Er, NO… that’s not what the idiots who look down on us from D.C. will be thinking once they come to some of their senses and stop scaring the hell out of half the country with their needless grade school tantrum antics. It’s the official trailer to the second part of Peter Jackson’s latest Middle-Earth saga. I still need to see the first one (and thankfully, cable will be taking care of that soon enough), and I don’t plan to pay to see this one in a theater at all, but I’ll shoot over to a screening if I can get a pass. Speaking of getting a pass, I’m kind of burned out on these literary epics anyway, but I’d LOVE it if someone were to challenge making a great film our of something like Alfred Bester’s The Stars My Destination, Stanislaw Lem’s Eden, something from an Asimov or Bradbury WITHOUT messing it up with stupid action scenes and terrifically inappropriate casting decisions. Hell, make a serious animated flick for the cost of some overpaid superstar and I’m a happy camper.

Granted, SELLING that sort of creative film project to an challenged audience who wants to see those star faces and CG explosions is the real rub to deal with…