Hobbit? Personally, I’m a little underwhelmed. It feels like more of the same to me. But then again, I like the idea of revisiting these characters and hanging out with them again for a little while.
Good times, man. Good times.
I’m a little confused… Why are Cate Blanchett and Orlando Bloom back? I want to like The Hobbit, just like I wanted to like The Lord of the Rings, but I just felt a little disappointing. Martin Freeman looks good as Bilbo though. I guess I’m never going to get on board as I read or listened to The Hobbit every year since I was 5 or 6, and Jacksons middle earth doesn’t fit my vision.
I just watched the trailer… I don’t know. I grew up listening to The Hobbit on audio tape (like hundreds of times in the 70’s and 80’s), with Nicol Williamson doing all the voices, and hearing them sound different just didn’t feel right. And the song in the trailer was sung totally differently than in the tapes.
I’ve always liked The Hobbit better. The animated version is a classic. My one problem with the film is that most of the LOTR cast isn’t even supposed to be in it. I know why their coming back, but I hope they don’t ruin the film by trying to squeeze them in.
I’m sorry, Kent. But that Rankin/Bass animated version of The Hobbit has always looked like vomit rolling downhill to me. The rotoscoping makes me queasy.
The Rankin/Bass Hobbit wasn’t rotoscoped. You’re thinking of the Bakshi Lord of the Rings, which was rotoscoped. It was also confusing and muddled and all around terrible.
You’re right. It was the Lord of the Rings that was rotoscoped.
The Hobbit is maybe a little better. But it still has that loosey-goosey 70s style of animation that I kind of reject. Even the Disney movies from that period of animation history I find difficult to watch.
I think the feeling of sameness is deliberately pushed hard in this movie, as if they didn’t show it, hardcore fans of the movies would be ripping it to shreds for not following in LOTR’s world settings and pacing, etc.
So I think the first trailer was to assuage the hardcore fans, so that they know it is being treated with the same reverence that LOTR was, and that it won’t be completely alien to the world they built in the LOTR movies.
My Hobbit-fu is a little weak, but the only reference to Galadriel is in passing about the bewitched woods to the north.
However, Legolas could feasibly be included inthe Hobbit, as the do trek through Mirkwood, which, at least in the books, is given as Legolas’ home, and is the son of the Wood Elf king there. So they may be playing up the fact that Bilbo did run into Legolas during his travels, and expanding Legolas’ backstory for the fans.
I don’t know about you guys, but even though these two are sure going to excellent movies, I can’t help but thinking that a much more exciting, rewarding and all in all epic series of movies could be done from the stories of the First Age, i.e., the first part of the Silmarillion.
I mean, you could have an all-new cast (OK, Galadriel and Círdan were there at the time, but bear with me), and go crazy with dragons, balrogs (whole armies of ’em!), orcs, trolls, men, elves and even Deities hacking it out together. Stories like the Lay of Beren and Lúthien, the Voyage of Eärendil, the Darkening of Valinor and the eventual end of the first age are 10 times more epic than the story of an unwilling hobbit who sets out with 13 other dwarves to kill a dragon. And Morgoth was always a much better Enemy than Sauron, and all stories are as good as their villains, if you ask me.
Tolkien himself had a lot of trouble retconning the earlier novel into the world of the Lord of the Rings (see the Appendices to Lord of the Rings, the book of course, to see what I mean), and I wonder if it would show in these movies… But anyway, we all know we’re going to run to the movies when this one premieres.
Just my 2 cents. Happy holidays!
Unforunately, I can’t see them ever making any movies out of the Silmarillion. Those books are just too dense to ever convey properly to screen. I mean, there’s how many character’s stories in that book? Not to mention the overall power play between all the gods.
While LOTR is quite dense, Silmarillion is just BURSTING with characters, important plot hooks, and things that just couldn’t be left on the cutting room floor.
Jackson has always stated that he wants to stay true to the core tellings of the books, and I don’t think that would be possible, outside of a series of 6 movies. Which I’d doubt would ever happen.
And the other kicker is, is that New Line and Peter Jackson don’t have access to the movie rights for Silmarillion. They are still owned by the Tolkien Trust, I believe, and haven’t given any indication they’d release the rights for a movie.
However, Silmarillion and the Unfinished Tales would work quite well as an ongoing TV show, I think
With the possible exception of Orlando Bloom, I’m happy to see all those folks in the trailer. Each of their characters appear in the Hobbit in some form or fashion (except Legolas, which confuses me) so recasting them would feel weirder I think. Personally I can’t wait for the films, but I’m a Tolkien junky.
Well, Legolas is actually the son of Thranduil the Elvenking of Mirkwood, so him making a cameo actually makes sense as a part of the story takes place there