It’s a year before the movie is to be released, but the first trailer for The Hobbit, directed by Peter Jackson and based on the book by JRR Tolkien, arrived online last night (the 3-D film opens next Dec. 14). It will be shown in theaters before screenings of Steven Spielberg’s The Advntures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn.

A few movie sites are complaining that it looks too much like The Lord of the Rings trilogy, also directed by Jackson and also based on a book by Tolkien, while others found it to be just what they wanted. The most exhaustive examination of  the trailer and what it reveals about the final film is on CinemaBlend.com, “The Hobbit Trailer In Detail: 5 Things We Learned.”

For those of you not up on your Middle Earth timelines, the film is the first in a two-part adaptation of Tolkien’s renowned novel which was the precursor to his Lord of the Rings trilogy. They were made into films, the first of which, The Fellowship of the Rings, came out ten years ago. Thus, the returning actors, like Ian MacKellen, are playimg characters who are  supposed to be younger than they were ten years ago.

The second film in the series, The Hobbit: There and Back Again, which was shot back-to-back with the first, will be released in December, 2013.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, December 21st, 2011 at 10:33 am and is filed under Books & Movies, Fiction, Science Fiction & Fantasy. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.