The first movie was ok. "Not as good as you hoped, not as bad as you feared" as someone put it. Not nearly as good as the LotR movies, but still all right. Too long, too reliant on CGI, but it's heart was in the right place, so to speak. It captured a lot of what made the book great, despite missteps.

But the second one... oh good lord...

Too me it was like Highlander 2 must have been to people who saw it in the cinemas all those years ago. A complete ruination of a franchise, a train wreck of a movie in which nothing works, not a single thing. It does not work as a sequel, it does not work on it's own. It neglects the main character in favor of plot point introduced for no reason to lengthen the movie. It's plain silly, nothing like the book, or the previous movies. It takes the "shield-surfing" scene from Two Towers and cranks it up to eleven with how silly, out of place and overblown the action is. And it gets everything wrong. Every single thing. There is not a single scene faithful to the book. Even if something looks the same, it no longer works the same, because the context was changed. Everything that made the book smart, important, resonant and a work of a man well versed in literature is gone, replaced with stuff straight out of Pirates of the Carribean. Damn, even Smaug looks wrong, with his forelegs gone. Instead he look like a bat, and looks plain moronic walking around the cave. How do you get that wrong? There are ilustrations by Tolkien himself!

So yeah, I have no expectations about the third one. It's broken, it's gone up in smoke. You can't salvage it. Not with a sequel. The context, the characters, everything is just wrong now, makes no sense, has lost all meaning. You'd have to make a whole new movie (and maybe one day someone will, there were others before). The trailer shows nothing to make me change my mind.

Fellowship is the best movie because it was also the best book of the trilogy :P

Guess I'm one of those whiny snobs, I happily blame it on growing up watching awesome movies like Dark Crystal, Neverending Story, Labyrinth and Willow!

So there is no need to make our own movie, I'll just go and re-watch my favorites :D
(Willow is my number one out of those)

Let me just say that in this day and age expecting 100% faithfullness to any adaption is folly. This is what baffles me about book readers expecting every adaption beoing faithful after so mant of them. You think its expected that an adaption will deviate.

Also YES I WAS SO PISSED THAT THEY MADE SMAUG INTO A WYVERN INSTEAD OF THE TRUE 4 LIMBED WITH WINGS ON HIS BACK. ITS ALL BECAUSE OF 2 REASONS:

1. SKYRIM AND GAME OF THRONES

2,PEOPLE WHO THINKS WYVERNS ARE MORE BELIEVABLE BECAUSE THEY THINK A 4 LIMBED DRAGON FLYING WOULD BE IMPOSSIBLE!!! THIS IS A FANTASY WORLD PETER!!
I'll watch me some Godfather part 1 and 2.

I've no idea what "this day and age" has got to do with it. Also, I have said that I enjoyd the first movie, and it deviated from the source material. But there are changes and then there are CHANGES. It's obvious some changes have to be made to make the transistion from book to movie (or from any one art form to another). But The Desolation of Smaug gets every single thing wrong. We're not talking about just some alterations, cuting a little of this, adding a little of that, no. We are talking about changing the characters into entirely diffirent people, changing relations between characters, changing the very meaning of everything in this world and in this story. The Hobbit is a simple story on the face of it, but it has in fact a lot o complexity (relatively speaking) and deep literary roots.

Beorn has lost all his depth and mystery, making the whole world in the movie loose a very important aspect of Bilbo's journey. We never see Bilbo become the unofficial leader of the party after Gandalf's departure, as he eventually did. Everything about him is sidelined, and his relationship with the dwarves changed. That means his actions in the third movie (assuming what happened in the book will even happen in the movie) will not carry the same weight. Thorin acts like a jackass long before they capture the treasure so the whole point of the dragon's hoard and greed corrupting him no longer exists- something that hearkens back to the story of Fafnir in the norse mythology. The cup-stealing and waking the dragon inspired by Beowulf is changed beyond recognition into a Pirates of the Carribean-like action marathon. The elven king is almost a lunatic, instead of a good and noble ruler, whose feud with the dwarves is mostly a misunderstanding, further changing the context of what happens when Thorin declines to help the victims of Smaug. And so on and so forth.

You can have changes made to a story when adapting it, but still stay true to it's core, it's spirit, and meaning. That was the case of the LotR trilogy, and mostly in the case of the first Hobbit movie. But not The Desolation of Smaug. not even close.

I enjoyed the books, and I thought the first film was okay. The extended edition, not so much.

The second movie deviated from the source material a lot more than the first one. At least it seemed that way. It wasn't just some changes that, in the long run allowed the film to be better paced. Instead the majority of the film detracted from what actually happened in the books. It does follow the same general layout as the books, however the details about what took place during the journey are significantly different.

I found all the changes to be incredibly distracting while I was watching the film. I believe that the deviations that were made are actually inferior to what they could have translated to film.

The introduction to beorn? Gone.

The party chasing after the elves at night in mirkwood? Gone and in fact was replaced with an experience that was much less meaningful or exciting.

Thorin's hostility toward Thranduil during the dwarves initial capture? Replaced with a much less comical interaction.

I would list more, however my my memory of the film has deteriorated since the film's luanch .

Personally, I liked the first movie very much. It was close to what I had always imagined. Though I was sorry Ian Holm wasn't up for the outing, I freely admit Martin Freeman has done a perfect job.

I liked Martin's work so much, in fact, that I was inclined to enjoy the 2nd one despite the way it shredded the original tale into dragon tartar. I expect I will like the third movie too - until I think about it too long afterward.

I thought the chasing orcs thing was pushing it right along (ha ha), changing the feel of the adventure in the wrong direction. The original scary scenes were far more so for being unexpected, exactly because they'd stumbled into it on what was supposed to be a safe path.

I also don't appreciate the way Bilbo's gentle path to leadership and deep friendship with the dwarves has been largely lost in the editingl, which is bound to make a hash out of identifying with Bilbo's tough choices later. We have no sense of how fond he is of both the dwarves AND the elves.

Overall, I feel the action scenes have been handled wonderfully well, there are just more of them than there should be IMHO

For ex: Why cut short the wonderful interaction between Bilbo and Smaug for more shots of people running one way while the dragon goes the other way? That was positively cartoon-y

Agreed also that not using the scene between Thorin & Thranduil as written was a missed opportunity. Agreed also that the wonder of Beorn didn't come through at all, though I enjoyed the eye candy.

What's with demoting Bard of Lake-town? What's with the dark, depressive totalitarian feel? The Master (mayor) was a jerk but I remember the place described as a much cheerier center of commerce run largely by trade/craft guilds?

& My biggest growl is reserved for making Gandalf look so weak at the end of part 2. ggrrrrr.......

OTOH

To be honest, I felt some changes were improvements. My mother first read the Hobbit to me when I was around 5 years old, and even then I wondered how stupid the dwarves would have to be to go all the way back and face the dragon that nearly killed them before with no better plan than to send the burglar in first? Wha?? I mean, come on, they'd had a lot of years to think about it!

I wanted to go along with Gandalf on his adventures and meet Radagast the Brown when I read & reread it back when. Now Jackson has given me my wish, and I am grateful for that. Personally I love what McCoy has done with the role. He was a great Doctor Who, IMO, he just had depressing stories to appear in. Its great to see him again in such a whimsical way. <(")

Saruman grousing about Radagast actually made me laugh out loud. I thought it was a nice touch.

I honestly liked the barrel river fight, and Legolas' reasonable neutral positions. Since Legolas was always said to be Thranduil's son, and Thranduil was the king of the Mirkwood elves, Legolas logically should have been there when Bilbo and the dwarves came through. I think Jackson has done a fine job working him in without messing with how people remembered his friendly character in LotR. Tauriel visiting with Kili seemed well done too, though not the Tauriel saving Kili scene later, which felt forced. Its too bad they insisted on this 'rushed' mindset that eliminated Bilbo's extended adventures in the Elven realm, and I seriously don't know why they thought changing the events in Mirkwood (chasing the elves etc) was an improvement?

The third film looks exciting. I have hope it will get largely back on track with the book again, plus some extra stuff with the white council, but I'll have to wait and see. :D

You're forgetting the Dwarves never ment to "face the dragon" in the book. In the book they don't aim to kill or fight Smaug at all. They just want to steal back some of the treasure, to help dwarves in exile and retrieve at least a small part of what belongs to them. Smaug's attack on the Lake Town, his death, and the dwarves retaking the Mountain was never planned for. Thus the plan was just that- escort a burglar, with his help take what they can carry, and then run.

I thought the whole romance felt forced, added only to appease the female audience, or rather what the hollywood thinks female audience is like (incapable of enjoying a story without romantic subplot) but the most annoying thing about it was that we spent all that time on the unnecesary romance instead of Bilbo, Beorn, or other stuff cut from the book. It's amazing that they made this short book into three very, very long movies, and yet they had tu cut out a lot of important stuff. Also, the whole thing with Kili being poisoned and Tauriel saving him was such an obvious, almost shot for shot rip-off of the scenes with Frodo and Arwen in LotR all I could do was laugh.

♫ One of these things is not like the others ♫

[url=http://www-images.theonering.org/torwp/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/14-hobbit-dwarves.jpeg]Not Dwarves

Well he is still Gandalf the Grey, he has not leveled up to Gandalf the White yet ;)

True. Besides, Gandalf the White got his ass kicked by the Witch King in ROTK. Figures that he wouldn't stand a chance against Sauron all by himself.

And they succeed with including the Elf-Dwarf romance. Look at all the fanart and fanfiction these fangirls made:

http://www.deviantart.com/morelikethis/341281170

https://www.fanfiction.net/book/Hobbit/?&amp;srt=3&amp;r=10&amp;c1=100613&amp;c2=89127
But he did kill the Balrog as Gandalf the Grey though...

Not upset. Just annoyed about all the unnecessary bloating. Sure, it's understandable from a financial point of view. You can make a lot more money with three films than with one. But it's just a waste of time for the viewers.

At the cost of his own life, though.