New The Hobbit Pics for Tolkien Week

Tolkien Week has more or less officially kicked off in celebration of the 75th Anniversary of The Hobbit which was published on September 21, 1927. The week ends with Hobbit Day on September 22 to mark the birthdays of Bilbo and Frodo. This Wednesday the next trailer for The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey will debut so it seems like a good time for new stills from the movie. USA Today has published eight new stills from the movie with comments from trilogy writer Philippa Boyens. All 8 can be viewed here. The one comment that provided new insight into the movie is for Radagast the Brown (Sylvester McCoy), a character that is not in The Hobbit book but appeared in the Lord of the Rings novel.

The wizard Radagast the Brown (Sylvester McCoy) is only mentioned in J.R.R. Tolkien’s Hobbit book once, but Boyens had enough to go on to boost his role in the new movie series, and she feels he’s going to become a well-loved character. “He’s not at all like Gandalf,” Boyens says. “There’s a power and danger and sharpness and wits and cunning even about Gandalf that you sense immediately, whereas Radagast is much quieter and gentler. You could mistakenly think he’s not even a wizard or that he might not have any powers of his own, and then you discover that he does.”