If the American Tolkien Society hadn’t proclaimed Sept. 22 Hobbit Day back in 1978 and then dedicated the entire week to all things Tolkien, there’s a good chance that Warner’s Bros. would’ve gotten around to doing just that this year.

Tolkien lovers mark this week because two of J.R.R. Tolkien’s fictional characters – Bilbo and Frodo Baggins – were born on Sept. 22 (of different years).

The week is significant to Warner Bros. because it’s a good launching point for the publicity campaign for Peter Jackson’s The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey. The movie – the first of a trilogy based on Tolkien’s 1937 novel The Hobbit – doesn’t open until Dec. 14, but you wouldn’ t know that by the hoopla.

Warners released a trailer Wednesday amid some fanfare. The film’s website offers five alternate endings for the trailer, and the studio is encouraging fans to create their own trailers for the movie.

The studio, which has been releasing photos from The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey for months now, released another trove this week as well.

You can see the trailer at the top of this post. The book is set 60 years before the actions of The Lord of the Rings, so the characters look younger. Other than that, it pretty much looks like more of the same. In the new movie, Gandalf recruits Bilgo Baggins to join him and a team of dwarves in an effort to reclaim the lost Dwarf Kingdom of Erebor.

To get into the spirit of this Tolkien Week business, I’m also posting a big gallery of movie stills from The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey.

I hope you enjoy them. Click on a thumbnail to see a full-size image. Use the “back” button to return to this page.