First look–The first trailer for The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug is here!

At last! For those of us who thought The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey was the best genre film of 2012, we now have reason to get excited about Part 2 of the trilogy, The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug, with Warner Bros. releasing the first trailer a few hours ago. The theme for the first trailer is Elves–and we finally get our first look at Lost star Evangeline Lilly as the Elf called Tauriel. And she looks awesome, wielding bow and arrow, dressed in green with great red hair. Orlando Bloom is back, too, as Legolas, along with Martin Freeman as Bilbo, Ian McKellen as Gandalf the Grey, Sylvester McCoy as Radagast the Brown, Richard Armitage as Thorin Oakenshield, and Ken Stott as the wise old dwarf Balin. It’s also our first look at Luke Evans as Bard the Bowman, and the CGI Smaug the dragon, although we don’t hear Benedict Cumberbatch yet as the voice of the dragon.

This is the part of The Hobbit where we meet Shelob the giant creepy spider–long before she meets up with Frodo in The Lord of the Rings. And we get to see the great river barrel ride of the Dwarves, that Peter Jackson previewed for fans in a series of videos last year here. And what’s more fun than a barrel of Dwarves?