The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey - Notes from the Commentary

 Ephraim Belnap 

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey

Extended Edition notes 

Commentary with Director/Writer/Producer Peter Jackson and Writer/Co-Producer Philippa Boyyens 

We see the MGM logo with the lion roaring at the start. MGM is involved, where they weren’t with the Lord of the Rings films, because they own United Artists, which historically has been involved with the rights to The Hobbit. Peter jokes that they should really have a dragon in the logo. 

Peter notes that he and Philippa may be in the very same room that they recorded the LOTR commentaries in 

They used the same font for the credits. They also followed their pattern from the originals of having a prologue of some sorts, some credits, the name of the film, and then the film proper. This time around, the color of the credits is tinted gold, to keep up with The Hobbit’s different aesthetic. 

Wanted to start it with Ian Holm (Bilbo’s actor in LOTR) to help root it, and make clear it was a prequel - a flashback 

We start with a showing of the city of Dale and the mountain of Erebor before the dragon arrived. The Dalre set is on Mt Crawford in the hills above Wellington Harbor in New Zealand. It’s also where they built the big wall for King Kong, and shot the Smeagol intro for Return of the King. 

It was a challenge to come up with visuals for enormity of Erebor. A lot is based on work  Alan Lee and John Howe did for them. They were the original concept designers for LOTR, and Alan Lee also did illustrations for the LOTR and Hobbit books in the early nineties, which is how he got hired by them. We see Moria before, but we never see it at its full glory, so that’s what the prologue is. 

Cameo - Glen Boswell, their stunt coordinator, is the dwarf who finds the Arkenstone. 

In the extended edition, we get some shots of Thranduil trying to get the gems he says he’s fond of in the later movies, but being denied, setting up his beefing with the dwarves. 

There’s a little earthquake in New Zealand that Peter and Philippa both feel and note out loud right after the Thranduil moment lol, but they decide to just keep recording and it’s fine

They showcase the enormous mountains of gold the dwarves have because it’s the cursed thing that brings the dragon, because it covets it. Philippa says she thinks Tolkien had a theme about greed and “the sickness of having that much wealth.” Peter says it also sets up the internal conflict of the dwarves wanting Erebor back. “Is it about the dwarves wanting to reclaim their homeland or reclaiming the gold? And I think it’s both.” 

When the dragon shows up, it’s during a festival, and the first thing we see is a paper dragon kite getting destroyed by Smaug’s flame. Alan Lee came up with that beat. 

A lot of the destruction sequence was shot by second unit, led by ANDY SERKIS, the actor who played Gollum, who was second unit director on this. In another BTS scene, Andy says Peter texted him to ask him if he wanted to direct second unit, and “I must have looked like a madman”, because he was silently yelling at his phone in happy disbelief. Second unit shoots the often-second-priority shots the director can’t get to himself, like landscape shots or inserts. But on a film as big as The Hobbit, second unit is likely to end up shooting a lot of important stuff, so it's a big sign of trust in his abilities. 

They tease at the dragon, but never fully show it, because they want to save the proper reveal of the dragon for later.  

They cast Thorin as younger so he could play as “young and a great fighter, and someone who would still have the strength to be a great fighter." And he needed to look like a potential king. He’s described as older-looking in the books, with white hair and wrinkles, but “if he looked like someone in his eighties, it’s harder for the audience to get invested in him being king.” What’s the point of him becoming king if he’s only gonna be king for like five minutes? 

Richard Armitage, Thorin's actor, was the youngest of the actors they looked at, but he worked very well. He auditioned in London and blew them away. 

Philippa is happy they got to show dwarf ladies with beards. Says Peter King, their hair and make-up guy, made them look beautiful 

Thranduil’s elk mount is actually a horse, but they digitally replace it with an elk. The movements are basically the same. 

THE FILM PROPER

Ian McKellen suggested a brief extended scene we see with Gandalf partying with the hobbits and play-fighting with a young Bilbo. We also get a brief shot of Belladonna Took, which Philippa is happy about. Peter’s daughter is also in the scene! 

They had to recreate the town of Hobbiton since it had been taken down after filming LOTR. It was made of temporary materials like polystyrene and plywood the first time around. This time they made them with more permanent materials so it could become a tourist attraction afterward. 

They shot Ian Holm’s scenes in London - Ian was too old to travel so they took pieces of the set over there to shoot; composited the rest with green screen. Elijah Wood shot scenes in London, and in NZ in the brief moment he’s standing outside the house. 

They joke about how Elijah hasn’t aged at all in ten years. 

Fran Walsh, co-writer and co-producer and wife of Peter Jackson, chose “An Unexpected Journey” as the subtitle. She would probably be present on these commentaries too, but she must’ve had another engagement, which can’t be surprising, since the commentaries are recorded while they’re still producing the movies for theatrical release. 

Had a new size masking skill for The Hobbit. Shoot coverage from both sides, then enlarge non-hobbit/non-dwarf (usually Gandalf) by about 30-40% in post, and paste him over where his smaller version is. No CGI, no perspective tricks, comparatively simple effects work, and the lighting matches. Peter was almost halfway through shooting The Hobbit when he thought of this and kicked himself when he realized they could be doing this. They use it quite a lot subsequently 

They recreated Gandalf’s outfit, except he has a silver scarf that Ian McKellen asked for and a different staff, which we’ll find out the reason for in one of the later Hobbit movies (Presumably it gets broken). 

Phillipa says changes they make are very deliberate. Yes, Gandalf just writes one symbol on Bag End’s door instead of a whole message, but they have reasons for making the changes, and most of them have to do with the practicality of filmmaking 

There’s an extended edition scene of Bilbo going around Hobbiton seeing Hobbit people be hobbits. Scene has a lot of cameos from people’s kids and families and one Kiwi news anchor 

Andy did the opening night exterior shots of Bag End 

These intro scenes with the dwarves were begun in the second week of shooting. Whole sequence took two, three weeks to shoot. Their intro shot was the first thing each dwarf actor got to do. Doesn’t always work like that on a shoot 

The first week of shooting was the Bilbo and Gollum scene. 

Did a lot of make-up tests and costume ideas for the dwarves, but at some point, they had to start production and just go with what they had. And what they had looked great, so...

They sadly didn’t go with the iconic hooded cloaks of the books because they were just too clumsy; the physical beat of removing them and giving them to Bilbo and each dwarf doing it over and over just got too unwieldy and took too long. They wanted to and tried, but it just didn’t work. But they had their costumes showcased as they walked through the door as a kind of substitute 

Ken Stott plays Balin. Character originally had a big mustache, but Stott got them to remove it at the last minute, which they admit ultimately seems to have worked out; they think he did it so you could see his mouth more, which would help him act more 

Had Alan Lee and John Howe design the Bag End pantry and dining room, since they weren’t featured in the original 

They say Kili should probably be blonde, “but we couldn’t do that to Aiden”. 

Peter asks Philippa to explain what people mean by calling them “the hot dwarves”. She laughs and says yes, we did want them to be younger and “have that cheekiness about them and that twinkle in their eye”

Had the rest of the dwarves arrive all at once after the first few really to move things along; they didn’t have time to do the whole bit Tolkien does of individual introductions for everyone. Shot of Ian looking in through the doorway after the dwarves fall in is first shot Ian filmed for this. He was still getting back in the groove,, it took like twenty takes, Peter was worried for a second 

There’s a long, continuous motion-controlled shot of Bilbo, dwarves, and Gandalf walking around the house, with Gandalf like twice their height towering over them.  Very complex shot that took them a day and a half to shoot. Only time in Peter’s career where he showed up at the start of the day and by the end of the day hadn’t gotten the shot. Everyone was so tired by then he just said, go home, get a good night’s sleep and we’ll come back at it again. They had it by lunchtime the next day. But what we see is still the very last take. 

It was hard to shoot because Ian wasn’t actually there. He was on a green screen doing his part in the scene, and they added him in later. But the point of the scene is to have a big complex shot showcasing the size difference between Gandalf and the others, so that for the rest of the film, you’re more solidly convinced the dwarves and hobbit are dwarf- and hobbit-sized. However, that meant the actors had to do things like look Gandalf in the eye in precisely the right spot when he wasn’t even there. And like six different characters had to do it, and they’ve all got to get their lines off, and also Gandalf’s motions have to match precisely, and he’s got to do things like interact with the chandelier, and it was just a real challenge. But they got it off and it works great. 

Andy Serkis shot a lot of the dinner scene. Actors were still finding their characters; this was a good way to start and get settled in and have a bit of fun 

The tracking shot after dinner scene with the crochet line (“It’s not a doily, it’s crochet!” “And what a lovely game it is, too! If you have the balls for it!”) is also motion controlled with Ian somewhere else in the same way, but it’s much shorter. However, there is a point where Martin (Bilbo’s actor Martin Freeman) has to push Ian along out of a room from behind;, which means they had to match each actor’s movements very precisely. 

Peter says, “If you do tricky shots at the beginning of the movie, people are convinced of the scale and the rest of the movie you can do things a bit more simply, a bit more cheated”

Ian freaking hated the week where he was doing his green screen stages shooting. It was unfortunately his very first week and very isolating and tedious and unpleasant. It’s very difficult as an actor. Peter says he had to reassure him that it wasn’t always going to be like this. Jokes that Ian may have been looking for John Hurt’s number to come play the part instead 

Pete says one of the number one things he got asked during press and interviews for LOTR was why they cut so many of the songs. Philippa objects and says they included as many songs as they could. But he says they cut a lot because they simply didn’t fit the tone of what they were trying to do with LOTR. But … they feel The Hobbit fits that tone a little better, so they hav more songs in this one, like the cleaning-up-after-dinner song.

Philippa also notes that this cast actually has a lot of great singers; it’s all of the dwarf actors singing, no substitutes. 

Jimmy Nesbitt, the dwarf with the big hat and handlebar mustache, is playing the tin whistle in the song. 

The music part of the song (as opposed to the lyrics from Tolkien) was composed by Steve Gallagher. Great musician and also music editor who generally does this kind of thing for Peter Jackson productions

It’s not noted on the commentary, but Thorin does still have the hooded cloak of the books when he walks in. 

Thorin arrives after the cleaning-up song in difference from book to separate him from the other characters. 

The map is an important prop in the film and book, and they actually ended up using the same map that was previously briefly seen in Fellowship! However, they took out the spiders in the illustration so the audience isn’t spoiled about their existence before they show up 

There’s a long scene of the gang at the empty dinner table going over the plan and such.  Scene is about establishing dwarves’ motivation. Pete says some people criticized the length of the Bag End sequence, but they’re embarking on three movies’ worth of events, and really need to establish the characters and setting. This chat scene is also the first thing the actors shot after the dinner scene. Although they’d also gone through “boot camp” together, so they were getting along pretty well

The scene was seven to maybe nine pages long, and is nine minute along. Peter shoots in continuous takes, doing different coverages but doing the whole scene each time. It takes nearly an hour to get four or six takes, which means shooting the whole nine-minute scene took two or three days. Not every director does this, but that’s how he does, and it seems to work. 

John Rhys-Davies, Gimli’s actor, came to visit set when they were shooting this scene. Got to meet all the dwarves and his character’s father Gloin.  

Martin Freeman - Bilbo - does something different each take; gives you lots of options to pick from that all work

After the “hobbit-inventing-golf-by-knocking-goblin-head-into-hole” joke was shot, Peter and Philippa realized they forgot to mention the headless goblin is named Golfimbul, which is the final layer of the joke 

Plan 9 is a Wellington-based group that often works on Peter Jackson projects. Came up with the Misty Moutain melody and accompaniment. 

ON THE ROAD 

Scene with Moria flashback was a reshoot, or a pick-up, as they’re called. Originally, they got this flashback from Beorn the shapeshifter halfway through the story. But after shooting all three films, they decided to put it earlier. 

Moria battle takes place at the same place the Fellowship exit Moria in the first film after Gandalf dies, and if you look closely, you can recognize the rocky floor. 

They know Azog was killed by Dain in the books, but it was too many layers to say - Azog killed Thror. Dain, son of Thror, killed Azog. And then Bolg, son of Azog came after Thorin, son of Dain. Much quicker to just have Azog kill Thror and then come after Thorin, don’t need enormous legacy of father-killing. 

They shot Azog in costume, then decided it wasn’t intimidating enough and made him CGI in post 

Used a mix of prosthetic orcs and digital orcs. Peter say he was always frustrated by having to use prosthetics, because he always saw orc proportions as being less human, like recognizably so, but they didn’t have the means or technology to y’know, make humans have inhuman proportions. Glad he can make the orcs look like that now 

It was Richard Armitage’s idea that Thorin kept the branch and carved it and kept it as a weapon, which we see he has

A self-acknowledged continuity issue - Peter notes that there are no trees where Thorin picks up the branch on the battlefield, so how it ended up there is a bit of a mystery, but who cares? 

Only have the rights to The Hobbit and LOTR - can’t mention other publications, so they couldn’t mention the blue wizards by name when they come up in conversation, because their names only appear in those other publications

Sylvester McCoy was the guy they always had in mind for Radagast. Always had the idea of Radagst being “a creature of the field” himself, like a squirrel or a dormouse 

TROLLS

Changed motivation for sneaking up on trolls to freeing the company’s horses instead of stealing the trolls’ food - a much “more noble” motivation.  

They already had the troll designs from a brief scene in LOTR where they’re seen. 

Martin had to leave for six or seven weeks to shoot Series 2 of Sherlock; they did the troll mo-cap amongst other things during that time 

Martin is hung upside down by the trolls when he’s caught, but not for very long, because “guys hanging upside-down” can’t be shot for too long because the blood rushes to the actors’ head and they may pass out lol

Have the trolls grab BILBO to rip apart instead of Bofur like in the books because it highlights the growing dwarf-Bilbo relationship some more 

They had Gandalf split the rock beneath him to show the sun so they could have a way for the sun to appear in a split second, since it doesn’t really do that in real life

Orcrist the sword’s design - has to look Elvish; unusual by dwarf standards; and is the best

Sting is dirty when Gandalf finds it in the cave but perfectly clean when he hands it to Bilbo outside of it. That’s because they shot the interior of the cave later and flubbed continuity a bit. Pete thinks Gandalf must’ve just cleaned it up a little on the way out of the cave lol. 

They shot the scene with getting Sting on Peter’s 50th birthday. He says it just made him feel unhappy because he was old

Peter likes “Gandalf smoking” scenes where he’s figuring out what to do next, but notes that has actually never smoked a day in his life and does not recommend it, so it’s a little funny

The brief scene where Radagast goes to Dol Guldur and nearly gets stabbed by an apparition of the Witch-King? It’s the exact same Morgul blade and the exact same design of the Witch-King that we see in LOTR. 

We see wargs here that look different from the originals, but Peter reveals he never really loved the warg design in the originals & wanted to get them closer to what we are now seeing in the Hobbit films, which DO look a little more wolfish. 

We don’t see anyone ENTER Rivendell in the originals, so we’re seeing it for the first time when the dwarves do

They also wanted Elrond to come in on a horse because we’ve never seen him on a horse before; the rest of the time we saw him “walking slowly around Rivendell looking wise” 

Brett McKenzie is elf who greets Gandalf - character named Lindar - AKA Figwit - Lindar is the singer in LOTR text

Hugo Weaving has apparently always been fantastic at elvish 

Rivendell was the fourth week of shooting - 1st week was Gollum, 2-3 were Bag End, Rivendell was 4th 

Shot Martin’s Rivendell dialogue much later because Martin was shooting Sherlock; used a double for shots where he was in the background

There’s a bit in the extended of Jimmy Nesbitt’s character Bifur singing the Man in the Moon song from the books - Jimmy came up with the tune. The song is originally seen in Bree in Fellowship. Frodo says he learned it from Bilbo, so hypothetically this is where Bilbo himself learned it 

We see shots of Rivendell, but this time they’re not miniatures or matte paintings. There are actually no miniatures in the Hobbit - Peter says CGI models makes camera movement a lot easier and the whole process in general is faster. However, Peter say maybe he’ll use them again on smaller films 

They added the scene of Azog on Weathertop scene after the first cut of the film - needed to keep tension up despite the dwarves resting in Rivendell 

When it was originally two films, they revealed him the moment Thorin sees him in the sequence before they’re rescued by the eagles, but when it became three they needed him there earlier

Orc killed by Azog in this scene is played by Terry Notary - a “movement coach” and performance artist who helps elvish actors and dwarves actors move like their respective races 

Added more Bilbo-in-Rivendell scenes because he’s supposed to love it so much he comes back there when he retires 

Brief extended scene with Bilbo and Elrond scene was one of the last things they did before Martin left to do Season 2 of Sherlock 

COUNCIL 

They wanted to include Glorfindel and Celeborn in the White Council scenes with Gandalf and Galadriel and the rest, but they simply didn’t think they could introduce them on top of handling everyone else 

After production but before release, Christopher Lee would apparently joke, “Oh am I still in the movie?” with Peter because of how suddenly he got cut out of Return of the King.  

Cate and Ian get along really well on this and another project. Pete says that Ian has a bit of a crush on her and jokes that Ian “had to very quickly get back in the closet” and “I’ve never seen somebody so much in love.” 

They had to shoot Gandy and Cate late at night about 10 PM on a set, so Ian was exhausted, but he still turned in a great performance 

Most of the epic walking shots are done with the body doubles 

Pete cites Jason and the Argonauts and the giant Talos in it as an influence on the mountain giants sequence 

Added scene where Bilbo is hanging on the path’s edge and Thorin has to help rescue him to dramatize the relationship of Bilbo needing to earn his place and Thorin being formidable 

Bilbo tries to leave while they’re sleeping in the cave, and that’s not in the book, but in the book he’s feeling very reluctant about having come along, and since it’s not a book, it’s a movie, a good way to show that feeling was to have him physically get up and try to leave.

Barry Humphries is the Goblin King voice and performance except for the dance, which was done by Terry Notary 

Steve Gallagher did the music for the Goblin King song again 

One of the dwarves (Nori) is revealed to have stolen a lot of stuff from the elves, and Pete and Philippa mention an idea they had for the character was that he joined the company not out of interest, but because he was wanted by the dwarf cops wherever they live and was interested in skipping town for a few months lol 

Steve Yewer is one of the goblins here and was also a number of orcs in the originals. 

Kiran Shah voices the Goblin Scribe 

First shot of Bilbo waking up was day 1, first shot of shooting. There were 266 days of shooting total.

They note that in their expanded version, Gollum loses the ring while he’s killing someone (the goblin that fell down with Bilbo). It pops out of his rags (gross) as he’s doing so. They also note that in this version, the ring lets itself be lost AFTER  Bilbo has shown up, which means maybe it’s getting lost on purpose so it can be taken by him specifically

They may have a whole scene of Bilbo and Gollum with Ian Holm?! Not just the three or four shots from the LOTR intro 

They rehearsed Gollum/Bilbo - spent about a week on set. Performed it about twenty times a day for four days. And got to motion capture Andy Serkis live instead of having to do it once on set and once in the special effects studio. Hid the twenty or so motion-capturing cameras Gollum needs around the set. 

They note that since it’s much earlier in the timeline, Gollum has a few more teeth and a little more hair. BTS also notes that he doesn’t have scars on his back since he hasn’t been taken and tortured by Mordor to learn the location of the Ring. 

When Gandalf shows up to save the dwarves, they tried having his sword Glamdring glow, but it looked too much like a lightsaber lol

Ian is apparently a very renowned stage sword fighter 

Ringworld - what Peter calls the world we see when someone puts on the ring - is chiller and less storm-like in Bilbo’s time because the Ring is much more powerful in Frodo’s time and the ringworld reflects that.

Dwarf chase through the caves was 50/50 split between Serkis and Jackson 

Pre-viz guys came up with a lot of the gags in the chase. Peter came up with the rolling rock one, though 

A question Peter and Fran ask Philippa when writing is, “What are the ideas underneath the story?”

Pine tree scene was originally 2/3 of the way through the film, when it was just gonna be two films. Originally, Thorin got knocked down, and then the eagles came. But then when they made this the climax, they extended the “Thorin getting knocked down” scene so Thorin could be helpless and Bilbo could save him and bring an end to that relationship conflict in the film.

Once they’re rescued, Peter jokes that this is the perfect time for the eagles to save a lot of trouble and fly Bilbo to Mount Doom so he can drop the Ring in 

The long shots of the eagles are just footage of the South Island mountains taken around dawn, which then had eagles inserted into them. They also fly over the Sutherland Falls - the highest waterfalls in New Zealand - near the end of the flying 

When he was younger, Peter did a four-day hike across the alps of New Zealand that he drew on for these locations.   

They’re dropped off at a mountain that IRL is called Carrot. In the film It has a formation that looks like the head of a bear, foreshadowing Beorn. Alan Lee came up with the idea. 

Shot of Smaug waking up was finished the day before the premiere. Not a perfect shot; there are some mistakes with the gold flow and such, but they ran out of time 

They recorded this commentary a few weeks before 9-10 weeks of reshoots for 2 and 3. 

They were fans of Neil Finn, the one who sings the song over the credits. They approached him and he said yes.