Some critics, here and elsewhere, have balked at AN UNEXPECTED JOURNEY's 'secret passage' to Rivendell. And yet such a passage, per Tolkienian canon, is a very real possibility, one which author John D. Rateliff ('The History of The Hobbit') acknowledges in a recent review of Jackson's film:

'[The film's creators] ... provided a plausible explanation of how Rivendell can be "hidden" when it's located in a river valley and its general location is well-known: [Jackson's] path into Rivendell was an interesting explanation for a curious feature from the original stories...' (Rateliff's 'Sacnoth's Scriptorium' blog, 22 December 2012: http://sacnoths.blogspot.com/2012/12/hobbit-movie-review-part-two.html).

This reference by Rateliff to one of Tolkien's 'curious' unexplained features in his original 1937 hobbit tale — a 'secret path' leading down into Rivendell's 'hidden' river valley — is again alluded to in Tolkien's subsequent '1960 Hobbit' (a re-writing project, ultimately abandoned, that was meant to fully harmonize the hobbit 'prequel' with its 'Lord of the Rings' sequel), where Gandalf says to Thorin & Company:

'Over there lies hidden the fair valley of Rivendell, of which no doubt some of you have heard tell, though few dwarves have ever seen it [a reference certainly also to the age-old feud between the elves and the dwarves, as that mutual ill-will surfaces again in the initially chilly relations between Gimli's people and the elves of Lórien in 'The Lord of the Rings']. There Master Elrond lives in the Last Homely House.... They were still following Gandalf ... as he searched for ... the head of the path down into Rivendell', by which finally they came to the gates of the elven stronghold, arriving at dusk ~ 'The History of The Hobbit', pp. 792-817, 819, 828, 833-35; Karen Wynn Fonstad's 'The Atlas of Middle-earth', pp. 97-98, 100-101.

Tolkien's description of Gandalf and Company's approach to the 'hidden' entrance of Imladris is a remarkably close match to Jackson's depiction of it in AN UNEXPECTED JOURNEY — where a port of escape is suddenly 'revealed' to the Grey Wizard (but in Jackson's re-telling, in the Company's desperate flight from a ravenous pack of warg-riding orcs). As such, Tolkien's '1960 Hobbit' emerges also as a possible inspiration for Jackson's choice in making Rivendell truly 'hidden ... down [under]' — its 'path-head' entrance, if not indeed 'secret', then elusive and very difficult to find, for even Gandalf (as Tolkien wrote and PJ put to film) must 'search' for it.

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