I think you might have a point there
chris63, in quite a few ways we don't want the dragon to be boring but I really hope people don't start saying that they don't want to see a 'typecasted fire-breathing dragon'. The sad thing is that lots of films had been brought out before the LotR trilogy and they had included dragons of which people have since got bored with, this sadly will also apply to the two future Hobbit films, its such a shame that that a big film company has only recently started to produce film covers of the books by Tokien. The dragons that Tolkien creates come either straight from imagination or directly from the images created in the countless numbers of short traditional fairy tales. On most occasions Tolkien appears to have brought to life, aswell as adding alot of elements himself, the images that traditional fairy tales include (they obviously have no trade mark or official author). Tolkiens ideas are either original or adapted elements of tales that nobody recieves royalty from. They are in some respects the original foundations (although I think dragons might have initially originated from China, but I suppose there could be alot of controversy about what is and isn't a dragon) of the fantasy genre today, what is ironic is that people are saying, we don't want to see another dragon just like the one in Harry Potter (J.K. Rowling being a contemporary writer) when the Hobbit could be referenced to including what is commonly known as a dragon much earliar and way before recent fastasy adventures. It is a shame that the film has had to adapt to able to appeal to audiences whose only references of dragons come from Harry Potter (Don't get me wrong I love HP, I would never really diss Hazza

) and cheap cartoons in the media in order to sell the film. I really hope the Dragon is conventional (although I have no doubt Del Toro will produce something of great quality, I think that with Del Toro having such an influence on the film I think this might be unlikely, although he is a great guy) as well as including something that other film-dragons do not. Call me a traditionalist, I know I sound terrible, do forgive me, it's just I think with something as great as Tolkien's
The Hobbit its very importantant not to mess it up with too much artistic licence.
Regards
Mr. Bandobras Took