Well, if your are waiting to see the movie, it might be best to wait on reading the book, in case there are some things that they change. But it might be fun to read the book as it is and watch the movie as sort of a visual compliment to it.

TSR/WotC?

Those would be the companies that previously and currently owned Dungeons & Dragons, Gladde.

And if they limit their changes in The Hobbit to just cutting things out, I'd call it an improvement over the trilogy in every way, but there's no way I see Jackson and co. resisting their urge to implant their own ideas into Tolkien's world, which really gets under my skin.

Here is a production video with all the dwarves in costume.

I have to say, I take back my doubt about 3/4 of them. Most of them look fantastic, but a few... *shakes head*

Oh, and do note the axe blade embedded in Bifur's forehead. Absurd. Utterly idiotic.

I think they did a fairly good job on the other 3 movies. Yeah they left some stuff out, but in a series as big as that, it's really nessesary. Otherwise the movies would have all been 12+ hours long each. I think the Hobbit will turn out just as well as the others did.

Again, it's the stuff they added in, and not what they removed, that brought down the quality of those films to me. Or the stuff they kept, but changed for no explicable reason to something worse.

At least it wasn't an Eragon travasty :P

I couldn't make it though even a couple paragraphs of Eragon, actually, and the movie struck as me trying to be Lord of the Rings while trying to also be itself. It didn't really work. I feel bad for Jeremy Irons. Again. *Sniff*

Well, um... well, yeah, you could say that. That film deserve some kind of award for actually making the story worse than it was in the book. I didn't think that was possible.

I am actually a fan of the Inheritance books, but to each his/her own I guess. Either way the Wheel of Time trumps them both :P

Not... saying... anything... not even going there.

Edit: Actually if you want to go open of WoT thread in the book forum, I'll discuss it with you there.

Never read Wheel of Time. Any of it. But then, I haven't read all the much outside of one or two authors in fantasy, and most of that is of the TSR variety. Seen only a little in the way of fantasy films too, though I suppose there just aren't that many to begin with.

Done :)

I notice they haven't shown "Tauriel" the elf warrior maiden born from Peter Jackson's imagination yet in the production videos.

...just thinking that name makes me facepalm.

Is there something particular about that name that's irritating to you, Suzerain? It does sound rather painfuly stereotypical for an elf.

No, it's not her name, it's the complete fabrication of her character and insertion into the plot. I can't really think of any good way for her to fit in. And it just irks me that they feel the need to do that.

Right, like the way they gave Arwen some extra stuff to do (which annoyed me really since it definately felt contrived and squished in for a moment of stereotype.

"We need one scene type 83 in this movie!"
"Okay! We'll put it in here."
"There's not enough room."
"It will fit.")

Blech.