I just saw this movie yesterday. Though a triumph of visuals in many ways, my entire cinematic experience left me scratching my head. Let's take it from the top:
We arrive in the cinema wondering why our tickets cost so much. Oh, right, 3D. (Why?)
The previews are enough to make anyone think we are the strangest species in the universe. A series of post-apocalyptic horror movies (except they are not really horror movies, just excuses for big wars and big explosions. I call that horrific, personally). I get that movies are fantasy land. But if I had the choice, I would choose fantasies that were more wonderful, more beautiful, and more inspiring. (So again, why?)
Then the movie starts. I went with a friend who knows nothing about the books. I on the other hand, am what one might call a moderate fan. (How does one know where one stands in the world of Hobbit fandom? Good question. I have read all the books more than once, am familiar with Tolkien canon, and have watched every Tolkien documentary I could find on YouTube. I still haven't read the Silmarillion. You just cannot be hardcore until you've read the Silmarillion...)
The movie starts off where you'd expect, given how Smaug left the scene at the end of the last movie.
SPOILERS AHEAD
Smaug descends on Laketown and wreaks havoc. It's awful. Bard's heroic save of the city is made much of (as it should be), and Smaug is no longer.
We then move to a rather lengthy talk through of Thorin's dragon sickness. It's pretty sad. Throughout this segment we see the White Council in action and see the pieces of the puzzle come together through rogue-elf Tauriel and smitten Legolas' actions and reactions. Pretty nifty. This is what they mean by "mining the appendices".
The battle heats up as the Five Armies start to convene at the Lonely Mountain.
Ok here's where the trouble starts for me. So far there have been stunning visuals and I love how they demonstrated that the White Council was on the case since the beginning. We also get to see the Lady Galadriel in action. Very impressive.
It just seems like in order to get this all to happen, the filmmakers had to make the characters act unnaturally and wrong (to borrow a phrase from Jane Austen). This started in the last movie when the dwarves were about to abandon their quest so Bilbo could save them (what?) and when Fili and Kili stayed behind in Laketown ("You belong with the company" "I belong with my brother!"... What?!). This is of course leaving out the dwarf-elf romance (which in itself didn't bother me) and the part where Tauriel was able to heal a Morgul wound just-like-that (that did bother me).
But this movie went a step further. For example, Tauriel held the elven king at arrow point and Legolas stepped in to stop her being killed for it. What?! They are soldiers!! They would never disrespect their chain of command like that, and though the Elf King was made out to be rather more disagreeable in this movie than in the book, he is still an Elf lord -- not a bad guy. I felt that these characters were acting unnaturally.
The other important departure from the story to me was that, in the book, Thorin's redemption comes from charging out and rallying elves and dwarves and men to him in a final desperate push against the enemy. He stays on the battlefield and at that point really becomes the Dwarf King he has forever wanted to become. It is a deeply touching moment because he really comes through when not only dwarves needed him, but everyone needed him. He takes charge, he takes the lead, and he dies, and his nephews die defending him. It is a truly touching and tragic moment because that is also effectively the end of their line. But he dies a King. In the movie, Gandalf says "They are rallying to their King". But then they have this king leave the battlefield to have his final showdown with Azog somewhere up in the mountains.... Sigh.
It's dramatically successful and much less touching.
SPOILERS OVER
Though my friend was happy that all the action started when it did, I found myself feeling a little let down that the movie, though respecting the story's chiasmic structure and emotional arc, left out some of the important moral bases of the literary narrative.
The point I think this illustrates is that you want to really consider not only what your message is, that is, what you want to share, but also who you want to share it with. Ninety percent of this game is half mental. And the rest is too.
I want to say I applaud the filmmakers for their work, because I believe The Hobbit to have been a terrifically difficult adaptation to the screen because it is so layered. Also, Tolkien knew there were seams in the plot connecting The Hobbit to LOtR, and once said that in order to make everything work he'd have to go back and write The Hobbit again from scratch. So I am thrilled that such a beautiful set of movies have been made that have tried to do this. Thank you for giving us so many years of Middle Earth, thank you to the actors, the filmmakers and everybody who contributed. These movies have been a joy to watch and I hope that any deviations from the literary narrative simply inspire the new readers to dwell on those sections more curiously and unravel their meanings and teachings. Meanings and teachings which Professor Tolkien certainly imbued them with.
