Studio marketing departments don’t work hard enough? Now fans have to slave away on massive trailer reels splicing together all of the footage that exists for a movie we haven’t yet seen in theaters yet? Grated, when we’re talking about a movie like Peter Jackson’s The Hobbit, this nearly-eight-minute montage of every TV spot and trailer likely is a labor opf love. If you are running out of ways to kill time before Jackson brings audiences back to The Shire, here’s a feature that will brighten your day.
As is explained on the YouTube page for this video project, the composer used “all The Hobbit: Unexpected Journey trailers and TV spots, including: Announcement trailer, Announcement trailer (G), Trailer 1, TV Spot 1 - 7, UK 1 minute TV spot, Japanese 1 minute TV Spot.” That’s beyond comprehensive. They then re-ordered the clips into a sequence that they believe will be followed in the first Hobbit film. Given the fact that there exists a book fans can follow, that part probably wasn’t quite as difficult as you might assume.
This montage points out a problem that surfaced back when a fan “re-created” Marc Webb’s The Amazing Spider-Man using only promotional materials. Namely, do studio marketing departments show audiences too much in hopes of luring them into theaters? There’s an awful lot of Hobbit footage here: Enough to splice together an eight-minute reel. Obviously, Jackson has a LOT more than that. He has three Hobbit movies in the pipeline. But it begs the question – Are we seeing too much footage from anticipated blockbusters? Or are lengthy TV spots and trailers just part of the business nowadays? The Hobbit opens in theaters on Dec. 14.
