Who Needs CGI?: First Look at Benedict Cumberbatch Filming Smaug in 'The Hobbit'

Hi gang! I’ve been on vacation for the past week – so if you noticed that the blog was dark over this time, that’s why – and now that I’m back catching up it seems like a lot happened during the past few days!

Clearly the best thing that I missed out on – and it’s so good I’m not even upset that I’m writing about it so late – is the fact that Sherlock star Martin Freeman hosted the iconic Saturday Night Live last weekend. While I haven’t managed to watch the entire episode yet – though I hear from various corners of the internet that the whole thing was actually good, something of a rarity during the past few years of SNL – I did catch the standout moment that resulted when the worlds of two of Freeman’s biggest hits collided.

The Office: Middle Earth imagines what life might be like for Bilbo Baggins following the conclusion of his quest in The Hobbit. It turns out that life looks a lot like the iconic British sitcom The Office, which also starred Freeman as loveable everyman Tim way back when. Only this time, there are definitely more orcs.

After fourteen years, six films and something like twenty hours worth of movies, Peter Jackson’s epic journey through the works of J.R.R. Tolkien is finally wrapping up this December with the release of the third film in The Hobbit trilogy.

Subtitled The Battle of the Five Armies (a switch from the original There and Back Again that I’m still miffed about), the film is set to wrap up the story of Bilbo Baggins’ journey, as well as showcase several massive fight scenes, and create a bridge of sorts between the end of the story in The Hobbit and the beginning of the Lord of the Rings trilogy.

You can say what you like about Jackson’s work, and there are valid arguments to be made on both sides of the debate about whether The Hobbit trilogy really needed to be three films or not, but this trailer is something spectacular – if only because it represents the true end of an era, as we say goodbye to Jackson’s singular vision of Middle Earth.

Hi guys! I’m home from Comic Con – exhausted, sore, seriously jetlagged and super happy. I had a great con. More on that later, but first I have to catch up on the apparently millions of things I did not read or watch over the last week. Bear with me!

One of the (many, many) fantastic bonuses to come out of San Diego Comic Con International is a positive explosion of new trailers for things. Having a captive audience, so to speak, the biggest studios and networks in the world want to make as big of a splash with as many properties as possible.

Thus, it’s no surprise that Warner Brothers rolled out the red carpet for the final appearance of The Hobbit – and likely the final Comic Con for fanboy god Peter Jackson for a very long time (if ever). The director has filmed six Tolkien-based movies over the past fourteen years, and unless he somehow manages to wrest the rights to The Silmarillion away from the author’s estate (unlikely), we’re approaching a true end of an era.

The studio hosted a star-studded panel on Saturday morning in the convention center’s Hall H, featuring stars Cate Blanchett, Benedict Cumberbatch, Lee Pace, Orlando Bloom, Elijah Wood, Evangeline Lilly and more, and dropped the first trailer for the trilogy’s highly anticipated final installment, subtitled The Battle of the Five Armies.

Spoiler alert: If you are at all in any way a fan of Jackson’s vision of Middle Earth, get your tissues ready now. Just trust me.