The Tolkien Society on Peter Jackson's The Hobbit

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We've made our feelings about The Hobbit pretty clear - as long as Peter Jackson's involved, we're in. But, to be fair, we're only going on the evidence put forth by our LOTR Extended Editions, as not many of us have read the book.

So we thought it best we get a second opinion, and put a call into Chris Crawshaw, chairman of the Tolkien Society, to see what he has to say.

It seems the announcement has sparked some debate amongst the Society's members: "I hope any film concerning Tolkien’s works remains true to the spirit of the story. However, we understand that actually there are to be two films so we are waiting for the rumours to settle as to what they will be about. It is causing a lot of interested discussion."

And Crawshaw has a couple of names he'd like to see on the cast list.

"Sir Ian McKellen is still keen to play Gandalf and that would be good continuity. It would also be good to see Hugo Weaving play Elrond, although the Elrond seen in The Hobbit is written differently to that of The Lord Of The Rings.

But all that really matters is that the book's rendered faithfully. "I personally have no preferences as long as the characters are portrayed as they are meant to be, which again is open to interpretation. If there is a different director, it might mean the films have a different tone to The Lord Of The Rings films, but you have to consider that tonally The Hobbit is a very different book too."

So, The Hobbit has a different style and tone to our beloved Rings?

Maybe it's time to renew that library card we cancelled after we saw Se7en for the first time. Actually, that's a thought - Fincher for The Hobbit, anyone? He's always been good for a tonal shift halfway through a franchise. No?