Forgive my lack of devoted fan-ism, because I'm left off with more confusion than confirmation. Yeah, it was cool, let's just get that out of the way, so you don't have to read me mull over how it caused everlasting happiness or some other odd feelings of euphoria everyone else seems to be feeling. Secondly, sorry if this is a re-post, it took me 5 minutes to just load the darn page, but I'm sure many will be glad to reinforce in replies regardless..

Enough of this verbal spasm though. What I'm questioning is how much of the actual trailer is cinematic, and how much is gameplay. Obviously the intro is pure gameplay, running through the wilderness is quite simple. Our hero's fight with the dragon is what eludes me. To keep it neat, I'll try to stick to point.

0:38-0:40- We see our Dragonborn come to a sudden stop and peak over what could have been a fatal accident. What eludes me here is the hand, how he steadies himself with it extended. Cut-scene? I'm quite certain it's gameplay/cut-scene, so not that worried here.

What comes next is pretty questionable though. I'm sure when the Dragonborn rises from the flame, and when he acquires the soul, it's a cinematic, but other parts are still possibly gameplay. For instance, the Hero's movements as he fights the beast. If it is pure gameplay, bravo, 3rd person looks a lot better. But I'm still curious. We also see the dragon breathe fire at one point, 0:57-0:58, which is also certaintly gameplay. The whole duo of attacks is basically only what's in question. How much of the fight is cut from in-game? I don't want to set my expectations up for failure, it looked pretty cool. I'll highlight the peak moments of the battle.

1:30-1:31 / 1:33 / 1:37-1:40 / 1:45 / 1:47-1:54

Once again, it's basically the dragon-fight. Everything else is pretty discernable from pure gameplay and cinematic. Feel free to discuss the aspect of the battle.

I will ask the painful question for you:
Will Skyrim feature Quick-Time-Events?

I think reaching out with the hand is more than possible if your mechanics include it as the animation for a dead-stop should you sprint towards a cliff.

Regarding the getting up after flame attacks, think of it like getting knocked down in Oblivion. In that context, the fire-breathing could knock the player down or stun the player, which would necessitate the animation of slowly rising to one's feet.
I'd be inclined to think that absorbing the soul is in-game, too, and not in cutscene form. If they could pull off the effects of grabbing the Sigil Stone in 2006, I think they can handle the dragon dynamically turning to ash and giving the player its soul.

What I can see is that fighting a dragon in this game is a frekin big deal. So I imagine small cutscenes or in game moments where you don't have all that much control can be and is acceptable. That's for the part of gaining the dragon soul and rising from the fire. However the mechanic of stopping suddenly at a cliff is something that should be and probably is gameplay. I just hope that if my character is running to fast he actually does fly off or perhaps makes an effort to reverse and grab the ledge or something near. But in my opinion that is a flawless in game mechanic.

And also... The frosted trees look absolutely stunning... Agreed?

Dragons are fairly common, though.