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14 Comments

  1. Water Lily
    Water Lily December 21, 2011 8:09 am

    I cannot wait!

  2. EN
    EN December 21, 2011 8:38 am

    Looking forward to it… of course that’s a year from now and I’m not counting on anything to be even remotely the same as it is today by next December.

  3. Laird
    Laird December 21, 2011 8:39 am

    I would HOPE that it looks a lot like LOTR. After all, it’s a prequel: set in the same land, with many of the same characters (including, thankfully, many of the same actors), and of course it’s made by the same people. It looks like a fine adaptation, and I’ve always liked The Hobbit more than LOTR anyway. I’m looking forward to seeing it. Thanks for the trailer.

  4. Claire
    Claire December 21, 2011 8:52 am

    Laird, I agree on the look of the thing and was also delighted to see some of the same actors (especially Ian McKellen; can you imagine adjusting to anybody else playing Gandalf?). Only reason it feels weird to me is that The Hobbit — the book, anyhow — is a much lighter story than LOTR. I remember thinking as I read it that it was a book any child could love, while LOTR is a dark, scary thing.

    Yeah, I know The Hobbit concerns the finding of the One Ring, but its tone was always jovial — and that trailer shows only touches of joviality. It looks as dark and foreboding as the LOTR movies.

    Still, I’m with everybody else on wanting to see it. It’s one of the rare ones I’ll go to a theater for.

  5. EN
    EN December 21, 2011 8:53 am

    Now see, this is why you play the game. I much prefer LOTRs to the Hobbit, which always seemed more like a childs book to me. There’s a tendency to classify all Tolkien fans as one group but to me there’s a divide between those who prefer the Hobbit to LOTR. Just something I’ve noticed going on 40 (plus) years.

  6. Claire
    Claire December 21, 2011 8:58 am

    EN — Yeah. What you said! That’s part of why the identical look and feel is so jarring.

    I read LOTR before The Hobbit — and was hugely surprised by the differences. The Hobbit is a cute story and content-wise a great setup for what follows, but it’s worlds away from LOTR in spirit.

  7. EN
    EN December 21, 2011 9:24 am

    I wasn’t really interested in seeing the Hobbit. Read the book (once… LOTR many times) and wasn’t all that impressed. The darkness of the trailer makes it much more likely. Could that be intentional on Peter Jackson’s part?

  8. Mic
    Mic December 21, 2011 12:43 pm

    I love that this film looks so much like LOTR. While it is true many perceive The Hobbit to be a lighter story I have always felt it was ONE story from beginning to end. Whenever I undertook another reading of LOTR I always started with The Hobbit. The fact that Peter Jackson is doing it in a way that ties these together in theme and feel is awesome for people like me.

  9. Victor Milán
    Victor Milán December 21, 2011 2:11 pm

    I’m with Mic on this.

    While THE HOBBIT does have a lighter tone than LOTR, it has plenty of dark moments, to say the least.

    Also, what I gather from the trailer (and the fact they’re splitting a fairly short book into two feature films) is that they’re fleshing out the original yarn with more of the backstory to LOTR, such as the White Council’s investigation of the Necromancer of Dol Guldur and his corruption of Mirkwood.

    That’s likely to give the movies a darker overall tone than the novel, yes. But if pulled off properly the two movies could flow naturally into the filmed trilogy to produce a whole even greater than the parts. And since it’s Peter Jackson doing this, I for one dare hope for that outcome.

  10. Samuel Adams
    Samuel Adams December 21, 2011 5:15 pm

    *Of course* it looks so much like LoTR. Having completely rebuilt New Zealand to film LoTR, they had all these sets they had to re-use.

    🙂

    Peter Jackson also funded *District 9*. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1136608/. Also well worth seeing, although you may not like doing so.

  11. Claire
    Claire December 21, 2011 5:52 pm

    Samuel Adams — District 9 is a TERRIFIC movie! And quite a story behind its creation. I’d forgotten that Jackson helped make it happen.

  12. Claire
    Claire December 21, 2011 5:53 pm

    Oh, and I thought they tore down New Zealand after LOTR. Well, glad they’re still getting some use out of the place.

  13. The Infamous Oregon Lawhobbit
    The Infamous Oregon Lawhobbit December 22, 2011 12:06 pm

    Claire, The Hobbit *is* “lighter” fare, but looked at objectively you could compare the differences – sort of – to how Hollywood treated monster movies in the 50s, vs. the graphic depictions of gore you see today. Presuming it’s in the movie, I, for one, am not looking forward to seeing the Mirkwood Spiders scene. While treated lightly in the book, it doesn’t take a lot of imagination to sort out what was really going on there….

  14. JF
    JF December 24, 2011 6:26 am

    I’m a bit late to this table, but if I am reading this correctly, the books LOTR and The Hobbit are different because they were written by two different “authors”—Frodo and Bilbo. Having read LOTR and Simarillion several times, I enjoyed revisiting The Hobbit and discovering its handful of references to ancient history and darker undertones.

    As for the movies, Jackson and Company have established a mammoth audience with the LOTR trilogy. It would be foolish if The Hobbit didn’t appeal to that massive number of happy ticket purchasers.

    I love the look and feeler of the trailer and am looking forward to the two films!

    PS — Claire, I am looking forward to reading that article too . . .

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