Ok, so I've seen it. Had a few days to digest and think of what I thought.
I also sat down and watched the extended editions of the first two in a buildup to going to the theater to see Part 3, so now that they're all out and I've seen them, this is probably the best time to give a final opinion on "The Hobbit in film" as a whole.
Overall, I'd have to say I enjoyed it. It wasn't nearly as good as the LOTR Trilogy, but I don't feel like I wasted 9 hours of my life on Saturday watching it.
Gonna list the Pros and Cons of the movies. First, JUST the third movie because that's the new one, then I'll do the entire thing:
Spoiler'd for Size, not spoilers (Yet)
! Pros:
- Easily the best pacing of the 3. Makes sense as they had both the titular Battle of the Five Armies and the Battle of Dol Guldur to work with, as well as the actual defeat of Smaug. I feel like, sans the Smaug part, this would have made a perfect second movie in a 2 movie version, with the entire Quest for Erebor being the first film.
! - The acting was superb. Everyone did great, and I do love Martin Freeman as Bilbo. Richard Armitage did a great job as Thorin. It was just all so good.
! - This one had a bit more comedy than the last two, and while some of it was filler (Like Alfrid) some of it wasn't. Stuff like Gandalf messing with his pipe after the battle, or what happens when Bilbo gets home were priceless, and considering the original novel was supposed to be a lighthearted kids book, it's nice that there's FINALLY some of this kinda fun in here, even if it was just a bit.
! - The Beginning with Smaug was done REALLY well. they changed it a bit from the book, but I'm not complaining. It was pretty damn Epic and Bard kicks ass.
! Cons:
- The CG. Oh my god it was overused and obvious. That gold floor that swallowed Thorin when he had "Dragon Sickness"?… and why the hell did Dain look like a video game character? The other Dwarves had on makeup and wigs and the like, so why did Dain need that? Did Billy Conolly refuse to sit in the makeup chair for a few hours, so they HAD to CG it?
! - The ending had problems. I enjoyed what all was there and thought that what we got was a satisfying conclusion to the various elements they covered (Like Bilbo and Thorin, Bilbo and the Dwarves, etc) but other elements were glossed over and/or ignored. This isn't a spoiler because they didn't do anything. It shifts to ending mode in the middle of the battle and We don't see how the battle turned out, we are left to make assumptions about it, we also don't find out if Thranduil or Bard actually GOT The things they were fighting a war for in the first place. I mean, if the point of making this 300 page book into 3 2.5-3 hour movies was to not have to leave ANYTHING out, why the hell not include this stuff?! I know it'll be in the extended edition, but the exclusion of closure on these things was jarring here.
! The Whole Trilogy
! Pros:
- Even tho a lot of it (Like the love story) was basically filler, I did like that some of the dwarves other than Thorin had distinct and clear personalities and a bit of an arc. This wasn't too focused on in the 3rd movie for some reason, but through all 3, I actually felt the dwarves were different people, and the book does little for this, so in this one aspect alone I think the movies outshine the book.
! - Including the stuff from the appendices was a great Idea IMO, since Gandalf's random disappearances in the original book go unexplained without it. Radaghast's inclusion, despite him not being in the appendices originally was a nice touch too as he added some much needed lightheartedness.
! - It overall looked good. I'll get to the things I didn't like about the look in the cons, but I did like that it LOOKED like a real world, I felt that Middle Earth and the places in in it were real, and this one didn't come as a surprise since they already accomplished this in the original LoTR, but it was still nice to see more locations that WEREN'T in LoTR like Mirkwood, and Beorn's house, and Laketown, and Dale, and the Lonely Mountain/Erebor, and Dol Guldur.
! Cons:
- The pacing was overall atrocious. I think they got successively better in this regard as the films went on, and 3 was actually really good, but 2 and especially 1 were terrible. I reiterate my original assessment. It would have been better as 2 2.5-3 hour movies or 3 1.5 hour ones. Each movie could have lost 45 mins to an hour of padding easily and been better for it. I wonder if a Fan Editor could maybe edit the existing footage from the Extended Editions into something like this. If it happens, I'd be glad to see it.
! - The CG. I honestly wish they'd gone the route of the originals where it was PRIMARILY makeup and real sets and they only enhanced that with CG. Don't tell me the CG is cheaper either, Hobbit cost WAY more than LOTR by a WIDE Margin. A lot of stuff looked good and I liked it, but a lot of other stuff was just... video gamey... like most of the Barrel chase scene in Hobbit 2, Dain and Legolas' block jumping in 3... The DESIGNS were really good as I mentioned above, but the implementation wasn't always up to snuff.
So yeah, I liked it, but It wasn't the best thing ever. Overall, I'd give it a 7/10
Also, I tried not to let this stuff pepper my perception of the films themselves, I treated the films less as an adaptation of the Hobbit, and more as a prequel to Jackson's LOTR films, but for anyone who was wondering what got changed from the book, here's the stuff from 3 I caught immediately:
(Note, This is under a spoiler tag because there be actual spoilers here)
! - Bard taking down Smaug was greatly expanded and enhanced. He actually now breaks his bow and has to make a makeshift crossbow using its string, the tower he's standing on, and his son's shoulder. Overall, it came off REALLY epic
! - The Master of Laketown, as seen in the 2nd movie, is greedy and corrupt. In the book, he acted like a cool guy the entire time and never acted like a corrupt jerk until LATER. It's said he stole a lot of the money that was meant to repair Laketown/Dale and took off with it. Jackson just made his greed OBVIOUS from the get go, and that leads to him dying when he didn't die in the book. His insistence that he pack his escape boat full of gold means they move VERY SLOWLY out of town, and when Smaug dies he falls RIGHT on their boat lol.
! - Thorin's decent into greed is much more heavily implied to be some kind of curse on the gold. It's never outright stated, and the "Dragon Sickness" they keep talking about could easily be a euphemism for people becoming greedy upon coming into a lot of treasure, but it felt like they were hyping up the "This treasure MIGHT be cursed" angle. Tho, I suppose the fact that Bilbo ends up with a chunk of it dispels that.
! - Thranduil doesn't want just a cut of the treasure anymore, but wants a specific set of Jewels that exist in the treasure, the one he tried to make a deal for in Hobbit 2. His role is greatly expanded here and he does a lot more than he did in the book, including trying to cut and run in the middle of the battle when he realizes his people are dying.
! - Thorin, Kili, and Fili's deaths were greatly changed. Instead of charging into battle with the rest of their kin and Kili and Fili dying to protect their brother, the three of them decide to go after the enemy leader (Azog) under the idea that if they cut off the head, the snake will die. So, the whole "Heroic Death" tone was intact due to that. Kili now dies defending Mary Sue Elf lady, and Fili is made an example of by Azog and killed. Thorin and Azog double-kill each other now.
! - Bilbo doesn't get KOed in the middle of the battle and therefore does not sit it out entirely due to being invisible. After Thorin makes his march on Azog (See above) Gandalf realizes Thorin is walking into a trap, so Bilbo volunteers to go warn him, but Gandalf says "You'd be seen in an instant" and Bilbo goes "No I won't" (wink wink)
Bilbo runs up there invisible and becomes un-invisible in time to warn Thorin, but then gets KOed while visible and sits out just the short fight with Azog. He wakes up in time to hold Thorin as he does so Thorin can says his farewell line from the book, and then he sees "Eagle Ex Machina" show up and apparently save the day.
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