Interesting point
Eomer - moving away from all speculations of Frodo's width, height, length, fingernails, hair and, let's face it, it was only a matter of time before toenails came in...
They did concentrate solely on the draining effects of the ring throughout, it seemed - I mean, yes, towards the end of the Return of the King, when he 'abandoned' Sam, they brought in the slightly twisted, slightly evil element as the ring took control of Frodo (and apparently did very odd things to his eyes as well...). But it was only at the very end of the trilogy, when Frodo had got home and was musing on his time away and on how it felt to be back, that you saw that he really
had grown, and had changed, from the quest and from the strain of bearing the ring. True, it was very nicely done then, I personally though, but it was a little too late maybe - he had come across merely as whingy throughout the majority of the films that he was maybe a little too far pushed to be redeemed for some people.
They did concentrate on the development of the other hobbits though, and that was seen in more gradual stages throughout - you can almost mark the milestones for each of the hobbits, especially Pippin. Obviously, he was the easiest to change, but they did do it very nicely - it wasn't an instant alteration from carefree-and-slightly-moronic to serious, grim-faced warrior: even near the end of the trilogy, Pippin retained some of his carefree, childish innocence - for example, after the episode with the Palantir where he effectively gave away their position like a flaming
beacon...he responded with "I won't do it again". That line just made me smile because he was so sweet. But you could see him gradually maturing. The same goes for Merry, although maybe the first stages of maturity for him were covered earlier on in the films than with Pippin.
And Sam...well, I think Sam was just Sam. Not an insult
