The Hobbit Movie Trivia

[Lobelia B. S-B]

Well. (sniff.) I don't see this has a thread of its own, though there's a lot of trivia everywhere scattered about. But as the Lord of the Rings has its own trivia thread, maybe this can have one?

Anyway, I found it interesting Peter Jackson based his Rhosgobel Rabbits on the Flemish Giants. They've been around since the 1500s, get very large, and come in about 7 varieties, can get to 20-22 pounds, but live only about 5 to 10 years.

I wasn't fond of him introducing Radagast in The Hobbit (sniff!) or of his being hauled around in a sled pulled by rabbits. But I think the trivia can sometimes still be interesting.

 

[Lobelia B. S-B]

Here's another bit of movie trivia. (sniff.)
Bilbo's pipe at the beginning of the movie was specially designed at the 3Foot7 Art Department. It was unique for the movie. Official replicas were made. It was a special design for the movie's production. (It's said both it and the replicas were non-functional, made of high-impact urethane, painted to look like wood.

Other replicas have been made by other companies, of real wood and functional, but they're not "official." (sniff!)

Naturally, none of them match the pipe described in the book. It was "an enormous long wooden pipe that reached nearly down to his woolly toes (neatly brushed.)

 

[Lobelia B. S-B]

Last one for today, (sniff.)
Gandalf in Tolkien's book uses "the spike on his staff" to carve to scratch a sign in the door.
The staff in the movie features no such spike, though it does have a type of nail on its side, apparently used for tamping tobacco in a pipe.

Filling this out (sniff) the other movie trivia piece is Gandalf's staff is shown to have a spot/slot/groove in it into which his pipe fits. The nail or 'spike' driven through toward the top of his staff apparently sometimes holds his tobacco. This is (sniff) entirely for the movie as the books do not mention where Gandalf carries his pipe. But we do know he had a 'short clay pipe' he used to send little smoke rings through (sniff) Thorin's bigger ones. It is only mentioned he 'took out his pipe" in The Hobbit but does not tell us from where.

 

[KnightFluttershy]

I have another one; the actor for Bombur said his favourite prop was a long wooden spoon which he kept after the filming was ended. I know this because I asked him!

I'm probably in the minority in that I really enjoyed the Hobbit Trilogy, even the last one. I know it's obviously not as good as the LOTR trilogy and they added a lot of superfluous stuff, but when they announced it would be a trilogy I was prepared for that. What they added wasn't too offensive and the bits from the book they included (especially Mirkwood and Smaug) were brilliant to watch. Most importantly, it really did feel to me that Peter Jackson was doing his best to keep in spirit with the feeling and themes of Middle Earth, and to quote Thorin from the film "A willing heart...I can ask no more than that."

And, most importantly, I cannot say that is true of some other "adaptions" of Tolkien.

 

[Lobelia B. S-B]

Well. (sniff,) Here's another bit of trivia for today.
Gandalf's beard in The Hobbit was handled differently than in The Lord of the Rings.
More CGI was used, by far.
A combination of yak hair prosthetics (sniff) with some few digital enhancements when needed, was used in LoTR.
The Hobbit was predominantly digital work, simulating realistic movement, including wind. Apparently they focused on realism, and created digital beards able to react to the environment.
The Hobbit gives him a longer beard, so more true to the text, but none have ever given him a long enough beard of course ("below his waist"). (sniff.)

 

[Lobelia B. S-B]

(Sniff.) As most of you no doubt know, Stephen Gallagher, a composer and music editor from New Zealand, wrote the "Blunt the Knives" song and "The Torture Song" for The Hobbit. He was also a music editor for the trilogy, and composed the score for War of the Rohirrim."

The Blunt the Knives song on the Special Edition soundtrack runs 1 minute and 1 second, but on the standard soundtrack album runs 1 minute and 7 seconds. Minor variations are probably due to editing differences. (sniff.)