Let's Appreciate the Majesty of This Trailer

Look, we all know not everyone's gonna make it out of The Hobbit: The Battle Of Five Armies alive. For one, the title references a big-ass battle. For another, this book has been out for 77 years — a lot of people have read it by now. All this just makes the first trailer for The Hobbit 's last stand all the more epic — and all the more haunting. Of course, it's helped along by that soundtrack. The song's literally include the words "who shall fade." Someone's gonna die.

This, as was the case with the Hunger Games: Mockingjay, Part 1 trailer Sunday night, is yet more trickle-down footage from San Diego Comic-Con. And this one, it must be said, is extremely visually beautiful. That's hardly a surprise — Peter Jackson's adventures with The Hobbit seem to be at least 60 percent funtime with CGI, and one can not accuse DP Andrew Lesnie or being a slacker. If they're gonna kill beloved characters they gotta do it in style, y'know?

For real, though, we gotta spend some time admiring how damn pretty this trailer is. It's really the kind of thing that demands you take it nearly shot-for-shot. So let's do that.

I mean, even the logo's beautiful:

Then there's Bilbo Baggins.

We spend a second with this guy, and his very HD swords.

Then we visit with Evangeline Lilly:

And then a DRAGON.

Some scenic standing.

Hey, did you guys know this is filmed in New Zealand?

For some reason they leave the little guys to the heavy lifting.

And the brooding.

And there really is a lot of scenic standing.

Notice that the above scenic standing takes place near a pile of dead bodies. That seems to be a theme.

More brooding.

It's really bumming Orlando Bloom out.

Most of these dudes seem like they're gonna have a bad day.

This dude especially.

He seems pretty upset about it.

Sorry, dude.

At least Ian McKellen's gonna be there for a while?

And all of these guys:

This movie's gonna make me really sad, isn't it?

Images: Warner Bros.