1/07/2011

Confirmed: Elijah Wood will return as Frodo in 'The Hobbit'

So I guess it wasn't a typo, eh? Deadline's mentioning of Elijah Wood as a possible star of The Hobbit set off a lot of red flags. The reason is that Frodo is absolutely nowhere to be found in The Hobbit as it takes place years before The Lord of the Rings, so his presence makes zero sense. Even less sense than the rumored presence of Legolas(Orlando Bloom), who at least has the benefit of being an elf with near immortality. But it's appearing more and more likely that Wood will indeed be reprising his role as Frodo Baggins, and while last night I expressed some anger over that possibility, it appears that his presence will be minor and actually makes a little bit of sense.  Theonering.net have the story...

As readers of “The Hobbit” know, the tale of “The Downfall of The Lord of the Rings” and “The Hobbit or There and Back Again,” are contained in the fictional “Red Book of Westmarch.” In Peter Jackson’s LOTR films, the books are shown on screen and written in by Bilbo and Frodo and handed off to Sam Gamgee. (Not explained on film are Sam’s progeny later having the book and being Wardens of the Westmarch — hence the book’s title.)

So what it sounds like is that Frodo will either be reading the book or somebody will be relaying the story to him. I can work with that. It doesn't really disrupt Tolkien's original story in any way. At this point he might as well bring back all the surviving characters. Maybe they can all sit around a campfire during second breakfast and have a different person read a different chapter?