The Los Angeles Times has a new piece on Peter Jackson‘s The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey and with it comes the new image you see above of Martin Freeman as Bilbo Baggins and the sword most moviegoers became familiar with in Jackson’s Lord of the Rings trilogy.
Dubbed “Sting” by Bilbo after fending off giant spiders in the Mirkwood forest, he later gives the Elvish blade to Frodo (Elijah Wood) in The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring as Frodo begins his journey to Mordor. As I’m sure you remember, the blade glows blue whenever orcs are around.
Along with the image there’s a particularly interesting quote for folks looking forward to the first of two upcoming Hobbit features as screenwriter Philippa Boyens says:
The story is very much a children’s story so deciding how to tell this was one of the first things we had to do. Who is the audience? It is very distinctly different, tonally, to Lord of the Rings until the very end and then you begin to see the world of Middle-earth opening up… but, having said that, we felt that it is the same audience [who will come to see the films] and then you start to worry because it is easy to repeat yourself. It is quite a similar journey, you’re going from the Shire to a large, dangerous mountain.
Boyens brings up the exact same concerns I have and mentioned recently in my Top 40 Most Anticipated Movies of 2012 list, which is to say, “Yes, I want to see The Hobbit, but I’m not necessarily going to be all that excited until I sit down in the theater because I feel as if it is just more of the same.”
Hopefully I’m proven wrong and there will at least be a few surprises when The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey hits theaters on December 14, 2012.
You can get more on the film here and I’ve included the trailer and a link to my gallery of images from the film directly below.
