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Since the Hobbit film trilogy began shooting principal photography 18 months ago, the production has played its very cards close to its chest, and Stone Street Studios has proved more leak-proof than the White House.

In light of this, speculation on the films — whether pertaining to structure or content — has the hallmark of paleolithic archaeology: not only are large inferences having to be made from an extremely small amount of evidence, but the legitimacy and relevance of the evidence itself is by no means certain.

With all this in mind, I’ll try and draw some tentative conclusions about the trilogy’s plot and structure — with particular attention to any evidence of departures from the book — from what we understand to be official biographical notes that will accompany the character figurines from The Hobbit.

While it is impossible to confirm that the descriptive information released with these figurines accurately reflects the film-makers vision, they are detailed and idiosyncratic enough to suggest there is a high degree of alignment.

Note that some of the biographies (Kili, Fili, Gloin and Dwalin, for example) are left out here. Where this occurs this is because, in my view, they offered no insight on the trilogy plot, structure, or departures from the source material. And if spoilers and speculation aren’t your thing, best to stop reading now. (more…)