The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey Gets 2nd Trailer

[Staff]

http://youtu.be/SDnYMbYB-nU

The second trailer for the highly anticipated first film of the (now) Hobbit trilogy has arrived and it's full of wizards and dwarves and trolls, Oh My! Looks to be exactly as I expected, but a thought occured to me while I watched it. With the unexpected and sudden splitting into three movies, how will that affect the release of the first wave of Hobbit sets and will we see any spoilers from the second movie. Doubtful, but with everything going on in this trailer alone I'm sure they'll have plenty of material for this theme. I just hope we don't have to wait too long for more LotR sets.
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Permalink: http://www.fbtb.net/2012/09/19/the-hobbit-an-unexpected-journey-gets-2nd-trailer/

[shoggoth666]

Looks positively brilliant. Jackson does Tolkien justice as before. Good news on the 3 films should equate to more LOTR lego.

[Avenged110]

That was pretty sick. I still think the first trailer though was one of the best trailers I have ever seen.

[TooMuchDew]

Best place to view hi-def video trailer now now is at
http://www.thehobbit.com/index.html#content=choose-your-moment
You can view 5 different trailer endings: "Gandalf", "Bilbo", "Sting", "Gollum", or the one posted elsewhere "Dwarves"

[Mister Ed]

I still think making three films out of The Hobbit is absurd. And I'm not convinced it is even possible without doing the disservice of drastically changing the tone of a work that was, if I'm not mistaken, SUPPOSED to be a bit lighter fare than LotR.

When Gandalf disappears, we AREN'T supposed to follow him and see what he's doing. That isn't part of the story, and I can't see how it could be inserted without being a major distraction from what is really a fairly simple, straightforward narrative.

[cstojano]

The tone will be different. More Hollywood, more D and F type jokes. We see some of this at the very end of the trailer with the dialog, I forget what the dwarf says but its some catchy faddish phrase that will date the movie. I will see this and eat it up but its NOT the Hobbit I knew growing up. LOTR wasn't either. There is no Lurtz in Tolkiendom in my book.

On the flipside we get new items like this, love the minimalist cover from one of the best parts of the book

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/0007 ... 00_s00_i00

[Ibiscribe]

I'm looking forward to watching it, but from my perspective it only has a 1/100 chance of being as good (or "atmospherically appropriate") as the 1978 animated film. But hey, at least it will give us LEGO sets.

[Flynn]

I'm with Ibiscribe for the most part. The '78 version is seriously underrated.

[Darth Caedus]

Geh. The 1978 animated version is indeed a classic, and pretty darn loyal to the lighthearted spirit of the book. But we don't more of that. Jackson's slightly darker, more epic take on the universe of Middle-Earth will allow for a more fleshed-out, glorious adventure of a prequel trilogy to his original trilogy (where Lucas failed miserably). Although a couple details of the exact splits between the films have been adjusted since its writing, this article by a Tolkien scholar does a great job arguing why a Hobbit trilogy is not only acceptable, but awesome and a true service to Tolkien's rich world.

http://www.theonering.net/torwp/2012/08/03/60354-greenbooks-guest-post-in-defense-of-a-hobbit-trilogy/

I eagerly anticipate both the Lego and the film, and a chance to see the Dragons of Dragons brought to life on the big screen with an budget that holds nothing back and one of the best actors working today. The fact that Benedict Cumberbatch is voicing the Necromancer as well really makes me want them to go back and release updated versions of LOTR (Lucas style, but for the better, not the NOOOOOOOO worse) with Cumberbatch voicing Sauron every time he speaks.


*Also, as for Gandalf going off on his own, that's one of the most exciting parts of the Jackson Hobbit for me. Gandalf is easily among the most iconic and interesting characters in The Lord of the Rings, and getting to see him on his own is fascinating (the sequences from Fellowship in the Library of Minas Tirith and Orthanc are intensely atmospheric and ominous). Furthermore, the wise old mentor is a trope that's done to death, even though it's one the best. Letting the wise old mentor get away from the noobie for a while to do what he does best just doesn't happen enough. Think Harry Potter, we only ever see Dumbledore guiding our Derp of a protagonist, when his coolest exploits are offscreen (an old mage busting into an ancient mansion to retrieve a cursed ring, etc.) Gandalf on his own, being an Istari, that is awesome, and there's no reason The Hobbit just has to focus on Bilbo. Let the Jacksonverse give us something new and exciting, fresh and fantastic. Heck, one of the biggest problems with Fellowship is that we never see Gandalf battle the Nazgul at Weathertop! Some fights are just too epic for the screen.

[Mister Ed]

Guess I'm old fashioned, but what I want in a movie version of The Hobbit is... a movie version of The Hobbit. Not a "darker, epic take on the universe of Middle-Earth", which The Hobbit is decidedly not.

In my mind it is possible to do "service to Tolkien's rich world" while at the same time doing a disservice to this particular work, and that's what I fear will happen here. Too much time and effort (for my taste, anyway) can be put into expanding this to encompass the totality of Middle-Earth, and matching the tone of the later movies, and there may be little consideration given to trying to actually just tell the story of The Hobbit itself, in something approaching the manner in which it was originally presented...

Maybe I'm worrying over nothing, but the expansion to a trilogy doesn't bode well at all for what I personally was hoping for from a big screen version of The Hobbit. It seems a lot of people are so focused (including Peter Jackson, I think) on the goal of putting as much of Tolkien's world as possible (or at least some interpretation of it) up on screen, that the goal of actually telling the story of The Hobbit is sort of incidental to that...

[Darth Caedus]

In several interviews before and surrounding Comic-Con this year, Jackson has definitively stated that he wants to make a Hobbit adaptation that is consistent in tone with the Lord of the Rings trilogy, for one colossal, beautiful vision of Middle-Earth. And honestly, I love The Hobbit, but why do we just have to be restricted to that extremely simple story? A little dude and some mostly cookie-cutter slightly taller people have some sidequests with fantasy creatures (trolls, nice elves, goblins, wolves, eagles, spiders, mean elves, foreign men) and then encounter a dragon, have a big battle that's mostly offscreen and hey presto, story over. The Hobbit book tells that perfectly fine. A film doesn't have to stick as closely to the Bilbo as the sole protagonist, and can bring more of the incredible fantasy world of Middle-Earth to the screen, and put this adventure into the larger context as the true first stage of the War of the Ring. The trinket of a ring Bilbo found in The Hobbit grew organically in Tolkien's mind into a much larger story, so there's no reason not to let the small sapling of The Hobbit not be a mighty oak equal to The Lord of the Rings, now that in hindsight we see how it was the catalyst for a world chock full of potential and imagination.

*And if Jackson can pull this off, we will have a true six film saga that can be honestly watched chronologically because it will be consistent in acting, aesthetic, tone and quality - as opposed to a fractured, uneven prequel and original trilogy that inspires only divisiveness, debate, and derision. Like in another fandom.

[Mister Ed]

Why would it have to be fractured and uneven? And it certainly doesn't need to be a trilogy. What exactly is the intrinsic merit of a "six film saga"? And why couldn't a more faithful Hobbit film be consistent in acting, aesthetic, and quality, while having a tone more appropriate to the source material?

I just don't get it.

I mean, I get that you DON'T want a Hobbit adaptation that is about adapting the Hobbit, specifically. I just don't fully understand it (especially the idea that that's the only sensible course of action- and that's not a view I'm getting from you so much as others I've encountered that share your enthusiasm for the changes), and I'm a bit put off by the fact that you seem to be belittling the source material in the course of your effort to show that departing significantly from it is the better course. I'm pretty sure The Hobbit is held to be a classic of fantasy literature, and not just the LotR's slow cousin, who people regard with affection but don't think is REALLY that good (the impression I'm getting from your dismissive-sounding summary).

I read the article you linked, but found it unconvincing because he doesn't actually argue for the inclusion of all this extra stuff and the change of tone and focus, he just takes it as a given that that is the best possible goal, and argues that three movies is the right number to accomplish it in. If I were to accept his premise, then I would have to agree. Three movies DOES seem like the right number to accomplish all that he seems to want done. It is the premise that this is the only proper goal for a movie adaptation of The Hobbit that I take issue with.

Don't get me wrong. I have no doubt that we will get an epic adventure, of high quality. I daresay it is likely I will enjoy it a great deal in any case. But that doesn't mean that I won't mourn the lost opportunity to actually adapt Tolkien's work The Hobbit itself for the big screen, without losing the feel of that book in the inclusion of the wider world of Middle-Earth.

[Darth Caedus]

The fractured and uneven comparisons were more to the Star Wars parallel. There's nothing special about a six film saga, but a duo of superb trilogies is a feat never yet attained by the popular film industry. Sure, the trilogy model seems overdone with modern blockbusters, but it's a tried and true model for storytelling that stretches all the way back to the origins of drama in Greek tragedy.

And it's not so much belittling the source material as acknowledging its limitations. Tolkien didn't realize how this small little fairy tale would end up being a "prequel" to a much more sprawling fantasy world, and fit into the chronology and universe pretty smoothly. Additionally, the "only" comes with a caveat - it's the only course of action for the stage we are at now. We have had a well done, tight little animated version that is even simpler than the Hobbit book, but is still appealing and well-made. But to make a similar, one-off Hobbit film simply would not work with the existing Lord of the Rings films. The Hobbit will inescapably appear as a direct prequel to LOTR, and a shorter, less epic, lighter story would feel out of sync and a letdown compared to what we already had a decade ago. The Lord of the Rings films are incredible epics, and everything indicates that Jackson an equally epic journey out of the seed that is The Hobbit to create one breathtaking film version of Middle-Earth. I won't mourn for a second the lack of a completely loyal live-action adaptation of the book - really, the Jackson approach to the Lord of the Rings made for an appealing fantasy action-adventure epic for young and old alike; why not go with what works and make another round that genuinely completes the story? It's not as if Jackson's Middle-Earth is excessively grimdark or gothic (indeed, we are lucky that Del Toro bailed out of the production, his quirky, oddball touch would likely have taken Tolkien's tale in an even more weird direction). Unless the 48fps turns out to be utter garbage, or the trailers are completely deceptive, Jackson is improving the story of The Hobbit by making it sync with The Lord of the Rings as one coherent story of monstrous villains and small heroes. The fact that, if done successfully, it will be a giant middle finger to the Star Wars saga is even better (and I say that as a Star Wars fan). A balanced story of a (foster)father-and-son pair, Bilbo and Frodo, two trilogies each with their own unique merit but sharing the common theme of the underdog hero defying evil against all odds. I can't wait!

[Mister Ed]

a shorter, less epic, lighter story would feel out of sync and a letdown compared to what we already had a decade ago.

Jackson is improving the story of The Hobbit by making it sync with The Lord of the Rings as one coherent story of monstrous villains and small heroes.

My disagreement with your viewpoint boils down to essentially these quotes, I think. I don't accept those statements as fact. You clearly do.

Guess we'll just have to agree to disagree.