Excellent, Without a doubt!!

what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

Let me be very fair here, this is not the best movie in my opinion. But, this movie is fun, it has purpose and is very enjoyable to watch.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

Being weaned on Peter Jackson's Middle Earth makes this little TV movie seem to pale in comparison, especially when comparing the budgets. After the initial trilogy Jackson went for another by spacing out the children's novel into 3 feature length stories and therefore suffered for it. But of course you cannot back away after making the excellent LOTR and do a condensed version like this. This takes the whimsical and childlike wonder in the original novel and creates a charming Hobbit, perhaps a little lean in some parts. Still, the Hobbit trilogy had Howard Shore, and the biggest misstep seems to be the soundtrack which jumps genres and never really establishes itself. Glenn Yarbrough's songs are pleasant enough but you want mystical and ethereal cues for elves, not something that is reminiscent of a country road song, or a folk ballad. At times the orchestration is rather thin, overusing fanfares and percussion for little substance. And the Misty Mountains song cannot compare to the 2012 rendition, turning it into a short and lacklustre chant with no real melody.The animation is nice for its time. This was animated by Topcraft, which later became the bare bones of Studio Ghibli, just right before producing Nausicaa. The watercolour backgrounds are impressive and immersive, never clashing with the figures. The character designs cannot reach the details of a live action big budget attempt, but they are unique in their own cartoonish ways. Smaug is especially menacing with the floodlight beams that emit from his eyes and the hurricanes that his wings conjure. The wide eyed Bilbo Baggins with his overly large pupils seem to say with every look: "Oh how I wish I was at home in my nice hole by the fire, with the kettle just beginning to sing!" But he is brave when he needs to sneak into a treasure trove, witty when confronting Gollum in a battle of riddles, and reasonable when talking of war. Speaking of Gollum, he is slimy as he can be; it is not quite Andy Serkis, but he makes you shiver in disgust the same way. This version is perhaps a little short at 77 minutes, and the Hobbit trilogy at a combined 474 minutes, much too long. Here some details are cut; Beorn and his nightime stroll is missing, which is disappointing. Climatic battles are also barely featured: the escape from the giant spiders is over with a dizzying spin, and Bilbo is knocked out just before the Battle of the Five Armies. It all ends a little suddenly, but it does set up the Lord of the Rings and that 1978 animation which is a little more mature and in- depth. But for an accompaniment to a fantasy novel that should be one every child's reading list, this is quite good.

I have to admit that the dwarfs, with the exception of Thorin, aren't well developed but it's a bit hard to develop individual personalities for 13 dwarfs (although Disney managed with 7). After the group sets out, they find a bunch of trolls (actual trolls, not internet trolls) near a campfire. Bilbo notices the trolls cave, where Thorin finds a pair of swords and comments that they're pretty good as far as troll craftsmanship goes and Gandalf says that that's because they were probably stolen while Bilbo finds a pocketknife. They then travel to Rivendell, where they meet Elrond, who tells them that the swords are called Orchrist the Goblin Cleaver and Glamdring the Foe Hammer. As an added bonus, the elves are still singing in the background. It's surprising that Elrond isn't like "why don't you just shut up!" although that would be extremely out of character for him. Bilbo and the dwarfs trek through the rainy mountains and decide to take shelter in a cave but find themselves surrounded by goblins. Thorin says that they were just taking shelter from the storm and a goblin takes out Orchrist the Goblin Cleaver and says that he's lying because why would he have a sword if they were simply wandering around randomly. This doesn't bode well with the Goblin King, who is about to bite Thorin's head off when Gandalf appears with Glamdring the Foe Hammer, sending the Goblin King floating into oblivion. OK, what is up with that?! I get that Gandalf killed him, but why couldn't they just show that?! Why'd it have to look like he was flushed down the toilet?! Everyone runs, chased by the goblins, who are apparently mad about the puncturing of their helium filled leader while Bilbo falls into a bottomless pit. Gollum looks really amazing. This movie was my introduction to The Hobbit and Lord Of The Rings. So to sit down in front of a TV to have the goblin scene followed by this bizarre creature who I wasn't even sure at first whether he was male or female, let alone what he was, is exciting. He's curious about Bilbo and challenges him to a game of riddle exchange. They're evenly matched until Bilbo asks what he has in his pocket, which isn't exactly a riddle. I think that Bilbo's encounter with Gollum is the turning point for Bilbo's personal story arc. This is where the timid hobbit of the first half becomes the brave, heroic hobbit of the second half. This isn't just because he finds the ring or survives the encounter with Gollum. Bilbo manages to get out of a terrifying situation-trapped all alone in a maze of goblin-infested tunnels, deep beneath the mountains, far from home-and he does it through his own level-handedness and bravery. Now cut to the goblins singing "15 Birds in 5 Fir Trees". This happens before anyone attacks, before we see any fir trees, before anyone is set on fire. It's like breaking into the "Munchkinland" song while Dorothy's house is still flying around. Gandalf creates his fiery pine-cones of death (is it still a pine-cone if it's from a fir tree?) The goblins set fire to the trees just as the eagles arrive. The eagles take everyone to the edge of Mirkwood and Gandalf leaves but first tells Bilbo to keep a diary of his adventures. While walking through Mirkwood, Bilbo decides to title his story "There And Back Again" even though he hasn't finished the there yet. The dwarfs decide that Bilbo should climb a tree and look around, which he does. He climbs up, sees a herd of butterflies in the sunlight, and starts to tear up. This is a beautiful scene and it really shows how Bilbo has evolved from unwilling to enjoying his journey. Meanwhile, Bilbo wakes up to find himself being attacked by a giant spider, a thing with the body of a spider and the head of Colonel Sanders. Bilbo points his sword at the spider and it dissolves in a swirl. He tells the dwarfs to go to the wood elves' clearing while he fights off the spiders despite the fact that aforementioned clearing hasn't been revealed (must be in a deleted scene). Once Bilbo finds the dwarfs, it turns out that they have been captured. Something I should mention before I go any farther is that the elves are blue! So the smurfs, I mean elves, take the dwarfs and Bilbo back home and Thorin says they were just wandering around randomly but once again this excuse doesn't fly. The elves decide to lock them up until they say what they were actually doing. It turns out that only the dwarfs were actually put in cells while Bilbo is just reduced to wandering around. While the elves are asleep, an invisible Bilbo manages to get the keys to the dwarfs' prison and frees each of them. The dwarfs ride down the river in barrels while Bilbo rides on top of one of them. Since Bilbo is on top of a barrel rather than inside one, he notices that they're approaching both a settlement called Laketown and their destination Lonely Mountain. They then meet Bard the archer and camp out on the mountain for a bit while Bilbo becomes friends with a bird. Thorin uses the key that has been passed down to him and Bilbo goes inside. Smaug asks Bilbo who he is and Bilbo responds by doing some riddling like he did with Gollum. The movie ends with Bilbo and Gandalf returning back to the hobbit hole (I wonder how they got back so fast). Although it's not without it's flaws, this movie is pretty awesome. Gollum is especially well rendered and it uses lots of quotes from the book. It has a special place in my heart.

I tried watching this movie twice in my life: once when I was ten, and once a week ago, neither times of which I understood the plot or characters of either. So, I read the book to see if it could shed some light on the storyline, but the book turned out to be an incredibly nerdy, dungeons and dragons-esque type of story, similar to this movie. The animation is what some reviewers complain about, but for me the animation wasn't bad at all (I've seen WAY worse animation than in this movie). The voice acting isn't bad. My problem is just that I've never really been a big fan of these geeky middle ages style fiction, or The Lord of the Rings stuff, it just doesn't appeal to me; I've never really understood it. I think I'll stick with watching The X-Files because I don't think The Hobbit is for everyone.

When I heard that this was made by Rankin Bass, the company who made the stop-motion animation classics like Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer, The Little Drummer Boy, Santa Claus Is Comin' To Town and such, I gave this one a try when I was a kid. Then, after viewing, I didn't actually find it that bad. I think it's a very amusing film based on the book I later read.While I will admit that the 77 minute length is a bit short and there are several scenes from the book that are missing here which is the reason why I'm giving this an eight, it does have some good stuff in it. The animation is fantastic with beautiful colors in the backgrounds and some decent character animation. The characters are good too especially the main character Bilbo Baggins and Gandalf; let's just say the voice acting is pretty neat especially Orson Wells and John Huston.The story isn't anything to fault with either. It is faithful to the novel, but it does have some scenes that could frighten the kids real easily. The musical songs throughout the movie aren't that bad, too. 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.