Hobbit Trailer

A link to one of the several The Hobbit trailers http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JTSoD4BBCJc

Again, there is much excitement at the prospect of the 2012 movie calender. Now, the prequel to the Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey.

Peter Jackson looks set to deliver another epic tale from Middle Earth in The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey.

The trailer begins with an introduction to the young Bilbo, played by Brit Martin Freeman, before showing the band of Dwarves that take him on his adventure where he finds the One Ring.

It has to be said that the song sung by the Dwarves is possibly the most emotive part of the whole trailer, especially as when it ends Thorin says that he cannot promise Bilbo's safety, or accept responsibility for whatever may happen to him. The dark overtones of the song, and the rest of trailer for that matter, makes me think that this new film will be a lot darker than the previous trilogy, including The Return of the King.

It is pleasing to see many familiarities from the Lord of the Rings appearing in the trailer, such as Rivendell, the shattered blade of Narsil, and the familar faces of Ian Mackellen as Gandalf, Ian Holmes as an older Bilbo and a charcter that made a certain Andy Serkis rather famous.

All of this is pleasingly tied together with some clips which show some of the comical moments of the film, which will serve to balance out the dark tone that is portrayed throughout.

The Dark Knight Rises trailer.

A link to one of several Batman: The Dark Knight Rises trailer. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GokKUqLcvD8

As in my Prometheus trailer analysis, lots of trailers in the past couple of weeks have been released to say farewell to 2011 and get mouths watering for 2012.

The opening of the Dark Knight Rises trailer appears to mimic (or possibly mock?) the route that a lot of Marvel films go down: an American patriotism message. Where Marvel does it blatantly with such images as Spiderman flying through the air in front of an American flag in every film, Chirstopher Nolan has done it with the national anthem at the opening of a football game (which I believe does happen in real life). However, this is not to deliver a patriotic message, it is to draw attention to the fact that Bane (Tom Hardy) holds the players and audience hostage (as has been seen in leaked footage and the scene in the trailer with the pitch collapsing).

The fact that this is the final of Christopher Nolans films is emphasised so much in the trailer, with Albert's (Michael Caine) moving speech of how he failed to look after Bruce, the sinister music throughout, the chant of 'rise', and Catwoman's (Anne Hathaway) remark that they 'think this will last'.

Things to get the geeks (including myself) really going are the clip of the Batwing in the final few seconds of the trailer, and Batman being told by Bane that "When Gotham is ashes, you have my permission to die." The fact that he says this when Batman is lying on the floor suggests strongly that the rumours that this film follows the Knightfall comic story where Bane breaks Batmans back are true.

On the one hand, I am deeply saddened to see Christopher Nolans brilliant Dark Knight series come to an end. On the other, I believe that the end of this series and the forthcoming reboot leans strongly to an amalgamation of the DC Universe into a Justice League film (copying Marvel's upcoming Avengers).

Prometheus trailer

It's the end of the year, and we've been treated to not one, not two, but three trailers for The Dark Knight Rises, The Hobbit, and Prometheus.

This is one of several links to the upcoming Ridley Scott Alien prequel, Prometheus http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NIBiimdaj3A

After hearing about Prometheus a while ago, and the rumours flying around as to the subject of the film -knowing it to be a prequel but what angle it will take - I was thrilled to hear that the giant pilot from the first of the quadrilogy would play a role. From the trailer, this looks to be true, as we see it's skull being (presumably) scanned, and the chair rising out of the floor.

One aspect of the trailer that I love, is the use of the same appearance of the title Prometheus as is used in the first Alien film.This is a definite nod in the direction, for anyone who was in doubt, that this is indeed a prequel.

The tagline "They wenmt looking for our beginning, what they found could be our end" is another hint at the Xenomorph (hark at me with my fancy knowledge). One thing that is odd, are the scenes from 28 seconds into the trailer, to 31 seconds, with the giant statue of a human face, and what look to be jars which are arranged similarly to the eggs, and ends with a similar situation of a man with something on his face screaming. 

So many questions are raised by the trailer that it will be interesting to see whether or not Scott will be able to answer them all. How come humans have found the crashed ship before? Will we finally learn about the mysterious pilot? What is the link to "our beginning"? And, perhaps most importantly, is the date at the end of the trailer Americanised (month before day) or British (day before month)? Either way, June 8 or August 6, we'll know!