I know I bitched about Peter Jackson’s decision to make three movies out of J. R. R. Tolkien’s ‘The Hobbit‘, instead of the originally-intended two. I still think he was motivated by nothing but crass commercialism.
I was disappointed in the first Hobbit movie, which I thought dragged interminably. However, the second movie may be an improvement. This teaser footage has just been released. It looks to be pretty true to the book, and the bone-grinding tension is evident even in so short a piece. I recommend watching it in full-screen mode.
I may just have to watch this episode in a theater next month, rather than wait for the DVD . . .
Peter
I haven't seen Hobbit Part One (I'm kinda-sorta waiting to see them all together, as it's all part of one book), but in Jackson's defense, the first third of the Hobbit DID drag. Same with the first part of Fellowship of the Ring; except Jackson was able to cut out a lot of the "slow" parts in Fellowship.
Parsing Hobbit out into three movies instead of one may well be crass commercialism, but it's a well-calculated crassness, aimed directly at old and new fans of the books, who will want the movie to be as "true" as possible to the book.