'THE HOBBIT' releases a Long-Expected Trailer

After years upon years of false starts, lawsuits, director changes, re-writes, budget battles, and generally the biggest case of development hell for anyone whose name doesn't rhyme with Smelly Gilligan, Peter Jackson's The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey is finally upon us. The link is here, the embedded version below, but before you watch, do yourself a favor:

Forget the endless hand-wringing debates about splitting the story in two, the worries that this was going to shift the focus from Bilbo's journey and make it 'Lord of the Rings Episode 0: The Phantom Ring Menace'. Forget the controversy at losing Guillermo DelToro as director. Forget the rumors that Peter Jackson had lost his touch, rumors that got fanned by how remarkably underwhelming The Lovely Bones was. Forget all that, and instead think back to eleven years ago (holy shit), right before we got our first glimpse of Middle Earth, and think of all the debates that raged even then that seem pointless now: Where's Tom Bombadil? How could they cut out the Scouring of the Shire? DO BALROGS REALLY HAVE WINGS?! Remember how you let it all go once you saw the teaser, and THEN give this a go:

Feels good, doesn't it? The tone is lighter than Lord of the Rings, but it should be: The Hobbit is, of course, a kid's story. Tolkien wrote it for his grandkids. It works. 

Of course, now we get to sit and wait a whole other year to get the actual film. Oh, if only there were other films to distract us...