Yeah! The book is a bit weird when Bilbo is taken, it's not totally explained and we are left being faintly amused by Bilbo's 'stay at home' attitude. The idea of Biblo's Wanderlust is more consistent with the character we find in LotR. Still, a certain element of fear should be present- he's not a well travelled Hobbit yet.

I really like that idea of the beginning of the story. It is very reminiscent of the beginning of the Fellowship of the Ring. I do, however, believe it would help to have some sort of prologue to show consistency with the trilogy. FOTR has Galadriel's monologue, TT has Gandalf's fall into the lake with the Balrog, and ROTK has Gollum's backstory scene. It seems like The Hobbit should have some such beginning. I do think that there should be a prologue (narrated by Galadriel again, just because she's good with stuff like that) that explains about Smaug and the destruction of Dale. I think this because Smaug and the Quest of Erebor is the main story, and it is throughout the story that the people watching the movie realize for themselves that Bilbo is the focus of the story.

I'm sorry Earendil, but you are completly mistaken about the Quest of Erebor being the main story. Tolkien explicitly states in the first chapter of The Hobbit that it was a tale about A HOBBIT, NOT the destruction of some Dwarven Stronghold. The Quest is just the means by which we see Bilbo discover his "Tookish" side, and how he grows up.

A suggestion that I believe would be effective for a prologue narration by Ian Holm. In the extended FOTR he does an excellent narration of the prologue "Concerning Hobbits". That way the Hobbit could be told as a sort of frame story while Bilbo writes his memoirs, and would also be an effective lead in for the "Bridge Movie"