YMMV / J.R.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit

• Alternative Character Interpretation: This version of Bilbo can be put in a very poor light when you consider that he dismisses Princess Mika as “only a child” but still ends up marrying her shortly thereafter.
• Awesome Art: The artstyle is quite beautiful, and captures the tone of Tolkien’s book if not the actual events in it.
• Awesome Music: Václav Lidl’s score works well for the story, and wouldn’t be out of place in a more faithful Tolkien adaptation.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • While it took the complete opposite adaptation approach, the short actually has a few things in common with Peter Jackson’s The Hobbit trilogy. Both works add a Canon Foreigner female character to act as the love interest, make the Arkenstone more significant to the plot, and have the dragon killed by an improvised crossbow/ballista.
  • It’s pretty much impossible to hear the Narrator mention ”the poisonous desolation of Slag” without imagining the later New Line Cinema movie using that as its title.
• Nightmare Fuel: ”Goloom” is actually considered a quite good take on the Gollum character, and comes off as appropriately creepy.
• Older Than They Think: Probably a coincidence, but Bilbo slaying the dragon himself was actually an idea Tolkien played around with before ultimately deciding against it.
• Special Effects Failure: The Limited Animation almost goes without saying, though the fact that some of it is recycled several times might be more noteworthy.
• Strangled by the Red String: The mention of Bilbo’s “growing love for Princess Mika” during the Final Battle is the first indication of any romantic feelings between the two of them.
• They Changed It, Now It Sucks!:
  • The short has gotten somewhat notorious among Tolkien fans for cutting out large chucks of the plot, changing names for seemingly no reason, and rewriting the story to make it more of a Cliché Storm (with Bilbo even being The Chosen One and receiving a Standard Hero Reward.)
• Took the Bad Film Seriously: Narrator Herb Lass reads the script with conviction, giving the characters distinct voices and personalities. Some viewers ended up questioning if he even knew how unlike the source material the story was.