LOOK WITH BILBO INTO THE DISTANCE AS THE HOBBIT TRAILER APPROACHES

SQUEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!

OMGOMGOMG!!!!111

That was surprising. I'm really looking forward to it.

Ten years and one day after FOTR premiered.  Looking forward to the teaser.

And now a preview of me watching it:

And it was 11 years ago that we were given the INTERNET teaser for the Lord of the Rings trilogy.

And the 13th of this December was the 6th year anniversary of the day before the premiere of King Kong, otherwise known as the last day that I gave a shit about Peter Jackson.

Jesus, that video makes me ashamed of everything I've ever liked ever.

Is that for real? Why would you film yourself doing that and then show people?

"You big fat pregnant bitch"

Oh, Nuttymadam...

So much cringing.  

You all are just JEALOUS because you will never LOVE as hard and passionately as her!!!

Tie that fat fuck to a chair and dangle a raw steak in front of her piggish face and you'd get the same reaction.

Meltdown.

I really don't like Tax Master.

Nice picture of Bilbo though.

I'll just be over here hopping giddily about.

I'm thrilled.  Just thrilled. 

But there's one shot around the 1:40 mark where Gandalf and Bilbo are in a forest at night that blatantly looks like a soundstage.

I'm a lot more excited about this than I thought I'd be. Well done, PJ & Co.

(Would've liked some goblins/orcs in it, but oh well. This was damn good as it was.)

I keep playing it just to hear that new bit of scoring from Shore.  That's the goods right there.

I wet myself. AND I'M PROUD TO SAY IT.

I fell off the Peter Jackson love train a bit after Lovely Bones (yes, I liked King Kong, screw off), which was so poorly conceived as an adaptation of a heartbreaking novel.

But this and my recent theatrical re-watches of the LOTR trilogy have put him back on his pedestal. Love the dwarves. Love the ominous, yet lyrical feeling of their song. Love Freeman as Bilbo so far. And hearing Gollum again gave me chills.

That was wicked. Until now I had never realised the power of Dwarf-Song.

Well, this is it for me really. Truly, the last beloved property of my childhood is getting the proper cinematic treatment - and the last one may just be the most dear.

I won't pretend watching that with my dogs Frodo and Sam asleep either side of me, that I found myself getting a little emotional.

The dwarf song has all the ancient history and awe and wonder that makes Tolkien Tolkien.  The mood of that scene is just perfect.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rockley 

That was wicked. Until now I had never realised the power of Dwarf-Song.

Hearing Shores tune for a song I've known the lyrics of backwards since I was nine years old was the moment that may have given me the most goosebumps.

I can't be the only one who thinks The Hobbit is a better book than any of the Lord of the Rings books, right?

Apples and Oranges. The Hobbit is Lord Of The Rings but, ya know, for kids.

That said, The Battle Of Five Armies is my favorite conflict Tolkien ever dreamed up. 

Well, it certainly has some better pacing. Don't get me wrong, I love the LOTR books (though for entirely different reasons than the films), but god damn could Tolkien get long winded.

I dug the Dwarf song, but everything else just made me feel like I was watching a new extended addition. It doesn't feel different enough from Lord of the Rings. A weird complaint, I know, but it seems like something should distinguish itself from the trilogy, no?

The site has (not so surprisingly) An Unexpected Slowdown.  I can't download or view the trailer past that pretty first shot.  Oh well.  

Dwarf Song was fantastic, I hope they stretched this out into two movies simply by added epic 20-minute Power Dwarf Ballads.

Compositing was dodgy. Real dodgy. Fix your shit, WETA.

Well, WETA has a year..so I'm sure they'll iron that stuff out.  Film looks great and just like 2001 I'm all kinds of excited again.

Chills.  Doc Phibes, it's on youtube in HD:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a691hE71FTQ

I have a weird, visceral reaction to bad compositing, and have possessed this twitch ever since I saw Return of the Jedi as a very wee lad and wondered what was up with all the fake shit.

The Two Towers is my favorite film of the series (as it is in the books), but every time they cut to Sam and Pippin all up in Treebeards dreadlocks, a piece of me dies.

EDIT: But other than that, oh hell fuck yes this is awesome. I hope the borderline slap-stick tone sticks, and confuses many people.

One would think that Apple would be ready for a massive surge in traffic...

My first thought? Thorin looks so fucking badass.

Second? I cannot wait to listen to the full score. Even this small sample sounds great. Shore is the man.

Dwarves look a bit rubbery. Otherwise, pretty sweet, albeit shamelessly nostalgic.

Nostalgic is right. I got that same, warm "holy shit!" feeling I got when I heard the Stone Roses got back together.

Man, 2012 is gonna spoil us rotten.

I hope they don't spend the whole movie hitting us over the head with shots framed exactly like ones from the trilogy.

Looks like the goods to me. Shivered me timbers real nice. Love how they've brought those dwarves to cinematic life, and heck yeah, Thorin looks like someone not to fuck with.

Quote:

Originally Posted by stelios 

Second? I cannot wait to listen to the full score. Even this small sample sounds great. Shore is the man.

I was on board once the dwarves started singing, but when the full Shore badassery kicked in around 1:45... holy shit!

Amazing.  Breathtaking.  And I agree about the song and the use of the music.  Jackson & Co knew they had something special and they featured the whole trailer around it.  In an era where every damn trailer feels the same, it was very welcome.

My one concern is that they will get too carried away with "prequel winking" in their attempts to re-rig Tolkien's Hobbit as a prequel to their LOTR movies.  I'm uneasy about the pregnant allusions to images and information that are still in the future for these characters.

Yeah, I mean, a part of me is also cautious about having Elrond AND Galadriel AND Saruman ANDANDAND in this story, while still keeping true to Bilbo's adventure without hammering in a ton of LOTR references.......but.

God. Damn. Suddenly I'm 15 again and watching the Ringwraiths on Weathertop for the first time in that internet preview. I haven't felt like that in so long--probably not since Jean Grey went all Phoenix-eyed in X2. I do enjoy the lighter, brighter tone. It shows that PJ isn't trying to make this a intense-a-thon like Return of the King.

Ramble ramble prattle prattle. This is going to be a long year.

Holy shit that song and that music. Being a Tolkien nerd and knowing what the song signifies doubles the amount of goosebumps I'm feeling. That and seeing the Desolation Of Smaug on the map.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Doc Phibes 

My one concern is that they will get too carried away with "prequel winking" in their attempts to re-rig Tolkien's Hobbit as a prequel to their LOTR movies.

To be fair, Tolkien himself went back and revised The Hobbit to better match up to what he'd done in LOTR, particularly as far as Gollum and the Ring were concerned.  I'm still not 100% comfortable with throwing in all the White Council stuff (I think those scenes of Gandalf walking through the ruins may have been Dol Guldur) and not sure how it'll fit, but I'm less inclined to worry about it now.

We get a quick glimpse of Laketown, an ever quicker glimpse of Tom, Bert and Bill (the trolls), and it looks like we're getting the full "That's What Bilbo Baggins Hates" treatment with flying plates and cups.  Oh, and I think at the 2:00 mark is Gandalf's "Dawn take you all, and be stone to you!" moment.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Richard Dickson 

To be fair, Tolkien himself went back and revised The Hobbit to better match up to what he'd done in LOTR, particularly as far as Gollum and the Ring were concerned.  I'm still not 100% comfortable with throwing in all the White Council stuff (I think those scenes of Gandalf walking through the ruins may have been Dol Guldur) and not sure how it'll fit, but I'm less inclined to worry about it now.

Absolutely correct. As originally written, THE HOBBIT was not intended to be an integrated part of the larger mythos Tolkien had been working on for many years. He did a number of revisions to retcon the story after the publication of LOTR, in attempts to make the two works play better together. 

I'm also worried a bit about seeing the White Council's attack on Dol Guldur onscreen, but mostly because it's going to lack any real tension. We know what happens, we know that there's no threat of Gandalf dying, and that Sauron escapes to become even stronger in Mordor.
 

Amazing. Breathtaking. Beautiful

Quote:

Originally Posted by MichaelM 

I'm also worried a bit about seeing the White Council's attack on Dol Guldur onscreen, but mostly because it's going to lack any real tension. We know what happens, we know that there's no threat of Gandalf dying, and that Sauron escapes to become even stronger in Mordor.

My concern remains that it will make the defeat of Smaug and the Battle of Five Armies seem inconsequential.  That while the epic conclusion of The Hobbit is taking place, the real bad guy is being dealt with in a completely unrelated plot thread.

I've been trying to figure how Jackson will split the events for this. Having the (still supposed) attack on Dol Guldur, Smaug's attack on Laketown and the battle in their place in the timeline would make the pacing of these movies weirder than what happened with Deathly Hallows.

My guess is that the narrative break will come either just before the dwarves and Bilbo enter Mirkwood, or when they escape the Wood Elves.

The latter two LOTR movies cross cut between climactic sequences all the time and it worked okay (though I always find the end of TTT exhausting). I find the idea that the battle would seem inconsequential just because other stuff is also happening a bit odd. I mean most of the main characters you've been following the whole time are involved; if you give a shit about them, you'll give a shit about the battle.

My worry with 'prequel winking' isn't necessarily with them adding stuff to make the movies more LOTRish, it's with them filling it with direct visual shout outs to the old ones to play on your nostalgia. Makes it feel like they're maybe a little too aware of the series' iconic status.

Quote:

Originally Posted by MichaelM 

My guess is that the narrative break will come either just before the dwarves and Bilbo enter Mirkwood, or when they escape the Wood Elves.

Entering Mirkwood seems like the likely break.  Probably shot similar to the final shot of Two Towers, with the camera moving up to reveal the dark, foreboding forest sprawling off into the horizon.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Paul C 

The latter two LOTR movies cross cut between climactic sequences all the time and it worked okay (though I always find the end of TTT exhausting). I find the idea that the battle would seem inconsequential just because other stuff is also happening a bit odd. I mean most of the main characters you've been following the whole time are involved; if you give a shit about them, you'll give a shit about the battle.

 

My worry with 'prequel winking' isn't necessarily with them adding stuff to make the movies more LOTRish, it's with them filling it with direct visual shout outs to the old ones to play on your nostalgia. Makes it feel like they're maybe a little too aware of the series' iconic status.

The two battles at the end of Two Towers were essentially the defeat of the same villain (Saruman), just on different fronts.  Same with ROTK.  What The Hobbit seems to be doing would be like Star Wars cutting from the Death Star attack to a battle on Coruscant against the Emperor.

And I don't think all this talk of "prequel winking" is strictly fair, since the book existed long before LOTR did.  This isn't some invention from whole cloth.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Richard Dickson 

Entering Mirkwood seems like the likely break.  Probably shot similar to the final shot of Two Towers, with the camera moving up to reveal the dark, foreboding forest sprawling off into the horizon.

 

And when the screen goes black....the brief chittering of spiders!