In the books: After eating dinner with the hobbits at his house, Farmer Maggot drives the three hobbits (Frodo Sam, and Pippin) to the Bucklebury landing. At the landing they meet Merry, who has riddden out from Crickhollow (where he was setting up house) to look for his friends. Farmer Maggot leaves them at the landing, and the four hobbits pole over on the ferry to the other side of the Brandywine (Baranduin), From there, the friends head to Frodo’s new house where they enjoy a bath, a drink, and supper. After supper, the three younger hobbits reveal to Frodo that, despite all his careful blinds and subterfuges, they know exactly what Frodo is up to, where he is going, and why- and declare that they are going with them. Frodo at first refuses their company, fearing for their safety, but relents when he sees that his friends will not. Early the following morning, the four set out, pass through the Hedge that marks the eastern border of Buckland, and enter the Old Forest.

In the Movie: After the Hobbit’s first encounter with the Black Rider, the scene cuts to show the Hobbits running through night-darkened woods. Frodo pauses, peering fearfully around a tree. Exhausted, Sam, Merry and Pippin come up behind him. Pippin breathlessly asks what is going on, but before he gets an answer a Black Rider- another or the same as before- appears out of the dark. When the Rider finally rides away again, Frodo tells Merry that he (Frodo) must leave the Shire, so Merry leads them all to the Buckleberry Ferry whilst being pursued again by not one but five Black Riders. The ferry- with the four hobbits on it- barely slips it moorings in time to escape being caught. The last we see of the riders is of one on his horse on the landing, watching the hobbits float away. After Merry confirms that the next crossing the riders could possibly take is twenty miles away, the scene cuts to the Hobbits emerging from the woods outside of the Bree gate.

Why the Change? To quote Peter Jackson: “One of the biggest problems with adapting the books- Tolkien gave his characters a fairly leisurely journey…I don’t mean the length of the journey, but rather a lack of dramatic tension, especially pre-Rivendell. For the movies, we will have to make motivations a little tighter and more urgent.” As anyone who has read the books knows, the beginning of Book I of The Fellowship of the Ring is extremely slow; not boring, perhaps, but slow. As PJ said, these sequences largely had to be condensed for the sake of time and dramatic tension.