SPOILERS, of course.
Over the weekend a new batch of stills dropped featuring the dwarves of THE HOBBIT: AN UNEXPECTED JOURNEY, news that has came along with something else far juicier in tow. Remember that long banner that appeared back during Comic Con? The one that looked like this?
Now if you study the above banner with any knowledge of what happens in the book you’ll realize that it actually shows The Company’s journey in chronological order, with the terrifying journey with The Mirkwood forming the closing action sequence and the escape from that dreadful place serving as our cutoff point between films. Only perhaps, if newly released art is to be believed, that is not the case anymore. Check it out (click either half and be taken to the extra large full version complete with zoom).
And here’s a better look at the ending piece of art up close (click the art and be taken to our poster archive version of the whole poster):
Seems like the new cutoff point for the first film in Peter Jackson’s new trilogy now comes during (or immediately after) The Company’s battle (of sorts) with the Wargs following Bilbo’s finding of the One Ring. Which is maybe a third of the way through the book, 40% at the most, so there’s definitely going to be some padding from the appendices in there that this banner doesn’t reveal. Hopefully we’ll get a new trailer between now and release to enlighten us, but if not we all may be in for the most interesting of surprises come December 14th.
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