We Only Have One Year Until The Hobbit

I said it earlier this summer when Harry Potter was wrapping up, in a moment of pure old-lady-sitting-on-a-porch unfairness, that my high-school-experience-defining movie series was coming back with all the same production personas, plus ten years of advancements in special effects, for two more movies so there.

And you know what, I stand by that. The Hobbit comes out in a year, on December 14th 2012 (just cutting in six days before the Mayan apocalypse) and fittingly, the production has released its first official plot synopsis. As if you needed to know.

From Academy Award®-winning filmmaker Peter Jackson comes The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, the first of two films adapting the enduringly popular masterpiece The Hobbit, by J.R.R. Tolkien. The second film will be The Hobbit: There and Back Again.

Both films are set in Middle-earth 60 years before The Lord of the Rings, which Jackson and his filmmaking team brought to the big screen in the blockbuster trilogy that culminated with the Oscar®-winning The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King.

The adventure follows the journey of title character Bilbo Baggins, who is swept into an epic quest to reclaim the lost Dwarf Kingdom of Erebor from the fearsome dragon Smaug. Approached out of the blue by the wizard Gandalf the Grey, Bilbo finds himself joining a company of thirteen dwarves led by the legendary warrior, Thorin Oakenshield. Their journey will take them into the Wild; through treacherous lands swarming with Goblins and Orcs, deadly Wargs and Giant Spiders, Shapeshifters and Sorcerers.

Although their goal lies to the East and the wastelands of the Lonely Mountain first they must escape the goblin tunnels, where Bilbo meets the creature that will change his life forever…Gollum.

Here, alone with Gollum, on the shores of an underground lake, the unassuming Bilbo Baggins not only discovers depths of guile and courage that surprise even him, he also gains possession of Gollum’s “precious” ring that holds unexpected and useful qualities … A simple, gold ring that is tied to the fate of all Middle-earth in ways Bilbo cannot begin to know.

Hard to tell where, from this information, the split is going to be between the two movies. The best cliffhanger would probably be to get Bilbo and Co. into the hands of Mirkwood’s elves, and then leave their escape for the beginning of There and Back Again. But the most satisfying ending might be to leave them with the mysterious Beorn, looking forward with courage to the forest of Mirkwood. Well, in a year, we’ll find out.

(via Bleeding Cool.)