Warner Bros.' Man of Steel is coming out on Friday, so it only makes sense that the distributor would release a trailer for The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug to play before showings of the tentpole. The trailer for the next Hobbit released on the web today, and it promises more of the same pleasures as the first film, while also suggesting a slight darkening in tone, as the team led by Bilbo Baggins takes on Smaug, the dragon voiced by Benedict Cumberbatch (who's also the villain in this year's Star Trek Into Darkness)
The biggest surprise in the trailer is the presence of another female character, the elf warrior Tauriel, played by Evangeline Lilly. J.R.R. Tolkien was a man of his times, and his books are completely devoid of female characters. The absence of an entire gender feels particularly stark when you compare it to the fantasies of a modern generation--J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter series and George R.R. Martin's Game of Thrones. Turns out that Tauriel is actually an invention by Peter Jackson and his wife and producing partner Fran Walsh, who take liberties with Tolkien's non-gendered reference to an "elven guard."
One of the things I liked about The Hobbit was the fact that it wasn't as dark as the Lord of the Rings
series. If anything, the lightness and child-friendly feel helped
contextualize the blockbuster Lord of the Rings trilogy by expanding the scope of Middle-earth. But that also seemed to be part of what left some viewers
cold--that and the dragged-out scenes that helped expand a single book
into three movies. The first Hobbit earned over $1 billion worldwide. The question for Smaug, which will come out this December, is if this middle child of a film can sustain the curiosity of viewers.
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