BBC Sherlock Fan Forum - Serving Sherlockians since February 2012 / The Hobbit- update release dates etc.

**Posted by Davina** September 3, 2012 2:40 pm

The second Hobbit film will be called 'The Desolation of Smaug' and has a release date of December 13th 2013. The third film is to be called 'There and Back Again' and has a release date of July 18th 2014.

Clearly both Martin and Benedict are involved with these but since amartin has the lead role of Bilbo Baggins in the trilogy I am posting it here.

**Posted by sherlockskitty** September 3, 2012 4:09 pm

It's a three parter then? ok--- when is the FIRST movie gonna be released? Sorry, but I looked at other threads here but could not find the date. thanks davina I had always thought it was a two- parter.

Last edited by sherlockskitty (September 3, 2012 4:09 pm)

**Posted by Carol the Dabbler** September 4, 2012 1:49 am

It was going to be a two-parter, but then at Comic-Con in July, Peter Jackson hinted there might be three, and made the official announcement shortly thereafter. The first one (An Unexpected Journey) has its world premiere in New Zealand in late November, then opens to the public on December 14th.

I just heard that our local theater will have a "midnight showing" at 12:01 a.m. on the 14th. Whee!

**Posted by sherlockskitty** September 4, 2012 5:20 am

thanks carol!! I shan't be going to the midnight showing, but since I've fallen in love with the Hobbit, (aka Martin) I'll go see it in the theater IF my theater will have the open captioning system. They had that in 4 theaters last year; hopefully this year they'll do that in all 10 of them. I'm hearing impaired, and can't lipread someone's back of head!! LOL

**Posted by The Doctor** September 4, 2012 11:44 am

Mods:

Could we merge the various threads on The Hobbit, or create a super-thread?

**Posted by Carol the Dabbler** September 4, 2012 4:58 pm

sherlockskitty wrote:
... since I've fallen in love with the Hobbit, (aka Martin) I'll go see it in the theater IF my theater will have the open captioning system....

Yes, I suspect that Bilbo will be one of Freeman's best characters to date -- well worth the decades-long wait since being utterly charmed by the book!

I must have been living in a cave (hmm, make that a Hobbit hole!), but I didn't realize that captioning was available in theaters. Can everyone see it, or does it require special glasses (like 3-D), or ... ?

The Doctor wrote:
Could we merge the various threads on The Hobbit, or create a super-thread?

I second that -- a Hobbit sub-forum would be very helpful!

**Posted by Sammy** September 4, 2012 6:46 pm

At least the wait for the third movie won't be a whole year, then. Still wonder how they managed to make three out of two movies (or: three movies out of one not so big book).

I hope I'll be able to watch the original in a theatre. Would be a shame if I had to wait for the DVD to hear Martin's voice.
There are not enough opportunities to watch in the original version, I tell you. I only know of one theatre which shows some originals and I have to drive a bit to get there.
Yes, and there are also not enough theatres for people with impaired hearing. It's a shame.

**Posted by Carol the Dabbler** September 4, 2012 8:00 pm

Apparently, Jackson wasn't being terribly careful about shooting only what they needed for the two movies. Even a not-so-big book will often need to be abridged in order to fit into a two-or-three-hour movie, and he wasn't doing much abridging. Also, there was additional material that he wanted to use from the backstory (published as Appendices with LotR, but actually covering the time-span of The Hobbit as well). It may have been "accidentally on purpose," but he ended up with almost enough good scenes for three movies, and then was able to talk the studio into authorizing a bit more filming, possibly next summer.

Oh, I see -- you live someplace where they dub films, rather than run them in English. Yes, that would be frustrating! I've occasionally seen dubbed versions of things I was familiar with, and the voices are often just totally wrong, aside from not being the original actors' voices. I believe I heard that the DVD for the first movie will be released next summer -- hope you won't have to wait that long!

Last edited by Carol the Dabbler (September 4, 2012 8:02 pm)

**Posted by SusiGo** September 4, 2012 8:18 pm

Sammy wrote:
At least the wait for the third movie won't be a whole year, then. Still wonder how they managed to make three out of two movies (or: three movies out of one not so big book).

I hope I'll be able to watch the original in a theatre. Would be a shame if I had to wait for the DVD to hear Martin's voice.
There are not enough opportunities to watch in the original version, I tell you. I only know of one theatre which shows some originals and I have to drive a bit to get there.
Yes, and there are also not enough theatres for people with impaired hearing. It's a shame.

And Benedict's voice, Sammy. In the dubbed version we'd neither see nor hear him.

**Posted by Carol the Dabbler** September 4, 2012 9:16 pm

Good point, Susi, since his Smaug is a motion-capture character, so all we'll see of Cumberbatch is his facial expressions and movements. But does anyone know how the Necromancer was done? Is he a live-action character or another motion-cap?

**Posted by sherlockskitty** September 5, 2012 12:35 am

carol and everyone-- I'm going to put a thread in the OTHER section, to explain about the captioning done in theaters, ok? I think I'm going to title it INFO for and about deaf/hoh people, or something--- so that it won't be just on ONE subject. Is that a good idea? Gotta think about it for awhile.

Saw a magazine at Barnes and Noble about the Hobbit-- andy serkis plays Gollum, how does that sound familiar? There seems to be a few tie-ins between this movie and Sherlock. Yeah we shud merge ALL hobbit threads into one thread. Keep it on the Martin forum. That's what I think.

Last edited by sherlockskitty (September 5, 2012 12:38 am)

**Posted by Carol the Dabbler** September 5, 2012 2:40 am

Oh, good, I'd like to have that information. Could you come back here once you've posted it, and let us know that it's up, and where it is? Thanks!

The name Andy Serkis probably sounds familiar because he also played Gollum in LotR.

Once there's more than one thread that's gotten very far, it's nearly impossible to merge them into a single thread in any meaningful way. I can't speak for the Mods on this forum, but I sure wouldn't care to try combining all the Hobbit threads. Let's say, for example, that you put all the posts from all the threads in order by date -- then a lot of the replies would no longer make sense, because they'd be separated from the post that they replied to by posts from other former threads. Also, some posts might not explicitly mention the subject they're talking about, because it's the subject of the thread -- so if the threads were all combined, it would be hard to know what "it" was referring to. That's why I thought collecting all of the threads into a Hobbit sub-forum (within the Martin Freeman forum) would not only be easiest for the Mods to do, but would also avoid confusion -- and it would still make it easy to find all the info regarding The Hobbit. But, like I said, I can't speak for the Mods on this forum.

**Posted by sherlockskitty** September 5, 2012 10:39 pm

http://sherlock.boardhost.com/viewtopic.php?id=1775

there's the thread link for my deaf/HOH thread. Thank you for your interest. It's in the Other section. Yeah...I guess merging big threads is out of the question. but maybe we can put all the hobbit threads into one section of their own, or put them into the MOVIES part of the forum?

**Posted by Carol the Dabbler** September 6, 2012 2:25 am

Thanks, sherlockskitty! That's an interesting thread already.

**Posted by SusiGo** September 6, 2012 6:28 am

Carol the Dabbler wrote:
Good point, Susi, since his Smaug is a motion-capture character, so all we'll see of Cumberbatch is his facial expressions and movements. But does anyone know how the Necromancer was done? Is he a live-action character or another motion-cap?

I only read that he is voiced by Benedict so maybe we won't see the character but only hear his voice.

**Posted by Sammy** September 6, 2012 7:22 pm

Yes, the thing about Benedict frustrates me even more! I think he probably won't appear in the first one, though, or maybe just very short.
For some reason I really hope that Smaug has Benedict's eyes, hehe.

And thank you for the explanation, Carol
I think it's perfect that they are trying to connect The Hobbit to Lotr. That way - different from the books - you can probably watch The Hobbit and Lotr in a row without any gaps in the story. Or, don't watch them in a row. You would sit there for, I don't know, a whole day.

**Posted by Carol the Dabbler** September 6, 2012 8:40 pm

About 18 hours, yeah.

It seems there's always talk about a "bridge" film connecting The Hobbit with LotR, but Jackson denies it, or at least fails to confirm it. Even if they stick with the time-frame of The Hobbit, though, I think there's enough material to make three good movies. (Remember how disappointed some fans were by how much of the books was left out of the LotR movies.)

Hmm, dragon eyes -- good idea!

**Posted by The Doctor** September 6, 2012 10:31 pm

Yeah, they have been discussing some of the Lord of the Rings appendices for a while, and we already know some of the original characters will return..

**Posted by Davina** September 17, 2012 5:33 pm

A further set of photos from The Hobbit have just been released plus there will be a trailer released on Wednesday. Further information plus YouTube with Peter Jackson to be found here:

www.radiotimes.com/news/2012-09-17/the-hobbit---new-photos-and-another-trailer-on-the-way

Oh and I forgot to say...Sylvester McCoy! Yay!

Last edited by Davina (September 17, 2012 5:34 pm)

**Posted by Sam** September 17, 2012 8:46 pm

Thanks for posting

Very nice...though now I'm waiting (not so patiently) for the first sighting of Smaug. Perhaps there will be a glimpse of him in the new trailer, but I doubt it *sigh*