New trailer for 'The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey'

[Lalwendë]

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.

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.

[Inziladun]

Originally Posted by Lalwendë

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.

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.

[William Cloud Hicklin]

Rabbit sled???

[Mithalwen]

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

[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.”

[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.