4. The Hobbit's Events Aren't Meant To Tie Heavily Into The Lord Of The Rings
Did you know The Hobbit leads into The Lord Of The Rings? Do you? Well don't worry, because on top of all the expected links - it's set in the same world using some of the same characters - Peter Jackson's three film desecration of his and Tolkien's legacy shoe-horns in as much linked mythology as possible. Legolas spends the bridging sixty years looking for Aragorn, Gandalf spouts a bunch of fantasy-sounding words that rework The Lonely Mountain as a central element in the War of the Ring and Angmar is mentioned as much as possible because that's a big deal apparently. But while the whole Erebor quest is peripherally important and occurring alongside the early return of Sauron, The Hobbit book is never meant to be a precursor to bigger things; the only really important event to come out of it is that it sees the One Ring change hands. The Hobbit was a fun fantasy book written by J.R.R. Tolkien to placate his obsession with coming up with new languages. He toyed with changing it to fit The Lord Of The Rings later on, but found the whole enterprise rather unnecessary, thinking Bilbo's adventures stood by themselves. The heavy-handed foreshadowing is all Jackson's creation. Tolkien did go back to his book and change one thing following Rings' success - Gollum. The original cave dweller was jolly chap who played riddles for a bit of a laugh and gave Bilbo the ring as a prize, with a 1951 rewrite tying him in more with the iconic psycho. All subsequent versions of the book have the rewriter, essentially retconning the original draft. And who says George Lucas is the only one who likes to mess with his work?
