"So this is the Hobbit. "

Bilbo Baggins: You can promise that I will come back?
Gandalf: No. And if you do, you will not be the same.

The Hobbit

The great discussion among fans regarding The Lord of the Rings is whether or not Jackson's omissions from the original text for the movies are justified.  For The Hobbit, it's the other way around - the debate is going to revolve around the parts that were either extended or outright invented solely for the movie. 

For example, a lot of the narrative deals with the villainous Azog, leader of the goblin hordes, who is eager for revenge on Thorin Oakenshield, the leader of the dwarf band, for cutting off his left hand in battle.

In the book? Azog gets one line from Gandalf:

"Your grandfather Thror was killed, you remember, in the mines of Moria by Azog the Goblin."

Similarly, Gandalf's fellow wizard Radagast the Brown, played in the movie by Sylvester McCoy of Doctor Who fame, also gets one line in the book - well, really more of a reference than a line:

"I am a wizard," continued Gandalf. "I have heard of you, if you  have not heard of me; but perhaps you have heard of my good cousin Radagast who lives near the Southern borders of Mirkwood?"

It's a big jump from that single reference to the somewhat slapstick character in the movie who occupies ten or fifteen minutes of screen time.*

And that's where the problem comes in. It's been generally expected that in order to extend The Hobbit to the same length as the Lord of the Rings trilogy, there was going to be some expansion of certain parts of the novel.  But there's a difference between expansion and creation, and a lot of what I saw in the three hours on screen was outright invention.  Sadly, in that act of invention we are faced with a very simple and obvious truth: the people doing the inventing are not J. R. R. Tolkien.

The unfortunate result is that the new scenes don't ring true against the rest of the narrative. The section with Radagast was an interesting extrapolation, but there was a lack of dignity to the character that didn't seem right to me.

 A council of war takes place between Elrond, Galadriel, Gandalf and Saruman at Rivendell - again, created from whole cloth for the movie version - which was completely off key, at least to my experienced ear.  Not badly written, but not the right style, not for Tolkien. One of the hallmarks of Tolkien's heroes is their directness and honesty, and to hear Gandalf and Galadriel having a concealed magical conversation was in direct contrast to the style of the book.

Finally, the climax of the movie involves a bonding moment between Bilbo and Thorin, where Bilbo rescues Thorin from death at the hands of goblins, thereby finally establishing Bilbo's value to the quest and to Thorin personally.  Which is great, except it's another manufactured moment - in this case, to give the movie a climax that Tolkien didn't write for the end of Chapter Six of his book.  Which takes us to page 112 of my 285 page paperback copy, so presumably there's some further creative moments to come in the next two films.

 - Sid

* Radagast is discussed at greater length in the appendices to The Return of the King, but I guarantee there's nothing there about caked white streaks of bird guano in his beard and a sledge pulled by a trained team of Rhosgobel rabbits.