What does the new trailer for the second Hobbit movie tell us? Mostly that Peter Jackson knows more about Middle Earth than JRR Tolkien did
• The Desolation of Smaug's quest to transform The Hobbit
• The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug – a sneak preview of first footage
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We're still well over two months away from the debut of The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug in cinemas and I'm starting to wonder how on Middle Earth Peter Jackson's going to fit everything in. The Kiwi film-maker's source novel may be a breezy 350-page children's fantasy fable, but the new trailer for the middle part of his latest fantasy trilogy makes it clear just why this whole thing will stretch to well over nine hours by the time it's done: bloomin' JRR Tolkien just left too much stuff out!
One can just imagine the esteemed Oxford professor's horror after completing work on the 1937 book's final page, only to discover that he forgot to include Legolas, the silken-tressed elf princeling played by Orlando Bloom in Lord of the Rings. Imagine his pain when he realised he had also inexplicably failed to make room for a gorgeous lady elf romantic interest played by Kate from Lost. Consider his torment when it suddenly hit him that Bard the Bowman could really do with more than one line of dialogue. All these oversights and more are clearly going to be rectified in The Desolation of Smaug, if the second full trailer for Jackson's film is anything to go by.
One segue that won't need to change too much from the book is Bilbo's encounter with the great wyrm himself. Tolkien gave the film-makers plenty to work with here, and Martin Freeman, Benedict Cumberbatch (as the voice of the dragon) and an army of Weta Digital special effects experts have clearly been given licence to fill their boots.
The rest of us will be able to do the same when the film hits US and UK cinemas on 13 December. Aussie Tolkien fans will have to wait until Boxing Day to see what else Tolkien forgot to put in his book.
• More on The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug
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