
The motley crew, led by Gandalf and the smoldering heir to the Erebor throne, Thorin Oakenshield (Richard Armitage), encounter two-and-a-half hours of conflict (most notably with the bloodthirsty orcs) with a brief respite found in the elven homeland of Rivendell, where Galadriel ( Cate Blanchett) offers Gandalf her unconditional support. Sixty years before The Fellowship of the Ring is formed, a considerably younger Bilbo ( Martin Freeman) sets off an the titular Unexpected Journey with his friend Gandalf the Grey ( Ian McKellen) to help 13 dwarves reclaim their homeland - the kingdom of Erebor, which was taken over by a killer, gold-seeking dragon that forced the dwarves into exile. Tolkien's THE HOBBIT: AN UNEXPECTED JOURNEY starts off with an eleventy-one-year-old Bilbo Baggins (played once again by Ian Holm) narrating the tale of how he, a mellow hobbit from the Shire, ended up enmeshed in a dangerous quest. Peter Jackson's first installment in his three-part adaptation of J.
