I wish the entire first book had been a 3 hour film; the first chapter does an excellent job of setting up the idyllic life in the Shire. You can sense the innocence soon to be lost, and get just a glimpse of the backbone and courage within the hobbits.
btw, are planning to do a chapter a week, and start the discussion on Saturdays? If so, I will have to schedule my reading, hehe.
I am enjoying the detail and time Tolkien gave to developing the hobbit characters and the foreshadowing of the dark times to come before they set out. The film could not reasonably have been expected to do all that... A full 17 years passes between the party and the beginning of the journey... and I think it took Gandalf about two minutes to get our Frodo out the door in the film, although it was hinted that he had traveled far...
More excerpts:
…Frodo began to feel restless, and the old paths seemed to well-trodden. He looked at maps, and wondered what lay beyond their edges…. He took to wandering further afield and more often by himself; and Merry and his other friends watched him anxiously. Often he was seen walking and talking with the strange wayfarers that began at this time to appear in the Shire….…Elves, who seldom walked in the Shire, could now be seen passing westward through the woods in the evening, passing and not returning…
...Frodo often met strange dwarves of far countries, seeking refuge in the West. They were troubled, and some spoke in whispers of the Enemy and of the Land of Mordor...