Barliman's Chat This weekend (Saturday at 6pm ET) the Hall of Fire will be detouring from our regular book chats back into movie-land as we head into spoiler-land and pull apart the new trailer for The Desolation of Smaug in what’s sure to be an entertaining and enlightening discussion.

Bard: You have no right to enter that mountain!
Thorin: I have every right.

The Hobbit: Desolation of Smaug trailer chat and analysis!

What did you love about the trailer? What just made you go “huh?”? What did you make of the hints of Bilbo riddling “Smaug the Stupendous”, the incredible delivery of Benedict Cumberbatch as Smaug’s voice, and of Beorn seemingly emerging from the trees to pursue the Company across an open field?

We also have Bard confronting Thorin, Thorin’s seemingly increasingly mistrustful nature, and a battle that seems to traverse Mirkwood all the way to Lake-town and involves the elves, the dwarves and Azog’s orcs.

Speaking of orcs, where did that army come from? Where is it going? Was Gandalf running from something, or toward something? And where has Radagast gone? Is Thranduil really offering help to the Thorin and company, or is that just some artful intercurtting of dialogue? And what’s the deal with telling Tauriel not to encourage Legolas?

Join us this Saturday at 6pm EST (New York time) in #thehalloffire on the TORn chat server for what’s sure to be a lively and spoiler-filled discussion!

Suggested reading:

The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug trailer!

Plus:
* An animation of Smaug in all his glory!
* Ten stunning animated GIFs from the trailer.

Time zone conversions

Not sure what time the chat will be where you are? Check this little conversion table out for some help. Alternatively, check our handy Event Announcer over on Time and Date for the correct time in your area.

America:
6.00pm EDT (New York)
5.00pm CDT (Chicago)
4.00pm MDT (Denver)
3.00pm PDT (Los Angeles)

Europe:
11.00pm BST (London)
11.00pm CST (Paris)
1.00am EEST (Helsinki)

Asia-Pacific
8.00am AEST (Sunday) Brisbane
8.00am AEST (Sunday) Sydney, Melbourne
10.00am NZST (Sunday) Wellington

How long do your topic chats go for?

Our chats usually last from an hour to ninety minutes, and are very newbie friendly. Simply drop in and join the conversation! However, our main room, #theonering.net is open 24 hours a day. We don’t always talk Tolkien there, but if you have a burning question, you’ll usually find one or two of “the regulars” up for a chat!

Where — connection details

Chat happens on #thehalloffire on irc.theonering.net — the TORn IRC server. You can connect instantly via our embedded Mibbit client that works inside your web browser.

Alternatively, you can install a dedicated chat program such as mIRC on your computer and just plug in the following connection details.

Server: irc.theonering.net
Port: 6667
Channel: #thehalloffire