Unfortunately, that person is its director.
In an interview with MTV, Guillermo del Toro talked about how the script for The Hobbit is coming along and how exactly he, Peter Jackson and Fran Walsh intend to make two movies out of one book. Previously, I had read that the first film, due in 2011, 
was going to be an adaptation of the book, and that the second movie, out a year later, would tell a story that helps bridge the gap between the end of The Hobbit and the beginning of The Fellowship of the Ring (which is about 75 years).
From the way Guillermo is talking now, it seems like that is no longer the case. It actually sounds like they don’t even know what each movie will entail just yet, and that worries me. It’s scary enough as it is to think that someone will be coming up with an entirely NEW storyline for our hobbit, dwarf, elf, human and wizardly friends. I still strongly believe that Jackson and del Toro are the best guys for the job… but they seem to be struggling a bit, despite how confident del Toro sounds in the interview. I hope that doesn’t spell bad news for the saga of Middle Earth.
But let’s not end on a discouraging note… let’s end with two of my favorite pictures from my trip to New Zealand and visit to "the Shire" (the only remaining set from all three LOTR films, and it’s still really only hobbit holes that are stripped of all decoration):
Here are the hobbit holes peeking out from the hills:
And here’s me hugging Bilbo’s gigantic "birthday party tree"… look closely, I’m there on the right in gray:
It’s beautiful out there, isn’t it? I can see why the hobbits like it.
Posted on January 14, 2009 at 2:42 pm
This young lady who loves the Lord of The Ring Sets is so wonderful and terrific. I totally can relate. When I read the trilogy I was a slow reader but could not wait to get home from work everyday and would read until I could not keep my eyes open. It took me 3 weeks and I read all 3 and loved it and was so delighted when the real movies came out. The first movie was terrible years before but the successful trilogy was Awesome and truly did JRR vision justice.
Posted on January 14, 2009 at 3:06 pm
I’m honestly not that worried about The Hobbit. I love DelToro–his early comments about not really being a fan of Tolkien and the “sword and dragons” genre were a bit concerning at first, but after re-watching Hellboy II last week, it’s clear he is the right guy for the job, visually and thematically. DelToro is a fantastic director–a much better one than Jackson, quite frankly. (And remember, Jackson’s reach and command as a director took a quantum leap with the LOTR films — prior to their release, there was a lot of concern in the fan-boy community that the guy who made Dead/Alive and The Frighteners didn’t have the chops to pull off such a monumental feat.)
A couple things to remember: Jackson himself liked the books but was by no means a hard-core, die-hard Tolkien fan before making the movies. (He pitched LOTR in the late ’90s only because his plans to remake King Kong had fallen through.) It’s Fran Walsh and Philippa Boyens who really carry the torch in terms of making sure the scripts remain true to the books’ spirit, and they’re both back, of course, for the Hobbit films.
Second, in terms of how the two films will break down and fill-in story-wise, again I’m not concerned. The team won’t be making things up out of whole cloth — Tolkien had plenty of writings and notes about what went on between Bilbo and Frodo’s adventures — after all, Tolkien didn’t write ANYTHING without already having detailed history, back story, maps, and time lines sussed out. (It’s one of the many reasons why I find his works so much richer and more aesthetically fulfilling than Lewis’s.) Plus, remember, there is a lot of stuff in the LOTR films that was completely created by Jackson et al. After a decade of immersing themselves in this world, I fully trust Walsh and Boyens to have a great sense of what to do with that “linking” chapter — the history is all there, it’s just a matter of creating the narrative moments to fill it in.
It will also be interesting to see if the two films are different in tone – as we all know, the Hobbit is much more fable-like and kids-friendly than the LOTR — Tolkien wrote it as a child’s tale. I’m guessing the new connecting material, which will no doubt focus on what Gandalf and Aragorn (and Gollum and Saruman) were up to in those years, will be harder in tone and style, more like ROTK.