I find the OTT negative reactions to this, dismissing the whole thing before a single frame has even been seen, quite staggering.
I was under the impression that there was very little CGI with the name reveal. Looking at the behind the scenes footage... it doesn't seem very CGI to me.
You guys are missing the point. If I think it looks bad, it's obviously that awful newfangled CGI stuff. If I think it looks good, it's clearly something lovingly crafted by hand in the real world. New things bad, old things good.
I keep finding myself posting the refrain "haters gonna hate" way too much recently. Yes, with very little detail and no footage viewed by the masses how can anyone think this show is anything but a crappy crapfest for dumb jerks? Absolutely dumbfounded by people that ingest nothing but haterade
Probably not as amazed as I am about how many people have absolutely no idea of what "hate" actually is.
Personally I love all the films (yes including the Hobbit). Anything that gets more fans of the books the better. I completely understand that liberties have to be taken to translate books to film. Otherwise, the films would double in size and quantity, and the average non-fanatic wouldn't have the attention span to support a project of that size and scope. Yes, they changed a few things, but nothing that affected the whole of the stories. I accept them as they are... an attempt to jump from book media to film media. Trust me, I could write a 10 page post about the changes they made to LOTR and Hobbit, but it would all.... essentially be.... irrelevant. As a fan, I am looking forward to the show.
Not that it has anything to do with the upcoming series but after The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies was release, The Hobbit book fell out of the most read books in British schools for the first time in 5 decades.
I was hoping the trailer would actually give us something other than some neat effects. I'm still very skeptical of this show but would love to be proven wrong.
I am not familiar with the UK market, but Amazon in the US sees high upticks in reading of the story every time a new movie comes out. In October, the #1 read book according to Amazon was Dune due to the new movie. Same thing happened with the recent wheel of time series on Amazon. Robert Jordan books never sold so well previous to the show starting (I had all the first edition hardbacks of the books up to book 10 when I sold the set on eBay back in 2006). Game of thrones saw the same interest in the series when it showed up on TV. I would like to see what data sources you are referring to that would shed some additional light in the UK market.
Respectfully, and while I understand your point, when I see "humanist perspectives from the well educated" I tend to run for the hills. I think the point is that modern political tonalities may be uniquely ruinous for Tolken world building/story telling? But..time will tell!
Do the people of those "hills" instead prefer anti-humanist perspectives from the ignorant? I kid, I kid.
Even you can't spin that, it is a pretty unknown cast. Which is not necessarily a bad thing (see Game of Thrones) but don't pretend it's something it's not. I have seen one of them in the great Saint Maud film but don't know nearly any of the others. And half don't even have a wiki page link lol.
I went to IMDB before I posted my comment and I stick by it. I mean, if you don't know who Sir Lenny Henry is I can't help you.