[Diamond18]

In the book, at the time of Bilbo's party, Frodo was 33 (obviously), Sam was 28, Merry was 19, and Pippin was 11.<P>So at the time of the Quest, Frodo was 50, Sam was 45, Merry was 36, and Pippin was 28. So, technically, three of the Hobbits were still under 50. As far as appearences, Sam should have looked the oldest, followed by Merry, followed by Frodo ('cause of the Ring) followed by Pippin, who, if they had been totally true to the book, is the only one who should have looked like a heartthrob ( ). So the casting for Sam and Merry was pretty on spot, but they got Pippin and Frodo "mixed up".<P>But like Manwe said, they didn't have any great length of time pass between the party and the Quest, though Bilbo seemed to age a great deal. Oh, they do say "there was no set timeline", but it couldn't have been more than a year or two, unless Frodo let the other three Hobbits share the Ring. Har.<P>Post Scriptum... I do think that Hobbits in general would age slower than humans, so getting younger actors is fine, but I would have liked it to be less obvious that the actor who plays the oldest character is much younger than the actors who play the younger characters. So Elijah should have played Pippin. <p>[ January 18, 2003: Message edited by: Diamond18 ]