In a hole in the ground there lived a Hobbit

     Image source: http://www.thehobbitblog.com/

There's less than a year to go now until Peter Jackson's much-anticipated take on J.R.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit hits the big screen, and fans are already getting antsy. Parts have been cast, filming has begun, photos have been released, sneak-peak articles written and next week the first trailer will be released.



Now, I'm as excited as the next geek–don't get me wrong–but I just recently finished rereading The Lord of the Rings, and when I sat down to watch the movies I suddenly found myself noticing (and sometimes grumbling about) all the little bits that were dropped or altered or added in during the translation from page to screen (or word to frame . . . or maybe letter to pixel?). I'm not saying the changes weren't necessary. And I'm not saying Tom Bombadill would have made the movie better. In fact, some of the changes I even like–the elf army showing up at Helm's Deep is just plain cool, no matter how you look at it. But some of the changes, in my humble opinion, were a bit of a disappointment–and that got me thinking about The Hobbit.

With all these images and descriptions floating around, I got to thinking . . . what if I started collecting everything I could find–both from the upcoming movies and from the book– and did some good old-fashioned comparisons between Tolkien's actual words and Mr. Jackson's vision? That seemed like a project that could be fun for me and (just maybe) interesting to some other folks. And what better way to do that than with a blog?

So, here it is, my own little slice of the internet where I can muse and ramble on ad nauseam about all the delicious morsels we're getting on the movies, how they stack up against the books, and what I like and dislike about 'em.

The goal is to write every time I find some new information (pictures, articles, trailers) so that may come out to an average of a few times a week, or maybe more. Feel free to tag along and take a walk down memory lane as I get all excited for this new version of The Hobbit, and remember all the reasons I love the original.

All right, with that little introduction out of the way, lets jump back to the very beginning, and get started:

"In a hole in the ground there lived a Hobbit . . ."