On June 12th Warner Brothers released the first official trailer for The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug. It can be viewed in its entirety at TheHobbit.com.
Staff here at TheOneRing.net have now – a week later – watched the trailer again and again… and again… We’ve also been poring over large screencaps, with a magnifying glass, to spot any tiny details which just might give us some further insight into what we will see when the movie comes out at the end of this year. Check out what we spotted, below!
The following screen caps and commentary are not confirmed and are only speculation by the staff at TheOneRing.net. We plan on providing additional updates and insights as staff chime in – so keep this page bookmarked!
If you would like to easily browse all high res imagery of the trailer, check out page 11.
Last week we posted about the rating which has been given to The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey Extended Edition. (You can read that story here.) As many of our messageboard users have noticed, websites such as Blu-ray.com are now giving November 12th of this year as the release date for this extended cut of the movie. According to Blu-ray.com, the Blu-ray 3D set will consist of seven discs – four Blu-ray and three DVD. However, the run time is listed as 169 minutes – which was the run time for the theatrical cut. Clearly, not all the information is out there yet! As soon as we have any official details to share, we’ll pass them along!
So what did we learn from the first “The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug” trailer? We saw some new characters, the promise of favorite scenes from the book brought to life, and a few departures from existing text. Here is a little round up what was seen and what it all might mean.
We have several special guests on our innovative live webcast TORn TUESDAY today at 5pm Pacific Time — including the fangirls Kili & Fili from HAPPY HOBBIT who went viral last week with their splendid reaction video to the D.O.S. teaser trailer (which was in turn shown by P.J. to his Elvish cast members) – supporter Dwyna visits us from Las Vegas; and our very own reporter who was embedded on the sets of New Zealand, none other than MrCere himself Larry Curtis! Join us TODAY as we discover what makes fandom come together in this modern age of shared electronic media — is it instant frenzy feeding or casual community building? And what’s with the “fleeting nudity” slap on the PG-13 rated Extended Edition of The Hobbit: AUJ?
We launch TORn TUESDAY every week at 5:00PM Pacific: brought to you by host Clifford “Quickbeam” Broadway and producer Justin “They Shouldn’t Have Shown Smaug” Sewell — Our innovative live show includes worldwide fans who join us on the Live Event page with a built-in IRC chat (affectionately known as Barliman’s Chat room). Be part of the fun and mischief every week as we broadcast *live* from Meltdown Comics in the heart of Hollywood, U.S.A.!
After the show has completed broadcast you can always watch the archive later at TheOneRing.net’s official YouTube channel:
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Welcome to our collection of TORn’s hottest topics for the past week. If you’ve fallen behind on what’s happening on the Message Boards, here’s a great way to catch the highlights. Or if you’re new to TORn and want to enjoy some great conversations, just follow the links to some of our most popular discussions. Watch this space as every weekend we will spotlight the most popular buzz on TORn’s Message Boards. Everyone is welcome, so come on in and join in the fun!
The Desolation of Smaug star Stephen Fry has admitted that he has never read The Hobbit.
Fry — who appears as The Master of Laketown in the second instalment of the film trilogy — confessed that he only skim-read the parts of the novel that featured his character.
Speaking on Richard Herring’s Leicester Square Podcast, the 55-year-old said: “I usually read scripts. But The Hobbit, I’m not sure I should say this, but I’ve never read The Hobbit. (more…)
Welp, someone decided to mash-up the new teaser trailer for The Hobbit: Desolation of Smaug with My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic. With Shining Armour as Legolas and Princess Cadance as Tauriel, and Applejack as Bard (I looked them all up on the internet, honest), the result is too cute to overlook. The dragon looks pretty awesome too. (more…)
Some breaking news via Stuff.co.nz. A huge cloud of smoke engulfed a Hobbit film set on the Miramar Peninsula when a generator caught fire.
Ed Scragg, who saw the fire from a Roseneath home on the other side of Evans Bay, said clouds of smoke engulfed a lighting tower on the set which has been built on land close to the old Mt Crawford Prison.
The lights went out and then came back on again, said Mr Scragg who said a number of fire trucks were seen racing to the scene. (more…)
A few reports are coming in from fans that the IMAX screenings of ‘Man of Steel’ do NOT include a trailer for ‘The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug.’ These reports are unconfirmed. If you would like to guarantee you will get to the see the trailer on the big screen this weekend, we highly suggest calling your local theater and speaking with an employee. Feel free to post your findings in our comments below! Happy Trail…ering! (oh that was lame)
We’ve known for a while that there would be an Extended Edition of The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey – Warner Bros.’ press release back in March, at the time of the release of the Theatrical Edition DVD and Blu-ray, said that the Extended Edition would be ‘available just in time for the holidays’. Now we’ve learned that this extended cut has been given a rating by The Motion Picture Association of America. Their bulletin (seen here) gives the movie the same rating as it had in theatrical release, PG-13. But here’s the interesting part – in theatres, the PG-13 rating was for ‘intense fantasy action violence and frightening images.’ Here’s what the rating says for the extended version:
‘Rated PG-13 for extended sequences of intense fantasy action violence, frightening images and fleeting nudity.’
‘… and fleeting nudity.’ Now that is something to ponder. A glimpse of the dwarves wrecking Bilbo’s bathroom? A scene where Bilbo leaves his house in such haste, he forgets more than his pocket handkerchief?! Being serious for a moment, what could this be? My best guess is some dwarvish high jinks; what do you think?
Thanks to ringer spies kirkempk and An anonymous Ringer for bringing this to our attention!
TORn Staffer Demosthenes adds:
I think there is one possibility from The Hobbit that could fit the situation of fleeting nudity — when the Company bathe and wash their clothes in the Anduin after the Eagles drop them at the Carrock.
After that they stopped pleading. Then they took off their clothes and bathed in the river, which was shallow and clear and stony at the ford. When they had dried in the sun, which was now strong and warm, they were refreshed, if still sore and a little hungry. Soon they crossed the ford (carrying the hobbit), and then began to march through the long green grass and down the lines of the wide-armed oaks and the tall elms.
Today, our friends at The Bridge Direct have revealed the final look of their 2013 Comic-Con Exclusive figure! As you may remember, last year they did a 6″ Invisible Bilbo Baggins figure, as he would look while wearing the Ring. Well, this year they are bringing to fans a 7″ version of one of the coolest looking characters from The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey: Azog the Defiler. Azog comes with multiple switch out parts, in order to create him as we see him from ‘TheBattle of Azanulbizar’, still with his left arm and holding King Thror’s head. You can also have him as we see him a little later in the film, no long having his left arm but with that gruesome metal object in its place. Azog will be limited to 2600 pieces world-wide, so he’s sure to go quickly. So if you’re at Comic-Con this year make sure you stop by the Weta/The Bridge Direct booth 3513B!
If, like us, you have been repeatedly watching the new The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug trailer over the last couple of days, you may have noticed something surprising at the end. In the second screen of credits, right after Tolkien’s name, the screenwriters are credited: ‘Screenplay by Fran Walsh & Philippa Boyens & Peter Jackson’. That’s it; unlike in the credits for An Unexpected Journey, Guillermo del Toro is not credited as a screenwriter for this second movie. (Not in this trailer, at any rate…)
What this means is anyone’s guess. We know of course that del Toro worked long and hard on the screenplays for the movies when he was in position as the films’ director. At that time the plan was for only two movies; it seems hard to imagine, however, that it would be possible to extricate del Toro’s contributions to the scripts to such an extent that it could safely be said that he had NO hand in the screenplay for Desolation of Smaug. Further, del Toro suggested that he would continue to be a part of the screenwriting even after he had left the movies as director; he wrote on TORn’s messageboards, ‘The writing team of PJ,FW,PB and myself will keep moving the screenplays forward.’ (See his post here.)
Perhaps it is simply that the film makers were only contractually obliged to acknowledge del Toro’s contributions in the credits for one movie; movie studios are sticklers for what’s in the contract! Perhaps del Toro himself asked only to be credited in the first movie - wishing the role he played to be acknowledged but also perhaps wanting to move forward from the project, having made that very difficult decision to leave Middle-earth behind. Perhaps, as for An Unexpected Journey, he will be credited at the end of the movie as ‘Project Consultant’. Perhaps he will again be credited as a writer on the third movie, There and Back Again. We’ll have to wait and see; meanwhile, it’s just one of those things which make you go, ‘Hmmm….’