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MorgolKing
Ossiriand
Jan 3 2014, 5:52pm
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Bilbo's height v. the Dwarves
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I've seen some discussion on this but nothing referencing PJ or the film crew's reasoning behind making Bilbo and the Dwarves similar in height.
In LoTR the hobbits generally are about shoulder height to Gimli and more in line with the book.
Has anyone read or seen sources which explain why they went a different route this time? I suspect it was likely for the audience not having to deal with the main character consistently dwarfed (natural pun) by his peers in every shot.
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DavidDevant
Menegroth
Jan 3 2014, 6:33pm
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As I understand it it was more to do with
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Not needing three "scales" - Hobbit, Dwarf and Human (well or a fourth for Beorn).
As it happens John Rhys Davies was just a fair bit taller than the hobbit actors in LOTR so again they only needed two "scales".
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Noria
Hithlum
Jan 3 2014, 6:38pm
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I had expected them to hire six footers to go with Martin Freeman but they obviously didn't. LOL
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I believe I read or heard PB or PJ say that they went with the actors they wanted and didn't worry about height.
But I bet they only looked at tall actors for Thorin.
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CathrineB
Nargothrond
Jan 3 2014, 8:53pm
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I didn't think about it when the first movie came out, but not much beyond that. I can understand why they made that desicion to have less to think about. Besides I think the character designs for Bilbo and the dwarves makes it nothing to worry about. Theres like no doubt Bilbo's a hobbit and they're dwarves. It's not like Bilbo towers over them or anything.
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ShireHorse
Nargothrond
Jan 3 2014, 9:35pm
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I don't understand all the discussion about this.
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MF is only 5ft 6in and not a single dwarf actor is shorter than he is. Aidan Turner and James Nesbitt are around 6ft and RA and Graham McTavish are giants at nearly 6ft 3in.
But the important factor is not their height but their bulk. I remember an early photo showing Bilbo in the middle of a load of dwarves at Bag End and they all look very big in comparison because of their bulk and they certainly look as though they belong to a different race.
The height factor that bothers me is the difference between the dwarves and the elves/men. Why is it, if Thorin is 5ft 2in, does he appear only to come up to Elrond's/Bard's belt buckle rather than their shoulder?
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Noria
Hithlum
Jan 3 2014, 9:52pm
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ShireHorse I agree with you about the Dwarves/Men and Elves height relationship.
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They've usually scaled the Dwarves so that IMO they look about half the size of the Elves and Men, not five feet and under. Five feet is the height of a short human woman not a child! Thorin, Dwalin, Kili and Bofur at least look too small.
It has the added effect for me of making the Dwarves look more petite, less bulky and for some reason more human. Whatever mathematical formula they were using for this scaling is incorrect to my eye. But there it is and it doesn't spoil anything for me.
On the other issue, I think that Ken Stott, Adam Brown, Mark Hadlow, and Dean O'Gorman (and maybe others) are not much taller than Martin Freeman, if at all. But as you say, because of their bulk, the Dwarves still look bigger in relation to the Hobbit. Dwarves obviously have as much variety in their height as humans.
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Silverlode
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Jan 4 2014, 12:11am
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Here's some extensive dwarf/hobbit height analysis I did a while back, with a few updates to incorporate both trilogies:
Quote
From the LOTR Prologue:
For they (hobbits) are a little people, smaller than Dwarves: less stout and stocky, that is, even when they are not actually much shorter. Their height is variable, ranging between two and four feet of our measure. They seldom now reach three feet; but they have dwindled, they say, and in ancient days they were taller. According to the Red Book, Bandobras Took (Bullroarer), son of Isengrim the Second, was four foot five and able to ride a horse. He was surpassed in all Hobbit records only by two famous characters of old....
Hobbits are anywhere from two to four feet (which is a pretty wide range) with Merry and Pippin being the tallest at roughly 4'6" or 4'7" after meeting Treebeard. According to Sam at the Field of Cormallen, they're "three inches taller than they ought to be", which puts their original heights at about 4'3" or 4'4".
If we assume what seems to be the popular idea for an average dwarf range of between 4 and 5 feet, then there is actually quite a bit of room for overlap in hobbit and dwarf heights, with the tallest dwarves being roughly 6" taller than the tallest-ever hobbits, but the tallest hobbits being roughly the same amount taller than the shortest dwarves. And according to Tolkien, dwarves are more stout and stocky than hobbits of roughly equivalent heights.
Here's how our hobbit and dwarf actors measure up:
Hobbits - tallest to shortest
Dominic Monaghan/Merry - 5'7" (1.70m)
Martin Freeman/Young Bilbo) - 5'6 1/2"" (1.69m)
Billy Boyd/Pippin - 5'6 1/2" (1.69m)
Sean Astin/Sam - 5'6" (1.68m)
Ian Holm/Old Bilbo - 5'6" (1.68m)
Elijah Wood/Frodo - 5'6" (1.68m)
Average hobbit height: 5' 6 1/2" (1.688m)
Dwarves - tallest to shortest
Richard Armitage/Thorin - 6'2" (1.88m)
Graham McTavish/Dwalin - 6'2" (1.88m)
John Rhys Davies/Gimli 6'1" (1.85m)
Aidan Turner/Kili - 6' (1.83m)
James Nesbitt/Bofur - 6' (1.83m)
John Callen/Oin - 5'11" (1.80m)
William Kircher/Bifur - 5'9" (1.75m)
Peter Hambleton/Gloin - 5'9" (1.73m)
Dean O'Gorman/Fili - 5'8" (1.73m)
Jed Brophy/Nori 5.8" (1.73m)
Mark Hadlow/Dori - 5"7" (1.7)
Ken Stott/Balin 5'7" (1.70m)
Stephen Hunter/Bombur 5'7" (1.70m)
Adam Brown/Ori - 5'7" (1.70m)
Dwarf height range: 5'7" to 6'2" - a range of 7" from shortest to tallest
This puts the center of the movie dwarf height range at roughly 5' 9 1/2", which is 2.5" taller than Bilbo, so he is shorter than all but the four smallest dwarves, and none of the dwarves are shorter than him.
The overall height difference is slightly less in The Hobbit because in LOTR we had several hobbits to average but only one dwarf, and in The Hobbit we have several dwarves to average and only one hobbit. If we take both trilogies together, the largest hobbit/dwarf span (between Frodo and Thorin) is 8".
Now, since Merry and Pippin at somewhere over 4'5" were the tallest-ever hobbits, and if dwarves commonly range between 4 and 5 feet, what we have are two hobbits who would be average height for dwarves! So it seems that an average hobbit might well be the same height or just a little shorter than the shortest dwarves - which is exactly what we have here: Martin Freeman is the same height as the shortest of our dwarf actors, and has nearly the same height difference with the tallest of the dwarves as the hobbit/dwarf ratio in LOTR.
From this, we can conclude that MovieGimli was a fairly tall dwarf; nearly but not quite as tall as Thorin or Dwalin, while MovieBilbo is also a fairly tall hobbit, being about the same height as Merry was before he drank the entdraught.
Translating actor height to Middle-earth height gets a little tricky, because very few absolute heights are given, and most of what we get are general descriptions. The filmmakers have said that they think of 3'6 as being average hobbit height and that seems to be the assumed height for Bilbo. If this is true, then Thorin would be about 4'2" in the movie and Bilbo would need to be considerably shorter than Merry and Pippin were in the book. If instead of the filmmakers' 3'6", we assume that we are dealing with the "ancient days when hobbits were taller" and we take Merry's original height (pre-entdraught) as about 4'3" or 4'4" and consider Bilbo the same height, then we have the tallest dwarves coming in at just about 5'.
The scaling in the movies is consistent between dwarves and hobbits, but not between dwarves/hobbits and Elves/Men, because of the constraints of needing lead actors to appear in scenes together and not always being able to use scale doubles. It appears that most often they are holding to the assumption of Elves averaging at 6' or more (with some textual basis) and of Bilbo as 3'6" (literally a "halfling"), which means the movie dwarves are averaging closer to 4 feet than the 5 that many fans seem to prefer. As I don't know of any place where Tolkien himself comments on dwarf heights except in the quote I gave earlier, the filmmakers' interpretation seems to be arguably valid even if not popular.
Silverlode
"Dark is the water of Kheled-zâram, and cold are the springs of Kibil-nâla, and fair were the many-pillared halls of Khazad-dűm in Elder Days before the fall of mighty kings beneath the stone."
(This post was edited by Silverlode on Jan 4 2014, 12:20am)
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Noria
Hithlum
Jan 4 2014, 12:49am
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That's very interesting Silverlode. Thanks.
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There's nothing like facts to derail a discussion. I'm joking, facts are always good.
Whenever they combine the images of the the main cast Dwarves and Hobbit with Elves and Gandalf, the Dwarves always look too short to me. I see from your analysis that the film makers are not incorrect in whatever formula they have used. I don't know where I got the idea that the tallest Dwarves would be near five foot but don't think I'm alone. It's a minor thing anyway.
As i said, I have no issue with Bilbo and the Dwarves as I just assumed that the latter have a wide height range. They are all bulkier than the Hobbit is anyway.
I often find the scenes where they use the scale doubles a little awkward because they just don't move the way the main cast actors do.
Overall, the film makers do a wonderful job in dealing with all these issues, so I really can't (and usually don't) complain.
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Elthir
Hithlum
Jan 4 2014, 12:50am
Post #9 of 12
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Hobbit heights in ancient days
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Hobbits are anywhere from two to four feet (which is a pretty wide range) with Merry and Pippin being the tallest at roughly 4'6" or 4'7" after meeting Treebeard. According to Sam at the Field of Cormallen, they're "three inches taller than they ought to be", which puts their original heights at about 4'3" or 4'4".
But that assumes that by this time [Field or Cormallen] Merry and Pippin had passed the Bullroarer. I do not think this is so myself.
(...) If instead of the filmmakers' 3'6", we assume that we are dealing with the "ancient days when hobbits were taller" and we take Merry's original height (pre-entdraught) as about 4'3" or 4'4" and consider Bilbo the same height, then we have the tallest dwarves coming in at just about 5'.
I think the filmmakers 3 foot 6 is with respect to the Third Age, and I think Tolkien's in 'ancient days they were taller' refers to his 'they seldom now reach three feet'. In any case we can see from Tolkien's letter below that Bilbo was not even close to being 4 feet high; and from late descriptions we are generally talking about an average of 3 foot 5 or 6 during Bilbo's time.
Note too that in a late note JRRT himself said that the remarks in the Prologue are unnecessarily vague regarding the height of Hobbits.
But we have other remarks to clarify these ancient day heights
An extract from a letter apparently addressed to Tolkien's American publishers, and probably written in March or April 1938. Houghton Mifflin seem to have asked JRRT to supply drawings of hobbits for use in some future edition of The Hobbit.
(...) The feet from the ankles down, covered with brown hairy fur. Clothing: green velvet breeches; red or yellow waistcoat; brown or green jacket; gold (or brass) buttons; a dark green hood and cloak (belonging to a dwarf).
Actual size – only important if other objects are in picture – say about three feet or three feet six inches. The hobbit in the picture of the gold-hoard, Chapter XII, is of course (apart from being fat in the wrong places) enormously too large. But (as my children, at any rate, understand) he is really in a separate picture or 'plane' – being invisible to the dragon.
JRRT, letter 27
Much later, in one note dated around 1969, as I read the following anyway, JRRT ended up describing full grown males at an average of 3 foot 5 inches.
'... to this: Dwarves about 4 foot high at least. Hobbits were lighter in build, but not much shorter; their tallest men were 4 ft. but seldom taller. Though nowadays their survivors are seldom 3 feet high, in the days of the story they were taller which means that they usually exceeded 3 ft. and qualified for the name halfling. But the name halfling must have originated circa TA 1150, getting on for some 2,000 years (1868) before the War of the Ring, during which the dwindling of the Numenoreans had shown itself in stature as well as life-span. So that it referred to a height of full grown males of an average of, say, 3 ft. 5.'
That's quoted in The Reader's Guide to The Lord of the Rings, Hammond And Scull. Another contemporary note states that at the time of the story the average height of a male adult hobbit: Harfoots at 3 foot 6, Fallohides slimmer and a little taller, and Stoors broader, stouter, and a little shorter.
In The Hobbit it's noted generally that 'hobbits are smaller than the bearded Dwarves'.
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Silverlode
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Jan 4 2014, 1:22am
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Thanks for those.
I think myself it's one of those things which Tolkien left, as he says, "vague", and one might argue that the published works are not always completely consistent. They're certainly not explicit. For instance, nowhere does Tolkien clarify whether the entdraught caused Merry and Pippin to continue growing for a longer period of time, or whether it only had effect while it was in their system. The text describes them feeling an immediate effect: "The effect of the draught began at the toes, and rose steadily through every limb, bringing refreshment and vigour as it coursed upwards, right to the tips of the hair. Indeed the hobbits felt that the hair on their heads was actually standing up, waving the curling and growing." That's what makes me suspect it was not a gradual growing, but a nearly instantaneous one they could feel as it happened. In any case, they are known to have grown (at minimum) 3 inches from the time they drank the entdraught (Feb 29) to the Field of Cormallen (April 8), which is just over a month. Since Sam is the only one who comments on a measurement at all, and we know they ended up taller than 4'5" when all was said and done, filling in the blanks is left to us.
But in any case it's clearly easier to imagine characters at different heights than it is to pull off in a movie. Most interesting to me is the comment that dwarves were not less than 4ft, with the tallest hobbit men being about the same, and the average being a little shorter. Really, the filmmakers have coped remarkably well. Their tallest hobbits are about the same height as their shortest dwarves. Their greatest difficulty in the end seems to be having their hobbits too consistent in height relative to each other, but since they're casting from a pool of men and not real dwarves and hobbits, they've managed to keep the relative heights of the two groups within a reasonable interpretation of the book. Having the dwarves and hobbits at consistent heights relative to each other keeps the scaling issues to a minimum - one can only imagine the complications of trying to scale more than two height-groups in a single scene!
Silverlode
"Dark is the water of Kheled-zâram, and cold are the springs of Kibil-nâla, and fair were the many-pillared halls of Khazad-dűm in Elder Days before the fall of mighty kings beneath the stone."
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patrickk
Nargothrond
Jan 4 2014, 1:41am
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...where Elond et al ride in and corcles the dwarves with their horses then the dwarves (scale doubles) seem a bit small. Less than 4'
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Elthir
Hithlum
Jan 4 2014, 1:45am
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Well yes Tolkien is vague enough about the gradual growing aspect versus quick growing, but don't you agree that he is rather consistent about Hobbit heights at the time of the story [there's another reference about Halflings too, from Of Dwarves And Men]...
... and the descriptions tell us that Merry and Pippin would have been notably tall Hobbits for them to have surpassed the Bullroarer by growing three inches or so, at this time [Sam's remark]. That doesn't work well, no?
My objection was starting them, and Bilbo, off as 4 foot 3 or 4, based on Sam's remark and the Prologue. The Prologue isn't inconsistent with the later texts really, it's just expressed a bit confusingly with respect to 'now' and ancient days.
(This post was edited by Elthir on Jan 4 2014, 1:46am)
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