Minor Plot hole: The dwarves leave their horses in the forest for a few minutes. When they come back from their 50 meter journey, half the horses are missing because they were stolen by the sneakiest thieves of Middle-Earth: fucking trolls. Huge, loud, slow and taller than trees creatures that somehow managed to get right beside the dwarves without anyone noticing and taking the scared horses away to their secret camp-fire hide-out – also roughly 50 meters away. Clearly Gandalf was wrong to think hobbits were the best burglars to join his crew.
Minor Plot hole: Speaking of the trolls, how could they not realize the sun was a few minutes away from turning them into stone? Even without Bilbo’s 2 minute parasite diversion, the 3 trolls would have been turned to stone halfway through cooking their first serving of dwarves as they clearly started their roast when the sun was rising over the horizon. I understand trolls were never preceded with the reputation of having the sharpest minds, but the troll leader in this movie calls out Bilbo on his scheme to win time for the sun to catch-up to them – and it thus creates this weird situation where this troll leader cannot be somehow intelligent and the dumbest thing in cinematic history at the same time. You gotta choose Peter !
Minor Plot hole: Thorin Oakenshield gets munched by a Warg like a fat redneck devouring McNuggets after being deprived of food for an afternoon. Bilbo comes to his rescue and all the other available dwarves, 9 of them to be precise, decide to join him a minute later, instead of right now, for no reason at all.
Minor Plot hole: In this never ending cycle of deux ex machina film series, Gandalf shows up in the goblin lair to save the dwarves out of nowhere. He was right in the middle of the center platform, surrounded by thousands of other goblins who would have seen him enter the cave and make his way to the throne of the goblin king. Why did none of them say anything? Can Gandalf become invisible to everyone with a spell? That would downplay the powers of the One Ring a little bit.
Major Plot hole: Bilbo Baggins is a scared little Hobbit who is afraid to leave the Shire to go on an adventure. Fast forward two days of walking around in a forest and Bilbo encounters the first monsters he ever saw in his life: 3 giant trolls. Most warriors would be scared to go challenge them alone but Bilbo, being the little afraid hobbit that he was portrayed to be so far, is completely nonchalant about sneaking-up behind a 2-ton killing machine to try to pickpocket his giant knife that weighs half of his weight. How is that supposed to work? The whole concept of pickpocketing someone is that it needs to be something small barely attached to a layer of clothing that is not in direct contact with your skin. But Bilbo, in his first encounter with monsters in his life, is trying the Houdiniest pickpocket trick of all time by removing a 1 meter knife from a giant murdering creature’s ass crack with the added thrill factor of having two other trolls facing him directly. When did he develop these two balls to rule them all?
Plot contrivance: Bilbo Baggins’ intensive sword training in this movie is limited by Gandalf telling him that courage is found in sparring lives. This later proves to be magical, I guess, since Bilbo is able to defend himself against a ruthless goblin warrior and an orc mercenary in 1 on 1 duels. Both creatures can be assumed to have a few years of experience in combat and killing things – but that usually means nothing against a main character who uses a sword for the first time.
Unaddressed Issue: Since the eagles are the best air taxis in town, and they are taxis since they have to be called upon first, why did Gandalf not ask them for a ride at the beginning of the movie? And why did he not ask them to drop them at the lonely mountain to make it impossible for Peter Jackson to milk a 300 page book into a trilogy? (Don’t say it is explained in the books you knowledgeable nerds; a movie has to be self-reliant)
Unaddressed Issue: Gandalf is a wizard from World of Warcraft. He has special abilities that can only be used after cooldowns that are never specified. He can hit the ground with his staff and inflict incredible aoe damage to 1000 goblins around him……but doesn’t seem to be able to do it afterwards. He can summon eagles when he is in danger….but only sometimes and not others. Is there an explanation for this? Or do we have to understand that Tolkien’s intended plot twist was for future generations to discover that the world of Middle Earth was actually a video game?
