The Hobbit (Russian)

• Year: 1985
• Director: Vladimir Latyshev
• Starring: Zinovy Gerdt, Mikhail Danilov, Ivan Krasko

Today’s version of The Hobbit presents an interesting contrast to the Rankin/Bass cartoon I reviewed last week. Both are a little over 70 minutes in length, but they could not be more different. While the cartoon focused on trying to fit as many scenes as possible into the film, the Russian The Hobbit takes its time with the scenes, opting instead to skip a few along the way. Does this approach work better or does it ultimately harm Tolkien’s vision?

We start with what every visual medium needs… a narrator. Oh, and it’s not just some voice over narration from Bilbo Baggins—we get all the excitement of watching a narrator tell the story.

This room has a strange set-up. Why are there multiple tables spread throughout seemingly at random that have one chair at them? Are three narrators recording separate films? Also, is this guy supposed to be J.R.R Tolkien? They kind of look a little bit a like… I guess.

Speaking of things that vaguely resemble Tolkien, let’s take a look at the characters. In front of a colored pencil sketch, there lived Russian Stephen Fry.

He allegedly lived in The Shire, even though there are clearly normal-sized houses on the horizon behind him. Stephen Fry was sitting on the park bench that for some reason was located two steps from his front door. Alright, the actor playing Bilbo is actually named Mikhail Danilov, and he’s quite good. He’s easy-going and plays up Bilbo’s sense of wonder nicely. I’ve never heard of the actor, but I hope he went on to have a long successful career in Russian cinema.

Now it’s time for my new segment…

Sometimes adaptations throw caution to the wind when it comes to the visual representation of characters, and Russian The Hobbit is no exception. Let’s take a look at the first question:

Alright so this one maybe isn’t that hard, but why does have Gandalf have glitter all over him? Why does he have a fake beard under an obviously real mustache? Why does he have this stupid grin on his face all the time? Why does he look somewhat animalistic? Alright anyway, you’ve got the hang of this now, time for the hard question.

Come on, who am I kidding? Beorn and the Master of Laketown are completely cut out of this adaptation. We do in fact see Gollum, but he looks more like a character out of Santa Claus Conquers the Martians.

Alright so this angry over-actor with the large mustache can only be Bard the Bowman, right?

SERIOUSLY? That’s the Great Goblin? Well what do the other goblins look like?

A dance troupe, great. That’s threatening. In the time it takes for the goblins to do their song and dance, the dwarves could have gotten away. Remember in the animated film when the dwarves get ambushed and the goblins come out of the shadows to take them? I miss that.

What does Smaug look like (He asked expecting a float from a Chinese New Year parade.)?

Well I didn’t expect much, so I guess this incredibly obvious puppet could be worse. Am I really giving this movie credit for aiming low and hitting the mark?

Alright, let’s get down to it and talk about this film’s really strange pacing and structure. It’s only 71 minutes long, which isn’t that different from last week’s cartoon. However, in this film, it takes 20 minutes to get out of The Shire. We get a nice introduction to Bilbo, Gandalf, and all 13 dwarves, but it’s taking up more than a quarter of the narrative. By this time in the cartoon, the characters had told their backstory, gotten attacked by trolls, taken the loot from the troll cave, visited Rivendell, and picked a place to camp for the night. So what does this film do to make up for it? Skip over the trolls, the troll cave (including Bilbo finding his famous sword Sting), and Rivendell.

We just jump right to the Misty Mountains where the Russian Goblin Ballet Company captures Bilbo and the dwarves, followed by Bilbo meeting Gollum. The Gollum scene is not rushed, but the combination of the actor playing Gollum and his silly costume don’t make it all that worthwhile. Gollum is a tough character to pull off, but he was at least tolerable in the cartoon. Again though, I really enjoy Bilbo in this scene. When Gollum is setting the terms of the riddle game and Bilbo agrees that Gollum can eat him should he win, Bilbo says something to the effect of “What do I get if I win? I don’t want to eat you.” It’s just a quick additional line, but it made me laugh.

After getting away from Gollum, Bilbo meets up with the dwarves again and saves them from spiders. This is the only scene we get from the Mirkwood portion of the book, because after this, we go right to Laketown. There’s a lot that gets skipped over, but skipping over the Wood Elves encounter is a terrible decision. Sneaking around the Wood Elf prison and freeing his friends is one of Bilbo’s shining moments as a burglar, but it’s left out entirely. However, just like in the book, he does later say that he got the dwarves out of two situations not in the original contract, meaning the spiders and… some business with Jabba the Hutt? I don’t know.

When the company gets to Lake Town, they’re treated to another interpretive dance number. WHAT AM I WATCHING?

I actually appreciate the effort to include a lot of Tolkien’s songs in the film, and I quite like the dwarves’ version of “Misty Mountains Cold,” but this song and dance is just awkward and time consuming. As if that wasn’t enough, we then cut back to the narrator who says…

Hey maybe—and this is just a thought—maybe you’d have more time to play with if you didn’t just watch a two-minute dance sequence. This narrator is really involved in this story by the way, and I don’t mean Ken Smith-tell-the-characters-what-to-do-involved, but he always seems deep in thought. Come on man, it’s a kid’s story, you’re not reading the names of the deceased at a military funeral. That said, he sure gets a lot of Tolkien’s great lines into the film that probably wouldn’t have been there otherwise.

After Smaug is killed by Bard, we get to the Battle of Five People… I mean Armies. Are there really even five armies? There aren’t any elves in this one. OK, it’s more a built-up conflict between the men and dwarves until the goblins come in and the narrator tells us about the battle. Again, we are watching a movie. Why are you telling us about the battle? Well perhaps because the little bit we see is yet another synchronized dance sequence. There is not something I can think of that is more offensive to the message of Tolkien than a battle sequence that resembles a dance. War is always ugly in Tolkien’s works, even when it ultimately helps the heroes. It’s hard to think about the horrors of war when we’re seeing the goblins dancing. This is absolutely despicable. Whether it was intentional or not, this is worse than any other weird change this adaptation made.

Thorin is the only dwarf to die. Bilbo says goodbye and goes back to The Shire. I don’t care anymore. You made war look like a dance. I wish you would have just skipped the battle entirely and just had the narrator talk about it. Let’s get this over with.

Adaptation (19/50 Points)

Some of the scenes actually work, and the first twenty minutes have some nice atmosphere. That said, the things it leaves out and the beautification of war really ruin anything it had going.

Cast (11/25 Points)

Mikhail Danilov’s Bilbo is really quite enjoyable, and Anatoly Ravikovich does fine as Thorin. Gandalf is played all wrong, though, and really no one else in this short adaptation stands out.

Experience (9/25 Points)

The sets are really cheap and it cuts back to the narrator way too often, but at least there’s an effort made to include some of Tolkien’s words and songs. Not all of the songs work, but there was clearly work put into them.

FINAL SCORE: 39%

There’s really not much to see here except a nice take on Bilbo Baggins, but you can see that in other versions. Maybe it appealed to Russian kids in the ’80s. I mean, it’s not horrendous or anything, but it really makes some odd choices. I enjoyed a few parts of it, but definitely not enough to recommend it.

Alright, next week, it’s my review of Peter Jackson’s The Hobbit… just the first one. He’ll cover in three hours what this movie covered in about 40 minutes. Should be fun.

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The Hobbit (1977)

• Year: 1977
• Director: Arthur Rankin, Jr. and Jules Bass
• Starring: Orson Bean, John Huston, Hans Conried

The first Tolkien adaptation that was made with the intention of actually being a good Tolkien adaptation, The Hobbit was brought to television by Rankin/Bass in 1977. Who better to bring you the dark and fantastical world of J.R.R. Tolkien than the guys who brought you that special about the talking snowman?

Alright, to be fair, The Hobbit is definitely a children’s book, especially compared to The Lord of the Rings. There are talking trolls, a dragon, lots of songs, and the story is pretty lighthearted. That said, it’s still Tolkien, in that nothing involving war can be wrapped up with a “happily ever after.” This 78-minute cartoon was actually my first introduction to Middle-Earth, but I will try to put nostalgia aside and judge the thing fairly. Trust me, there are plenty of issues to point out.

Our first shot is of Tolkien’s book with John Huston’s voice-over of the famous line “In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit.” However, it then veers off into lines not at all in the book about “the time of middle earth.”

I have no issue with opening narration adding something that’s not in the book, because we’re watching a movie not listening to an audiobook, but it’s borderline sacrilege to show a copy of The Hobbit with lines that are clearly not in it.

One of the common criticisms about this special is that it doesn’t feature a British voice cast, and I get it. Tolkien intended Middle Earth to be a mythology of sorts for England, so a British cast would make sense, but the casting of the three leads is quite good regardless. Orson Bean voices Bilbo Baggins, and while definitely American, he puts so much wonder into Bilbo’s voice that the performance still works.

American voice actor Hans Conried (best known perhaps as Captain Hook in Disney’s Peter Pan) plays the chief dwarf, Thorin Oakenshield.

Conried gives the dwarf the voice of someone who has traveled all over, which in my opinion is perfect for a character like Thorin. He has not lived anywhere for a long period of time since he was young, so this sort of general European accent works.

Gandalf is voiced by the aforementioned John Huston, whose performance is the best thing about the film. Gandalf may seem an easy enough character to play, as he’s basically just the powerful wizard who shows up when needed, but Tolkien gave the character the major duality of being incredibly powerful and incredibly kind. One moment he could be scaring you to death, and the next he could be comforting you. It’s tough to pull off both, but John Huston does it marvelously. His immensely rich voice lends itself perfectly to the commanding moments and the kind ones.

When I read a book of a movie I’ve already seen, I rarely if ever hear an actor’s voice in my head, but rather just the character I imagine. An actor may deliver a line in a certain way that makes it memorable when I read it in the text, but John Huston is one of those rare exceptions where even when I read Lord of the Rings, I still hear him as Gandalf.

The other twelve dwarves (Quick Tolkien note: Dwarves is the proper plural of Tolkien’s creatures) really don’t have much character, and most don’t really even have lines except when the group all speaks together. They don’t tumble in Bilbo’s door like in the book, but instead they all show up from behind trees and bushes like the Munchkins from The Wizard of Oz. Having thirteen dwarves is perhaps the most difficult aspect of adapting The Hobbit, as only a few have defined characteristics in the book, but they are still present in most of the scenes. Some have even theorized that Tolkien wrote in so many dwarves so filmmakers would not want to adapt his novel.

Tolkien’s writing had a lot of songs and poems, and the film does a fairly good job of including them. The dwarves’ backstory is told through “Misty Mountains Cold,” a dark and haunting dirge that is both incredibly atmospheric and a quick way of getting a lot of exposition across. The elvish songs, on the other hand, are pretty and melodic, and the goblin songs are ugly and imposing.

Since the film isn’t even 90 minutes long, it moves at an incredibly brisk pace. We meet Bilbo, Gandalf, the dwarves, hear the entire backstory, see Bilbo agreeing to go, and get an opening credits sequence all within the first ten minutes. Before we know it, Bilbo is trying to steal food from the trolls.

This troll is wearing a hat. This raises so many questions:

1. Trolls only come out at night or they get turned to stone. Is there some late night haberdasher in Middle Earth?
2. Even if this alleged late night haberdasher exists, these trolls live in the wild. How far did this troll travel to get said hat? He has to be in a cave by sunrise.
3.  Even if somehow this troll got to this alleged late night haberdasher while it was dark outside, how would said haberdasher have a hat in his size? How many troll customers does he have?
4. Will the haberdasher make a special hat just for the troll? Will the troll come back another night just to pick up this specialty hat? This is a lot of work for a troll who can only be outside a few hours a day and a haberdasher who has other customers.
5. Even if somehow the troll takes multiple nights out of his schedule to place and pick up this special hat order, what happens when he turns to stone? Does the hat also turn to stone? I get it, trolls turn back into the mountain they were made from, but does the hat just chill there on top of the mountain? Does all the late night haberdasher’s work go to waste? Imagine if he were to walk buy and see that the hat he spent multiple nights creating was now stone.

In the book, Bilbo is caught and the dwarves later check up on him, getting caught themselves. Here, Bilbo gets caught and idiotically screams out “Dwarves, I’m done for. Run for it!” I get that Bilbo is a little green to the darkness of the world around him, but how could he do something this stupid? Unbelievably, as soon as he announces the dwarves’ presence, they all run away without a shred of concern for Bilbo. The trolls of course capture them anyway, but this is a really weird way to condense the encounter from the book.

A lot of what follows next is pretty accurate to the book. Sure, the weird passing statements about the stone giants are left out, but that’s probably for the best (more on that when we get to the Jackson films.). The company visits Rivendell where Elrond (Cyril Ritchard) explains Thorin’s map…

Elrond has a beard, but I’m not going to fuss about every little detail.

They get captured by goblins, Gandalf kills the Great Goblin, and Bilbo gets separated from the group and meets Gollum. The actor playing Gollum is credited simply as Theodore, but research shows that it is self-described “stand-up tragedist” Brother Theodore. He does fine voicing Gollum, and the character’s physical appearance isn’t all that different from the one we’d see in the Jackson films.

After Bilbo is reunited with the dwarves, and the eagles save them from the goblins and wolves, the movie starts to make some weird decisions. Look, The Hobbit is an episodic tale. Everything takes place on the journey to Lonely Mountain, sure, but most of the conflicts happen quickly and the characters move on. They meet trolls and get away, they get kidnapped by goblins and get away, the dwarves get trapped by spiders and Bilbo rescues them. It’s not a complex story, but a lot of stuff happens. When you only have 78 minutes to work with, cuts are going to have to be made, but why would anyone decide to cut Beorn the skin-changer?

When an adaptation of The Hobbit is planned, wouldn’t one of the most exciting things be “Guy who can change into a bear”? I suppose they cut this over other sections because, ultimately, Beorn doesn’t take them to the next stage of their journey. It’s just a stop along the way, and he gives them ponies (that ultimately run off) and some advice, but it’s a guy who can change into a bear. Everyone wants to see this! Instead, the eagles drop the company right outside Mirkwood Forest.

Wanting to apparently stay away from violence in this story that ends with something called “The Battle of Five Armies,” all we see when Bilbo goes to stab the spiders that trapped the dwarves is this weird kaleidoscope effect.

Apparently even spiders getting slashed down is too violent for Rankin/Bass here, even though a gun would save the day in Rudolph and Frosty’s Christmas in July. The wood elves make their return… Oh you missed me talking about the wood elves the first time? That’s because I didn’t. Bilbo just narrates that “The wood elves had returned,” even though they hadn’t been mentioned up until this point. It’s clear that the first appearance of the wood elves was intended to be in the film, but no one changed the narration. All you had to do was have the line “We had seen the wood elves once before.” How hard was that? You don’t even have to show them, but nope, they return even though we haven’t met them yet.

Up until this point, it feels like every voice actor has been cast with much thought, with the casting director truly trying to find the actor with the right voice for each of Tolkien’s characters. The voice casting from here on out, though, seems to be based on whoever was hanging around the studio lot that day. The king of the wood elves (unnamed in The Hobbit, named Thranduil in Lord of the Rings) is voiced by Austrian director Otto Preminger… Austrian, not Australian. The only explanation I can come up with is that he was having lunch with John Huston and Rankin/Bass needed somebody in a pinch.

The wood elves are also hideous for some reason. Just a reminder that this is what the Rivendell elves look like.

HOW ARE THESE THE SAME SPECIES? What in Middle Earth got in way of this evolutionary process? I have a feeling that the Grinch is somewhere in this family tree.

As fast as the plot is moving, we get a really nice atmospheric scene as Bilbo and the dwarves are escaping the wood elf prison in barrels. “Rollin’ Down the Hole” is the best song in the film, a jaunty nautical number that makes the escape all the sweeter. This isn’t turned into an unnecessary action scene, but instead it’s just a nice moment. Bilbo looks up and sees Lonely Mountain in the distance, knowing they are getting even closer to the dragon Smaug.

The company doesn’t spend much time in Lake Town, and the Master of Lake Town is not a character in the film (a change that actually makes sense.) Continuing with the bizarre casting choices, Bard is voiced by the very American John Stephenson, and the character even looks like he stepped out the 1970s and into Middle Earth.

Bilbo and the dwarves make their way to the mountain, and Bilbo walks into Smaug’s lair. In the book, Smaug and Bilbo exchange in clever riddles and wordplay (Tolkien insists this is how one must talk to dragons.), and while there are still hints of that here, the portrayal of Smaug is all wrong. He’s voiced by western character actor Richard Boone, who clearly belongs in westerns and not a Tolkien adaptation. His voice is all “I’ll shoot you at high noon” and no “I’m more cunning than you.”

He also looks ridiculous, with his headlight-eyes and cat face. Bilbo is also stupid enough to take the ring off in Smaug’s presence, stand in place, and show off the treasure he is stealing before running out. With all he’s been through, how is he this dumb? I really don’t get why this decision was made.

Smaug gets angry, flies out of the mountain and gets shot down by Sonny Bono.

There’s a great moment where Bard tells his men to “stand your ground” and they all just jump into the lake anyway. I’m not sure if this was intentional comedy or not, but it’s hysterical.

The subplot of the Arkenstone is gone, which I understand, but it was still a nice little extra scene of Bilbo being smart and sneaky in the book. We get to see the Battle of Five Armies from the perspective of… the eagles I guess. This is seriously what it looks like.

How do I know which dot to root for?

The book is unquestionably anti-violence and anti-greed, as Thorin Oakenshield is ultimately a tragic figure. He gets his gold, but he dies for it. However, of the original thirteen dwarves, only Thorin and his nephews Kili and Fili are killed in battle. The cartoon makes the effort to mention that seven have died, including Bombur. I guess this makes up for the lack of violence in other portions, but it seems odd that more dwarves die in the lightest take on the tale. Thorin’s dying scene is done really well, with Hans Conried and Orson Bean pouring themselves into the emotion without overdoing it. It would have been easy to make this seen cheesy and melodramatic, but it’s really handled nicely.

Ultimately, the Rankin/Bass The Hobbit is a fine but brief adaptation of Tolkien’s novel. It has some really great voice acting (and some really bad voice acting) and a few nice songs. It’s a pretty good introduction to the world of Tolkien. Let’s check out the final score.

Adaptation (32/50 Points)

Some of the changes make sense, like cutting out the Master of Lake Town and Roac the talking raven (I didn’t even get to him, but he’s not that important in the book.). Others, like removing Beorn and the Arkenstone take out some of the book’s charm. The laziness of keeping in the reference to the wood elves’ first appearance also hurts it here.

Cast (17/25 Points)

John Huston and Hans Conried are top notch as Gandalf and Thorin respectively, especially Huston who still defines the character for me. Orson Bean does a good job as Bilbo, and I really enjoy Cyril Ritchard’s brief scene as Elrond. The very non-Middle Earth voices of Smaug, Bard, and the Elven king really distract from the film, though.

Experience (12/25 Points)

The animation isn’t great, honestly, but some of the backgrounds work. The shying away from from violence is understandable but it lessens Tolkien’s message regardless. The songs by Glenn Yarbrough aren’t for everyone, but at least most are taken from the book, and a few are quite nice. The non-Tolkien number “The Greatest Adventure” is overused, but it’s not a bad song.

FINAL SCORE: 61%

The Hobbit 1977 isn’t groundbreaking, but it at least seems to really love its source material. If you don’t go in expecting a brilliant adaptation, you’ll enjoy it enough.

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The Hobbit (1966 Short): Bonus Review

Before I begin the Match-Up proper, I want to take a quick look at the very first adaptation of a Tolkien work ever put to film. I’m not bothering to compare it to the others because: A) The thing is only 12 minutes long and B) It was made just to retain the rights. Yep, although producer William Snyder had the rights to The Hobbit, he had to make something by mid-1966 or he would lose them. Well he made something alright. Eventually and undeservedly, he sold the rights back for $100,000.

The whole story is told via animation stills, meaning there is somehow even less movement than The Christmas Tree (but hey, at least no blinking.)

You know, I’ll criticize this thing up and down for being lazy (it was made with that very intention), but at least the animation has a style to it. It’s not good per say, but it sort of has a Middle Ages tapestry feel to it.

The narration and all of the voices are done by Herb Lass, who has no other IMDB credits to his name. I have a feeling I know this Herb Lass is… K. Gordon Murray, the narrator of Santa Claus.

That’s Ken Smith!

OK to be fair “Herb Lass” does not insert himself into the story. There’s no scene of “Oh no, Bilbo’s ring almost landed around Saturn.”

It would only be appropriate if Ken Smith was going by Herb Lass here, because names are changed in this thing for no apparent reason. Smaug the Dragon becomes Slag, which may sound odd to you if you’re American and hilarious if you’re British. Thorin becomes Torin, Gollum becomes Galoom, Goblins become Grablins, and Trolls become Groans. Some of these changes (code: all) just seem like the writer is changing the names for the heck of it. That said, at least Gandalf and Bilbo do stay the same.

In Tolkien’s book, thirteen dwarves recruit Bilbo for their quest, but here Thorin… Ugh do I have to… Torin is the only dwarf left. Joining him are an unnamed watchman who was sleeping when the dragon came (He had one job and failed, why is he with them?) and Princess Mika Millavonna (I’m completely guessing the spelling. This short is so obscure that no naming info exists).

When Bilbo refuses to go, the child princess (Apparently she’s a child, they say so) guilts him into it by saying she’ll go instead. Bilbo agrees to go with Torin, Princess Whoever, and Mr. Smee the watchman.

Bilbo steals from the Trol… Groans, but instead of turning into stone, they turn into trees.

See we’re being different.

Also, it’s pretty clear everyone involved (both of them) never read Lord of the Rings, because the narrator speaks of Bilbo’s destiny as the one true ring bearer.

To save time and the addition of more characters, Bilbo walks into the dragon’s lair and kills Slag himself. He marries the princess.

EW. NO. STOP.

You said earlier she was a child! She also has served absolutely no purpose in this thing except the guilt trip (somehow still more than the watchman), but now Bilbo marries the princess, who is clearly a human child. They rule in Dale for many years and then go back to The Shire and live in Bilbo’s hobbit hole, because apparently kings and queens retire in this really strange universe. Whatever.

It’s entirely pointless. If you want to check it out, you’ll only waste twelve minutes of your time.

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Introduction: Middle Earth Movies

Yes, the Lord of the Rings and Hobbit movies are incredibly well-known, and they have been talked about endlessly. I know. However, I want to look at them from a different perspective. Lord of the Rings is one of my favorite books of all time, and I have often been very critical of the films. I want to both take a look at these as adaptations and also to see if perhaps I’ve been too hard on them.

I am going to give every benefit of the doubt possible here by watching the special extended editions, instead of the theatrical ones I have criticized in the past. Maybe there’s something I’ve missed. That said, I am not going to ask if the book or movie is better, because across the board, it’s going to be the book. I can guarantee that much.

In addition to the six Peter Jackson films, I’ll take a look at the animated The Hobbit from Rankin-Bass, the Russian The Hobbit from 1985, Ralph Bakshi’s Lord of the Rings, and Rankin-Bass’ return to Middle Earth with Return of the King.

I’ll be looking at just three factors:

Adaptation (50 Points): Does it hold true to the text? When changes are made, are they for the better? Do we miss the things left out?

Cast (25 Points): Actors and voice actors (obviously)

Experience (25 Points): Music, direction, cinematography, etc.

Maybe I’ve been wrong about the Lord of the Rings films and the later two Hobbit films (I actually enjoy the first one enough). Maybe a non-Peter Jackson one will surprise me. Let’s find out.

The first review will be a bonus review of a short cartoon version of The Hobbit from 1966.

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Movie Match-Up: Middle Earth Movies

INTRODUCTION

BONUS REVIEW: THE HOBBIT (1966)

The first Tolkien adaptation that was made with the intention of actually being a good Tolkien adaptation, The Hobbit was brought to television by Rankin/Bass in 1977… (More)

Today’s version of The Hobbit presents an interesting contrast to the Rankin/Bass cartoon I reviewed last week. (More)

Well, after getting through a lazy cash grab, a tolerable cartoon, and a cheap Russian TV adaptation, here we are at Peter Jackson’s big budget… (More)

Although a three-film trilogy based on a 300-page novel sounds silly, An Unexpected Journey is good enough to make us think it could work… (More)

When you think about it, it’s strange how inconsistent the first two Hobbit films are. Don’t get me wrong… (More)

BONUS REVIEW: THE HOBBIT (VIDEO GAME)

Before I dive into the actual review of Ralph Bakshi’s Lord of the Rings, I want to briefly touch on the history… (More)

Alright, I haven’t done this since … (More)

TOM BOMBADIL (EDITORIAL)

Alright, here we go. It’s finally time to take a look at Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings trilogy. It’s been years… (More)

FARAMIR (EDITORIAL)

Well, I was fairly kind to The Fellowship of the Ring, but will I come around to the second film in Peter Jackson’s trilogy as well? (More)

SCOURING OF THE SHIRE (EDITORIAL)

It’s the final review in the Middle-earth series, and this is the big one. The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King won 11 Oscars (More)

FINAL THOUGHTS

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