Today brings us the first poster for Peter Jackson’s second of his three-part Hobbit trilogy, The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug. And what a poster it is! My gosh, is that the Lonely Mountain Bilbo is staring passively at?? I wonder if Bilbo and the boys will actually make it inside by the end of the movie this time! I hope so, but then I wouldn’t want to miss out on any extraneous side characters with bird poop running down their faces either!
If you haven’t seen the first Hobbit, SPOILER ALERT, Bilbro and his gang of dwarves who do nothing but treat him like sh*t the entire time spend the whole movie talking about going to the Lonely Mountain to take their stuff back from the Dragon Smaug. After a series of arguments and side quests and the lead dwarf acting like a humorless emo jerk the entire time, the movie ends with them seeing the mountain off in the distance, with a close-up of Smaug’s eye. And… FIN. In Peter Jackson’s version of Checkhov’s gun, if you show the audience a loaded gun in the first act, by the end, the characters have better gone on a long side quest to buy an ornate holster, and the play ends with the main character day dreaming about one day owning the gun, with a closeup on his forehead as he sweats with anticipation. The gun doesn’t actually fire until the last of a six-part epilogue.
The Hobbit: Desolation of Smaug opens December 13th, with the trailer attached to Man of Steel scheduled to hit the internet tomorrow. Obviously I can’t wait.
[Previously: Evangeline Lilly as Tauriel, a character invented specially for the movies.]