One of the most thrilling scenes in J.R.R. Tolkein's The Hobbit has Bilbo Baggins and the company of dwarves held captive by a group of elves and trying to escape. In order to do so, each one finds an empty barrel to hide in. Unfortunately, this plan goes awry when the barrels are dumped into a raging river and the heroes are left praying that they will survive. It's a sequence that will surely be one of the most climactic in the second part in Peter Jackson's adaptation, The Hobbit: The Desolation Of Smaug, and is also the subject of the newest still released from the film, which you can see above
The still was discovered by the folks over at TheOneRing.net and is filled with some cool little details. For starters, if you look at the barrel on its side towards the top of the image you will notice two skillfully grouped arrows sticking out of the wood. Basically, this means that the 12 dwarves and the one hobbit not only have to deal with some serious rapids, they are also being attacked by some skillful warriors. As the source site points out in their write-up, it's hard to say if the arrows are coming from attacking elves or orcs - but it's also entirely possible that it's both.
The other fun little detail - which is admittedly a little harder to notice - is the location of Bilbo (Martin Freeman) in this shot. Rather than being in a barrel of his own, the poor lost hobbit is instead left clinging to the side of the one occupied by by Nori. Looking at the high-res version of the image over at TheOneRing it's pretty clear that he's not exactly having a great time. A fun time at the waterpark this is not.
The adventurous scene was fairly heavily featured in the most recent trailer for the film that came out back in June. Watch it below to see the barrels in action!
Adapted by Jackson, Fran Walsh, Philippa Boyens, the second part of the Hobbit trilogy finds Bilbo and the dwarves continuing their mission to return to the Lonely Mountain and reclaim the treasure that was stolen from the dwarves' by a giant red dragon named Smaug (Benedict Cumberbatch). Martin Freeman, Sir Ian McKellen, Richard Armitage, Hugo Weaving, Cate Blanchett, Sir Christopher Lee, Lee Pace, Orlando Bloom and many more will reprise their roles from the previous Middle-earth films, while new additions include Luke Evans as Bard The Bowman and Evangeline Lilly as Tauriel (a new elf character created for the film adaptation.
The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug will be in theaters on December 13th.
