If that bothers you, but you're interested in the franchise, watch the second entry 'John Wick: Chapter Two', no animal is harmed in that one. :)
I'd say it's even better then the first one.

I guess it's because even if a movie is actually good and faithful, it's still hard to nail someone's unique vision of what the world and characters are like they imagine while reading. The reason I like the Lord of the Rings movies so much is that, with small exceptions, they pretty much got all the characters and the look and the feel of the world exactly "right" for me.

And even the Hobbit, although the second and third movie get pretty much everything wrong, did get a lot right initially. The first movie adds a lot of unnecessary stuff, but what's straight from the books is as it should be and most of the new cast is again very good. Although personaly I always imagined Thorin more as Brian Blessed, which I read was supposed to actually happen before Guillermo del Toro vacated the director's seat. Del Toro's Hobbit is always going to remain one of those great "what ifs" of cinema for me.

It's basically the inspiration for the Wolfenstein franchise.

What about the level "Bridge on the River Kwai"? Wasn't there some small stupid movie with a title similar to that? :P

True, but what I'd find especially interesting is the author's take on a film adaption of his/her book, specifically in terms of what he/she had in mind visually. Which is one thing that makes Blade Runner very special : Philip K Dick unfortunately didn't live to see the film itself, but I read that he saw pre-production designs/reels of some sort and commented something along the lines of it being very close to how he imagined the world.

I really liked Thorin's casting in The Hobbit, but seriously, Brian Blessed? He would've absolutely slayed in that role!
As for the second and third film, I also think highly of the casting : Smaug, Beorn and Bard were all done very well (though the bear's design felt wrong in places - hindquarters specifically). I'd say my biggest disappointment though was the incredibly protracted final battle, which isn't surprising given how little of the book remained by the end of the second film. The battle started off very well though, and I actually got chills when the elves decided to fight with the dwarves, but most everything after that is just too drawn out and painfully boring. Especially that Legolas fight :\
I was hoping for a relatively short and incredibly intense fight to perhaps even rival the battle at Helm's deep. And it should've prominently featured Beorn. Basically I wanted something like this:
Interesting, I'll make a point of watching it then. Especially if there is the slightest of chances I'll get to see Hitler dual wielding miniguns :)

Smaug was well cast, but I hate that they made him with two legs and leg-wings instead of four legs + wings. Beorn also looks a bit weird, they gave his face a weird uncanny valley look.

Really, the problems with the latter two movies are numerous - everything with Gandalf in Dol Guldur, and with Legolas, Tauriel and the whole love triangle stuff is totally out of place, the tonal shift to a grand epic instead of a smaller adventure is just wrong, Bilbo basically bacomes a supporting character, and the evolution of his role in the team is glossed over. Thranduil is needlessly made into a almost villaionous asshole. The "humor" with Laketown Master's sidekick is just cringeworthy. And the final battle is a just a mess of over the top CGI.

That said, it's not irredeemable. I actually re-edited the second and third movie just for myself, with all of the not-in-the-book stuff removed, and some of the extended edition stuff put in (like the dwarves coming out in pairs to introduce themselves to Beorn). I ended up with two 2 hour movies I actually quite enjoyed.

/me goes gathering wood for a pyre...

Fire it up! It's two and a half hours of boring, meandering vignettes about nothing. Also, the titles is a big fat lie. This is pulp fiction. This is pulp fiction. THIS is pulp fiction. And this is two idiots talking about a cheesburger. Adventure! Excitement!

any "Remake" movie coming out now.... they're called classics for a reason, don't ruin them.

I was never into horror at all until recently. Despite being a sci-fi/fantasy addict, genres which have horror elements pretty darn often, I always had this weird fear that horror movies would be too gory or scary for me. I had a vivid memory of one of the Freddy movies being on TV when I was a kid and seeing a girl get swallowed by giant Freddy and being freaked out by it.

I expanded my horizons a while back though and started watching more gory horror classics. Day of the Dead, Hellraiser, stuff like that. Nowhere near as traumatizing as I expected, which in retrospect makes a lot of sense since I'm 38 years old now and not a little kid haha. I still don't love horror movies or collect them or anything, but I can watch the classics now without worry. I hate jump scares though, just because they're annoying.

If you are going to try out horror watch the original 1968 "Night of the Living Dead"

Follow that with The Exorcist, and then the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and then for a night cap maybe Rosemary's Baby.

Consider that a starter course. :P

Watched all those over the last few years except The Exorcist. Not sure why I keep waiting on that one, perhaps just a disinterest in the subject. I know it's a classic though. Anyway I really liked Texas Chainsaw, can see why that was huge when it hit. Even bought the blu-ray. The other two I enjoyed but wouldn't say I loved. I watched the 80's remake of Night of the Living Dead and enjoyed it more because of the feminism aspects. I know that's heresy though!

I guess I'm just weird, but I don't consider The Exorcist scary at all. Quite the contrary, I think it's hilarious. It's one step away from Ash Williams dropping by.

To be fair some great movies from my youth were remakes of movies from my father's youth, and on and on. You ain't touching The Thing, son! I think the more important thing is that movies stand on their own and be of high quality, no matter what the name on the poster is.

Wait wait wait, he thought the original black and white Thing was better than the 1982 remake? :P

I thought The Fly remake was a better movie (I heard they are redoing it again), as was the 1968 Ben Hur, which isn't saying much because the original was a three hour silent film. :P