Big, fun, and expensive though the marketing will undoubtedly be, I don’t know just how many people really need to be “sold” on The Hobbit. It’s based on one of the best-selling and most beloved books of all time; it’s a prequel to The Lord of the Rings, which, you may recall, did pretty well at the box office; it appears to have that same seasonal spectacle people ate up the first time around; and, hey, it’s a prequel to The Lord of the Rings that’s based on one of the best-selling and most beloved books of all time.

Because of this — and because I don’t want to get myself too excited just yet — I’ll take a few shots from EW as a fun, tiny reminder that Peter Jackson‘s bringing us back to Middle-earth. It looks grand and pretty (let’s not worry about 48fps for the time being), but the most exciting of these ten pictures is a small, dark shot of Gollum (Andy Serkis), who looks more photo-real than ever.

Then there’s Gandalf (Ian McKellen), Galadriel (Cate Blanchett), Elrond (Hugo Weaving), and several Dwarves — in this case, Fili (Dean O’Gorman,), Kili (Aidan Turner), Dori (Mark Hadlow), Nori (Jed Brophy), and Thorin Oakenshield (Richard Armitage). The latter grouping are seen about to make their famous escape down a river in barrels; needless to say, realizing what I was looking at made my inner-geek happy.

Take a look below:

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey opens on December 14th.

Do several new shots build your anticipation for The Hobbit? Have you already been set on seeing the film?