New trailer for 'The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey'
 

Hello everyone,
I just thought I'd post the link to at least IGN's upload of the new trailer (released a few hours ago) for the upcoming film; it's the best one I can find.
http://www.ign.com/videos/2012/09/19...rney-trailer-2
This trailer is reinforcing my attitude towards these films as more of a vague sort of tribute to The Hobbit rather than a particularly serious attempt at adaptation. The Dwarves don't seem too bad to me and personally I think Martin Freeman looks like he will be enjoyable as Bilbo. Elrond, however, seems to be being portrayed as a grump once again and the "White Council vs the Necromancer" plot is if anything making me more uneasy as time goes on.
The CGI looks significantly more... artificial than I expected, as well, although perhaps that's just a quality of the trailer. Gandalf sounds a bit different too.
This trailer still suggests that the focus will remain on Bilbo and the Dwarves which I very much hope is the case because I am rather worried that it will become distracted in an effort to make the story more "epic", ie more like The Lord of the Rings and therefore more marketable.

Looks as if tying the movies to the LOTR films is indeed more important to them than telling the story of The Hobbit. The "comic" uses of the dwarves give more than a little unwelcome sense of deja vu.
Also, I don't remember 1990's action-hero head-butts being used in the books. :rolleyes:

A Reverie on a Trailer (Requiem for The Hobbit)

These Naugrim look undwarvish,
And those Wargs from Harry Potter!
Radagast and his rabbits
Don't seem quite like they oughter.

Gandalf convinces Galadriel
That the story needs a Baggins,
But there's a whiff of faint unease,
A little something nagging --

That causes me to question
All this murk so dark and dim
That saturates each sequence
With foul fan-fiction whim!

Has Jackson filmed 'The Hobbit'
Or is this some mad contrivance?
A blue-screen concocted prequel
With the studio's connivance?

There's an annotated copy
Leaning lornly on my shelf,
And we wonder -- yes we wonders,
Precious, is this film now something else?

With comedy butted dwarvish broad,
But plot stretched a bit too thin --
Scraped like butter o'er too much bread --
Three films ringed end to end.

P'raps a once simple story
Of an adventurous hobbit's lot,
Has gotten flummoxed and bebothered
In a confusticated plot!

It looks like great fun, I'm even more excited. And The Hobbit is supposed to be fun, after all. I am expecting silly Dwarves at Bag End and some more bonkers bits - this, after all, is the book where the Elves sing Tra-la-la-lally.

It also gained four year old approval. :cool:

I'm a little bit freaked out to see a teeny tiny Richard Armitage though. And Elrond was pants in the LotR films, so he would have to remain in character for this, sadly. The film Elrond is utterly at odds with my own Elrond, who is a kindly sort of chap. Hugo Weaving was the wrong choice then and he still is now. Still, the Dwarves each appear to have a fully formed personality which is fab.

I noticed the Stone Giant and I think a certain director has been watching Trollhunter.

True, but the problem is that PJ's idea of "humor" seems incompatible with the subject book. He ought to be aiming for this, but I'm getting more a feeling of this. ;)

Rabbit sled???

:eek::eek::eek:

I had forgotten just how much I hated albino Mekon Gollum... and what is Elrond doing with the giant icecube?

Seconded.

And absolutely seconded. Giant icecube!

The first trailer was, after watching it several times, pretty good, actually. This one is pretty bad, Inzil's note about Mr. J. J. B. is sadly true (the ending - ouch!). And Radagast-hobo is truly, truly sad. Don't take me wrong, I like hoboes. But this one is really, really wrong. Such a pitiful old loser. This one certainly did not deserve the right to be sent back on any ship in any age. Likewise, Cate Blanchett is certainly beautiful, but the scene makes one really wonder what purpose does her presence serve there. The drowsy-voice spoken quote sounds a bit like when she was in the Two Towers or RotK for no apparent purpose having mind-conversations with Elrond which didn't really make any sense (as in, anybody else could have been saying that there). "Mithrandir, why the halfling?" is already stuck in my head and will probably be a quote repeated on some fitting silly occassions even if I decide to go and see the whole movie. Which I am somehow beginning to doubt after this one.

And I already hate Merry and Pippin. Sorry, I meant Fili and Kili. Because of their accents. I don't know how native English-speakers see this, but that accent just annoys me when it's used on purpose... and here it certainly is. Agan of course already likes them, not only because of how they look, but because they sound like Jon Snow on top of that.

And it is really terrible what they did to the trolls. They are still turtles. Tom, Bert and Bill are supposed to have personalities, for Morgoth's sake! At least the Wolves are not puma-hippo crossbreeds this time, but they still look terribly CGI-zed, if you ask me, just from the few shots. In other words, Smaug is the only hope for a good design that remains to me after seeing this. Because apart from the old characters (like Gandalf) and the more or less neutral portrayal of Bilbo and the Dwarves, they still have the ugly Gollum, they have the ugly trolls, they have Rada"JustCrawledOutOfADustbinOnTheFifteenthAvenue" Gast... *hides face*

I would like to note that I had the best intentions to approach this movie unbiased. This trailer does not help it, though. I can still hope it just happened to be the collection of the worst moments in the movie. Hope.

But okay, not to end on a completely pessimistic note, there is one thing I actually liked and I have to mention it, because I really really think it's good. Despite my initial thoughts about it when the first pics were leaked a long time ago. Thorin is absolutely awesome. He is not really the way I imagine him, but I think (judging of course only from the trailers) he has the potential of becoming the character type of movie Boromir - also completely different from how I imagine him, but really good in his own way. Of course I didn't see much of the other Dwarves except for them bumping their heads together, eating and speaking in silly accents. But Thorin does neither of these, and he is cool. Like, in the full sense of the word. He is serious (unlike the other Dwarves - and I think that perfectly shows the point of Thorin's "aristocraticness" as shown in the first chapter of the Hobbit, thumbs up to that). He is "leader", for certain. Determined. "Burning desire for revenge", indeed, I can imagine he's been feeling that for years. So I take back everything I have said on my initial impression of him being a "second Aragorn" (even though he of course is a bit, but in his case it works well - again, at least from the trailer. It even works well if he is a bit haughty and even a bit arrogant, because he is supposed to be - unlike Aragorn). Thorin might be the reason to make me watch that movie.

At least the Wolves are not puma-hippo crossbreeds this time, but they still look terribly CGI-zed, if you ask me, just from the few shots.

Amazingly I'll speak up for once in PJ's defense: CGI footage in a trailer is often a rough cut, which will be further polished before release. Dig around for the old FR trailers and you'll see what I mean.

But the Jar-Jar thing is very, very well taken. While the Hobbit does indeed have a great deal of humour, it tends to be wry and puckish; Tolkien just didn't do Laurel & Hardy. (With of course one slapstick exception- the last group of Dwarves falling in a heap on Bilbo's doormat).

And Radagast of Skid Row!!!!! THIS is how to portray one of the Istari, an Ainu from before the beginning of Time?

Let's not get too precious about TH - its a children's book, & I doubt PJ will manage to outdo Tolkien's own Tra-la-la-ly's - or worse:

Radagast looks quite interesting - reminds me of accounts of Shamans the world over - & when TH was written neither Gandalf nor Radagast were Ainur. When Gandalf became one during the writing of LotR then so must his 'cousin', I'm much more comfortable with what I've seen of TH than with much of the LotR films. TH was a novel even Tolkien himself was a bit sniffy about:

This is interesting - a compilation of four alternate endings to the trailer - new material! http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature...&v=fZKdRLS1fk4

The drowsy (dozy?) Elf speech always irritates me. At least we don't see them enough to make it a big issue.

They are Northern, so they have Northern accents! It's perfectly correct! I've noticed other Dwarves who sound Irish/Scots and that's acceptable too. Posh accents have no place in Middle-earth. Note that even Gandalf still sounds a bit Northern and Bilbo isn't posh either. Crikey, a film cast with actors who sounded like Tolkien would need to have subtitles because everyone would be sat there going "Eh? What?" And posh Dwarves would be more wrong than all the wrong things put together from all the Tolkien adaptations ;)

Really, the whole thing, whether it's faithful or divergent, whether it gets picked apart because they use the wrong colour of beard, hangs on the acting. It's this that takes you on the journey and I cannot see anyone who is miscast (apart from Hugo Weaving with his disco eyebrows as Elrond), in fact the cast could not be more perfect. I know I was right all those years in agitating for Martin Freeman as Bilbo, my favourite character in the whole legendarium. We know Ian McKellen is right, and there are other obvious winners. The one who I think is going to sneak up and steal all the scenes is James Nesbitt.

The problem with comedy is everyone has different tastes. Some will want Python-esque, but let's be honest, nobody has ever pulled off Python-esque except the Pythons themselves, and even then not in any way consistently. Python was funny because it traded on contemporary morals and politics and got laughs out of being shocking/smutty and The Hobbit is not the place for that in any way. What it can do is have silly and bizarre moments, which are something Tolkien specialised in. And with rabbit sleds in the mix, it sounds like that is going to happen.

Strikes me though that we have criticism that the films are going to be too dark and epic, but on the other hand, any hints of humour or light-heartedness get criticised. So from this I deduce that nothing will satisfy some as you cannot have it both ways ;)

I loved it. My question is: Will the elves be singing their silly little welcoming songs?

You're probably right, there. You can't out-Tolkien Tolkien, after all. :cool:

It'd be nice to see PJ and Co. show that they respect the source material a bit more, though. I just get tired of the silly, unnecessary add-ons like the cringe-inducing Galadriel and Gandalf scene where she touches his hair, or the aforementioned dwarven head-butt.

But he is having it both ways... that was like two completely different films edited together.

I was shocked to learn that the giant troll that fell on the Dwarves in that one "comic" scene was, in fact, not a troll at all! It seems that lumbering behemoth is...the Great Goblin! What the fudgesicle?

Ummm...correct me if I am wrong (I am getting quite addle-pated as I get older), but from anyone's reading of The Hobbit, did you picture the Great Goblin that huge? What does Sauron need Uruk-hai for if he can breed leviathan orcs?

That is surprising! But looking back on the trailer I notice that he does seem to be wearing a crown. I would make some flimsy attempt to justify this decision by referring to "Boldog" or something like that but to be honest I'm pretty resigned to PJ and co's rather wacky interpretation of the source material. I'm hoping that if I go in there not expecting The Hobbit but rather something inspired by it then I won't find it frustrating. I'm really trying to spoil it for myself as much as possible so that I don't end up being disappointed.
Personally I think it looks like it could still be a fun adventure film if viewed from a certain perspective. For me the main issue I have with the films and (and some elements of their fandom) is that to my mind too much credit is given to Peter Jackson and not enough to Professor Tolkien himself.
They are similar, aren't they? Noble characters with a hubristic flaw who both lose their lives to gain redemption. I only wish Thorin was a little older-looking; I'm not sure it's common knowledge that he was the oldest of the company, even a little older than Balin. I also noticed from the earlier trailer that Óin and Glóin's names are again to be pronounced to rhyme with "coin" - shouldn't it sound more like "Owin" and "Glowin"? That's what I was taught in my Old Norse course at uni at least...
I also noticed that, in accordance with rumours that have been floating around, we seem to see nothing past the events of Chapter VI "Out of the Frying-Pan into the Fire" which suggests to me that the film may end as early as before Beorn! If this is borne out (Beorn out? No?) I think it's going to feel absolutely torturous as a trilogy - escaping Mirkwood seemed as good a place as any to split the story back when it was only two films.

That is perfectly fine. I love the Hobbit and for me, with all the "childishness", it is a part of the universe as any other. But PJ is using different sort of humor, not childish, but he's using the "modern" stupid humor of all the current movies with animated children, talking cars, robots and Jar Jars. The stupid American movie humor. (Sorry Americans. But that's just how it is. Not that nowadays also others wouldn't do that, sadly.)

But in PJ's universe Gandalf already is established that way, and Radagast should be as well. Of course, strictly speaking, in PJ's universe we never heard anything about Ainur, but basically we know of Saruman and Gandalf being those powerful wizards, Gandalf even with this "transcendent" dimension to him, so that should be taken into account when talking about Radagast too...

Look, I am not a native English speaker, so of course my choice is based only on my aesthetic impression :) And it is simply so that I get the impression very often some people are pretending to have some accent while they in fact don't and it sounds terrible. On top of that, this particular accent is not aesthetically pleasant, just like Pippin's isn't, if you ask me. Or not in the way he does it. It's annoying.

The problem with comedy is everyone has different tastes. Some will want Python-esque, but let's be honest, nobody has ever pulled off Python-esque except the Pythons themselves, and even then not in any way consistently. Python was funny because it traded on contemporary morals and politics and got laughs out of being shocking/smutty and The Hobbit is not the place for that in any way. What it can do is have silly and bizarre moments, which are something Tolkien specialised in. And with rabbit sleds in the mix, it sounds like that is going to happen.

Well exactly! I think it is too extreme in both directions. Which is exactly wrong. And again, most of these epic fantasy/SF/thriller/whatever movies nowadays are like that, sadly. In one scene, you have the characters pretending how dead serious they all are, over-the-top sad music as somebody tells how their parents were murdered when he was five, and the next minute, a fat man eating crisps falls on top of their head from upstairs, telling some unlikely joke.

I think, in fact, with the Hobbit, the combination of the darkness behind might actually be good. Tolkien, after all, does work with all these "deeper, darker, older things in the background" (Moria, Durin, Necromancer - as he says himself). But the counterweight to this should not be Obelix falling from a tree, but some light, British humor. And the fairytale-elements should remain just that, fairytale. Fairytale borders the "unlikely", like Beorn's animals talking, but it isn't supposed to be outright stupid. "Weird" or "silly" does not equal "stupid". And again, PJ - no eye for nuances, the oldest and biggest problem of his.

Besides, a rabbit-sled is certainly enslaving the poor animals and forcing them to do hard labor ;) Something Radagast would never do.

I'm only wondering, that just occured to me, whether PJ isn't trying to "make up for missing Tom Bombadil". Because this rabbit-sled approach seems more like that. Valar save us if that is his motive behind all this...

I'm afraid not. Which is a pity. Well, not in PJ's way of showing it, anyway. But I would welcome that ten times more than ten Obelixes.

Mith, you seem to be reading my mind on these issues. That is exactly the feeling I'm getting after this trailer.

Indeed! That was also something I haven't noticed until Lommy pointed that out to me, there seems to be Gandalf on top of a burning tree. So that's pretty neat (I hope he really gets to throw different-colored burning cones - heck, that is an opportunity for action scene with super CGI effects, and a justified one, so they'd better make the best of that!). As for Beorn, it seems that Radagast will be taking his place. Which is fine with me. (Or would be, if Radagast wasn't such a pitiful specimen... like I said.)

It really seems that we're going to end now somewhere either in front of Mirkwood or at the beginning of it... it really makes one wonder what remains for the future. I mean, sure there is still lot to happen, but most of the "dynamic" stuff happens before reaching Lake-Town. Agh, unless we are going to have hour and half long battle for Helm's... I mean, Erebor. Which is surely possible. No, not possible, likely. Well...

A cool moment to end the movie would be "Where are you? Balin! Dwalin! Thorin Oakenshield!" - after getting lost in Mirkwood. Bilbo alone in the darkness, fade out... certainly a way to make the audience expect the following one.

Query: Are we going to see "lesser spawn of Ungoliant", as in, is PJ going to bring us some homage to his "green dying person is being carefully wrapped in spider webs" scene? I'd expect that. (That's not negative, for once. I dislike the portrayal of it, personally - though half of it was because of Frodo making his drooling show of it again - but PJ's going to disappoint me greatly if he does not bring some "nudge nudge you have seen this before" moment.)

As far as I know Beorn is going to turn up at some point though - the beginning of the second film perhaps, if they are indeed ending it with the Eagles. The role has been cast: a Swedish actor whose work I am not personally familiar with, Mikael Persbrandt. Also, having watched the production videos they showed some footage of the set of his house, very oversized with giant furniture and what not. As I recall Richard Armitage said in the video that it was one of his favourite sets.
As for Radagast, I just don't see why he needs to be given a role personally, except to sell action figures perhaps. Given that the evidence we get of him suggests that he was a somewhat nervous person and that by the time of The Lord of the Rings he appears to have practically gone into hiding, especially by the time of the Council when he couldn't be found, I don't see how he has a place even in the story of the White Council and the Necromancer. Perhaps they wanted a canonical character to help bloat the story, and his adventure with Gandalf and the "Ringwraith tomb" or whatever it is will be used to explain his absence from the films of The Lord of the Rings. It just seems strange to me given that there's not even evidence for him being a member of the White Council. I always speculated that he almost certainly was but eventually just stopped turning up to meetings.
The "Ringwraith tomb" rumour, incidentally, is really the most irritating thing I've heard the whole time. It would have been almost impossible to convey within the film, but it always frustrated me that the very existence of Arnor (and Angmar) was completely omitted from the films of The Lord of the Rings and now it sounds like it's being taken to pad out these films and warped into something quite alien to Professor Tolkien's own conception.

Ah really? I didn't know about that. Well, that would be pretty neat, then. Or, hopefully. I'm curious, then, in any case.

Radagast most certainly was a White Council member. And he certainly played some role in the attack on Dol Guldur - after all, he lived basically next door and could, if nothing else, provide some "logistics plan" etc. And Radagast certainly didn't go into "hiding" or anything by the time of LotR - not from the Council members, anyway - he just neglected his mission. But as we know, he still responded to his superior's (Saruman's) call to fetch Gandalf, and likewise responded to Gandalf's call to gather messages and send them via birds to Orthanc...

What tomb? (I am completely ignorant regarding all movie rumors, so excuse my lack of knowledge.) Isn't it just something that happens in Dol Guldur?

At the risk of being pedantic, for which I apologise in advance, is it ever stated anywhere that Radagast specifically was a White Council member? Aren't the only absolutely one hundred percent confirmed White Council members Saruman, Gandalf, Elrond, Galadriel and Círdan? Given that we know virtually nothing about the exact nature of the Council's attack on Dol Guldur it worries me how PJ is going to interpret it. But you do have a point, given Rhosgobel's proximity to Mirkwood I suppose it makes sense to give him some role. I always got the impression Radagast was a character who could have been included more overtly in a number of events or referenced by other characters (Treebeard or Bombadil, perhaps) if maybe Professor Tolkien had been more interested in him as a character.
I'm not sure to be honest; I'd just heard it mentioned regarding the footage of the Gandalf and Radagast subplot that they go to a "Ringwraith tomb" and that Galadriel in one scene says something about the Witch-King and the other Wraiths being "sealed away" by the Dúnedain of the North or something to that effect. If this explanation is indeed given in the film it certainly raises the question of how they explain Minas Morgul being captured if the Black Captain spent about one thousand years stuck in a tomb...

I must confess I am not sure if Radagast is ever specifically mentioned. I am at least sure he is never mentioned by name, but I am not sure whether there isn't something along the lines of "all Istari were members of the Council..." or something of such sort. In any case, when you are reading the things related to the Council (especially in the UT), it seems to me to give the strong impression that Radagast is counted among those (or, that it makes much more sense to count him in than to count him out). Especially since much of the Council's activity (its formation, among the most important things) revolve around Dol Guldur/Mirkwood - the whole "Watchful Peace" period etc. seem like Radagast could, or even should, play a role there (again, for the same reasons as I have stated above).

Uh-huh. I hope it is just a rumor... Though of course, at this point, Gandalf and everyone can be pretty well misinformed about the fate of the Ringwraith (after all, they did think they were gone). I am just not sure if PJ is clever enough to realise it and make such a clever "double-trick" subplot out of it...

To be fair, Gandalf the Grey was established as a slightly batty, scruffy chap in PJ's films, it was only when he became Gandalf the White that he became 'noble/angelic' etc. And it looks like Gandalf the Grey will again be that eccentric old duffer with mucky robes and a messy beard in The Hobbit so it's not that strange that Radagast is like the Swampy of Mirkwood. And I quite like these trampy old wizards, as davem says, they are more like the shamen of the woods than nice, shiny wizards and that's more interesting to me.


Billy Boyd's accent was his native one! ;) I'm not sure about the other chap but Aidan Turner is Irish - he can 'do' accents very well though. And we've only heard a snippet of it so far so there's nowt to criticise. Northern accents are the most aesthetically pleasing of all, and the most correct, posh ones being a French aberration ;)

British humour isn't 'light', that's just the stuff that gets exported. The majority of British humour is very harsh, even quite cruel and crude. Slapstick is essentially violence, and then you have satire and black humour, plenty of toilet humour and trading on embarrassment. Some of the comedy that's on British TV would make people in other countries have palpitations, it's so offensive. A big naked goblin being flung at dwarves is very British. I'm not saying this is a good or a bad thing! But it's nothing out of the ordinary. It's a bit League of Gentlemen, actually...

This is why I can handle the idea of the rabbit sled. My first thought was the killer rabbit in The Holy Grail - another strand of British humour is absurdity. Jackson does use crude comedy like belching etc in his films but that's another strong feature of British humour. "More tea, vicar?!"

I'm not sure where the idea of a Jar Jar Binks character being in the films is coming from though. I'm tempted to think that if the Tra-la-la-lally-ing is left in then it will indeed be corny.

It's not that I or most anyone would object to humor in the movies- adaptations of what is after all a very funny book in places.

The issue is the WRONG KIND of humor- as stated above, "stupid American movie humor." And that's the problem. Tolkien's humor was dry, puckish, donnish, clever- even when aimed at children it's aimed at *bright* children- PJ's humor belongs with the Farrelly Brothers and Adam Sandler.

This is not in the British humor tradition, nowhere on the Anglospectrum from refined to crude, from Austen to Python to Benny Hill.

(Note on the Pythons- the Trolls' Gandalf-aided argument over how to cook 13 dwarves and a Burrahobbit is actually fairly Pythonesque. But then the 5 British Pythons were all Oxbridge products, after all).

Sure, sure. But the point is that since seeing Gandalf the White, the audience already knows that the Wizards are something more than just scruffy old men. And when you watch the movie for the second time with that knowledge in mind, you can still see the "hidden power" aspect in Gandalf, or Saruman, for that matter. Of course, it remains to be seen what they do with Radagast - maybe he's going to have that too. But just on first sight, the "air" is not very pleasant.

I'm not presuming to judge whether accents are natural or not, they sound fake. To me. :) Like when all the Dwarves in all the fantasy games or who knows what have these fake Scottish accents or who knows what. As for "posh ones" - I have no idea what you mean by "posh", when you say "posh", I imagine the overdone "high-class" English (thinking the classic over the top versions of My Fair Lady professors). I prefer normal English. Something in the limits. The stuff we hear from most people in most normal movies. Average.

I think I'd be fine with that. I am not British, so I cannot 100% say I know what British humour is like, but I think I have some basic ideas. Yes indeed, satire, black humour and absurdity is what I think of. They say Czech humour is very similar to British one, and when I think of e.g. the use of black humour, satire or (perhaps in lesser manner for mainstream Czech humour) absurdity, I tend to agree, at least from the Czech part and as far as I have seen or heard (what comes to my mind from the TV now are the Pythons, Red Dwarf, Rowan Atkinson, Black Books - there is the sort of central line to it which is similar).

But I fail to see the falling of the Goblin on top of the folks as having anything in common with the spirit of the kind of humour I could even remotely connect with The Hobbit. The rabbit sled is just weird. Of course, the rabbit sled is taken out of context in the trailer, but it gives the impression that it is just like in, I don't know, Ice Age where the folks are sliding down that icy tunnel. Nothing wrong about that, but does it belong into The Hobbit? With Radagast? If there was a similar thing with Bilbo falling down the crack to Gollum's cave, sure. But he's the hobbit. Radagast is not. Simple as that.

Absolutely well said.

You're wrong about Tolkien's sense of humour, he was fond of being silly and playing pranks, one of them involving stealing a bus, which would have any modern day yobbo marked down as a Twoccer and slapped with an Asbo! People think of him as an old stiff when he wasn't anything of the sort. I've just heard on the TV now about how he and the Inklings would get drunk and read aloud the work of a writer known to produce 'purple prose' while trying not to laugh. Sounds rather like the pub game people play now where they read 50 Shades of Grey aloud and have to get a round in if they start laughing.

There's plenty of silliness in The Hobbit aimed at all children (no need to be snooty about bright and thick children, they all get it, he wrote it for his own kids after all who were nothing special, it wasn't a pre-designed product targeted at the hothoused offspring of Islington intellectuals, just some fun).

What I've seen in the trailers could be straight out of any number of British comedy programmes. That naked goblin is grotesque and the sort of thing you might expect on The League of Gentlemen or The Young Ones. I can also see Simon Pegg using something grim like that. The rabbit sled could be from Wallace and Gromit. Burps and food chucking can be from dozens of things. And those are the only things we've seen so far, so it can't be judged more than this. We have still to see Stephen Fry or how Martin Freeman will no doubt handle the intro scene wonderfully knowing how good he was in The Office (that scene being one of my favourite comedy passages ever written - straight out of Yes, Minister). Even casting my mind back to the LotR films I can only think of one 'joke' that was out of place and that was Gimli's burp.

The burrahobbit joke would actually be more akin to the wordplay of the Two Ronnies or Reeves & Mortimer. The Pythons didn't really 'do' that kind of thing.

But it's a straw man argument to say the humour is wrong because it's 'American' - that type of humour is not 'American', it is also British, and the point is whether it's going to work in the film or not. Whether it is 'American' isn't the point.

Yes, the Goblin thing is probably not what you'd expect after reading The Hobbit, though it's perfectly in tune with British humour. Which is what I'm arguing - that's not specifically American humour so to use that argument against it is a straw man (and I am sick and fed up with the rest of the world assuming all our comedy is twee Richard Curtis stuff when that comprises about 0.001% of it).

And it also fits in with geek humour being grim and unexpected, and the geek audience needs to be won, like it or not (what I'm hinting at here is please do expect even more OTT things).

The rabbit sled fits perfectly though. It's both very silly and very weird. And that's weird as in otherworldly, not as in out of place. I rather like it in conjunction with Sylvester McCoy who was the nuttiest Doctor Who. And I think that's something that the younger market who will understand goblin tossing will likely not go for. So quite brave, too, to think up something like that.


Well average is what you hear from Fili and Kili. From one line I've no inkling of which of the dozens of northern accents they're trying to do, but it sounds fairly normal to me. As does Ian McKellen, who still retains his accent. And Sean Bean, who failed to disguise his as Boromir. Richard Armitage also retains his normal voice which is generic East Midlands - gently northern sounding, not as rich as say Sean Bean's.

Well firstly, of course if it came down to that, one could say that there isn't really anything like a "British" or "American" humour, really. At least I, being a very strong opponent of all generalisations, would argue that. This kind of jokes like falling goblin is present everywhere and it is just a certain kind of humour. However, why I think these generalisations can be used (when we aren't making them a set fact) is that the major, mainstream or most famous movies (since we are speaking about movies and TV) coming from these countries, at least lately, tend to have this particular type of humour in them more than elsewhere. Or: it is more distinct in comparison to others. That's not to say you can't have an "American" joke in a British movie or vice versa, and anyway I am not claiming to be an expert on the British humour (I can't be), but there are some prevailing things that seem to be a British "speciality", if you wish. Simply put, when you are observing from the outside, you say: "Well this is the kind of humour others really don't have so much".

But this is all a sort of meta-discussion. The basic point being, and you said that, the Goblin thing is not in tune with the Hobbit. And for me, not even the sled - from what I have seen. But truth be told, we haven't seen very much yet. Heck, it's a three minute trailer (and on top of that, very probably made to contain the scenes aiming at certain kind of audience).

Huh, I had to even look up who Richard Curtis is. On wikipedia. (Tells something about me, I know. :) ) But apart from Mr. Bean, if you are thinking that when somebody says "British humour", I imagine Love Actually or such, then that's certainly wrong. I was never thinking of anything of that sort, for sure.

No, it's average accent of something. Since I am an outsider, let me say how I hear it (but of course many outsiders' experiences would tell you differently, based on their expertise in English): Ian McKellen has "normal English". Likewise I think Sean Bean. These Dwarven guys have an accent, however, and that's it.

My personal observation, of course. I think it may show how differently things can be perceived :) (Even more so if some other foreigner told you something even completely different.) This movie is of course English (American-British-whatever), though being such an international blockbuster as it definitely is aiming to be, there will be certainly many non-native English speakers in the audience, and some may have similar impression to mine. Anyway, I wasn't here to argue that my point was in any way "right", I simply said what I think, and that is that I don't like the accent the way these guys say it. :)

Originally posted by Legate:
Here in the U.S I have a good friend that feels the same way. Whether the accent is Irish, Scottish or Welsh, to him, they all sound "fake" or "pretentious," over the top scenery chewing. He hated Billy Boyd's accent despite my telling him that's just the way he talks. I think (in his case) that it's because these accents have a lilt to them, a musicality lacking in the more "generic" versions of spoken English. This gives these accents a theatrical quality that seems almost deliberate, like these actors are trying too hard to enhance the attention they get out of their part. Personally, I like it, though if it really was deliberate, I probably wouldn't.

Well indeed! I think much of the criticism can't be levelled at it yet (even if it's going to be levelled at all) because all we've seen are some trailers and we all know that trailers are basically adverts aimed at specific people.

I'm convinced that the rabbit sled is going to work. At first I was "Whaaaat?" But then I thought about how 'wacky' The Hobbit actually is and I think as far as invention goes, it may well be a good one. It's rather like the Olympic opening ceremony, which sounded like it was going to be either "so bad, it's good" or "carcrash", either way it would be worth seeing - and it turned out to be a work of insane genius.

Thank goodness! :D I can't begin to tell you how terminally embarrassed I am by some of the stuff that 'represents' British culture that gets exported.

I'm beginning to think that they may be aiming for actual 'regional' accents for the different Dwarves, as James Nesbitt has retained his Ulster accent, whereas Aidan Turner doesn't seem to be using his native Irish, and it would be very easy (to non-British ears) to pass them off as sounding like they came from the same region. Though knowing both actors, the former probably can't hide his, it's so strong, but the latter has proved to be skilled at it.

I have been known to lay on my accent with a trowel if it gains me an advantage. And a Lancashire accent has plenty of rhoticity and 'singing'. So I think I know what this 'theatrical element' is ;)

I have to say that I love the fact that most of the actors are being allowed to keep their usual accents for their roles. I had feared that, having had Gimli be so overtly Scottish in LotR, all the Dwarves would be required to have Scottish accents in The Hobbit. To hear a mix of voices from the length of the country is lovely! That said, if you are going to cast James Nesbitt you are just going to have to accept the Irish accent. :D

With Fili and Kili - is one of the actors playing them naturally Northern? Because in that case it makes sense for Aiden Turner to use a northern accent than to get the other chap to try an Irish one. Most people trying to do Irish just sound appalling.

They showed the trailer at the Hobbit thing Lalaith and I went to on Friday night. As you might expect it looked better on the big screen but it still disturbs me what Radagast is doing to than hedgepig....

As for accents ..as long as those playing brothers have the same one ... it bugged me that they went to the trouble to get actors who looked plausible to play Sean Bean's father and brother and then let them have completely different accents, they might as well have let them speak their native Strine.. Unless it was meant to be a joke like Daphne's brothers in Frasier.

Originally posted by Kath:
Originally posted by Mithalwen:
Aiden Turner (Kili) is from Ireland. Dean O'Gorman (Fili) is from New Zealand. I guess we'll just have to wait until December to hear what happens with their accents. I hope I remember to listen. It's not really a high priority to me. As long as it's not too jarring.

I am so so so excited. Personally, I liked this trailer better because..... wait never mind.. i love them both

If the makers wanted to take Tolkien at his word, they's give all the Dwarves a slight Yiddish accent.... but I doubt that would be politically possible.

Oy vey! ;)

I always think Gimli's Scots accent is terrible, my own attempt at doing Mrs Goggins from Postman Pat is better :D He sounds Welsh.

Maybe they have simply gone for an accent that both actors could 'do'? Because yes, it annoyed me when family members in LotR had different accents. It annoyed me enough that all four of the main Hobbits sounded different - especially as The Shire just isn't big enough to allow for that.

See the comments by dialect coach Andrew Jack on the rationale used in the accents in The Lord of the Rings film at http://www.andrewjack.com/lord-of-th...-rationale.htm .

They generally used a Gloucestershire accent, giving to Sam a rural form of the accent and to Frodo and Bilbo one closer to RP. Merry’s accent was between the two. Pippin was given a Scottish accent because it was found that having the actor Billy Boyd do a laid-back Gloucestershire accent just didn’t work for him so they rationalized his natural Scottish accent as a Tookland accent.

What four accents did you hear?