What's on TV: Small in stature, Hobbits big on adventure

By Ben Pobjie
Updated November 24 2014 - 3:08pm, first published 2:34pm
Reluctant adventurer: Martin Freeman is superbly cast as Bilbo Baggins in <i>The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey</i>.
Reluctant adventurer: Martin Freeman is superbly cast as Bilbo Baggins in <i>The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey</i>.

When The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (Nine, 8.30pm) came out, there was a lot of criticism that the cash-grabbing decision to make J. R. R. Tolkien's single novel into a trilogy of films had caused director Peter Jackson to add too much extraneous padding to the story of Bilbo Baggins. It's true, the first Hobbit flick is a long one, and tends to sag at times. But many of the additions to the book's simple narrative were done for a good reason: Jackson's adaptation of Tolkien's Lord of the Rings series had been grand, grim, grown-up films, as befitted those books. If he was to make the prequels, a lot of work was needed to turn the more naïve, childish story of The Hobbit into movies that existed in the same universe as his earlier masterpieces.

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