Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug Trailer

The first trailer for the Hobbit sequel is out today:

I saw the first Hobbit film in the theater. I thought it ranged between enjoyable and silly (and not always in a good way). In general the quieter scenes were handled better than the action sequences. I enjoyed the riddle contest between Gollum and Bilbo but thought the dwarves’ escape from the underground lair via an endless series of Rube Goldberg pathways was borderline awful filmmaking. I understand that The Hobbit is intended as a lighter film than the Lord of the Rings but once any sense of danger has evaporated even children are likely to get bored.

It’s hard to tell from this trailer whether the 2nd film will ditch some of the sillier moments in the 1st. The trailer certainly seems to be selling the seriousness and danger. I’m hoping that’s representative of the movie itself.