Love it. I can't wait. The books are even better then the movies.
I think the first movie was better, but the next two books were better. I'm just ticked they took out Tom Bombadil. They better leave in Beorn. Also I'm not sold yet on their portrayal of Thorin, but I'll try to stay open minded on that. I wonder if we will ever see a female dwarf. Also I'm not cool with inserting stuff that didn't happen, like a Gandalf/elf love in.
Although I can't complain with the inserted plot line of the elves showing up to help at that fortress in the 2nd movie.
Funny, I thought this too, because he was such a godly dude in the book. I think maybe he was too fruity or something. I'm not even sure how you could aptly portray him on the big screen in a way that came across a lot less cool than the rest of the characters in the book. Bombadil seemed a lot more fit for the tone of the Hobbit story actually.
Since there creating two movies I think Beorn will be in it. I hope at least. I was disappointed Bombadil wasn't in it, but I can understand why he wasn't in it. I like how the Hobbit is including scenes that didn't take place in the book but were taking place at that time.
Like Gandalf and the meeting of the white counsel hence Galadriel's appearance. I hope they shoe them chasing out the Necromancer (Sauron) from Mirkwood.
Beorn is in it and they're taking a bit of creative license with the movie.
As alluded to above, they will be showing the White Council ousting Sauron from Mirkwood, they'll play up Mirkwood with the Elves by adding Legolas and a new female elf, and they'll also (I believe) show some stuff with Aragorn, who would've been in Rivendell when Bilbo was there (but as a teenager or thereabouts). They're also going to spend some more time discussing why Gandalf was involved with the whole Smaug deal at all: to get him out of the picture so Sauron couldn't use him in what was eventually the War of the Ring.
None of that is inaccurate (save likely the female elf part); however, it wasn't directly covered in the Hobbit, Tolkien only mentioned it in his later books like the Silmarillion, Unfinished Tales, etc.
Should be fun. I loved both the Hobbit and Lord of the Rings as a teenager. I haven't read them for probably 10 years, but I read both countless times in my younger years.
Glad to see that above. They didn't touch on this at all with regards to the Balrog in the Fellowship.
Yeah. A lot of it is actually in Unfinished Tales, where they actually have a Chapter that was to precede the first Chapter of the Hobbit where Gandalf meets Thorin Oakenshield in Bree and Gandalf only agrees to help Thorin if he takes Bilbo. It's all very premeditated on Gandalf's part. Which is really quite interesting, since The Hobbit gives us much more of a third person limited perspective, only focusing on what Bilbo knows. In reality (at least fictional reality), Gandalf had the whole thing pretty well planned out.
I forgot one other guy I wish they didn't pull out. Do you think we'll get to see Radagast the Brown?
Yes.
According to IMDB, he is in and played by Sylvester McCoy (don't know anything about him).
http://www.imdb.com/character/ch0226423/Should be interesting.
There were actually 5 wizards, though only 3 (Gandalf, Saruman, and Radagast were in the books).
I don't think they'll mention the other two; however, Tolkien briefly mentions them in one of the history books (can't remember which one).
There were named Alatar and Pallando and they were both blue. Tolkien was noncommittal about exactly what they did; however, he claimed he "believed" they went to the far south east beyond Mordor, and they were likely missionaries that served to counteract the influence of Sauron and thus helped to lower the amount of troops he could recruit from those areas.
So I suppose if Jackson wanted to go really fancy, he could touch on that; however, I've heard nothing about that and doubt it will happen.
