The Hobbit and the compassion of Bilbo

I wanted to like the Hobbit so much. The Lord of the Rings were incredible films, and like the rest of the world, I just wanted more of that sense of epic and emotion. In the end we got something that was overblown and ugly - some weird fuzz filter over everything make it so unreal, away from the real-world hardware aesthetic of the originals.

(There's a great piece of behind the scenes footage where Andy Serkis is doing second unit stuff for the big battle and he has no idea what it's for, they just need people bashing into each other, and he does this for ages before they realise they don't really know what they are doing and pull the pin on it.)

So it had a lot wrong with it, but it also had the perfect Bilbo in Martin Freeman, and that still counts for a lot. Freeman overcame the worst haircut of the early 21st century to break everyone's hearts with his pained looks to camera in The Office, and proved surprisingly solid as Watson to Cumberbatch's Holmes, so when it was announced he was the new Bilbo, it seemed fitting.

And while old Bilbo definitely gets swamped and lost in the endless weightless battles, there is the part where he could kill Gollum, and he doesn't, because there's just no need for it.

I first read the Hobbit when I was seven years old, and out of all the adventuring, it was Bilbo jumping over Gollum and bounding to freedom that really stuck in my mind. When my primary school teacher asked the class to draw our favourite scene from our favourite book, I had Bilbo leaping high over Gollum (who looked like a miniature Godzilla).

And years and years later, that moment is easily my favourite part of the lamentable Hobbit films. It's all done without dialogue, just the unnatural eyes of Gollum, and the humanity of Bilbo's when he realises he can't kill the creature that his blocking his way to freedom.

It's an important part of the entire tapestry, that proves that pity and kindness do pay off. Because Bilbo does spare Gollum, Frodo later makes it to Mt Doom, and without Gollum, it doesn't go into the fire.

Bilbo doesn't know it in that moment, it's decades away, but while he doesn't save the movies entirely, he saves the world with his compassion. Maybe we could all try that.