2/3 of the hobbit films. Didn’t like nearly as much as the first one.

The love triangle between Tauriel, Legolas, and Kili was quite weird and felt very out of place. From what I can tell so far, the closest Tolkien gets to writing a love story is the description of family histories described at the beginning of the Hobbit. The Hobbit is a fantasy adventure, I don’t think the love story fits very well.

I also didn’t like that the events from the book were reinterpreted to a more action oriented style. Both the sequence in the dungeons of the wood elven king and the interaction with Smaug are very stealth focused in the book.

Both make for a good action film, but I don’t think making them stealthier like in the book would have hurt the film in the slightest.

I found it a bit weird when reading the book that the wood elves had no clue about what the dwarves were up to, but for their king to openly accuse Thorin of trying to break into the mountain and claiming the arkenstone also doesn’t feel right. Likewise, the escape by means of hiding in barrels didn’t seem quite believable in the book, but the way its shown in the film even less so.

One major plot point later in the book is that the dwarves of Thorin’s company woke the dragon but didn’t actually partake in defeating him. This changes the meaning of the later events quite a bit in my opinion, specifically Bard’s claims.

I also found the meeting with Beorn to be much more interesting and mysterious when they first met him in humanoid form at Gandalf’s carefully arranged introduction rather than running from the beast form.