I really liked the first Hobbit movie, and this one is looking good too. I know a lot of fans are not happy with the liberties that Jackson is taking, and I completely understand that even if I don’t agree with it.
Heck, I’m just happy that Bilbo actually pronounces “Smaug” correctly!
Love the trailer! I am so excited! But damn do I hate that pronunciation of Smaug. It irks me so!
As much as I can, and will, say against PJ's "vision" of the Lord of the Rings universe, I will say this: the casting of Benedict Cumberbatch as Smaug was brilliant. The tiny little snippet of voice we heard there was fantastic.
The rest of it is typical Peter Jackson, all sound and fury. Kind of a lot like JJ Abrams' Star Trek in that regard, actually.
If JRR Tolkein wanted me to pronounce it that way, The Hobbit should have come with a pronunciation guide. It's Smawg to me, dammit!
I still haven't seen the first one. I figure when all three are out on DVD, I'll borrow them off a friend who buys them. Three long movies just seems excessive for one fairly short book.
I was happy with the first. It has issues, but it's fun.
I'm really hoping that Smaug will overthrow Vermethrex as my favorite movie dragon.
Well, originally Jackson was only going to produce the films and someone else was going to write/direct them. At that point it was only going to be two films which I could see. When that didn't work out and the decision was made for Jackson to write/produce/direct the films, he felt he couldn't do it without tying the films into the Lord of the Rings. To do so he felt required including content from the Appendixes as well as some of the background in the Lord of the Rings that didn't make it into the first series. Some point during filming it became obvious that having three shorter movies was better than two really really long ones.
Gotta say that "the Hobbit" produced a visceral anger that I've never experienced before from a film. I thought it was truly a disgusting example of a director's ego obliterating the source material. This is coming from someone who has been a fan of Peter Jackson since his earliest films. I will not go see any of the remaining films, obviously.