What if the Hobbit book was written like the movies?

Chapter 1

Bilbo Gets Dwarfed

Suddenly the door knocks.  Bilbo's steady hand reaches for the knob.  Too late, it opens unexpectedly.  Long, dark and handsome locks streamed down his face.  He was not like the other dwarfs.  His mystery laden looks would sent butterflies to even the most stubborn of maidens.

Bilbo stared at him with a gap in his mouth.

....
Gandalf turns around with a look of foreboding danger on his face, "We need someone special for this mission.  Someone who can sneak around and steal stuff."

Bilbo felt a knot in his stomach as it seemed that all eyes were on him.

Suddenly, Gandalf jumped on the table and pointed his long bony finger at the Hobbit.  In an exhilarating voice he announced, "we need a burglar!"

Chapter 5

Legolas Pwns All

Suddenly Legolas ducked the oncoming blade.  Spinning in a perfect 360 he dodged the left arm of the oncoming goblin's blade.  His right arm jabbed deep into the temple of the goblin and the blade sunk in deep.  A blade was jutting forth from a wide angle, Legolas quickly performed a back flip, spun around, kicked the goblin in the stomach and started riding him like a surf board

Another goblin was close behind, but Legolas did not seem him.  He was about to get stabbed with a huge scimitar.
Zip!

The goblin falls down to the ground, covered in spouts of blood.  Tauriel is behind him with bow extended.
A cunning grin escaped Legolas' perfect white teeth.

"Miss me!"  Tauriel retorted.
"Only if you were aiming for me,"  Legolas shot back.

...
As the river raged on constantly, the team of dwarfs and one Hobbit continued to toss axes to one another.  But none of them were prepared for the next danger of their journey.  There was a tree branch that had five goblins on it.  They had only killed four.  Oakenshield spotted the weakness of the tree branch.
"We need to cut it down."

Too late, one of the dwarfs got hit by a rogue wave and was sent barreling onto dry land.  His barrel became a battering ram.  SMASH, SMASH, SMASH.  Goblins were falling like dominoes!  He was an unstoppable force.  When he finally crashed, his arms shot out of the barrel, forming into a swift armor.  He began to do some vicious spin attacks that killed lots of goblins.

Chapter 8

Guess Who is Back!

The large dark shadow exploded again.  The power of Gandalf's light began to decrease.  He was losing power fast.  Suddenly, a large bot of energy escaped Gandalf and his light shield exploded.

But it did not work.  The darkness burst open again and Gandalf blasted back onto a wall.  He felt the dark energy course over him.  Bursts of flame poured all round his face.  With fearful eyes he saw the flames begin to take shape.  They created a dark paladin with menacing armor.  Gandalf turned white as a ghost.  His eyes were like cold marbles.

"It can't be!"  He shouted.
"I'm baaaaaaaack!" the evil voice said.

Sauron had returned!

Chapter 10

Tauriel could not make a decision.  Before her was the king's son, the lovely and captivating Legolas.  He was a master monster killer and he could protect her.  But she did not feel love in her heart for him.  In fact, she felt cold.  Her heart belonged to Kili.  She pushed Legolas out of the way, "I could never love you."

Kili smiled weakly, "Back at you babe."

Peter Jackson:  The first director to get paid hourly.

Christmas Should Be Moved (The Compelling Reasons Why)

Christmas has always been a topic of contention.  You have the atheists trying to enforce work on the holiday, Christians are gunning down any pant suited women trying to say "holidays" and the pagans are trying to throw festive goat innards in peace for their Norwegian goddess Jumblebuk.

The holidays are a crazy time and I propose a compromise.  Perhaps the Christians should reconsider where and when we celebrate the birth of the world's most awesome stable born hero.  It's not like Jesus demanded snow and sugar plumbs on his birthday.  If anything, Kwanzaa was there first (based on the merit that I have no idea what Kwanzaa is and you probably don't either).  Christians need a good Summer holiday because we have Easter in the spring, the three wise men in the winter and we hide under our beds during Halloween.

One of these creatures wants to eat you.  The other, poop in your shoe.

Take this journey with me while I share why Jesus should not be surrounded with crappy snow, the word solstice and fortune 500 companies trying to pass off coupons to Yankee Candle as the Christmas bonus.



 It's Not Like The Winter Holiday Makes Sense

When Jesus was born it was the shepherding season, which some say was more closer to Summer.  That means Jesus was born in Bethlehem in 99 degree weather as opposed to the wintry difference of 98 degree weather.

As Christians we should pick some date in June and throw Jesus a good old barbecue.  We can serve meat from every stable animal.  Now add a festive and biblical game of "Angels Tell The Shepherds" where neighbors run to their local blue collar businesses and start yelling "A baby is born.  Runnnnn!"  This can all be done in the sweltering weather that brings us back to the ancient days of Jesus.

But wait...there's myrrh (more).  We team up the neighborhood kids and lock them out of their houses at the dead of night.  The object of the game is to have them run door to door begging for a place to stay.  It will be an endless foot chase until one of the kids finds the "stable" or dog house.  Isn't that more biblically significant than worshiping the pagan god of fir trees and declaring winter faeries the lord of sugar plumbs (or whatever those hippies do)?

Nothing says "Hail Jesus" like the December Toyota-thon!

 The Gifts of the Magi

As history foretells, Jesus, was visited by the Magi, which is like an Arabian version of Gandalf.  Each king had a present that contained gold, incense and myrrh.  By today's standards the guy who gave gold was the rich uncle and the incense and myrrh givers were the family that picked whatever they could grab from the Sear's perfume section.

Based on this little tradition, we have justified billions of debt in America each year.  We devote a blood sport called Black Friday, where soccer moms threaten to gouge out your eyes if you touch the last Tickle Me Elmo.

Happy Honda Days!

I propose we go straight to the biblical source.  In the Jesus narrative, the three wise men were pagan worshipers who found followed a night light until they found baby Jesus.  Therefore, I introduce the tradition of the secular obstacle course.  What we do is we ask 3 non believers in our local area to buy some incredibly expensive gifts.  Then we set up a tough mudder-esque obstacle course for them to navigate through.  After the countless electric barbed wire and monkey bars they can end their journey by giving their gift to a charity or "baby" of their choice.  I imagine the hardest part is coercing the non-believing neighbor to take the dangerous obstacle course.  For that I introduce the "star" or promise of cash prizes at the end of the tough mudder.  This tradition is scripturally sound and includes a degree of witnessing (after you tell them the cash prizes are really salvation).


All in all, Christmas is weird.  It's like having a huge family dinner, but one side of your family wants to buy expensive crap all the time, while the other side is obsessed with the pregnant daughter and the other side just wants to free Africa from guerrilla war fighters (I think...I should really Wiki that).  I am all for the world kick starting the economy every December, but Christianity doesn't need that extra baggage.  It would save us money on the all barbed wire we have to buy to keep the ACLU out of our nativity scenes.

This Christmas Song will Bring You To Tears

If we took all the piano heavy, country inspired Christmas songs sung by men in sweater vests we would  get the saddest song in the known universe.  There is something about the holidays that forces young men to try and create songs that produce so much sap that they could make pine trees jealous.

I want to make a tribute to all these songs and encourage my fellow musician friends to compose the music to this new masterpiece.  It is guaranteed to get middle aged soccer moms to blubber.



Christmas Tears

Mama slowly gets up from her hospital bed
She takes me by the hand as I help her get her meds
She says, "boy, on this Christmas, no one should be alone"
As she scoops me up she puts me back in the orphanage home

Daddy lost his job at the old steel mill
With his diabetes,  he suffers quiet and still
Staring out at the snow; a widow for seven years
He wishes upon a Christmas Tree and holds his daughter near

Chorus:
Crying Christmas tears
Making snow angels in my heart
Gotta walk this icy windy road all alone
Crying Christmas tears
Wishing we could never part
Kissing myself goodbye under the mistletoe

She asks the street vendor, "I need those Christmas slippers"
"It's for my dog who survived 9/11, his name is Skipper"
With a twinkle in his eye, he removes a tear from his face
"These shoes were just given, to a footless girl named Grace"

He comes home from Iraq, tattered and quite bruised
The sound of explosions still  haunting in the news
His family holds him close, he would never them fall
He salutes to the US flag, "Santa Claus bless them all!"

(Repeat Chorus)

He gets down on one knee and opens up the ring
her face is blushing red, she can hear the angels the sing
"Darla be my bride," he whispers through the cry
"Marry me this one time, because tomorrow I will die"

A junkie down the streets, sings praises to the Lord
Snow rains down and a home he can't afford
The preacher puts down his whiskey, the cold cuts like a knife.
Says to the junkie, "You restored my faith, I am returning to my wife"

(Repeat Chorus)