The trailer for the final film in the Hobbit trilogy has finally been released, and to paraphrase Thorin Oakenshield, I’ve never been so torn about something in all my life.
Spoilers ahead for those of you who haven’t read a 75-year-old book.
The trailer itself doesn’t seem to hint that the film will be bad, but a kickass trailer-editing team and a great song can do wonders to mask the mediocrity of the actual product. (I’m looking at you so hard right now, Guardians of the Galaxy.) Fans of the original LotR trilogy are bound to have a visceral emotional response when they hear Billy Boyd start singing that damnably tragic song, and together with the lines and visuals they chose to include, this trailer is like a recipe for my tears. I guess at least they’re not suggesting that the film’s going to have a happy ending.
I have been deeply conflicted about the Hobbit series since the release of the first movie. While the casting and imagery were beautifully on point, the money-grubbing decision to split the single book into three three-hour films always sat wrong with me before I even watched the first movie. And while I certainly don’t begrudge Peter Jackson all the extra material he included—I was glad for Tauriel’s presence, and I’m always happy to see more Galadriel on my screen, and I’m interested to see what will happen with the Necromancer in this film—I was downright distressed when I realized that both of the first two movies could have been easily shortened by an hour or more by cutting extraneous or non-canon chase scenes.
The working title for what Bilbo would eventually call “There and Back Again”
And yet I’m torn, because I love this world and these characters. I (generally) love the movies’ adaptation of them, and the unique attributes the films have given characters who were little more than a name on a page beforehand. I love being a part of the Tolkien fandom, and I spent several hours avoiding this trailer after it came out because I knew it was going to make me sad. I don’t want to see Thorin go mad with greed and die tragically. I don’t want to watch Fili and Kili die, and, more cynically, I’m afraid of what the film is going to do to Tauriel to excuse her not being in the LotR trilogy.
Basically, I’m experiencing what I’m going to call Revenge of the Sith dissonance: I know that this movie is going to necessarily include a lot of death and tragedy because it’s required to round out the canon. I also know that the movie will probably end up being objectively bad and far too long. Nevertheless, I will eagerly see the film on its release date and cry honest, inconsolable, childlike tears at the deaths of my faves.
Follow Lady Geek Girl and Friends on Twitter, Tumblr, and Facebook!
Lady Geek Girl and Friends 
I did indeed have a visceral emotional response when I heard Billy Boyd singing that damnably tragic song. Though I have to agree with you: what’s going to happen to Tauriel?
I can’t wait to see the movie. I think it’s good to love a book, but also to enjoy a movie for being a movie. Move adaptations are difficult, so I go into it just judging it on being a movie and not on the book- though that is hard sometimes!
But yeah, it’s going to be agony! 😀
The Hobbit is one of the few books that I actually prefer as a film. Maybe it’s because I saw the film first (although that’s not always true) but I just really liked the way they fleshed out the dwarves with individual personalities. I noticed that most of the time, the dwarves were just ‘the dwarves’ apart from Thorin, who didn’t come off so well. But I think this movie is the one I’ve been looking forward to and dreading at the same time. Thorin with gold sickness is one of my least favourite scenes of the book but at the same time an incredibly important one.
And I will cry at the deaths. But I really, really hope they don’t kill Tauriel. I read a fanfic where Tauriel explored Middle Earth after the deaths of Thorin, Kili and Fili, seeing Middle Earth outside the borders of Mirkwood. Can’t we just have that? I would be quite happy to watch a film with Tauriel as the main character.
Pingback: Do These 3D Glasses Hide My Tears? The Hobbit: Battle of the Five Armies Review | Lady Geek Girl and Friends