New trailer for 'The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey'

[Legate of Amon Lanc]

Originally Posted by William Cloud Hicklin

Rabbit sled???

Seconded.

Originally Posted by Mithalwen

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

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.

[William Cloud Hicklin]

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?

[davem]

Originally Posted by William Cloud Hicklin

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:

Let's have something to eat!"
"Yes, please!"they all said together. "Thank you very much!"
Inside the hall it was now quite dark. Beorn clapped his hands, and in trotted four beautiful white ponies and several large long-bodied grey dogs. Beorn said something to them in a queer language like animal noises turned into talk. They went out again and soon came back carrying torches in their mouths, which they lit at the fire and stuck in low brackets on the pillars of the hall about the central hearth. The dogs could stand on their hind-legs when they wished, and carry things with their fore-feet. Quickly they got out boards and trestles from the side walls and set them up near the fire.
Then baabaabaa! was heard, and in came some snow-white sheep led by a large coal-black ram. One bore a white cloth embroidered at the edges with figures of animals; others bore on their broad backs trays with bowls and platters and knives and wooden spoons, which the dogs took and quickly laid on the trestle tables. ....... The other ponies came in rolling round drum-shaped sections of the logs, smoothed and polished, and low enough even for Bilbo; so soon they were all seated at Beom's table, and the hall had not seen such a gathering for many a year.

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:

“I don’t much approve of The Hobbit myself, preferring my own mythology (which is just touched on) with its consistent nomenclature – Elrond, Gondolin and Esgaroth have escaped out of it – and organized history, to this rabble of Eddaic-named dwarves out of Volüspá, newfangled hobbits and gollums (invented in an idle hour) and Anglo-Saxon runes.”

[davem]

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

[Lalwendë]

Originally Posted by Legate of Amon Lanc

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.

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

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.

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.

Originally Posted by Inziladun

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.

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

[MCRmyGirl4eva]

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

[Inziladun]

Originally Posted by Lalwendë

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

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

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.

[Mithalwen]

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

[Morthoron]

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?

[Zigûr]

Originally Posted by Morthoron

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?

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.

Originally Posted by Legate of Amon Lanc

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

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.

[Legate of Amon Lanc]

Originally Posted by davem

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:

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.)

Originally Posted by davem

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:

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...

Originally Posted by Lalwendë

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

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.

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

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...

Originally Posted by MCRmyGirl4eva

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

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.

Originally Posted by Mithalwen

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

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

Originally Posted by Zigûr

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.

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.)