You've already seen the Hobbit cover of the latest issue of Empire, but here's a sneak peek at two of the images inside the magazine, showing Bilbo and Gandalf in all their Martin Freeman-y, Sir Ian McKellen-y glory. And inside the magazine is a lengthy and exclusive report from the film's New Zealand set, which our Ian Nathan visited recently. The good news? Peter Jackson is relaxed, happy and hitting his stride.

“I’m exactly the same filmmaker as I was ten years ago,” says Jackson. “I’m trying to nail the same thing that I did before. I’m just telling the story.” The only difference is that this time he has a bunch of snarky dwarves to corral. "“They don’t know what to make of Gandalf, they think Bilbo is a wuss, and Elrond a prissy headmaster type,” laughs Jackson.

http://www.empireonline.com/news/story.asp?NID=31352

Very nice!
I'm actually looking forward to this movie!

OMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I'm liking the look they picked up for the guy who's presumably Thorin. Really captures the image of the character well.

Still bothered that they're going to incorporate Galadriel in this. Hopefully they don't dick it up and make the Elves appear more angelic (like those of, say, Lorien in LotR). The Elves portrayed in the Hobbit were much more down to earth. Flighty and a little silly, but that was just their nature

"I'm Gandalf and Magneto. Get over it!"

HAHAHA!

I agree about Thorin and Bilbo looks pretty damn perfect too.  Honestly I have high hopes for this one and Jackson did a fantastic job with LOTR so I have a lot of faith in him. I honestly don't think anyone else could have ever brought those books to life.

good that they are still in new zealand

i am looking forward for this, and i am looking forward to being blown away by the dark knight rising or disappointed. These are the only movies i have any wanting to see first week.

I loved the Lord of the Rings fought they were great watches.

But boy number 3 had like 5 different non endings before it ended. Hopefully the hobbit isn't that lengthily

I don't know if you know how Galadriel will be incorporated and I really don't want to know, but it supprises me also which characters imdb claims will be in the film that really didn't exist in the book.

Also the Hobbit is about half as long as the Fellowship of the Ring, yet they're making 2 films

Well, the Hobbit was told differently, too. Fellowship was more dense, in that they actually detailed most of the places they went through. In The Hobbit, they never even mentioned Bree (likely because he hadn't thought of it yet), or most of Eriador. Then you have the whole return journey told in like a chapter.

I think the idea was to add some of the short stories and notes about what happened when Gandalf left the group for example to the movies so as to fill in the backstory for the trilogy, also the hobbit movies are likely to be shorter than the LotR.