The Hobbit or there and back again

Written by: J.r.r Tolkien

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Description of the Hobbit The Hobbit, which was written by JRR Tolkien, tells the story of a peaceable creature named Bilbo Baggins. Bilbo, like most

hobbits, is similar to a human, but about half the size and not nearly as loud. Bilbo gets caught up in affairs much greater than his own hobbit-life when, at the recommendation of a mysterious old wizard named Gandalf, he is hired as a "burglar" by a group of dwarves. These dwarves are going to the Lonely Mountain in the East to reclaim their family's treasure from the great dragon Smaug.

Along the way, the company gets into trouble with goblins, spiders, and other malevolent creatures, and they often escape only because of the assistance of Gandalf and led the dwarves to the treasure with hardly any help from Gandalf. He became strong and independent. He knew there had to be a leader of the group, so he took the job. He was a silent leader, but a good one. He led the dwarves home safely from a very long weary quest. In summation, Bilbo learned a lot while he was on his quest. In the Hobbit, which was written by JRR Tolkien, Bilbo had magical help. He found a ring that turned him invisible. He was given an Elvish sword that glowed when it was near evil and Bilbo had Gandalf to look up to. He helped Bilbo kill the great goblin. Once again the dwarves are captured, this time by elves. Bilbo once again, using his magical ring frees the dwarves. They then journey towards the dragon Smaug in order to smite him.

Amazingly, the dwarves and the hobbit didn't have to do a thing. While Smaug was out to look for something to eat, someone from a nearby town shot him with an arrow. The treasure was now free! The only discerning part was that the person that shot down Smaug now wanted a share of the treasure. Since the dwarves though that the treasure was rightfully theirs they didn't want to give it up. At the end there is an epic battle called the battle of the five armies. With elves, dwarves and eagles rushing to the small hobbits aid, they are able to win. The treasure is then split, Bilbo refuses his share though. The Author of this book, JRR Tolkien was born on the 3 rd of January in 1892. He is known most for his Lord of the Rings trilogy, the first book in this trilogy is the hobbit. With these books he basically started the whole high fantasy works genre. One author, C.S. Lewis was heavily influenced by JRR Tolkien, they were actually friends. Some literary elements used in The Hobbit are, theme, setting and man vs. man. The Hobbit’s main theme is Bilbo’s development into a hero, in the beginning of the book he Is looked upon as a lowly thief, but by the end he is the hero. The setting of this book is hobbiton, and various places in middle earth, while the man vs. man conflict is shown by the numerous battles that take place within this book.

Book/Movie comparisonThe book The Hobbit written by JRR Tolkien is extremely similar to the 78 minute cartoon version of it.

Although it manages to tell a somewhat accurate version of the book, it is only given 78 minutes to depict the scenes of a 300 page book. Given the short amount of time, the film is actually quite accurate, and in sync with the book in many ways. But as good as the film is the book is much better, and people should definitely read the book before watching the film, or else you will miss some interesting parts.

The first major difference is that the Dwarves show up with Gandalf all at once in the film, rather than arriving in groups the day after Gandalf meets Bilbo and puts the mark on his door, also in the book Fili and Kili play crucial roles and they have many lines, while in the film they all speak and sing in tandem. To go along with that small difference the company leaves Bilbo's house on ponies, but after that the ponies are not seen until they are lost crossing the Misty mountains. While in the book the group rode ponies from the shire all the way to Rivendell. In the movie Gandalf has the power to make dawn come early and turn the trolls to stone, while in the book he throws his voice in order to trick the trolls, the movie makes him seem a lot more powerful than he actually is, yes, he does have powers, but he is not a white wizard yet.

Another difference within these two books is that Gandalf gives Thorin his fathers map and the key to smaugs hideout in the troll cave, as opposed to the movie where he gives it to him before they leave bag end. Another difference that was seen in the movie was that Bilbo’s sword sting always was glowing as opposed to in the book where it only glows if goblins are near by. The whole incident at the enchanted river as well as Bombur’s magical sleep is left out. It seems as if Gandalf is always missing in the movie, and then magically appears when they need him most, this however is not the case, in the book he is there most often. For example when the dwarves are captured by the goblins, it is because they wander in the cave while Gandalf is sleeping. In the movie it shows the ponies being sucked into the tunnel, then they go after them.

One scene which I found very disappointing in the movie was the scene, were Bilbo and Gollum have a riddle competition, in which Bilbo wins, but escapes by use of a magical ring. In this scene they only used four riddles, as opposed to the ten riddles they used in the book. In the movie Gandalf acts like he knows exactly how Bilbo escaped from Gollum, he hints at this by stating “has the ring of truth. Yes, it rings true. While in the book he has no idea how Bilbo escapes and he never hints at anything having to do with rings. In the movie they meet wargs in the woods, while in the book they meet trolls again, and never meet any wargs. Wargs are afraid of fire, and the company was using torches so wargs would never think of attacking them. The trolls were riding large wolves not wargs.

Book/Movie comparison 2JRR Tolkien depicts the wood elves as lovely creatures that are beautiful in every way, in the movie they're depicted as blue skinned and quite ugly. Towards the end the movie shows Balin going to Smaugs secret hideout with him, but in the book only Bilbo goes, Balin does not. Roac the raven is omitted. In the book, the ravens tell the company that Smaug is slain and then is sent to Dain to ask for help. In the film, the Dwarves wait, lost inside the Lonely Mountain for a week, and it is never explained why the ravens arrive at such a crucial moment. In the book Thorin becomes angry with Bilbo because Bilbo is too cowardly to fight in the battle of 5 armies. In the movie Thorin gets angry with Bilbo because he handed the Arkenstone to the elves. Basically the whole journey home is omitted from the film, this includes: a winter at Beorn's home, a stop at Rivendell and digging up gold they buried by the troll camp. If I were to change the film in any way I would have added in the scene with Tom Bombadill, whish was very interesting, also they could’ve gone more in depth with the whole riddle scene. None of the scenes from the book were really transformed in the film in my mind. Tolkien does a perfect job of describing what is going on within the book, so much that a movie is almost unnecessary.

Although the movie leaves out a good amount of scenes from the book, it is still quite accurate when attempting to depict sections of the book. Most of what was left out did not really effect, in my mind, how you view both, Without reading the book and only watching the movie, my summary would have been almost identical. The movie only leaves out unimportant parts, that don’t really contribute to the main story. In some cases, parts were even changed for the better.

Film Related links

Link to new movie coming out in 2011

Link to old movie that came out in 1977

Work Cited

• http://tolkiengeek.blogspot.com/2005/07/hobbit-cartoon-whats-wrong-with-it.html

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XSHLGnexe-w

• http://lotr.ugo.com/animation/hobbit/

• http://www.lordotrings.com/movies/hobbit.asp