I seem to remember reading nits for this flick elsewhere on this board before, but I can't seem to find the location. So I will pour out my heart here, and if it turns out this is a double board, then some gracious moderator has perfect license to move this post elsewhere.

Withour further ado...

God, I love this movieeeeeeee!!! Just take a look at those beautiful watercolor backgrounds and that lovely character art! To say nothing of the acting (truly satisfactory for a cartoon) and the script.

I've heard people complain that the movie is not enough like the book, but I will go into battle on its behalf. Yes Beorn is missing, yes the Woodelves look like they've been pickled, yes loads of action on the doorstep is cut, but for a cartoon adaptation of a lengthy classic, it's pretty good!

1) Many lines are lifted directly from the book. Well.
2) All songs but the main title theme are lifted directly from the book.
3) All races and creatures except the Woodelves fit Tolkein's descriptions (at least his descriptions contained in _The Hobbit_, though we will later learn that goblins resemble the other humanoids enough for two hobbits in bulky armor to pass themselves in.).
4) None of the plot elements are unrecognizably transposed or flashied up. Extra fiery explosions and steamy love triangles are blessedly absent.
5) Finally, if anyone dares to question how thoroughly these producers have read the work, look at everybody's costumes! All the dwarves are in their proper colors, and Thorin's hood is tassled. Bilbo is dressed in hobbit-green. The elf-king wears a crown of autumn leaves. And as for Gandalf, all the colors are right, the silver scarf is in place, though...

Here come the nits!
If you look closely, you will see that Gandalf's blue headcovering is a hood and not a hat. Additionally, his "immense" black boots are only ankle-high.

Examine Bilbo's face during the first rainstorm, when he tries thinking of pleasant things. It almost looks like he's crying, only the droplets are actually forming not on his eyelids, but in the center of his forehead! Either hobbits have special tear glands we don't know about or Bilbo is actually sweating. Evidence for the second theory comes later in the film, when Bilbo weeps at Thorin's death and his tears drop from his eyes.

How does Elrond keep those stars levitating around his head like that? And doesn't the glare strain his eyes?

What is Thorin thinking, running into the apperture to save the dumb ol' pack ponies from the goblins?!? Why does he value his bag more than his skin?

Unlike in the book, Gandalf does not cut away the dwarves' chains with Glamdring. The manacles are so terrified by their first sight of the wizard, they simply fade away of their own accord.

Gollum apparently leaves piles of down pillows lying about the mountain. I can think of no other explanation for Bilbo's miraculous survival of that awful fall.

"We had to fight our way through the goblin guard," wonders Thorin, "how is it they didn't see you?" What I want to know is, how is it we didn't see them? There are no guards anywhere in evidence when Bilbo jumps over Gollum and dashes off into the daylight.

The eagles' kind conveyance of the dwarves to the edge of Mirkwood suitably speeds the plot. However, no amount of dancing can circumvent the fact that the dwarves are sent into the forest without any supplies whatsoever.

The Woodelves, as I acknowledged before, do not appear in any way to be the same species as Elrond. And (shudder) Elves are supposed to be wondrous fair of face, 'tis said.

The ray of light that illuminates the keyhole of the secret door is by no means the last light of the setting sun-- the sky is still quite bright! And speaking of the secret door, the film does away with a nit that the book leaves open. According to Tolkein, only the last light of the setting sun of Durin's day will illuminate the lock. Whose dumb idea was this to only have the emergency entrance accessible one day a year?

Why isn't Bilbo wearing his ring when he enters Smaug's chambers? And what on earth possessed him to TAKE IT OFF and SHOW THE DRAGON HIS STOLEN MERCHANDISE?!?!?!?!

I am way disappointed in our view of Smaug's armor. It's supposed to be a coat of hard gems which have stuck to the somnolent dragon's belly. For this reason, the bare patch on his chest is big enough to shoot at, unlike in the film, where he is missing on paltry little scale. All power to the movie Bard, who nevertheless can hit an area no more than 16 cm^2 on a speeding dragon at night.

Thorin's stubbornness and greed are not explained any way as well as they are in the book-- here he just conducts himself like a pig-head. But lengthy explanations do not suit most cartoons, so we'll forgive that one.

Bilbo's astounding demonstration that he has mastered the art of counting is completely unnecessary, and is in fact cut from the TV version.

I highly approve of the movie's ending, even though the eventual sequel "The Return of the King" is such a painful failure.

My major problem with this movie is the depiction of the Elves. They look ridiculous, nothing like Tolkien describes them. Elrond (as you said) looks nothing like them, and, he looks decidedly ••••••. (I might add that, although in the upcoming LOTR movie the Elves will have pointy ears, there is no reference whatsoever to this in The Hobbit, LOTR, or The Silmarillion. In fact, in Appendix-F of LOTR, Tolkien writes that his Elves do not at all resemble those who work for Santa Claus or anything like that.)

Nevertheless, I enjoyed this movie when we watched it in Grade 10 English a few years ago. It's much better than that *other* animated adaptation of a Tolkien work.

the Woodelves look like they've been pickled

LOL! That's exactly what they look like!

Legolas must take after his mother, given the appearance of his father in this movie... ;-)

(I might add that, although in the upcoming LOTR movie the Elves will have pointy ears, there is no reference whatsoever to this in The Hobbit, LOTR, or The Silmarillion. In fact, in Appendix-F of LOTR, Tolkien writes that his Elves do not at all resemble those who work for Santa Claus or anything like that.) - Josh G.

What, not even from Tolkien's The Father Christmas Letters??

Actually, in the upcoming film Hobbits will have pointed ears...

I find it strange that, although Rankin and Bass (and the rest of the filmmakers) seemed to think of The Hobbit as 'just another fantasy book' and think of the 'Wood-elves' as being synonymous with 'wood-sprites' or 'wood-gnomes' (an easy mistake, but only for someone who didn't know Tolkien) they included a map at the beginning which is clearly a Lord of the Rings map, not a The Hobbit map.

Why does Dori sound so much like the head gremlin from Journey to the Cener of Acme Acres?

I don't see where Gandalf got the idea that 13 is an unlucky number. Doesn't this superstition derive from the Last Supper?

Kira - the droplets are in fact raindrops, splashing against his face and rolling down.

Gollum obviously must have mutated quite considerably for a former hobbit (as he apparently is, acording to LotR). Of course, it was never said *what* Gollum was or looked like in The Hobbit.

The Eagles seem to change appearance (and size) with each shot.

Everyone pronounces Smaug's name 'Smog' but the dragon calls himself 'Smowg'.

In the book there were only 3 dwarves killed, imcluding Thorin (the others were his nephews, Fili and Kili). In the film, Gandalf says 7 were killed, and Bombur is shown as being one of them!

It took me many years to correct the misconception planted by this movie! Take a look at Thorin's map. First of all, the moon-letters revealed by Elrond say, "Five feet high the door and three may walk abreast." They do *not* say, "Stand by the grey stone when the thrush knocks and the last light of the setting sun will shine upon the keyhole." (Simple comparison of text length will reveal this.) The runes instructing how to access the secret door are nowhere to be found! Worse, the letter "D" that marks the door's location (between the two arms on the southern side) is also missing! Just where do the dwarves expect to find this thing?

At any rate...
Somewhere in his arsenal, Gandalf has an incantantion to make his cloak billow out impressively behind him when the breeze is not enough to rustle the hoods of anyone else in the party. Watch him standing over Rivendell.

While Elrond mentions that the two famous swords were made for the Goblin-wars, he never notes that they were made by Elves. However, the Great Goblin makes the connection for him-- he accuses the dwarves of being elf-friends when he sees Thorin's weapon. Given this information, look at Orcrist when Elrond holds it up. It is never more obvious that the sword is sized for a dwarf and not for an Elf-lord. Why did a stalwart Elf-captain use such a short blade?

To add to Paddy's comment about Gollum, if this Gollum stopped crouching and stood up straight, he'd probably be as tall as the Elf-king.

IIRC, in the book, the dimensions of the door were in ordinary runes. The thrush instructions were in the moon letters.

Re: Orcrist's length. I haven't seen this one in a long time, but I'd say that if it looks like a longsword in Thorin's hands, then it's probably an elven shortsword. After all, not every magic sword has to be a huge chunk of metal.

--In the book there were only 3 dwarves killed, imcluding Thorin (the others were his nephews, Fili and Kili). In the film, Gandalf says 7 were killed, and Bombur is shown as being one of them!--

Actually, Gandalf says that only 7 of the 14 survived, leaving only 6 alive, (5dwarfves plus Bilbo)

Why does the elvenking have an annoying German accent?

In the book, the fifth army was the wolves, not the eagles as in the movie.

So the goblins decided to show up to get the gold, rather than avenge the death of their leader.

I can't believe I just noticed this, but Balin is wearing eyeglasses. Eyeglasses?! Dwarves know optometry? I know the they're great craftsmen, but lens crafters?

Maybe I shouldn't make much of this. The book had the weird anachronism of a clock on Bilbo's mantle, after all.