Stewart works for me and it would reunite him with his X-Men sparring partner McKellen. Be interesting to see (or hear) the former as a baddie and the latter as a goodie. But IIRC, Stewart said in an interview that the LOTR series didn't work for him. Of course, that could have had something to do with ROTK (or was it TTT?) wiping the floor with Nemesis at the box office ...
It was "TTT" that owned "Nemesis" at the box office. I remember because I attended the midnight premiere of TTT, and while waiting could have snuck in to see "Nemesis" .... but for some strange reason didn't. As to a voice for Smaug, for my money whoever is cast needs to be able to convey a controlled malevolence that won't overshadow the dragon's intelligence. This is a creature that is centuries old, and dragons in general are an intelligent species.
What about John Hurt? As I recall he's been doing a pretty awesome job as the dragon in Merlin and (besides the fact that it's a bit late in life for him to be considered as "risking getting typecast" as a dragon) he turns a nice evil streak from time to time in that role.
The fact that Hurt is already voicing a dragon is a reason not to cast him as the voice of Smaug, IMHO. Not for his sake, not because of type-casting. But because The Hobbit should have its own distinctive voice (pun not intended) and shouldn't merely echo some tv series. We want Smaug to sound like nothing we've heard before. You may as well just cast Sean Connery to reprise his Dragonheart voice as go down that line.
Smaug should sound intimidating, menacing, but also intelligent and maybe a bit smarmy, if you ask me. Aside from all the good choices I've seen, I'm tempted to say Jeremy Irons, but that's probably too obvious. Jason Isaacs?
I don't recall saying that Hurt would be ideal simply because he's played a dragon...? In fact, I tend to agree with you on that - simply because he's played a similar role, is not by itself grounds for him to do so here. However I do think there's a small enough audience watching Merlin that the issue you perceive doesn't really matter. More importantly, I happen to think that Hurt's voice, as he has shown, is ideal - it sounds very similar to how I once imagined Smaug when I was younger: Ancient, incredibly devious, and just wickedly cruel! I'd rather have Hurt do the voice than Christopher Lee, Jonathan Rhys Davies, Patrick Stewart (who I'd personally consider to be awful for the role) or most of the other "contenders". And yes, that even includes Alan Rickman...
That's the whole point. "British" (there are dozens of varieties on the Isles) is not an accent, it is the language. Anything pre-dating it would be English as in from England, too. And since the movies will be in English, any "actual" language they are talking will be perceived by us as such- now unless they give Smaug some accent that comes from a non-native speaker, it would make zero sense to be anything but British.
And I don't recall saying that you did say that. I simply said that as far as I was concerned, that was a reason not to cast him. What you did say was as follows: Now, I'm not one to put words in anyone's mouth, but on any reading that certainly looks like you were citing the fact he's voiced a dragon in Merlin as a good reason to cast him as the voice of Smaug. 'Pretty awesome job as the dragon in Merlin ... turns a nice evil streak from time to time in that role.' Is there something I'm missing here?
Christopher Lee? His deep booming voice would be excellent for the part- plus he has already worked on the LOTR series. He did an excellent (albeit brief) job voicing the Dragon-like Jabberwocky on the new "Alice in Wonderland". What about James Earl Jones? He's got that deep sinister voice that would work well too. I agree that Richard Boone did an excellent job voicing Smaug in the RB version. Unfortunately, I believe that he has passed on, so he can't reprise the role.
I'd say either Alan Rickman, Jeremy Irons, James Earl Jones, or the voice of Darth Maul. I haven't heard John Hurt yet--but if he's as good as you all say...
If their speech made any difference, or their being different had been an integral part of the story, then we would all remember. In this case, Smaug could, like I said, speak English with a foreign accent. American is an accent, but not of a non-native speaker of English. You didn't have any tribal people speaking Yank. You want the dragon to have some undeterminable accent, fine, but just American in a British world would sound weird.