No.  They lost me at the giant half-hour video game sequence with the molten gold statue.  I understand liberties with source material.  I don't understand "and now we're switching context to a platformer trailer"...
Also, apparently the Arkenstone is way way too big for Bilbo to effectively pocket.  This wasn't made clear in the description, but I went with someone both sighted and familiar with the source material.

Well I'm going to see it with a friend on Monday, albeit with something of a sense of trepidation and doom.

The problem with the "let's forget entirely about the book and think of the film entirely as the creation of Peter Jackson" attitude is that for Tolkien it just doesn't work. Tolkien did not write fantasy, indeed fantasy literature as we would understand it didn't really exist prior to Tolkien. He said himself he wrote history, ---- just history that happened to be of a world of his own devising, told in a language that he himself created. Thus, the problem with changes to any of the Lotr books plot is that your dealing with changes to a full historical narative, and changes which if they aren't undertaken carefuly, can have huge and inconsistant effects on the over all world and story.

I've already discussed in another topic the Faramir problem in the Two towers film, as well as various other issues.

Generally, I loved the firsthobbit film, unexpected journey. no, any film cannot do full justice to a book, but Unexpected Journey stayed remarkably consistant to the source material (apart from Azog), but also captured a lot of the smaller, and more fun details, the commical trolls, the entire riddle game, Iindeed all in all it is possibly my favourite of the Peter Jackson films sinse it spent so much time establishing plot and characters, and while it had it's fare share of action, there was never a sense of style over substance.

Sadly everything went down hill in the second hobbit film, desolation of smaug. An unknown dwarf love triangle which is just wrong, several important elements like mirkwood being sidelined, and generally a cheerless film, indeed I agree with Camlorn that it was more a game trailer, ---- very sad, sinse I'd have much rather had a well acted, riddling conversation between Bilbo and smaug as in the book and as in the style of the first film rather than a protracted action sequence.

oh, and  killing a dragon with melted gold? come on! What are dragons famous for? breathing fire and sitting on large heeps of treasure, so melted gold is obviously going to be very effective at dealing with them! Really, it's like trying to freeze a snowman!

I was also amazed at this ending given that the hobbit already has a very natural place the second film could've stopped, namely when smaug, furious at the dwarves attacks their camp smashing the secret side door of the mountain and forcing them to climb for their lives. This would've made a great action sequence, and also ending with the destroyed and crumbled side of the mountain and the victorious smaug flying off to lake town would've been a great cliff hanger and made far more sense than trying to kill a dragon with melted gold! (sorry, but the shear ridiculousness of that one just goes beyond me!).

After the Two towers, I was severely annoyed, but after desolation I just sit back and think, ----- whaaaaa? Methinks Mr. Jackson has been a little heavy on the pipe weed if he thought that was a good idea, and the less said about the love triangle the better.

So yes, I'll go and see the film, but I can't say I'm expecting much, indeed let me think, first film really good and faithful to the book with many nods to Tolkien's style and intent, second film a bloated mess of action with plots entirely off the rails, ---- perhaps Jackson will recoop some ground in the third film, hmmmm, where have I heard that one before?

Tolkien would probably remind Mr. Jackson, those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it :d.

Hmm, I'd never thought of the second movie as a video game, but that's rather apt, right down to the special arrows.  I have not seen the extended version of the second movie, but the extended version of the first movie did do a few things to improve it so perhaps the Desolation of Tolkien might be improved.

WE will be going to see it as my children are utterly hooked on the franchise, and after all, what's Christmas without a multi-hundred-million-dollar action extravaganza with over loud sound, incautious plotting and eagles.

Well I went to see Battle of the five armies on monday (don't worry I won't be writing any spoilers in this post). To be honest my overwhelming feeling was meh! There was nothing that made me want to punch Jackson for screwing over Tolkien, ---- though Token elf girl's line "I don't want this love!" to which her father responded "but it is real!" did make me laugh for the self referencial nature of it and how much that plot was disliked. Rather like Sam's awsome "mr. frodo, we shouldn't even be here!" at Osgiliath.

The problem however is to be honest the over whelming feeling I got was meh. It felt like the film had been constructed out of a by the numbers formula, heck even the actors (accept for Bilbo and Daine), didn't really feel as if they were caring about the horribly over! emphasized! dialogue!

It had the extended battle sequence, (the very very extended battle sequence), indeed a lot of plots just seemed to get quite brief solutions (for how major Sauron is I was amazed how quickly he was dealt with). There was also a definite amount of people turning up just at the right time which almost got a little ludicrous.

It had the dramatic speeches, it had the slow fade out to swimmy music, it had a couple of little jokes. The problem however is that other than the ending, I just didn't feel emotionally engaged with any of the film, it actually felt the most formulaic of the series. There was just something lacking, in the acting, in the story, in the direction, heck even in the music it felt like "just another lotr film" not the event it was supposed to be.

The one thing that I did really! like was Bilbo's return to the shire at the end, which definitely needs to be seen. In general though I can say I'm not exactly disappointed, my overwhelming feelings are pretty flat. Usually after coming out of the lotr films I feel a bit more than I did coming out of The Hobbit, which I don't like, not with the impact the series has made in the past (good and bad). In that respect it actually reminded me of the finale of the 8th series of new who, --- -very meh.

I'll discuss specific plot and individual scenes later when other people have seen it.

Well let me know what you think. I didn't mind it being like Lotr specifically, but I didn't like the fact that all the fun and the characterization was dropped after the first film, the second two just felt joyless, indeed quite dour with the way that charcter like Beorn were so sidelined and there was none of the amusing dialogue or little bits of humour that the first Hobit film had. Same goes for Battle of the five armies, although being a battle I suppose there wasn't too much humour to be had though as I said the hole thing felt pretty flat to me.

I don't agree Briant about Thorin I'm afraid. In the book Thorin's death is exclusively a moment of character, his nobility shows in how he forgives Bilbo (his "if more of us valued food and cheer and song" is actually something I've quoted myself).

It's just typical hollywood thinking that he has to have some over the top dragged out fight with big boss orc and his death was amazingly quick, indeed sinse his entire acting and dialogue was ridiculously over dramatic throughout the entire film I just couldn't take his death seriously at all, contrast it with Boromir in the first Lotr film and you'll see what I mean.

Heck, Azog wasn't particularly necessary anyway, (particulary with how he should've been dead 150 years before).

The Hobbit was never a book about big epic action, and while the films obviously had to have some of that, it really killed the characters in the last two for me, one reason I do not agree about the dwarves in Bag end in the first film sinse to me that was just right, having a good amount of commic stuffand really showing just how stay at home and petty Bilbo was before he left with the Dwarves, one thing which made his dramatic charge of the orcs later in the film all the more heartfelt, indeed had this continued I'd have loved to have Bilbo have a good fight with the spiders then conclude with the scene in the woods where he names his sword Sting, and then rescues the dwarves, taunting the spiders all the way, to say the dwarves spend three out of the books 18 chapters in Mirkwood, it didn't half seem quick in the film and what they substituted was not great.

The third film wasn't quite as bad, albeit it still! was mostly just a huge battle and everything else squeezed around the sides, sometimes I think Jackson's real actors are his cg armies and his actual human actors are an afterthought :d.

North Korea? come on, that is totally paranoid and ridiculous! it is a totally unscientific and baseless accusation to attribute random events to an external cause, especially things as natural and random as diseases, that is a totally unrealistic speculation and an unfare slur on the good people of north Korea, ---- especially when said plague is clearly an attempt by a consortium of major businesses to make sure that over the holidays people watch as much tellivisionas possible and thus are subjected to as many adverts as possible to insure that the maximum amount of cash is made on Christmas eeve by last minute shoppers.

North korea! how ridiculous!

Btw, I am going to see the Hobbit with my brother after christmas, which will be good, and give me a second look at the film, we'll see if it improves with a re viewing, though given how meh it was over all I don't believe so.