The Many Faces Of Dwarves

There's a preview pic of Peter Jackson's dwarves from The Hobbit.

From these pics, there's been blog-talk about how these dwarves look and about how Jackson made Gimli the butt of all the jokes in the LOTR movies.

I was pretty annoyed by Gimli's portrayal in The Two Towers and The Return Of The King. I mean, Dwarves are not the butt of anyone's joke - and if you don't believe me try making one a butt and see how far you get.

The first film (Fellowship) I felt was the best adaptation . I wasn't that hip on the other two films but then again, the first book in the trilogy has always been my favorite. Regardless of how the films turned out, which were pretty decent for an iconic fantasy novel adaptation, Jackson and his crew loved Tolkien's story and characters and tried to stay as true to it as possible.

I cut him some slack.

Not everyone (fans mostly) is going to be happy with adaptations of their favorite characters into film (LOTR, Conan, Solomon Kane, Bat-man, Spider-man, X-men, etc.); it's an impossible task as everybody's vision of the story / characters are going to be different.

But I'm with Jeff Rient's on this, these dwarves would be awesome to have in my party. Who cares about the 'wrong' weapons or the 'colorful' hoods, they're going to kick a dragon's ass.

The Hobbit's tone is more of a fairy tale, a story told by Bilbo Baggins of Bag End - embellished no doubt with a hobbit's whimsy. There is no doubt that the 'actual events' were quite dark and foreboding; evil trolls, giant spiders, a battle of five armies? Bless my soul!

I prefer my fantasy to be far out, whimsical and dark and a bit twisted. The themes in the Hobbit are just that.

Jackson's movie will be a great addition to the fantasy film genre.

But keep the dwarf jokes to a minimum please.

And just to prove that there is more than one way to 'skin' a dwarf....

Jackson's comic relief

The Bros. Hildebrandt

Bakshi's Gimli. No butt here! Always will be a fan of Bakshi's LOTR.

A dwarf SPI

Rankin Bass dwarf, red hood and all!

The Hobbit, the comic!


D&D dwarves; hard at work.

My wife's hermaphrodite dwarf Maudlin

A Not Safe For Work Dwarf

Now, they're all cool (well, lets leave poor Grumpy outta this) as dwarves should be!

And since you've all been good little hobbits'es, here's a really interesting interpretation of The Hobbit I came across. Very old school D&D. I'd love to see this animated!