Neil Gaiman, who made his name lifting the comic book genre to new levels of literary craft and respectability with his "Sandman" series, and recently has written a number of strong works of literary fiction, is undoubtedly one of the contemporary writers most atuned to the structure and internal logic of the fairy tale.

Granted, his recent collaberation with long time "Sandman" cover artist turned film director Dave McKean, "MirrorMask", was something of an overly stylised mess. But there's no avoiding getting your hopes up when you add up the mojo involved in the making of the film "Stardust", based on one of his books.

The film, which is based his best-selling novel, illustrated by Charles Vess, takes audiences on an adventure, narrated by Ian McKellen, that begins in a small English village and ends up in a magical world on the other side of an otherwise normal-looking stone wall. A young man named Tristan (Charlie Cox) tries to win the heart of village beauty Victoria (Sienna Miller) by promising to bring her a falling star. His journey takes him beyond the walls of his village to a mysterious and forbidden land.

When Tristan finds the star, he is stunned to discover that it is, not a lump of meteoric rock, but an angry, injured girl named Yvaine (Claire Danes) - who has no desire to be dragged across the world and presented to anyone`s girlfriend. But Tristan is not the only one seeking the star. A dying king`s (Peter O`Toole) four sons - not to mention the ghosts of their three dead brothers - all need the star as they vie for the throne. Three evil witches, led by the murderous Lamia (Michelle Pfeiffer) seek the star`s heart to make them young again.

Tristan and Yvaine are forced to flee together, encountering the captain of a flying pirate ship (Robert De Niro) and a shady trader named Ferdy the Fence (Ricky Gervais) along the way. As they travel Tristan discovers the real meaning of true love, but does not realise he`s taking Yvaine into much deeper peril...

Matthew Vaughn, the producer on Madonna-mate Guy Ritchie's films, and the director of "Layer Cake", featuring the new James Bond, Daniel Craig, is directing, while also writing the script with Jane Goldman. It is set to open in the US on August 10.

If your computer has Adobe/Macromedia Flash installed, you can watch the trailer for the film in streaming Flash video format below, courtesy of YouTube, or you can go to Yahoo and watch it in the streaming resolution and format of your choice. Or you can right-click and save the trailer to your harddrive in QuickTime format by using these handy direct links:

(Click for larger image)

QuickTime medium resolution trailer

High Definition versions:

QuickTime 480p resolution trailer

QuickTime 720p resolution trailer

QuickTime 1080p resolution trailer

If you're having trouble getting the video files to play, you can open them in the excellent cross platform media player VLC, which can be downloaded for a number of operating systems here.

Neil Gaiman on the origins of "Stardust"