Rankin-Bass’s animated version of The Hobbit clocks in at 77 minutes, and personally, I think that is a very good thing. In today’s age where vanity and arrogance fills creators with a desire to appear “epic”, our high fantasy stories have grown bloated with unwieldy page counts, needlessly extended run times, prodigious installments, excessive side quests and lots of expensive, nauseating CGI. (I suppose the popularity of Tolkien’s Middle Earth is partly to blame for that). However, at its core, The Hobbit is not an epic tale that requires an entire trilogy of films and ten hours of computer generated action sequences to be told. It may be the precursor story to what will eventually be the Lord of the Rings, but it’s really a humble adventure story for children and the young at heart. Unlike Peter Jackson’s versions, which can be daunting and intimidating to the uninitiated, Rankin-Bass has created a wonderful, accessible entry point for those who wish to explore the beauty of Middle Earth. Like humble hobbits, big things can come in small packages.

I always admire and appreciate the craftsmanship of traditional animation. Beautiful watercolor paintings bring the hills, mountains, forests, villages and grand lairs of Middle Earth to life. The designs for the various characters and creatures are slightly cartoony; human men look like men, but Bilbo is a charming big-nosed hobbit, and dwarves, trolls, wood elves and goblins each have a distinctive look. Those who have grown used to the idea of visualizing Gollum as a skeletal computer-generated monstrosity may be surprised to see him as a bizarre froglike creature with big ears. Traditional animation can do things that live action and CGI cannot; it can display visuals in an expressive, dreamlike manner that may appear unreal, yet still true.

Bilbo’s journey is a long and arduous one. He is a homebody at heart who is content with simple comforts, and yet he is swept into a grand adventure that is much bigger than his tiny hobbit self. Bilbo endures a great deal of discomfort and expresses it openly without sounding like an ungrateful whiner, and he shows trepidation when facing danger without sounding like a coward. He carries on his difficult journey to honor his contract, and while much of his travels are difficult to bear, he feels that it is worth it when he receives the opportunity to witness great natural beauty that he would never have seen or heard had he stayed home. He bravely faces trolls, goblins and giant spiders, outwits Gollum, outmaneuvers the wood elves, and stares the dreaded Smaug in the eye, tricking him into revealing his weak point, equipped with little more than a dagger, a little magic ring that grants him invisibility, and the ability to move about quietly and undetected, along with his wits and a little bit of luck. Bilbo is a small and simple creature, but his deeds enable much greater things to come about, such as a Battle of Five Armies. And although he has earned a large share of treasure in the defeat of Smaug, he is wise enough not to be greedy, knowing that he doesn’t really need it and he can’t carry it all home with him anyway. True value lies in the wealth of his experiences, and in a little ring he keeps as a souvenir in a glass box on his mantel.

I am especially impressed that the run time is so short, because the film uses its time wisely. Musical interludes and ballads move the plot along so sequences that would take hours become short and sweet. Narration from Bilbo compresses days and weeks of travel time and camp outs so the story can focus on what’s most essential. There is a indeed a Battle of Five Armies, but the action is relatively modest, as the movie obscures the actual fighting and focuses more on the preparation and subsequent outcome of the battle where characters can show their true colors and shine brightest. And yet, while a great many things are accomplished, the film does not rush but moves at a gentle pace, moving faster when it is time to act boldly and slower when it is time to think pensively.

In an age where our artwork has become both mediocre and overstimulating, our stories padded with nonsense and our discourse filled with ungrateful sarcasm and loudness, The Hobbit serves an an antidote to modernity and a reminder that beauty, sincerity and wonder still exist. Rankin-Bass also produced The Return of the King in 1980. Combine this movie, the latter one and Ralph Bakshi’s Lord of the Rings (which covers the Fellowship of the Ring and the Two Towers), and all three animated films form their own trilogy of a sort. They may not have the extensive lore of the books, nor are they as epic as Peter Jackson’s live-action work, but they have their own simple charms.