With less than 2 weeks until ‘The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies‘ opens in the US, and with the recent London premiere under their belts, Warner Bros and the team behind the epic finale to the ‘Hobbit’ trilogy have started releasing media leading up to the release of the film like gangbusters. Below you can find new clips from the movie featuring a look at one of the battle scenes, over 8 minutes of ‘making of’ footage, and a series of still images released of the film.

In the battle clip, we see Gandalf lead his forces against Sauran’s orcs, eventually with him and Bard retreating with their forces to the city of Dale to prevent being cut off by new enemy arrivals. We also get a brief shots of elves fighting in the battle, and see some catapults mounted on mountain trolls flinging rocks at Dale, which actually look pretty cool.

In addition, three more clips from the film have been released:

The making of clips are interesting and show the return of Saruman and Elrond in this film, and spoil some moments that are going to be in the film between Bilbo and Thorin, and between Gandalf and Galadriel. Don’t worry if the sound goes in and out while watching, I believe it was done intentionally to prevent any huge spoilers from certain scenes getting out.

For me, the most interesting part of this media blitz were the still images, as they had some spoiler shots in them that I had not expecting to see yet. In one shot with Thorin and Bilbo in the foreground (with the rest of the dwarves behind them,) it appears that Thorin has just given Bilbo the mithril armor that Bilbo will then famously give to Frodo during ‘The Lord of the Rings.’ And in another shot of Gandalf before a battle, he is wielding a new staff that looks suspiciously just like Radaghast the Brown’s staff, potentially confirming that Radaghast either gave Gandalf the staff or died during the movie, with Gandalf inheriting the staff.

Take a look for yourself, and feel free to express your own thoughts or ideas in the comments section.

From Academy Award®-winning filmmaker Peter Jackson comes “The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies,” the third in a trilogy of films adapting the enduringly popular masterpiece The Hobbit, by J.R.R. Tolkien. “The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies” brings to an epic conclusion the adventures of Bilbo Baggins, Thorin Oakenshield and the Company of Dwarves. Having reclaimed their homeland from the Dragon Smaug, the Company has unwittingly unleashed a deadly force into the world. Enraged, Smaug rains his fiery wrath down upon the defenseless men, women and children of Lake-town. Obsessed above all else with his reclaimed treasure, Thorin sacrifices friendship and honor to hoard it as Bilbo’s frantic attempts to make him see reason drive the Hobbit towards a desperate and dangerous choice. But there are even greater dangers ahead. Unseen by any but the Wizard Gandalf, the great enemy Sauron has sent forth legions of Orcs in a stealth attack upon the Lonely Mountain. As darkness converges on their escalating conflict, the races of Dwarves, Elves and Men must decide – unite or be destroyed. Bilbo finds himself fighting for his life and the lives of his friends in the epic Battle of the Five Armies, as the future of Middle-earth hangs in the balance.

Source: ComicBookMovie.com, Collider, ComicBookMovie.com