Ur-Hobbits

Who are these mysterious creatures? What do they want?
Why do they force their females to pull the carts?

Why do they love the moose-antler so? Do they gnaw upon it like over-grown mice, hungry for nutrients to strengthen their brittle bones?

Do they fear the orc? What about male-pattern baldness? Do they fear that?

Does this one miss its old hairline?

Why does 'Dad' Hobbit look like a 6ft dude in plastic comedy feet.

What's with the antennas on the one pulling the small wagon?

Why do they all look sweaty and dirty?

Yes, many questions we have. Will they all be answered? I doubt it!

{{ where does the image of hobbits with big feet come from? Was it the Bakshi's version started it, PJ copied so much else from there? I'm pretty sure Tolkien never mentions hobbits having over sized feet, just that they were thick soled and had hair on them similar to the hair on their heads. }}

I was not aware ur- was used in English too. What one learns in this place!

Where else is it used?


https://youtu.be/itBbiVfbyXY?t=7

"The shkies are shtrange..."

What did he mean by this? Are there multiple of these meteorites? Does he see it coming? It seems to pass over-head pretty quickly, without altering the over-all quality of the skies, and not with much fore-shadowing.

Perhaps the wise old ur-hobbit has a sense about these things.

More of these bizarre creatures spotted in the wild! They seem to steal grain from the fields of men! Typical...

What the hell.. I just started my long-awaited reread of LotR and I had a bizarre thought:
I do not know if even once I have seen the "Harfoots" in this show as anything but human-sized humans.
I mean to say that I have been watching them and thinking of them as basically just humans, not tiny hobbits.
Anyone else?
I think it goes to show how quickly we revert to recognizing the actors as normal-sized when we are not being tricked by clever camera maneuvers or body-doubles.

Heh, true, same here.

{{ The waddle walk as the actors apparently can't walk normally in the fake feet doesn't help- they look like they have shat themselves! }}

Some of them look about 6ft tall with huge hairy plastic feet. At least Jackson got the sizing right and it felt real. They also have really smackable stupid faces.

In LotR films you don't notice really they are hobbits until the Prancing Pony, though the music lends them an air of smallness.

{{ I disagree there Halfy, I'd say Jackson tries very hard using Gandalf in the opening segment to establish the height difference- Frodo jumping onto the cart into Gandalf's arms, Bilbo's greeting Gandalf at the door, and all the subsequent head bashing on low things jokes, the conversation at the table about feeling stretched like butter over toast, Gandalf looming over Bilbo when they have their confrontation over leaving the Ring, Gandalf's huge hand clasping Frodo's small one as he departs. And Ive probably missed a few examples here and there. But all cases of where Pj deliberately shot it to emphasis the height difference and sell the viewer that these are small people before they even leave the Shire.Whilst I disagree, a lot, with PJ's choices especially as it goes on, there is no denying the sheer craftsmanship of film often on display. }}

Ok, you're right.  I somehow forgot about the Gandalf scenes.  But the point I was trying to make is that in the pure hobbit scenes there's nothing to indicate small size.  And Second-Age hobbits would be more of the secretive type.  How far back does Bree go? {{{type, type, type}}} Ah, I see the hobbits didn't join Bree until 300 years before the founding of the Shire.

Not only did Jackson nail it in scenes in the studio, he also did a great job in outside settings where its more difficult such as when Faramir captures Sam and Frodo, those are big men's hands grabbing their cloaks. I have no idea how they did that.

{{ If memory serves Figg same trick as in Bree when the humans folk push passed the Hobbits- a person in a big suit on stilts, in the case of Faramir scene I'd guess the hands are prosthetic and worked like a puppet from within the suit.
The brilliance on the technical side of PJ's films, and where his love of the technical side of film comes out, is in the many different techniques from across cinema history he employed to pull off certain scenes convincingly. From hugely complicated like the cut in half table synched to move with camera movements to preserve the forced perspective in Bag End, or similarly clever cart so Frodo and Gandalf could seemingly sit side by side, to the stupidly simple like having Billy Boyd just get on his knees for the scene talking to Gandalf on the Gondor balcony or having Denethor simply throw Boyd's dwarf body double out the door and out of camera shot and Boyd simply sitting up into shot to replace him. The latter two is stuff you could shoot on your phone. It's where PJ's past experience in near amateur, very cheap low budget comedy/gore flicks come through. }}

I believe the big hands were simply men with big hands, such as "Tall Paul" who doubled for Aragorn when shot with the hobbits.

{{ That would be in line with PJ's philosophy of if theres a simple way he'll find it and use that. Which is somewhat odd when set against is inability to resist over the top lengthy spectacle. }}

Truly, computer animation is Jackson's One Ring: he would use it to make his movies better, but once he begins to wield it it corrupts him and turns him away from the simple and the good.

We shall see if this show does well in presenting the "Harfoots" as small creatures. If some of the costuming and casting are anything to go by, then it will be lacking.