By Alexis Ramsey
Round Table Reporter
Thirteen dwarves show up at Bilbo’s door one fine evening. There is little surprise that he is incredibly confused.
Martin Freeman pulls off the confused little hobbit amazingly well in the screenplay of J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit.
Directed by Peter Jackson, the movie centers around an “unexpected journey” that Bilbo gets pulled into by the 13 dwarves who are on a quest to retake their home.
After Gandalf, played by Ian McKellen, puts a mark on Bilbo’s door the dwarves show up for dinner and have quite a lot of fun with the befuddled halfling. The song and dish cleaning scene was one of my favorites and showed the laid back, fun side of the dwarves, which would pop up multiple times during the movie.
The list of my favorite scenes goes on and on: from the riddle scene between Bilbo and Gollum, played by Andy Serkins, to the “parasites as large as my leg” line when the dwarves and Bilbo are captured by the trolls; from the mind play that Galadriel, played by Cate Blanchett, and Gandalf go through to the happy Elrond, played by Hugo Weaving, riding in after being on patrol; from the eagles swooping in to save the day to Bilbo finally being accepted by Thorin, played by Richard Armitage, at the very end. There are so many wonderful parts.
There were only three parts that disappointed me. First, the part where the dwarves are running from the goblins and how that looks so similar to the action scene where the fellowship is running from the balrog, which gave me flashbacks and almost made me miss the goblin king’s death. Second, how Bilbo finds the ring. Third, Thorin rushes the white goblin and looks just like Aragorn rushing the Mordor horde in the Return of the King, giving me another flash back rendition and making me almost miss the cool part where Gandalf calls in the eagles.
Some artistic liberties were taken by Jackson. The movie does differ from the book in a few parts; such as where Bilbo specifically picks up the ring instead of stumbling over it like even The Lord of the Rings movie followed (Jackson what were you thinking?!?). But overall the book lovers will love this movie just as much as they loved The Lord of the Rings series.
