New HOBBIT Poster Is Chock Full O' Dwarves

Love this new Hobbit poster.  Bombur caught with a mouthful of cake surrounded by dwarves both serious and cartoonish in appearance feels like exactly the right tone for this latest trip to Middle Earth.  Not quite so dour as the Lord Of The Rings trilogy, a bit sillier and more swashbuckling of a story.

My biggest fear at this point is that, in an effort to stretch this tale out over three movies, Jackson will spend too much time focused on the side stories comprised of familiar characters like Elrond and Galadriel, instead of staying with Bilbo's grand adventure*.  In that regard, the presence of an all-dwarf poster (some of which are even smiling!) fills me with glee.

Now, when are we gonna get a peak at that Cumberbatch dragon?



*Ironically, this dichotomy is the opposite of what worked in the last Tolkien trilogy; by about midway through The Two Towers I had grown bored of the Frodo/Samwise storyline in favor of Aragorn, Legolas and Gimli fighting off Sauron's uruk hai.

A New Hobbit Trailer To Lift Your Spirits

I'll be spending this coming Christmas in New Orleans with my newly minted in-laws, and they have a tradition of going to the movies to see a new release every year on Christmas day.  Obviously I'm all for that, but the debate has already begun over what will be the movie of choice for 2012.  My wife, (and likely my mother-in-law) are leaning heavily towards Tom Hooper's adaptation of Les Miserables, (which just moved it's release date to December 25th) while my brother-in-law and I are entrenched firmly in the camp for the first of Peter Jackson's three upcoming Hobbit films.

In order to plead our case, I offer up this latest trailer straight from Middle Earth.  We're finally starting to see a shift in tone here from Jackson's previous Tolkien films, something a little lighter, a little more adventurous.  The personification of this tonal shift looks strongest in Smeagol, who has not yet been tortured and twisted by decades without his Precious and seems to take real joy in messing about with the young Bilbo Baggins.

I'm still curious to see just how the 48FPS element plays itself out, especially now that accommodating theaters will be fewer and farther between than originally hoped.  Either way, bring on the Christmas popcorn!