I'm watching the Hobbit for the second time today...with subtitles as the sound is not great in bits.

I like it. And love both Bilbo and Thorin, but it isn't gripping me as much as I thought it might.

The thought of Richard Armitage as a dwarf seemed a complete folly to me beforehand, but I see now exactly what the casters were thinking.

I wish his accent was a bit less distractingly John Thornton though. At one point, I found myself saying, in Chris Eccleston's voice, "Lots of planets have a North."

Martin Freeman really is the best.

eta: I wonder how it was for the company to have Christopher Lee back...after he was such a pill a decade ago.

Elijah Woods is just a pretty, pretty young man.

Tell it.

They had trouble with Lee? I wasn't aware that any of his former co-workers ever had anything bad to say about him.

I seem to remember him being very, quite contrary in the press when Saruman was not included in Return of the King.

It might have been overblown at the time, because it seems Jackson accommodated Lee's inability to travel for the Hobbit by filming his scene at Pinewood.

My memory is that Lee is a true Tolkien scholar and was a bit overbearing about it.

Another side note...I did not realize that Neil Finn had done so much of the music on the Hobbit.

It tickles me that Danny Elfman, Mark Mothersbaugh, Finn and even Trent Reznick have gotten so deeply into soundtracks.

Maybe he wanted the credit line I spotted in the Hobbit for Tolkien Scholar. Probably someone who could definitively say "No, we don't have names for the two blue wizards."

Connie, was the Tolkien Scholar credited as Lee?

I'm sure that would make him very happy.

The stories from the set, back in the day, included Lee carrying his first edition around, correcting things in the script. There were apparently a few, "Yes, we know, but for the _movie_ " arguments.

Honestly, after today's viewing, I really need to go back and reread the Hobbit. There was a lot I did not remember.

He rereads Tolkein every year and once met the man himself, so I can see him being a purist about the works.

No, the Tolkien Scholar was a woman. I was thinking I'd be very pleased to put that on my resume.

No, the Tolkien Scholar was a woman

Janet Brennan Croft: [link]