Two new MASSIVE trailer.

http://trailers.apple.com/trailers/wb/thedarkknightrises/



Anyone notice the two Robin references??

http://trailers.apple.com/trailers/wb/thehobbit/



The hobbit trailer was a tiny bit of a let down, but still -

MASSIVE!

Yeah, not much cool shit in The Hobbit, but still a year away so no biggie. Looks exactly like I expected it too, and martin Freeman looks like the predicted awesome choice for younger Bilbo. Not quite as looking forward to this as the Hobbit always bored me a little.

Fuck yeah Dark Knight tho :>

Yeah Martin Freeman does look great.

I would have thought that they would thrown some CGI on Ian McKellen to make him look younger. Or maybe they are still planning on doing that?

Also, would have been good to see Evangeline Lilly, but as you said it's still a year away.

Hobbits live very long lives though, and Gandalf himself is older than Middle Earth - most commonly, it's suggested he's around 2000 years old at the time of his MIddle Earth adventures. (He's actually immortal) So it's not like he's going to visibly age much between the Hobbit and LOTR.

But he has! he looks much older, dont you think?

Not reeeeally eh.

No? Where?

That would be interesting as Christopher Nolan and David S Goyer have both repeatedly said that they would never include Robin in their Batman universe. The popular belief is that Bruce Wayne will die and Joseph Gordon Levitts character will take the role of Batman, thus ensuring that the legend of Batman is eternal.

I'd seen the dark knight rises trailer but not the hobbit, thanks!

Super duper excited about seeing both of these movies. I read the hobbit when I was 8 or so, so i've totally forgotten most of it and am keen to re-live it.

Always loved Batman movies so this is going to be awesome.

batman looks like a bad terminator movie... eye candy... sweet

hobbit can fuck off, peter jackson you are dead to me you anti workers bastard

Robin can f**k off, seriously.

In fact I hope they do include Robin, and kill him violently.

Heh.

Sweet post.

Hobbit trailer looks boring/underwhelming

Presume that's because they've only got a small amount of actual finished product though, and most of the cool shit will come out of post.

I can't really remember the storyline of the Hobbit, is there some cool action sequences? From memory they introduce the Spider and he fights a dragon?

Pretty much that from what I recall. Otherwise a bunch of walking too. Exciting, cgi walking, obviously.

there'll be battles and cgi galore... profits dictate that its not a thinking persons movie

I think there is a massive battle near the end, with dragons and a host of five armies or something. While that is an exciting part of the book there is always the risk with these sorts of things that the "cool stuff" becomes the point and the focus, whereas what makes the hobbit a good story is a heap of more subtle elements that are far more difficult to convey

One example: in the The Fellowship of the Ring there is a chapter where the hobbits are almost engulfed by barrow-wights - it's one trippy and very frightening part of the story, but was left out as maybe too dull or slow an event to convey in film . But even that is a gross event compared to the subtlety that makes the Hobbit a good story. It's very hard to convey internal thoughts in a movie.

I think it's pretty slow until the second part from memory, so this first film might just be scene setting.

There's always going to be things to leave out of these books in order to make a better movie though. While in the book you can richly illustrate that chapter, in the movie it's much harder to differentiate from other, similar scenes. The one the immediately pops to mind is the Ringwraiths attacking Frodo and his merry band at Weathertop when he got cut. Leaving both those similar scenes in would have been pointless.

"That was boring, fuck seeing the second one"

There will be action, it just wont work without it.

The Hobbit eating tree and Tom Bombadil were left out because other than eating/saving the Hobbits there was no story line relevance whatsoever. Unless you count it being a "lesson" about nature and stuff like that.
Tom ended up getting his own book anyways.
My major gripe with the rings movies was the killing off of Sauruman, and no scouring of the Shire.

Oh and the over dramatic Aragon/Arwen thing. It was a mere side plot in the book, and seeing her turn up to save Frodo rather than her brother really pissed me off. But I guess it was another character they had to introduce to an already saturated cast.

Oh and the over dramatic Aragon/Arwen thing. It was a mere side plot in the book, and seeing her turn up to save Frodo rather than her brother really pissed me off. But I guess it was another character they had to introduce to an already saturated cast.

Oh and the over dramatic Aragon/Arwen thing. It was a mere side plot in the book, and seeing her turn up to save Frodo rather than her brother really pissed me off. But I guess it was another character they had to introduce to an already saturated cast.

Ggrrr sorry, my farking internet fucking sucks.

Also doesn't TB just rabbit on and on and on and on and fucking on? In the movie there was not much real need for his exposition. Been too long since I read the books, or maybe I just blocked him from my memory. :>

Speaking of TB and Gandalf's age - as I recall, TB is the only character older than Gandalf!

It wasn't deemed pointless to have more than one battle.

I think the Barrow-Wights were a very unique part of the story, but the problem is how you convey something like that. The strength of writing is that it creates so many imaginative possibilities. Words are rich with interpretation. Film has to a lot more literal. Something gross and spectacular like a battle can be conveyed very effectively. Internal experience is next to impossible. It can be gotten across in a basic manner, but it always lacks whats possible in writing.

Yep, that's what I meant about him being a lesson about nature or time or something deep like that. Like the "Tree in the Vale" in the Belgariad.

dude.... one word: montage

a montage can convey all the meaning of the universe

and showcase a crappy song to boot...

Anyone know anything about the new Alien prequel?

Yeah I agree that works but to acheive the richness of the book you'd need hours of montage that would probably kill the plot, and while it conveys atrmosphere it still doesn't get hugely well into what's going on inside the character

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1446714/

That's exactly it - as you say, the different battles were much easier to convey the differences - contrast the War of the Ring opening scene, with the Siege of Minas Tirith with the...umm...one where the Ents "liberate" Isengard and fuck up Sarumon. 3 distinct different battle scenes with different looks and purposes.

In the books you have time to deeply illustrate those tighter more claustrophobic scenes and still have them have a purpose.

edit: @onehappy I'm taking the piss - your points are valid, mine not really - unless the meaning is quite shallow and obvious

there is a couple of bits of the trailer for trailer for the trailer the alien thang online - it looks interesting... but also not needed

Unfortunately, Tolkien was a master of illustration, to the point where two pages describing a field of grass makes turning anything he wrote in to a movie very difficult and hard to please the fanbase.

I keep hearing all sorts of different stuff about it. First it IS a prequel, then it isn't, then it is again, then it isn't, the last I hear was that it's not a prequel, but it IS set in the same universe and it IS set before the events of Alien. So fuck knows what it's going to end up being.

Yeah Kris, Ive heard the same. I want to know how the Xeno's ended up on Lv14, and how the "gunner" alien ended up looking the way he did. Hopefully describing their terraforming etc..

And I think the films reflects that - the "two pages on grass" level of details is clear in lots of the sets and visuals, but I also think they made the right choices on what scenes to leave out. I agree the barrow-wights could have been awesome, but it can be left out in favour of moving the story along.

I pretty much fell asleep reading about them the first time, but when i went back to the book again it was like OMFG these things are scarey as fuck

Totally agree KB!

"Hey doll, merry doll, ring dong a dillo!"

You just described most of the Hobbit there. Which is why I cant get past the first few chapters.
Id love to see some parts of the Silmarillion on film.

Children of Hurin would be a more likely candidate

I just wish they'd do a sequel to ET

They did Bob

OMFG I hate Telecom, sorry guys - stupid dumb shit doing dumb shit.

robot chickennnnnnn *shakes fist* and *gets back in line for the sniper rifle*

I'll give you a clue, they're both at the football game.

I wonder what LOTR would have been like is Terrence Malick directed it, along with his long sweeping narrative shots..

And then after this Ridley will be doing the Bladerunner Sequel/Prequel.

Prometheus is NOT an alien prequel. It is a science fiction movie set in space.

Wiki confirms you are right:

The film will focus on a mythology within the Alien universe. Set in the late-21st century, Prometheus will explore the advanced civilization of an extraterrestrial race responsible for the origins of modern humans on Earth, as well as the background of the Alien creature which made its first appearance in the 1979 film

Oh don't be coy. Just tell me!

Because seriously, they've said repeatedly: "fuck that bullshit" when asked about including Robin many times...

Fine! spoil all my fun

Well, these are just two robin references... not sure if it means they will be including him, but why else put it in there? And... i only noticed these myself, so maybe it wasn't intentional

The "R" in the "Rogues" sign being held up in by the audience. And the football players name on the back of his Jersey is "Ward"

Sounds like a prequel to me!

Well the first seems to be stretching just a tad () and I'm not sure I get the Ward reference? Wasn't Robin's real name Dick Grayson?

A stretch??





Burt Ward played Robin in the Batman & Robin series

Wiki says no

"the events of the film will not precede any of the previously established characters or story lines"

What about this?

I'm not going to say "leave this in" in relation to The Hobbit. That's a directorial choice

However, tone? The tone of The Hobbit is a light hearted romp. The trailer makes The Hobbit look like LOTR which was written in an entirely different and much nobler style.

The Hobbit should be like early Harry Potter movies in tone. Plenty of humour and light heartedness. Maybe it will be and the trailer is just a decoy.

PS for those who say "Tom Bombadil and the barrow eating don't move the story along" well if they got eaten the story finishes then. So every event is causal

Children of Hurin is an abomination

We have... LOTR. We have The Hobbit. We have the Silmarillion. We have History of Middle Earth (12 volumes!). We have Unfinished Tales.

Why oh why did we need a commercially focused piece like CoH?

Ha! That's some nice spotting.

BOOM!

better version

Nice!

Holy shitfuck, that trailer looks awesome!!

Ahhhh here is an interesting response to the sign.

http://www.empireonline.com/features/dark-knight-rises-trailer-breakdown

Interesting read all round! thanks for the link.

Looks like there was nothing in what i saw

Still good spotting tho dude! Did you run it through your editing suit and parse it scene by scene or something?

*suite

Haha no, but i should do! I would love to be good enough to make trailers like these for a living.. so much fun.

In case you guys haven't seen this one yet,

http://trailers.apple.com/trailers/marvel/avengers/

All these movies are kind of like amusement park rides dreamed up by the movie industry equivalent of whoever produces all the erm... music... *cough* you hear on stations like ZM.

Not knocking them (despite the ZM reference), it's just an observation. They are a different class of movie from the stuff that gets me personally excited about the concept of "movie"

i can appreciate all "types" of movies for what they are. You see a big budget, movie which is the commercial equivalent of cheesy music you hear on ZM. I see a production which would take a lot of experience and expertise to pull off. Sure the script might be lacking or formulaic (not saying Batman or The Hobbit is btw), but this is made up with high quality production value, from the producing to the lighting, the sound, the acting the set design. All these jobs are not easy, and a lot of the people working on big budget movies are masters of their trade no matter how cheesy the movie is.

But sure i can see the difference between big budget "amusement park ride" movies as you put it, and well written less commercial movies. The difference between production value and art.

But anyway, The Avengers movie was dreamed up by Marvel.. who i wouldn't say is as much a commercial out fit as ZM

Yes i know they are owned by disney now, but iirc they kept the core "Marvel" staff and Stan Lee still makes a lot of the calls.

And even though the Batman movies are big budget "studio" movies, i wouldn't compare Christopher Nolan to some commercial music producer/writer.

Agreed Davil. If anything, The Hobbit, Batman and Prometheus are great examples of blockbuster films with some more weight to their storylines. They're certainly not in the same category as something like Independence Day or well.... anything directed by Roland Emmerich.

I agree too, I can appreciate the work and skill and coordination by a bunch of talented people, many of which are artists of what they do.

I really like the results of independent stuff more though personally.

so true, god i hate his movies. I don't know how anyone could watch, sign off, and release a movie as horrid as 10,000BC.

I like both. I just like good films, regardless of where they come from...

My favourite independent film this year would probably be Submarine. A quirky Welsh film directed by Moss from The IT Crowd that consistently cracked me up. Often surprising humour too as the story takes an unexpected turn or the character react in completely unexpected ways.

I also really enjoyed The Guard which is an Irish film about a cop (Brendan Gleesan) who has to be contender for the worst behaved cop in the history of cops on film. He's right up there with The Bad Lieutenant but instead of going for catholic guilt like that film, it goes for laughs. Very similar to In Bruges with it's darkly comic tone.

Seen Rampart? now thats a good film bad cop film.

I'll add Submarine to my list of movies to watch.

I've just made a list of movies i haven't seen from 2011, which i got from a timeout list i just read of the "best movies of 2011".As i missed a lot of released this year. All sound quite good:
Barney's Version.
Melancholia.
Never Let Me Go.
Of Gods and Men.
Sarah's Key.