‘Twas the year 2002 when I was gifted the VHS of “Fellowship of the ring”. Back then I never heard of Lord of the Rings or J.R.R. Tolkien, but I was surrounded by people who were very happy about the announcement: be them schoolmates or family friends. I was happy about the gift since at the time I was already curious about the fantasy genre.

That movie had me hooked since the very beginning. The introduction caught me not only thanks to the wonderful speech by Galadriel, but also with the massive battle between Elves and Humans facing off against the army of Mordor. I immediately grew fond of the characters, terrified by creatures like the Nazgul and the Balrog, and the unexpected betrayal of Saruman kept me on edge to see who else in the fellowship might try to take the ring for themselves.

When the VHS ended and I found out it was just the beginning of the story I was flabbergasted. Since then I always made it so I would see the sequels in the cinemas as soon as they came out. Lord of The Rings has since become one of my favourite operas ever. Despite this, my experience with Tolkien would always be limited to this trilogy, I never was interested in expanding my horizons and reading the other stories about middle earth, at least not until a couple of years ago…

First approach with The Hobbit

Ten years went by till the release of “An Unexpected Journey”, the first of The Hobbit trilogy of movies. Back then I still hadn’t read the original book. I was always a terrible reader, but I was excited to see how this movie could’ve compared to the previous Lord of the Rings trilogy… And the result wasn’t the best.

I remember being exhausted by the end of the movie: what I saw wasn’t necessarily the worst movie ever, but one of the best things about the original trilogy were their stunning visual effects, and here it all seemed wrong. I was always able to see the actors standing in front of a big green screen and the CGI was disgustingly obvious in some parts.

Something wasn’t right in the writing too: none of the characters were able to leave a huge impression on me like the ones from the original trilogy. I don’t wanna knock the efforts put in by the actors, especially Martin Freeman who was an excellent choice for Bilbo, but something was missing and I don’t feel it’s entirely related to the fact that I was ten years older and most likely less impressionable, more critical and maybe even cynical.

That first impact was so mediocre that not only I haven’t watched the movie again since, I couldn’t even muster the energy to actually watch the other movies when they came out, and the negative climate online surrounding them didn’t help in the slightest. There were those who hated all the added scenes that weren’t in the book and those who felt the tone of these movies was completely off. Even my circle of friends, people who’ve actually seen all three movies, always talk about this trilogy as a complete disappointment.

The turning point

Ten years went by once again, and in that time I was starting to make an effort to be a much more consistent reader. I’m gonna assume it was the latest in our neverending Tolkien discussions that led me to purchase both “The Hobbit” and “The Silmarillion”, so that I could finally read them for the first time.

The Hobbit was a breeze to read: it really shows how it was meant to be a more fairytale-like read. The story of a man prisoner of the mundane that is going to be thrust into an adventure that would change him for the rest of his life. A story where Bilbo has the opportunity to discover his hidden bravery, falling in love with the lands outside his beloved Shire, to prove to his comrades to not be just a burden, and when the journey finally ends and comes back home, he knows he’s not the same person as he was when he left.

“It's a dangerous business, Frodo, going out your door.

You step onto the road, and if you don't keep your feet,

there's no knowing where you might be swept off to.”

It was at that moment after finishing and loving the book that I suddenly remembered, there was an animated adaptation of The Hobbit made in the 70s! And thus guided by sheer curiosity I hunted down a copy, and you ever wondered if it was possible to still fall in love with a cartoon in your 30s, then this movie will prove to you that, yes, it’s possible.

Rankin Bass The Hobbit

I’m gonna assume that most of you are gonna raise an eyebrow to this first and be highly doubtful about this being an actual quality adaptation, and yes, as the first major hurdle about this movie is the presentation. These designs are rooted in a very old aesthetic that could be very hard to stomach today, but I don’t feel it’s entirety without merit.

First of all I think the backgrounds are wonderful. They have an exquisite watercolor look that can make most locations look quite evocative: from the cozy green Shire, to the dark caves of the Misty Mountains, and the gigantic treasure room of Lonely Mountain.

And as much as the artstyle isn’t my favourite, I think most of the characters are rendered quite well. Bilbo has a bewildered and innocent look that goes extremely well with him being a fish out of water, Gandalf can be very imposing with his height, and he really gives off the same old wiseman vibe that Ian McKellen also had. Even Thorin encapsulates perfectly being the harsh and grumpy dwarf that has only his own objective in mind.

It was also very interesting to see how both the Goblins and Gollum were represented. Not only the goblins were a massive departure from modern day interpretations with their huge maws, fangs, and some of them even sporting some horns. And Gollum had some kind of amphibian look to him: it’s good to see some interpretations that take a new direction instead of just reiterating the iconic look from the Peter Jackson movies.

Some other stylistic choices didn’t turn out so well. Thranduil and the other wood elves of Mirkwood look more like pixies or sprites, and it was a stylistic take that left me dumbfounded. And despite I can’t ever find the energy to hate this design, Smaug, with his feline-like head stapled to the body of a dragon, is more hilarious than threatening at times… I called this version Smeowg with my friends.

To make up for some lacking in the visual department we have an exceptional sound direction in this movie, both in terms of soundtrack and voice acting. The voice acting is very theatrical and there’s no one voice actor that felt out of place with the character they played. Orson Bean as Bilbo is both innocent and a bit of a show off, Richard Boone has a powerful and cavernous voice that is perfect for Smaug and John Huston as Gandalf has such an imposing voice that makes me pay attention to every word.

To complete it all there’s the fantastic soundtrack my Maury Laws. From the first moments there’s the perfect tone: we start with a happy jingle for Bilbo in his hobbit hole, to then shift to the more imposing and dire tones for Gandalf's appearance. There are many songs that are adapted straight from Tolkien's poems with great results. I also appreciated how some of the riddles between Bilbo and Gollum got turned into a very eerie song.

The main theme “The Greatest Adventure” is a perfect encapsulation of the themes of this story, a song that invites the listener to take their chances, make that first step, don’t be taken aback by their fears, stop thinking too much, break the chains and take control of your life.

The man who's a dreamer and never takes leave

Who thinks of a world that is just make-believe

Will never know passion, will never know pain.

Who sits by the window will one day see rain.

One of my absolute favourite scenes is when the dwarves tell the story of the King under the mountain and how his kingdom fell by the hands of Smaug. The solemn choir of the dwarves, the narration in rhyme like an ancient poem, accompanied by a subtle guitar arpeggio are absolutely memorable. And at the end of it all we feel exactly like Bilbo, carried by the hymn of the dwarves to adventure towards Lonely Mountain. This sequence gives me goosebumps every time.

And I think it’s high time to talk about the main meat of this movie, how does it fare as an adaptation of The Hobbit? In my opinion it’s very good, although not perfect.

The pace is very fast, sometimes even too much so, but most of the important beats of the story are represented very well. The general tone is also very well handled both the moments of awe and those of tension. There's also a lot of humor sprinkled throughout, but not too much so that makes the whole story look too silly.

I enjoyed how Bilbo was represented as a young scaredy cat that slowly becomes more inventive and cocky as the adventure continues. There’s one beautiful scene, while the group is looking for the exit of Mirkwood, where Bilbo climbs up on a tree and is welcomed by this vast sea of green forest under a clear blue sky and remains entranced by the view. It’s at that very moment that he realized this voyage is changing him deeply.

“There are moments which could change a person for all time.

And I suddenly wondered if I would’ve ever seen my snug hobbit hole again.

I wondered if I actually wanted to.”

Gandalf exudes presence and authority and with its constant intervention: slowly handing out important objects to the party and teaching them how to cooperate before being forced to leave them behind. Makes him look like a character created by a Dungeon Master, specifically to cradle the party, helping them through their first steps before leaving them to fend off by themselves.

Thorin is the character that probably suffered the most in this adaptation: there isn’t the same level of camaraderie and trust that slowly gets established between him and Bilbo in the book. They instead focus on his massive pride and his fixation on recovering the throne under the mountain, in particular his avarice towards the treasure.

Being only 78 minutes long, the movie struggled to adapt the book in its entirety, and thus there are some that could be seen as severe omissions: like the complete absence of Beorn and the complete removal of the Arkenstone, an extremely important item in the book and the main cause of the fracture between Bilbo and Thorin before the big final battle.

This adaptation emphasizes a lot how the battle of the five armies is a battle led mostly by greed. The dragon is dead, the treasure is free, everyone wants a part of it and no one wants to back off. There are surely some factions who have more noble reasons than others, but no matter your good intentions, there's nothing actually noble in war.

The entire segment is barely five minutes long but, as extremely rushed as it was, it managed to encapsulate the tragedy of this battle, how friends were put against each other, how greed sent them almost to mutual destruction. A dying Thoring recognizing the error of his ways confesses to Bilbo:

“Child of the kindly west. I’ve come to know,

if more of us valued the old ways, food and cheers over hoarded gold,

it would be a merrier world.”

In Conclusion

I don’t know what spell this cartoon has cast on me, but I can’t help but feel the same kind of emotions that I felt when I saw something new for the first time as a child. There’s something in the music, the acting, the story of The Hobbit, that just latched onto me and it’s not letting me go.

I really suggest you give it a chance if you’re passionate about Tolkien, and if you’ve never read The Hobbit that you absolutely should! It also exists a wonderful graphic novel with illustrations by David Wenzel that deserves to be read just for the absurdly high artistic level.

Maybe is because I find myself in a point of my life, where I feel pretty much like Bilbo at the beginning of this story, looking for a big breakthrough and hesitant to make my first step out of my Hobbit hole and leave the shire, that this story resonates so much with me and thus this adaptation has worked such magic.

And I honestly feel that this is the most important message to take out of this story, take your chances, don’t wait. Gandalf won’t knock at your door, we have to start our own journey, no matter the adversities is better to live a life full of risks than an empty but comfortable one.

If you’ve already seen this cartoon let me know what you thought, even if you watch it for the very first time. What were the passages that resonated the most with you in the story of The Hobbit? What other works of Tolkien do you love? Let me also know what you enjoyed about the Peter Jackson trilogy, maybe who knows… One day I’ll finally watch those movies and make my own opinion about them.

And what about “Rings of Power”?

We don’t talk about “Rings of Power” in this house of Eru Ilúvatar.

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