Re: The Official "The Hobbit" movie thread
The Hobbit is tonally different from LOTR. It is more of a story told to a younger audience. I don't mind the idea of establishing that tone by literally having it be a story told to some young hobbits by Frodo. In the previous films, we see Bilbo and Frodo writing in the Red Book of Westmarch, so there is continuity there as well as a practical way of introducing the story. In the scripting stage before his departure, I think this approach would have also appealed to Guillermo Del Toro, who likes to start his films out with legends or present them as fairy tales or stories/myths being passed down. Film is storytelling, and having some bookends/narration by Frodo would allow some of Tolkien's text to be incorporated--he has a much more assertive role as narrator in The Hobbit, and I don't mind that voice being given to Frodo. It also connects the new films with the old in a fairly natural way.
I would love to see Frodo sitting in the Shire with Sam's kids gathered around, cracking open the Red Book and beginning to read, "In a hole in the ground, there lived a hobbit..."
