The Hobbit

[AndyC]

Just finishing up this book, in preparation for reading the LOTR trilogy. I'm not big on fantasy literature (hard sf is more to my liking), but I really enjoyed The Hobbit. Tolkien tells a good story, although his writing style takes some getting used to. Looking forward to the inevitable big-budget movie.

Like many people, my first introduction to Tolkien was the Rankin-Bass animated TV movie, The Hobbit, which I intend to rent, to refresh my memory, now that I've read the book.

What I'm wondering is whether anyone here considers this a good adaptation. Perhaps my memory of the cartoon has been affected by Bakshi's Lord of the Rings (really bad), but I remember The Hobbit being pretty cheesy - an oversimplified story, Bilbo looked like a gerbil, Gollum was a frog with giant novelty ears, etc. However, many of the online reviews I've found have been rather kind. Now I'm very interested in seeing it again.

My question to all of you is, do you consider The Hobbit to be cheesy 70s crap or a decent cartoon adaptation?

[raj]

Cheesy 70s crap.  (Not that there's anything wrong with that. . . )
To me, that movie reduced The Hobbit to a children's cartoon.

[Eirik]

I really like the adaption and don't consider it crap... but you have to understand a few things going into it:

1) The creators cut a lot more than Peter Jackson had to (yes, I know he cut a lot from FOTR), and this was probably necessary for them to keep it in a certain time frame as it was made for TV.

2) If it seems like it was made for kids, consider that so was the book.

3)  It was animated in Japan using a very stylized kind of drawing.  I personally liked it and I think it was damn good for made-for-TV.  It may not be everyone's cup of tea however.

Overall, they covered the bases in a short time span, the voices were very good, the musical adaptions of Tolkien's lyrics were good (if a bit folksy), and I walk away from it thinking they did the book justice given limited time and resources.  Now for real crap, check out the Return of the King cartoon done by the same people who did that Hobbit cartoon - it was just plain garbage, although they did keep the scene Jackson cut where Frodo and Sam get swept up marching with an Orc company when they're disguised in orc armor.

[daveblackeye15]

I really didn't like the movie. The art was good it's just that the characters' designs are crappy. Bilbo: sucks, Gollum: what the f$%^? Elves: Again, what the f#$%?(They've got leaves for toes and hands) Dwarves: Pretty good actually, Elrond: He's ok. Smaug: Not bad, Orcs/Goblins: really p**sing awful! Gandalf: tolerable. Trolls: Can't recall what they excatly looked like but I remember disliking them. Spiders: pretty bad.What ever characters that actually look somewhat decent is nothing compared to the badly designed characters. Whatever action took place was boring and I disliked the most of the voices. Gandalf's and Gollum's weren't too bad but Bilbo's....argh! I watched it when I was 15 but I'm pretty sure that children won't care as much as I do.

[Vermin Boy]

I haven't seen it since I was reeeeally little, but is it my cloudy memory, or did more of the dwarves die in the movie than in the book?

[FearlessFreep]

"The Hobbit" was pretty good.  I really enjoyed it when I was younger.  I read my kids the book and then they saw the movie and really liked it.  It does have a very distinct 70s style of art work.  Definately a kids movie, though

The thing is, The Hobit is written at a youth level but well enuogh that adults can enjoy it.  I don't think that was able to translate to the animated version very well.

[AndyC]

Anybody find the movie unusually dark and creepy for a cartoon aimed at kids? I vaguely remember something in the style of The Hobbit that I found very disturbing at that age.

Oh, and I agree the Return of the King cartoon was pretty bad, although I can still remember the "where there's a whip, there's a way" song, which I believe was in the scene that Eirik mentioned.

[Darkautumn]

I saw "The Hobbit" as a little kid when it first aired, and that was pretty much my intro to Tolkien as well. In 2001, I watched all three 70's (well, the "Return of the King" cartoon was actually 1980) again in preperation for the live-action Jackson trilogy, and "The Hobbit" was the only one that really held up. It's the only Tolkien book I have yet to read (it's next on my list, now that I've finished the "Rings" trilogy.) From everyone I've spoken to, the "Hobbit" cartoon, while still omiting a lot and generally being over-simplified, manages to hold true to the feeling of the book. As  for the way the characters were drawn, they kind of resembled some illustrations for the book that I actually saw several years before the animated version came out (sometime in 1974, I think; the cartoon debuted late in 1977.) I'm kind of anxious to see how the cartoon compares with the actual novel, but if I were going to recommend any of the animated versions at this point, it would be that one.

[Newt]

I'd say it holds true to the book, in  a very pared-down fashion. I may have 'seen' it differently, though, as I read the book(s) long before I first saw the cartoon.

As for the music  - in a separate effort, a folk artist did consult with Tolkien to set some of his song lyrics from the books to music -  'The Road Goes Ever On' , for example,  and that song used in the cartoon plays just like the sheet music I have.  So I think at least some of the songs used possibly may be close to what Tolkien himself  'heard' them to be.  I do not recall seeing that credited anywhere, though. I'll have to go look...