THE HOBBIT: THE TOLKIEN EDIT – WORTHWHILE RECUT OR EMPTY PURISM?

Early on in An Unexpected Journey, Gandalf tells Bilbo the story of his ancestor Bullroarer Took, who allegedly decapitated the goblin king with club, thus knocking the head 100 yards and into a rabbit hole, winning the battle and inventing golf in one fell swoop. It’s a passage that’s taken almost verbatim from the book, but in that version Tolkien relays the story as the narrator rather than through Gandalf. In the film, Bilbo accuses Gandalf of making it up, to which he responds

“All the best stories deserve embellishment.”

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