The Hobbit

Before the Lord Of The Ring trilogy animators Rankin Bass had a crack at it with their take on "The Hobbit." It's fairly impressive animation given that Rankin Bass were mostly a TV oriented crew. There's a certain heft to the animation. Certainly the characters had enough wrinkles.

The story is well known; Bilbo Baggins is a hobbit and really all he wants to do is have a nice comfortable life. But Gandalf comes to town with thirteen dwarfs. They are in search of a burglar and for some reason they think Bilbo is perfect for the job. Bilbo is whisked somewhat against his will into a life of adventure as the travel to the Lonely Mountain to fight the dragon Smaug.

I like this film a lot.  It jettisons a lot of character and details but it moves along at a breakneck pace.  The first half is almost a musical as snatches of songs illuminate the action which is well in keeping with the book constant reference of folk music.  The only thing I don't like are the wood elves who are ugly and for some reason German.  It's also odd that the goblins seem to have two throats and odder still that we can see that.

On the other hand, the design of Gollum is very creepy.  Smaug is also well realized.  This was certainly a fun film to take a look back at and I'm not the only one with fond memories.  One can see a strong reference to this film in at least one episode of "South Park."



here's the South Park parody