Comparison To The Source Material
While the script adheres fairly closely to the book, several significant plot points are altered or missing:
- The character of Beorn and the associated locale of Beorn's house and the Carrock. Beorn does not appear in the final battle or otherwise, and his sub-plot is cleanly omitted; the Eagles take the party to the edge of Mirkwood. In his absence, several additional dwarves die at the end from the main cast, including Bombur. As in the book, Bilbo witnesses only part of the final battle and its aftermath.
- The Arkenstone and Bilbo's journey to the opposing camp. Although the film lingers on the dwarves' reclaimed treasure, the Arkenstone is not mentioned, and is replaced with truncated verbal negotiations and Gandalf's sudden appearance. Thorin's anger at Bilbo and subsequent forgiveness are still referenced in his final scene.
- The Elvenking's feast and the dwarves' starvation after escaping from the spiders. These were incorporated into a scene which was storyboarded but apparently never filmed, leaving a reference to it without explanation in the subsequent dialogue (In their first appearance in the finished film, Bilbo announces that "the wood elves had returned.")
- In the end of the film, Gandalf reveals to Bilbo that he not only knows of the ring, but knows that it is in fact the One Ring, and foreshadows the events of Lord of the Rings. In the books, the ring is not discovered to be the One Ring until Fellowship of the Ring.
In addition, while the majority of visual stylistic choices mostly drew on the book for some inspiration and detail illustrations, the characters of the wood elves are inexplicably given green skin, short stature, blond hair and Otto Preminger's German accent; highly unlike the more typical elves of Rivendell, such as Elrond.
In depicting Gollum, the animators chose to emphasize his more monstrous and amphibian appearance in Tolkien's early descriptions of the character, although retaining a humanoid form and a tortured personality familiar to readers. The "Hobbit scale" of his design would become more apparent in Rankin/Bass's artwork for The Return of the King (1980 film). Gollum's own dialogue and riddles are included largely intact, one of which is included as background music, with the accompanying lyrics 'chanted' by a female chorus, presumably under the direction of choral director Lois Winter.
Read more about this topic: The Hobbit (1977 film)
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