New Hobbit Trailer Debuts

New submitter madmarcel tips news that a new trailer for The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey has been released. "The new piece (seen above) is about the same length -- 2 1/2 minutes -- as the December trailer. But it cuts to the chase more quickly, leaving out the Frodo voiceover that sets up the Lord of the Rings follow-up. Instead we get the quick voiceover explanation -- 'the dwarves are determined to reclaim their homeland' -- before we meet up with Martin Freeman's Bilbo Baggins and set off. There's a slightly less self-serious tone to the proceedings this time around, though questers do 'enter the mountain' and play important games of riddles."

Comments

Awesome

[OldSport]

I'll be bringing my 4-year-old daughter to that one -- time to start the indoctrination into geekery...

(My first memory was seeing Return of the Jedi in the theater at age 4.)

Re:Awesome

[i_ate_god]

Lynch's Dune is not close to the book in terms of story, but it is very accurate in terms of over all feeling I find.

Re:Awesome

[funwithBSD]

FWIW, Frank Herbert seem to be ok with the results:

        I get asked a specific question a lot of times, if the settings, the scenes that I saw in David’s film match my original imagination, the things I projected in my imagination. I must tell you that some of them do, precisely. Some of them don’t, and some of them are better. Which is what you would expect of artists such as David and Tony Masters. I’m delighted with that! Why not take it and improve on it visually? As far as I’m concerned the film is a visual feast.

Re:Meh?

[Genda]

"The Hobbit" without Smaug, would be like L.A, without smog... unnatural and strangely surreal.

Trailers

[Scutter]

Am I the only one who prefers to wait for the finished product rather than watch it in two-minute disjointed chunks over the course of the next three months?

I quit watching trailers entirely for this reason and because they almost always give away the plot (or the best jokes, or the twist) anymore. Tron: Legacy, for example (admittedly, not exactly a thespianic masterpiece), completely ruined the entire plot start to finish for me with a four-word sentence in the trailer. It gave it away completely.

What's a Nimoy?

[Anonymous Coward]

I didn't see any songs by Leonard Nimoy, how good could it be?

http://youtu.be/XC73PHdQX04

Re:Are they really adding an Elf to the company?

[Iniamyen]

One does not simply rewrite the story!

Re:Are they really adding an Elf to the company?

[cervesaebraciator]

Also, I heard Legolas is in this.

Wait, so Orlando Bloom's going to play a female elf?

Re:WTF, where's the freakin' D R A G O N ??? !!!

[Jeremiah Cornelius]

The whole homeland crap in the voiceover narration betrays horrible mis-representation.

The lure was the TREASURE.

The battle of 5 armies was over preserving the TREASURE.

Lonely Mountain was never a "homeland". That was Khazad Dum.

Re:nice but

[iceaxe]

While I understand the impatience to get to dessert...

A full length novel is generally much, much longer in terms of plot than the average two to three hour film screenplay. A typical screenplay is more equivalent to a short story or novelette. While The Hobbit is by no means a lengthy tome, it is certainly more than a short story, and when you add in the additional material Jackson is introducing (White Council, Dol Guldur, Radagast, etc.) it would be impossible to cram into a commercially viable screenplay.

I was fine with two films, and I'm fine with three. I'm happy to have the story fleshed out with more context, and I'm mostly fine with having Jackson and company extrapolate and add things, recognizing that film and text are different media with different strengths and weaknesses and techniques for storytelling. My "fine" stops with altering things that Tolkien actually wrote, as happened in spots in the Lord of the Rings movies. Nonetheless, I expect I'll enjoy these just as thoroughly as the last three. I doubt Jackson will pull a Lucas on us... let us hope.

And let it be said, I am willing to pay for my enjoyment, repeatedly, and do not begrudge the commercial nature of the venture, provided the art is not compromised thereby.

Re:Meh?

[i_ate_god]

Or San Francisco without smug

Re:Are they really adding an Elf to the company?

[Farmer Tim]

By the look of things, PJ could turn Gandalf taking a dump into an entire movie all its own. "Hnnnn...you...shall...not...pass...hnnn".