Now it’s time for the heavy marketing efforts for the second installment of Peter Jackson’s The Hobbit series. Never underestimate the ferocity of Hollywood commercial trickery.
Here are my immediate reactions to this teaser/trailer:
Thumbs up
1. A female protagonist: an apocryphal Elf archer in the Mirkwood. Great — my kids will love that. (The original novel contains, IIRC, one female character: Lobelia Sackville-Baggins, whose appearance is tiny.)
2. Smaug is huge and menacing.
3. Laketown looks great.
Thumbs down
1. It appears that Mr Jackson once again has Indiana-Jones-ified Tolkien’s creations, like he did in the goblin cavern scenes in part 1. For instance, the Dwarves’ dramatic escape in the wine barrels was handled very differently in the novel. I don’t feel happy about Mr Jackson’s attitude, but I guess that his ability to “smell” what the audience expects has outdone me.
2. Bard the Bowman is suffering from a 1980s haircut.
And I wonder what story The Hobbit part 3 will tell, if Smaug gets dealt with in this installment.
The Dream Forge 