The Hobbit

Plot synopsis:
Gandalf tricks Bilbo into hosting a party for Thorin and his band of dwarves, who sing of reclaiming the Lonely Mountain and its vast treasure from the dragon Smaug. When the music ends, Gandalf unveils a map showing a secret door into the Mountain and proposes that the dumbfounded Bilbo serve as the expedition's "burglar". The dwarves ridicule the idea, but Bilbo, indignant, joins despite himself.
The group travels into the wild, where Gandalf saves the company from trolls and leads them to Rivendell, where Elrond reveals more secrets from the map. Passing over the Misty Mountains, they are caught by goblins and driven deep underground. Although Gandalf rescues them, Bilbo gets separated from the others as they flee the goblins. Lost in the goblin tunnels, he stumbles across a mysterious ring and then encounters Gollum, who engages him in a game of riddles. As a reward for solving all riddles Gollum will show him the path out of the tunnels, but if Bilbo fails, his life will be forfeit. With the help of the ring, which confers invisibility, Bilbo escapes and rejoins the dwarves, improving his reputation with them. The goblins and Wargs give chase, but the company are saved by eagles before resting in the house of Beorn.
The company enters the black forest of Mirkwood without Gandalf. In Mirkwood, Bilbo first saves the dwarves from giant spiders and then from the dungeons of the Wood-elves. Nearing the Lonely Mountain, the travellers are welcomed by the human inhabitants of Lake-town, who hope the dwarves will fulfil prophecies of Smaug's demise. The expedition travels to the Lonely Mountain and finds the secret door; Bilbo scouts the dragon's lair, stealing a great cup and learning of a weakness in Smaug's armour. The enraged dragon, deducing that Lake-town has aided the intruder, sets out to destroy the town. A thrush had overheard Bilbo's report of Smaug's vulnerability and reports it to Lake-town defender Bard. His arrow finds the chink and slays the dragon.
When the dwarves take possession of the mountain, Bilbo finds the Arkenstone, an heirloom of Thorin's dynasty, and hides it away. The Wood-elves and Lake-men besiege the mountain and request compensation for their aid, reparations for Lake-town's destruction, and settlement of old claims on the treasure. Thorin refuses and, having summoned his kin from the Iron Hills, reinforces his position. Bilbo tries to ransom the Arkenstone to head off a war, but Thorin is intransigent. He banishes Bilbo, and battle seems inevitable.
Gandalf reappears to warn all of an approaching army of goblins and Wargs. The dwarves, men and elves band together, but only with the timely arrival of the eagles and Beorn do they win the climactic Battle of Five Armies. Thorin is fatally wounded and reconciles with Bilbo before he dies. Bilbo accepts only a small portion of his share of the treasure, having no want or need for more, but still returns home a very wealthy hobbit.

Tags: fantasy, cult, violence, good versus evil, revenge, entertaining

Review:
I've read comments that slam the film for either technical faults or the fact that it has left out a number of things.All these things are true, of course.Though I thought the artwork itself was quite good, the animation could use some work.
A glorious ensemble of voices including the legendary John Huston and Otto Preminger gave life to Tolkien's creation while the outstanding folk and fantasy score illuminates the story.You'll see why Frodo was supposed to be an actor in his 50's for the LOTR trilogy (though Peter Jackson's opus was well cast anyway in every position).This will whet your appetite until "Hobbit" is a full-length feature in theatres (fingers crossed) and no doubt, Mr. Jackson and his screenwriters will pull visuals and more from this timeless adaptation.The only shame of it is annually, Rankin-Bass's Christmas offerings are still aired while The Hobbit and its sister production of Return Of The King (starring Roddy McDowell as Samwise The Brave!) aren't.Catch that feature too as it picks up where the Ralph Bakshi stab at The Fellowship Of The Rings/Two Towers left off.
I was enchanted by the movie, and I credit it with motivating me to read 'The Hobbit' and later 'The Lord of the Rings', thereby transforming me into a lifelong Tolkien fan (albeit not as die-hard as some, I admit).
Also, the periodic fade-outs/fade-ins for commercials are distracting.* A product of its time, the movie is wall-to-wall with songs, most with lyrics written by Tolkien, one written originally for the film, all sung to '70s folk ballad melodies.
None of this is a bad, and is even refreshing, but it is the work of Rankin/Bass, not Tolkien.* Some of the key players are perfect: Orson Bean as Bilbo, John Huston as Gandalf, Richard Boone as Smaug and Theodore as Gollum bring great life and character to the movie.
The one-on-one scenes between Bilbo and each of the other three are easily the best part of 'The Hobbit'.Overall, the movie is best suited for the audience for whom it was intended, children.
* read the Book.Third - Since the current (wonderful) movies are coming out, this provides a foundation that makes them even more enjoyable.Finally - Even in this animated version, one can tell why J.R.R. Tolkien is celebrated as one of the finest writers of the 20th century.
'The Hobbit' is in this shape more of a family/children's movie than the new Lord of the Rings movies, and its runtime of only 78 minutes makes it feel a little stressed through since the scenes aren't given much time each.
But nevertheless, it features good animation, solid voicework and music that is FAR MORE fantasy-like than the more majestic approach in Peter Jackson's movies.
Many Tolkien fans who have written reviews say that this movie has done bad things to the book.
But they stuck some interesting spins on what elves, dwarves, Wizards, Dragons and Hobbits look like, along with trolls and whatever, personally I found it to be interesting.And how can you knock the voices-I mean-John Huston?
Rankin-Bass did make it more for kids, definately, and took some cuts here and there-Beorn and the Arkenstone bye-bye, for example, and no one is claiming the animation is up to, say, 'Aladdin' standards, but on its own, it works fine.*** outta ****, pretty good, actually.And Where is Leonard Maltin's review?
The Riddles in the Dark part was pretty good too (although, I think they took the description in the Lord of the Rings of Gollum looking like a starved frog a little too far).
The film lends itself to this "reading" because of his teacherly demeanor and conveniently timed appearances, departures, and revelations -- it's as if he's trying to set the ideal difficulty level for the little guys, or for a good story.) Overall, The Hobbit is a very fun movie.
The Ralph Bakshi Lord of the Rings cartoon movie was done in a different style and I wasn't that big of a fan, it started out well but the last 25% was strange (Mixing darkly lit live-action with the animation), it's still worth watching though, there are scenes that are very well done.
They also messed up some of the great lines from the book, and the elves don't look to me like tall, perfect, beautiful immortals people, although Elrond isn't done too badly in this film.
Of all the film adaptations of J.R.R. Tolkien's Legendarium, the 1977 animated version of The Hobbit from Rankin/Bass Production (best known for their Christmas specials such as Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer and Frosty the Snowman) is the very best.
They are the definitive Tolkien voices.While it isn't perfect, The Hobbit is an excellent film for both children and adults.
In 1977, The Hobbit , the J.R.R. Tolkien fantasy classic was adapted into this excellent animated feature first broadcast on television by my all-time favorite animation studio - Rankin/Bass.
The vocal cast can't be improved upon like Orson Bean is perfect as Bilbo Baggins, the timorous, homebody hobbit who grows brave on his adventure with the wizard Gandalf, voiced by John Huston.
I loved the voices, I liked the music ("Where there's a whip, there is a way!") The movie was an excellent introduction to J.R.R Tolkien.
Brother Theodore was perfect as Gollum John Huston rocked as Gandalf I also liked the music (okay, the balladeers voice was a bit annoying!) Good movie overall - might be a bit scary for the young ones tho!
Many characters were dropped out of necessity for television-viewing (it could have easily been as long as the first Ring movie), but the spirit of the book is intact; there is no unecessary carnage or bloodshed, the story is about courage, not violence, and the voice-work is unparalleled.
From the futile mind of J.R.R.Tolkin comes this incredible tale of a quiet simple creature who lives in 'A Hole in The Ground.' Assembling what may turn out to be the best special collection of voices for a TV movie, Arthur Rankin fitted our fable with an assortment of novel characters for the book.
The original title for Tolkin's book was 'There and Back Again, a Hobbits holiday.' For the TV version of same, the title was " The Hobbit." With the voices of Orson Bean as Bilbo Baggins, Richard Boone as Smaug, the late great Hans Conried as Thorin, John Huston as Gandalf the Wondering Wizard, and even Otto Preminger as Elvenking.
On this long, adventure, filled with magic and bravery leaping out of every scene, you will encounter loyal Dwarves, a unexpectedly brave hobbit, a useful wizard and a hoard of other characters in this J.R. Tolkien original.This is an older film, that is only out classed (during that decade) by The Last Unicorn which is also an animation produced by Rankin/Bass.
Hans has done an outstanding job portraying The King Under the Mountain, as he has also voiced many loving characters, such as Captain Hook in Disney's Peter Pan as well as many of The Grinch stories ( playing the narrator and the Grinch) The plot to this book/movie was fun and entertaining.
The Rankin-Bass animated production of Tolkien's "The Hobbit" is surpassed only by the "Watership Down" adaptation of the same era.
I won't spoil the experience but would encourage all adventurous children (of any age) to spend an evening of exploration with Bilbo & Co. In re-mastered clarity and unedited splendor, I give this little gem a 10/10.Avid fans might want to track down the companion "record & book set" that were produced at the time of it's original release.
All things considered, The Hobbit is a decent (though not totally accurate) adaptation of its source material, and far better than almost any other animated adaptation from the major studios like Disney, whatever name Bluth works under these days, etc.
Much like the other similar Rankin-Bass project, The Last Unicorn, the music is 70's folk ballads and while they aren't all memorable, the opening song ('the greatest adventure') and 'roads go ever ever on' are nearly perfect.While there was certainly room for improvement, The Hobbit is one of a very few book to 'animated film' adaptations that doesn't completely slaughter the very essence of the book.
The Hobbit actually stays true to the spirit of the book--as least as much as could be expected from an hour and a half film--and while I think we'd all like more, we've all grown terribly used to a lot less..
I have not yet read the book "The Hobbit," but considering the fact that I'm about to see "Fellowship of the Ring" on the big screen without having any prior knowledge of the Tolkien universe, I figured renting it may be a good place to be introduced (somewhat) to the mythos.
Are there really fans out there of this torrid musical?!If you like bad animation, songs that interrupt with the flow of a film worse than any recent Disney film, and music that plays so loud you can't hear people talk, this "Hobbit" is the movie for you..
Also if you look at the artwork and character design, it's all based on pre-existing illustrations for the books, very accurately bringing the pages to life.4) The voice cast - remember when animated films would cast for the right voice and not just star recognition value?
While this movie is a great way to get young children into the Lord of The Rings, anyone older would probably find it disappointing.I love the artwork but the story leaves a lot to be desired.I remember thinking this was great before I had read the book but all these years later it's not so impressive.I honestly don't remember much of the book anymore but it doesn't matter with this movie.It's obvious that they have changed things(it even says "Based On", it doesn't even claim to be true to the book) but the worst part is that they picked the wrong parts to leave out.They tell Bilbo to climb a tree and it cuts to him sleeping in a cave by himself?What??Things like that happen a lot.It doesn't matter if you know the story, if you can pay attention you can see that this is very confusing.They often try to explain the gaps in the following dialogue but that wears thin quickly.The real reason to watch (or not watch) this is because of the music.Everyone I know has always hated it but after not seeing it for years I still remembered a few songs.It's weird that some of the songs seemingly have nothing to do with the movie while others literally describe what we are seeing on screen.Then there's the time that the elves are talking while a song is blasting over them,lol.I do like how they use British slang but no one has an accent, that's brilliant.I just realized that this was made for TV.I never noticed how it breaks before.I have to say considering that, it's a decent movie.Definitely the best made for TV movie I have seen..
I say somewhat because both Disney and Warner Brothers had shown children what good animation looked like.So when Japanese animators, used to cranking out anime episodes a week with low drawing count, comes and presents us a very Anglo tale with a Japanese tinge, the results are somewhat mixed.Even so there is a certain charm to this production in that it was the first filmed version of Tolkien's very entertaining story of Bilbo Baggins and his adventures.
If you loved Peter Jackson's films (Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit series) plus animations then I'm sure you would love this old 1977 made-for-TV movie.
Despite its valiant effort to offer a close-to-the-source-material animated story the Rankin-Bass 1977 animated musical television special suffers from many obvious shortcomings.The plot does follow that of the Tolkien book but the animation itself seems to be amateurish and hurried due to budget and time constraints.Maybe Topcraft, a now-defunct Japanese animation studio that created the animation for The Hobbit, was not the best choice for this work because it gives one the feeling of an amateurish animation designed to target a too young an audience.In this respect I prefer Director Ralph Bakshi's animation for The Lord of the Rings (1978)because the quality of his animation techniques (rotoscoping and posterization)leads to a superior finished product that can be appreciated by children of all ages and adults alike.It's the difference between real illustration as opposed to cartoons.Also, Bakshi's The Lord of the Rings (1978) is much longer (132 minutes)than Rankin-Bass' The Hobbit (77 minutes).Both animated films were released in late seventies (1977 versus 1978) and both works cost about 3-4 million US dollars to produce.Finally,both animated films feature excellent soundtrack and cast.
The Greatest Adventure is beautiful (I liked it's reprises of the words from the song, by the way) and the others are decent.Overall, The Hobbit isn't an excellent by any means in the higher standards of the Peter Jackson films, but it's still a great film worth-recommending..
This animated version always brings a smile to my face.For covering a long book in just one short movie, they did an excellent job.
It was probably his first introduction to Tolkien :) And after the exhausting Jackson films (good, but LONG) this is pretty refreshing.And the Gollum character in this cartoon is still my favorite!Another great version that I need to find is the BBC radio show of the book!.
I remember seeing this film back in the 90's and I have always been endeared to it, because of its awesome feeling-very good music, with unforgettable songs I can hum anywhere, awesome voices, and animation that really conveys a feeling of Middle Earth, what with the insanely awesome 70's inspired colors, the lighting, the design, and as is mentioned by another reviewer, 'an ancient look' that really is something that could never be done again-it was the right time and project, with something like this never again possible.
As per keeping with the book, the movie does fairly, and it does a great job of setting up the viewer for "The Lord of The Rings." Really, I haven only one major complaint about this film: the music.
Years later I found my younger sister watching it and, having read the book by then, sat down to watch it.It's not perfect, it's lacking about half the story, and the characters can be too comical to look at, but the strange thing is, I liked it!
My earliest memories of this animated movie was when I was five years old and my grandmother bought me this little read-along storybook that came with a record (For you younger folks, think 'ancient precursor to the CD') based on the Rankin Bass animated version of The Hobbit.
Other painful acts/lines also exist (such as Bilbo's short diatribe on the name "Laketown") that are thrown in without any seeming thought.It's unfortunate that Muller's departure from Tolkien's vision continued into the "Return of the King" (which almost totally failed to adhere to the spirit of the book), but the Hobbit generally works, and my children (ages 3 and 4) love it and beg to watch it..
This animated film was required viewing for us in school when I was about 12-years-old and after we had finished reading the book 'The Hobbit'.
However, if you have not read the book, you will most likely enjoy this movie much more.
Instead, Rankin/Bass made "The Return of the King" using the same animation from "The Hobbit", which was OK pre-"Lord of the Rings", but awful after.
I am sorry to say that I read the book after I saw the movie.Why am I sorry?Because I was stuck with rather poor animation images and slightly weird accents in my head.Even though the plot was interesting and the magical content creative, the movie lacked a certain something that was in the original written version.Perhaps it wasn't as thoroughly detailed as the book.Or maybe it was the fact that it was probably simplified so that children as well as adults would appeal to it.Even so,it was a fairly good movie.If you read the novel and liked it, watch the film and see what you think of it..
One viewer said, "as echoed on my "lord of the rings" comment, this production captures a positive aspect of the Tolkien material that I believe is missed by current critics and readers-namely the distant but constant promise f success in the quest."I didn't think that the Hobbit was as good as some of the other movies produced in the 1970's, like the many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh, and watership.
The animation is not great either, but today's standards, probably looking old even by 1977 standards.The story is that of a hobbit convinced (almost coerced) by Gandalf to go on an adventure with some dwarfs.
The songs are quite good and moody and there is some dark moments in this movie, it introduces all ages to the story of the Lord of the Rings and the film also co-stars Don Messeck and Hal Smith.I can't wait to see how Peter Jackson does his version..
The animation is thirty years old but it holds up and the film version is only 70 minutes long but it's still worth watching anyway if you are a big fan of Tolkien's Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings trilogy.
But I didn't care for most of the voice acting- yes, Orson Bean, who was great in Being John Malkovich, included- and a lot of times the animators exchanged more challenging methods of executing the material for more mundane characterizations and, of course, the songs.It's probably not a bad thing to show the wee little ones, and if they've only seen the live-action Lord of the Rings pictures or loved Tolkien's original book(s) they might respond to it more on that level of being fresh to the material.