A trailer for Knight Of The Seven Kingdoms suggests that HBO will avoid Peter Jackson’s The Hobbit mistakes

Overwhelming battles, larger-than-life characters destined for greatness, and lots of dragons… Every “Game of Thrones” fan has been conditioned to expect these things from the series, but that’s finally about to change. Viewers may be in for a big surprise with “A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms,” HBO’s latest spin-off/prequel series from the imagination of author George R.R. Martin. Today gave us our first official look at the trailer for the upcoming showAnd it’s already clear that she’s going to form her own identity entirely in the world of Westeros. But a closer look at the footage brings to mind a very different fictional property — one that serves as a cautionary tale for what co-writer and director Ira Parker hopes to achieve here.

Those who found themselves captivated by this glimpse into the harsh adventures of Ser Duncan the Tall (Peter Claffey) and his loyal sidekick Egg (Dexter Saul Ansell) may remember the series’ spiritual predecessor: J. R. R. Tolkien’s “The Hobbit.” Famously (or infamously, depending on your point of view), the nearly 300-page children’s novel made its way to the big screen through Peter Jackson’s earlier films. It’s no secret that the production of The Hobbit films was pretty much a messAnd a lot of it boils down to the misguided idea of ​​taking a small-scale story and blowing it up to Lord of the Rings level.

In a strange way, “A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms” gives its creative team the opportunity to learn an important lesson about what no to do. Fortunately, we have a sneaking suspicion that this is exactly what they will do. Here’s how.

Here’s the somewhat counterintuitive truth that “A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms” seems to have captured: Not everything needs to be “Game of Thrones.” Even when it comes to another major spin-off series set in the universe that first created the smash-hit original series, it’s far from certain that it’s more than that. The trailer shows off a more simple, grounded, and (mostly) dragon-free setting this time around, which comes as a big change of pace from what “House of the Dragon” has established for itself since its first season. Heck, we’re now at the point where criticism of this show’s second season revolves around it A major battle is postponed until the third season.

But when you look at “A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms,” it couldn’t feel more refreshing compared to the way “The Hobbit” was first marketed in early 2010. Jackson’s attempt to bring Tolkien’s prequel story of Bilbo Baggins’s accidental journey across Middle-earth started off on a modest enough note, but it quickly became underwhelming. According to popular expectations at the time. The simplest, most straightforward story (Bilbo is recruited on a quest to help some dwarves slay a dragon) quickly expands into a trilogy of three-hour epics, none of which really manage to sustain themselves over the course of their runtimes. Remember this quote in The Fellowship of the Ring (by Bilbo, no less) about him “Butter scratched on too much bread?” Yes, let no one doubt Tolkien’s powers of prophecy.

However, after more than a decade, A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms finally gets to show us how it was supposed to be done.

Unlike “The Hobbit,” which was advertised as a popular two-part saga before later turning into a full trilogy, “A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms” lacks any of these red flags. A Song of Ice and Fire author George R.R. Martin may have gained a reputation as a somewhat verbose writer with his main epic, but the source material behind this latest offering is another animal entirely. Technically a collection of novels rather than an actual series of novels, Martin’s “Dunk and Egg” books are intentionally designed to be easy to read and compact. Although it was written first before it was retrospectively inserted into his more famous novels, Tolkien’s The Hobbit serves a similar function. Now, it looks like “A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms” is poised to continue that trend when it premieres on HBO early next year — even if fans won’t get to experience as many episodes as they’re used to.

Unlike “Game of Thrones” and “House of the Dragon,” both of which typically run between 7 and 10 episodes per season (with the glaring exception The final season of Game of Thrones, and we saw what happened with it), “A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms” takes a significantly more conservative approach. The new series will only have six episodes, and for once we’re happy about that. This is definitive proof that Ira Parker and his writers don’t feel pressured to pull “The Hobbit” and add more storylines and scale just for the sake of it. Viewers will have to adapt to a completely different treatment of this fantasy world they know so well, but we hope that risk pays off… and leaves our unpleasant memories of “The Hobbit” even further in the rearview mirror.

“A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms” comes to HBO on January 18, 2026.