This article was written exclusively for Nerdsburgh by resident Tolkien enthusiast:
JOSH WOLF
The green screen declared that the following preview had been approved for all audiences and I was already excited. By the time Gollum hissed, “What is a Bagginses, precious?” I was downright giddy. When the trailer for The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey ended I thought, “Wow, Peter Jackson did it again!” Then I realized with some anxiousness, “Peter Jackson did it again.” Let me explain.
I lived my teenage years in standard nerd fashion – Boy Scouts, marching band, drama club, Civil War reenacting, and Dungeons and Dragons. Like most nerds I was (and am) an avid reader and since the age of thirteen, J.R.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings have been my favorite books. My last reading brought my count to fifteen and I have read The Hobbit almost as many times.
I loved Jackson’s Fellowship of the Ring – in so many ways, he created on film the Middle Earth I had pictured so often in my mind. I could quibble about the absence of Tom Bombadil or the mediocre acting of Liv Tyler, but all in all the movie was a masterpiece. The Two Towers was great, as well. It was not the masterpiece that Fellowship was, but it set the stage wonderfully for The Return of the King, which has always been the best of Tolkien’s work in my opinion. Unfortunately, when Return was released I found myself sorely disappointed. From the Army of the Damned to the warrior acrobatics of Legolas, I felt like Jackson emphasized CGI over story. The omission of the scourging of the Shire was a terrible decision. The re-imagining of Faramir into a more Boromir-like character made no sense. I do not hate The Return of the King, but I do not love it either. I liked the movie, but to see the strongest book turned into the weakest movie was, in my opinion, truly heart-breaking.
Will Peter Jackson once again shatter my fragile nerd psyche with The Hobbit movies? My gut reaction based off the trailer is a hopeful no.
The first of the two Hobbit movies, entitled An Unexpected Journey, looks awesome...and I mean that in the most literal way possible. Like the trilogy, The Hobbit was also filmed in the picturesque landscape of New Zealand. Ian Mckellan will once again portray the mighty Gandalf while the role of Bilbo Baggins will be played by Martin Freeman, who is an ideal cross between Elijah Wood’s Frodo and Ian Holm’s elderly Bilbo from the movie trilogy. The dwarves as a whole are great at a glance and their song gave me goose bumps however, if there is anything that gives me pause, it is Bombur who looks a bit cartoonish in his obesity.
If the goal of a successful movie trailer is to make a movie look so appealing consumers are willing to spend their hard earned money on $10-15 bucks a ticket, then The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey trailer succeeds on all counts. If this movie came out next week instead of next year, I might be writing this from a tent pitched next to my local AMC instead of from the comfort of my living room.
In conclusion, it is with nervous anticipation and hopeful excitement that I anxiously await the first of the two Hobbit films. In the meantime, however, I will reread The Hobbit and maybe the trilogy and ponder how Smaug will look when the second Hobbit movie is released in the all too distant future, December 2013.
The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey - December 14, 2012
The Hobbit: There and Back Again - December 13, 2013
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