 Since these are trying times and we have plenty of time on our hands, I think you should do yourself a favor, give the Hobbit another shot. I'm not gonna sit here and debate whether or not the Hobbit's better than the Lord of the Rings. That would be absurd. The Lord of the Rings is one of the, it is to me the greatest trilogy of all time. But I do believe the Hobbit is worthy of being added to the collection. I do believe it is a good stepping stone to LOTR. When it was announced that the Hobbit wasn't going to be one movie, but this short book was going to turn into two, people were justifiably a little bit upset by that. How much can they really squeeze out of that short story? Harry Potter split its last book and Catching Fire slash Hunger Games did that too, so this was the flavor of the week. This movie studios were desperate to make a little extra coin, put a little extra money in their purse, and this was an easy way to do it. And I don't know if I've said this on camera before or just to the fictitious friends I pretend to have, but I would watch Bilbo Beggin's drink a cup of tea for three hours. I just love the world that much. So more Peter Jackson, more Hobbits, more elves, more dwarves, more all that stuff. I'm all in. I'm all in. What do I have to do to put you into a nice shiny new Hobbit film today? Let's talk about some of the features these films have. We have a beautiful soundtrack, bringing back the old familiars, adding in some new favorites. We have a new cast and once again an old likable bunch that we can get on board with. Bilbo, Martin Freeman. This guy's fantastic. I loved him. I liked him just as much as Frodo in a different way. Frodo I felt just heartbroken for that this poor little Hobbit had to suffer and endure this ring, this precious, this burden that whole time with Samwise having his back, of course, but with Bilbo it was different. There was this fun, charming, wide-eyed spirit about him that I really latched on to. And as the films progress, he really makes his own. He really helps the team out multiple times. Yeah, he's got the greediness to him with the ring, the one ring to rule them all, but he's still staying steadfast. He's got his eye on the prize. The prize being helping Thor and Oakenshield and a merry band of dwarves get back to the Lonely Mountain and reclaim their place on the throne and get some of that sweet, sweet gold, that cash money. What our crew lacks in numbers they make up for in Wizards. We have Gandalf the grave back. He's maybe a little older, but he's still solid. In fact, we get a couple different wizards in this one. We have a brown one. He's got bird poop on his head. He loves animals. And he's got some sort of Jackrabbit bobsled that's just fantastically quick. This guy's solid. You have the white wizard Saruman back in the mix, still pretending to be a good guy. The lady of the light is there. And there's a fantastic fight scene, I believe, in the third film. The weakest, I'd say, of the bunch. A lot of people give the third one a lot of flak. It's true. The production values in the Hobbit films, they vary. So while you have a beautifully rendered dragon, an awesome rakam-sakam mountain fight sequence in the first film. You later have Legolas to find gravity and running up cobblestone as it's breaking away. Nothing's adding up. Nothing looks remotely realistic. It's just a video game. If the later storyline of stopping the dragon isn't doing anything for your swimsuit area, I have a couple other key points to touch on that might tickle your fancy. What about the fact that Legolas is back in the mix? Yeah, I know he's not in the book. Not that I've read it, but I've been told he's not in the book. I don't care. I love Legolas. I want a Legolas standalone film. I have said this before on camera. I'd love to see a Assassin's Creed style Legolas on horseback, traversing the countryside, cutting off heads, sliding down bodies, maybe team up with Tyreel, the female Legolas, Kate from Lost, whatever, Hornet Lady from Ant-Man, Bumblebee Lady, what is her name? Wasp. The Wasp. She's in it. And that's what I really love about Peter Jackson with the Hobbit films. He understood that one of the key things that made the Lord of the Rings awesome was Legolas. It got all the ladies wild. It got some of the men wild, got me wild, but he also knew that a female counterpart would do the same thing for the boys that it did for the girls in Lord of the Rings. He takes all those ingredients that made LOTR so good, mixes them in a little bowl, and he sprinkles them on these little cookies known as the Hobbit. We have the giant spiders back in the woods. We have the eagles back, taking out guys, and then stranding our heroes on some mountainside somewhere, like dicks. Like just take them all the way, you know? I understand in LOTR they couldn't because the eye would see them and, you know, Sauron would take them down, but in the Hobbit it's like, well, why can't they go all the way? Are they afraid of smog? Maybe? He's been sleeping. He's in the slumber. Golems back, aka Smeagol, aka Andy Serkis, aka Fantastic. Down in the caves we get a little riddle scene. Makes the first Hobbit film an absolutely must watch. Gives you a little bit more backstory to that whole situation between him and Bilbo. Then we lead into the desolation of smog, most people's favorite, mine included. And it's interesting because it's got the least amount of story. In fact, in a three hour film there's almost no story. And no, I don't know the names of all the dwarves. They're basically like snow white to me. You have Fatty, you have Oldy, you have Dummy, you have Pansy, and then you have Oak and Shield whose last name is a little bit too on the nose for me, or a little bit too on the tree trunk, because he has a literal shield made of oak multiple times in these films. Oak and Shield. So while the dwarves, for the most part, are setting out to retrieve their land, their treasure, and get the heart of the mountain, they've also taken mine. They stole my heart by the time the final film ends. We lose a couple of them on the way and, you know, they're prominent members. One of them I did want to die because he had the awful love story that I just wanted to end. That was completely forced. Thankfully, it doesn't take up much of the runtime of any of the films. There's songs, there's merry dancing and laughing, there's camaraderie, there's shenanigans, there's heart, there's fear, there's death, there's pain, there's anguish, and there's a lot of good tips of the hat. There's a lot of good foreshadowing, which brings me to my favorite thing about the hobbit is the necromancer, the sauron cameos, the forming of the eye based on the body shape. I thought that was brilliant. I love how they tied that in with Smaug's eye. He has that same little slit that looks like the eye of sauron. I think it for the most part is a great way to start. As I've stated before, it's far from perfect. You know, Jackson had half the time to make this trilogy that he did The Lord of the Rings. Pre-production was almost non-existent by the time he got to the third film. He lost a year of film time to shoot and edit and do everything he needed to do because they had to rush it out the door to make that cash money coin. Still, the end result I think is just something worth revisiting. If nothing more than to watch Legolas scale the side of a mountain, jump onto a bird creature hanging by its legs, flip upside down, shoot a giant orb in the skull, and then drive him around God of War style, taking down the side of a building forming a bridge so he can go save his love. So we've come full circle. Is The Hobbit a good set of films? Nah, they're a great set of films. One that I'm gladly going to re-watch multiple times. I have watched them multiple times. I'll go back again. I love going to Middle Earth. I love reliving the magic because after I get through these three, which have a very different feel than The Lord of the Rings, which is good, which is good thing. It's good that they're a little lighter, little fluffier, get you into it. And then I get to The Lord of the Rings and it's just this fine wine. I just taste it. I take a sip and then by the end of it, I'm completely drunk off its beauty. Let me know if you changed your mind over the years, if the sourness has worn off, and if you want to stick around, that'd be great. Go ahead and subscribe, like the video if you did, and maybe I'll talk to you next time. Take care.