When Thranduil chose not to come to the aid of Erebor after Smaug attacked, was he regretful of what he had to do? Or was he secretly rather smugly pleased that the dwarves had been brought down a peg or three? Or did he know that he simply couldn't defeat Smaug, and was not prepared to throw away the lives of his own for the treasure of others? Did he even intend to fight? Or perhaps he had his other reasons?
According to Word of God, it is due to the intense racism between dwarves and elves after dwarves murdered King Thingol in The Silmarillion and Thranduil more than likely saw it as Laser-Guided Karma. Doesn't help that Thror refused to return his wife's necklace.
Some have theorized that Legolas' feelings for Tauriel are merely platonic, and his fierce protectiveness is just his ride or die attitude towards his friends. Thranduil fretting over them is just him being a dad and assuming the worst because Tauriel is a woman spending time with his son. And Legolas’ jealous moments are more of a My Sister Is Off-Limits thing.
Arc Fatigue: One of the biggest complaints about these movies is that they're a trilogy instead of a duology as Jackson originally intended, as a collaboration with Guillermo del Toro (or even just a single film like the cartoon), and that eight whole hours are dedicated to adapting Tolkien's shortest story. The big issues are the claims that several scenes go on for too long, that several subplots could be cut without causing the film itself to suffer from a narrative standpoint, and that Peter Jackson needed a better editor for the films. Unfortunately, this can be traced back to the films' troubled production, as evidenced in the trivia section. However, many fans have also embraced the trilogy format, enjoying the expansions to the original tale and feeling it allows the rather fast-paced story in the book to breathe a lot more.
Blunt the knives, bend the forks, smash the bottles and burn the corks...
Bones will be shattered, necks will be wrung! You'll be beaten and battered, from racks you'll be hung! You will die down here and never be found! Down in the deep of Goblin-Town!
"Over Hill", it gets even better when it reaches 2:15.
"I See Fire". The second movie's ending theme by Ed Sheeran about going down in flames.
"A Spell of Concealment As the song progresses, it becomes more dark and sinister until it hammers straight into a remixed version of Mordor's Theme when Sauron is finally revealed.
Say what you will about the love story, but theirlove theme is nothing short of beautiful.
Apart from being an absolutely breathtaking score, a lot of thought went behind the composition of "Feast of Starlight" in wholly illustrating the fragile and doomed nature of Kili and Tauriel's connection. The concept of duality is a recurring motif first portrayed by the duet of flute and oboe representing two voices conversing. Lyrically followed by the chorus in two different languages Elvish Sindarin (italic) Dwarvish Khuzdul (bold):
Hae ephadron / theri thaur îmri zaizi am na dhû / ias fir i ambar A trehil i ‘alad ‘lân uir tri ‘wilith Kûr yamsi / tân yamarsi biyê Ankakizi ni adâlimê / Ak tathyariya
Translation: I go walking / Beyond the forest Take me with you Up into the night / Where the world falls away And the white light of forever fills the air Where do you go / When you leave me? I see you, in my dreams / But you are far away
Azog. Depending on who you ask, he's either admired as a badass villain, or despised for being Spared by the Adaptation and becoming a generic "tough guy", exchanging the book lore's memorable murder-vendetta backstory with the dwarves for just more generic battle scenes fought over territory Age of Empires or Total War style.
Tauriel, though not as severe. Rarely does anyone consider her The Scrappy, but viewers are divided on whether she's an interesting addition to the story with a heartwarming relationship with Kili, or if she's just a Satellite Love Interest without much personality. Some warmed up to her after BOTFA.
Better on DVD: Just like The Lord of the Rings and even Harry Potter, the films make more sense and flow better when viewed in marathon form. Especially with the extended cuts, which have been acclaimed by both fans and critics and are considered a great improvement over the theatrical cuts.
Broken Base: The trilogy is considered to be the Star Wars prequels of the 2010s. Much like those films, there is a split fanbase:
There's the whole adaptation approach as prequels to the LOTR movies. See Pandering to the Base below. And that they made three movies, not just two. Some people say the stuff added for the Adaptation Expansion enhances the experience, but others say it feels like bad fan fiction.
The expanded roles of the elves. Some felt it was Pandering to the Base and didn't like how Legolas and Tauriel stole scenes from Bilbo and especially the love triangle. Others love it because of their show stealing scenes, and feel Legolas is getting much needed depth he did not have in the main trilogy.
Opinions vary on whether Tauriel and Kili were Strangled by the Red String and thrown in just for the sake of adding drama, while others find their chemistry and the similarities they bonded over heartwarming and believable. A third group has people who like them, or at the very least don't mind, but dislikes the implication of a Love Triangle with Legolas which many think their relationship could have been done without. After the third film's release, more people are leaning towards the third option stating that while they don't mind the two together, they greatly dislike the idea of a love triangle. Bonus points that the cast and crew seem to agree with the third party that they just wanted to tell a simple love story with Kili and Tauriel and the triangle was a result of Executive Meddling. Hell, when Tauriel's character was first announced in 2012, Peter Jackson made it a point to assure both the public and Tauriel's actress, Evangeline Lilly, that there absolutely wouldn't be a romance between Tauriel and Legolas. They knew it would be so poorly received that they reassured everyone it wasn't going to happen... and then the studio overruled Jackson and mandated that such a subplot was to be included, to the displeasure of all.
The expansion of Azog's arc. Some argue he's irrelevant and should stay dead as in the books. Others see him as an antagonist that Thorin needed (with Smaug focusing more on Bilbo and Bard) and that their Mutual Kill adds more drama to the story than Dain killing Azog. Azog's vendetta also gives a better reason to have him preparing his armies at least since the moment he caught wind of the quest for Erebor, rather than them arriving completely by surprise in what looked like a Diabolus ex Machina in the book (even if the long wars between the dwarves and the orcs were mentioned in LOTR's appendices).
Can't Un-Hear It: Martin Freeman as Bilbo Baggins, Benedict Cumberbatch as Smaug and Stephen Fry as the Master of Laketown to name a few. Among the Dwarves, some of the actors' regional accents stand out, like Ken Stott and Graham McTavish's Scottish accents as Balin and Dwalin and James Nesbitt's Northern Irish accent as Bofur.
Contested Sequel: The consensus is that these movies are not as good as the Lord of the Rings trilogy that preceded them (which was admittedly a Tough Act to Follow). Now, whether or not they're good movies in their own right is the real point of contention among fans.
Fíli/Sigrid (Bard's elder daughter) has gained a small fanbase on Archive of Our Own, despite Sigrid having all of five lines, none of which were directed at the former.
Thranduil/Tauriel are also gaining a small fanbase, mostly based on their finalinteraction.
Another example is Gandalf/Galadriel. Galadriel has been married to Celeborn for thousands of years (since before the fall of Doriath which happened in the First Age) and Tolkien's Elves canonically pair and marry for life, adultery is absolutely unthinkable to them. Gandalf is a Maia, an angelic being who has existed since the creation of the universe and is merely clothed in the body of an elderly man, yet a subset of fans are still convinced that they're secretly in love with each other purely because of the chemistry they share in The Hobbit trilogy, which seems to be more a result of the real life friendship between actors Ian McKellen and Cate Blanchett than anything else. (Actually the romantic tension between them is thanks to Guillermo del Toro who, before he quit, intended to make Galadriel and Gandalf fall in love).
Bilbo/Thorin, which would normally be par for the course, except for the large subset that Gender Flips Bilbo first.
Radagast, a moss-encrusted Cloud Cuckoolander with bird poop in his hair who manages to fend a curse from his doorstep, ventures alone into a haunted castle and bring out a valuable piece of evidence after fighting the Witch-King's spectre, and outruns an orc raiding party on a sled pulled by rabbits.
Critical Dissonance: The first film received mixed to positive reviews, even without considering the debate over the High Frame Rate version (it helps that it's often considered to be overlong and was a Tough Act to Follow to a really acclaimed trilogy). Nonetheless, by the end of only its third weekend in release, it earned over half a billion dollars globally (and finished its BO run with over a billion, the second Tolkien adaptation to do so). While barely registering as "Fresh" at 65% on Rotten Tomatoes among critics, audiences give it a much higher 83% Fresh.
Dancing Bear: Peter Jackson heavily promoted filming in the High Frame Rate format (48 fps), but many viewers found that it made the movie look cheaper instead of more realistic and immersive — the high frame rate makes film look like TV and special effects like a video game. Eventually, James Cameron would choose to use HFR only in the action sequences of his Avatar sequels.
Designated Hero: Slightly with the dwarves in the Company of Thorin. Whereas the novel presented them rather clearly as Anti-Heroes, the film trilogy plays them up to make their quest seem more heroic than their intentions (and some of the actions they commit to reach it) would suggest. Whilst Gandalf started the quest to prevent Sauron using Smaug to terrible effect, the dwarves' motives for agreeing to and pursuing it were more about their own people's feelings of rights and entitlement, consequences for other people be damned.
Some people also go pretty far into justifying Thranduil's jerkassery, courtesy of Lee Pace's performance and a few other things (such as riding a goddamn giant deer to battle).
Radagast, mostly thanks to his Crazy Is Cool badassery, dealing with the giant spiders, the Nazgûl and the orcs with ease. (And among older fans, for being the Seventh Doctor in addition to the above.)
Bofur as well, in part because of his greater character development, and his Heartwarming Moment with Bilbo. It may also have something to do with him being played by the always charming James Nesbitt. He also has some of the best facial hair in the film, which is saying something in a film full of bearded men. And he's the one wearing a cool hat.
Gollum when he appears in An Unexpected Journey, being creepy and hilarious.
Bard's children are generally well-liked as well for being adorable, helping expand Bard's character and mostly because they surprisingly avert being The Load.
DáinIronfoot from the third film for saving The Company's (and pretty much everyone else's) asses in the nick of time, his Crazy Is Cool tendencies (such as riding a boar to battle and headbutting everyone to death), and his magnificent Screw You, Elves! speech. His great theme song doesn't hurt either.
Thranduil's wife never even appears on screen but the amount of fanart and gifsets she has received is amazing. Bonus points for her being Small Role, Big Impact.
Despite the controversy of being Spared by the Adaptation, many people definitely enjoyed Azog's badass portrayal in these movies. It certainly helps that he's played by Manu Bennett.
Bolg, Azog's son and second-in-command. He's just as much of a badass as his father. In The Desolation of Smaug he fights Legolas to a draw, and in The Battle of Five Armies he kills Kili, knocks Tauriel out of the fight, and nearly kills Legolas more than once.
Fandom-Enraging Misconception: Whenever someone mispronounces Smaug's name, usually gets this reaction. The correct way is "sm-ow-g," not "smawg".
Fanon: Many people wonder if Film-Thranduil is at least partially blind thanks to the massive burn scars that suddenly appeared on his face while he was ranting to Thorin, particularly the milky white of his eye. There are many subtle hints to support it due to Lee Pace's acting choices—he doesn't look anyone in the eye, rarely blinks if at all, and other partly-sighted people have noted that he constantly forces his eyes wide open, like he's straining to look at everything. Coupled with Film-Legolas' tendencies to state the obvious in LOTR, it would make sense if he's used to doing that because his father no longer has full range of vision.
Franchise Original Sin: The theatrical releases were heavily criticized for their inconsistent pacing, but many fans are quick to point out the original trilogy's theatrical releases had the same pacing problems that also weren't fixed until the extended editions.
Ian Holm was coaxed out of retirement by Peter Jackson for his cameos as the elderly Bilbo in the Hobbit films. Holm had retired from acting in 2007 due to Parkinson's disease, and sadly, at the time the Hobbit films were made, he had already deteriorated physically and mentally to the point where he had difficulty walking and remembering his lines. To accommodate his failing health, Holm's scenes were filmed at a studio in England, thus sparing him the stress of having to travel to New Zealand.
The entire trilogy could be this when you remember how difficult it was to make The Lord of the Rings a trilogy and then read about Warner Bros. Executive Meddling for this trilogy.
Reading about how thanks to Warner Bros. meddling the production went off the rails becomes even harder to stomach thanks to Justice League (2017) which had an even worse production under the same company.
Fans, including Lindsay Ellis, accusing Peter Jackson and his team of not caring about the film or the source material is harsh when you realize (and John Callen, the actor for Oin, confirmed the following in an interview with Lindsay) that it was the other way around: Jackson did care, but Warner Bros. told him to his face to cut out entire character arcs and sideline everyone to focus on Gandalf, Bilbo, Thorin and more action sequences because they didn’t, despite Jackson’s protests.
The trilogy originally being planned as just a duology mirrors the making of the earlier Rings trilogy.
During Tolkien's lifetime he started a rewrite of the book consistent with the tone of The Lord of the Rings, much like the intent behind the Hobbit movies. However, a friend advised him to stop since it wasn'tThe Hobbit anymore, much like some Hobbit movie reactions.
Tauriel in general, considering how infamous the LOTR movie trilogy once was for its fanfiction involving Legolas, and just how much Tauriel resembles such characters, at least on a superficial level. (Though if not for studio interference, that could have been averted.)
The following Lord of the Rings quote is eerily prophetic about how some view the Adaptation Expansion of the relatively short Hobbit.
Bilbo: Why, I feel all thin, sort of stretched, if you know what I mean: like butter that has been scraped over too much bread. That can't be right.
Back when Sylvester McCoy was playing the Seventh Doctor, the episode Battlefield had him find out he would become Merlin. Cue this film trilogy, where McCoy would play a wizard. There's also this golden exchange from a modern episode of Doctor Who:
River Song: I hate good wizards in stories. They all turn out to be [the Doctor].
Right after the last film's release, Richard Armitage took the role of Francis Dolarhyde in Hannibal, an insane serial killer who believes he's possessed by a dragon.
Thorin and Bilbo. Shows up most obviously when Thorin saves Bilbo from falling during the Stone Giant storm while waxing continuously about howhe's useless, and Bilbo protecting Thorin from Azog, alone, despite having next to no idea how to use a sword, culminating in an epic Man Hug, and one of the only smiles from Thorin.
Not at all discouraged by Armitage jokingly calling the dwarves' recital of Misty Mountains their way of "seducing" Bilbo to come questing with them, and Freeman humorously giving his reason for joining the Company as Bilbo maybe falling in love with Thorin.
The actors seem well aware of it. In the blu-ray extras there's a point in script reading where Peter Jackson reads: "Thorin leads Bilbo to the canopy", and Richard Armitage cracks: "is this post-coital or pre?"
Improved by the Re-Cut: Like the Lord of the Rings trilogy, the Hobbit films also have extended cuts that are generally consisted improvements, with characters added and plot points explained. The extended edition of The Hobbit: Battle of the Five Armies even has an R rating for adding in more violence and action.
Just look at Thorin when Balin tells the younger dwarves about the death of Thrór.
Meta example with the cast and crew, who had to deal with Executive Meddling and a Troubled Production, and despite all of that, they got the films done eventually.
Jerkass Woobie: Gollum literally lives for that Ring. Seeing it being stolen from him is heartbreaking.
Just Here for Godzilla: General critical consensus for The Desolation of Smaug is that the film greatly improves on An Unexpected Journey and that it's quite a good film on its own merits. However, many fans admitted to seeing the movie just for Smaug himself. Still others for Benedict Cumberbatch as Smaug, despite the fact that he's visually unrecognizable, being a dragon and all.
Love to Hate: Smaug. He's very enjoyable when he's onscreen, commanding attention in every scene with both his charismatic yet violent personality and his Kaiju shows of badassery, and his overinflated ego and tendencies toward hypocrisy and needless cruelty make watching him get proven not-so-unkillable after all all the more satisfying for the audience. And that's not even going into his CGI design and his reverberating baritone!
Mis-blamed: A lot of people, especially on YouTube, think all the changes or problems with the movie were all Jackson's fault. While the decision to shoot it on 48 frames per second and the over-reliance on CGI were Jackson, as noted in the Troubled Production section, most of the problems were the studio's.
Smaug's destruction of Dale decades earlier; he destroyed it not because it had offended or attacked him, or because it had anything he wanted. No, instead he completely destroyed a city of thousands simply because it happened to be between him and where he was going.
For Azog, if it's not him decapitating Thror over a hundred years before the story's main time frame, nor him ordering his army to attack the civilians who fled Laketown, then it's certainly him murdering Fili in front of a helpless Thorin's eyes.
Portmanteau Couple Name: The Ho Yay pairing of Thorin and Bilbo has been immediately dubbed by fangirls "Thilbo" and "Bagginshield" or altogether, "Thilbo Bagginshield".
While there are many who strongly defend the casting of Richard Armitage as Thorin, for others his Adaptational Attractiveness through Age Lift and similarity in looks to Viggo Mortensen as Aragorn are hard to reconcile with the older, more grizzled character who was the Trope Codifier Dwarf in the books. Fancasting suggested Brian Cox as the favorite for the role. It applies to several other actors too, who didn't exactly 'fit the mold' of Dwarves, but Peter Jackson decided to open up the playing field as to what a Dwarf could be.
The casting is further justified by Philippa Boyens, who stated that the amount of stunts and work required for the role would have been impossible for an actor in his 70s and 80s, and that it would be difficult to care about Thorin's quest if he's on the verge of death anyway.
Romantic Plot Tumor: The love triangle between Kili, Tauriel, and Legolas is very much despised (including by Peter Jackson and Evangeline Lilly. Orlando Bloom seems to pretend it doesn't exist.) Like many things, its existence is the result of Executive Meddling, and Lilly in particular hasn't been shy about voicing her displeasure over it. In the commentaries, neither Lilly, Bloom, nor Aidan Turner even mention it.
The Scrappy: On the one hand, Alfrid is a Hate Sink by design, so his unlikable qualities were intentional to an extent. However, he was also clearly supposed to be the trilogy’s Plucky Comic Relief and got so much focus in the latter two films, with countless moments dedicated to his “funny” antics, that many viewers felt he became a Spotlight-Stealing Squad and wasn’t near funny enough to be worth the screen time. Basically the filmmakers clearly thought he was hilarious and wanted to give him as much screen time as they could, while most viewers didn’t find him that funny and were annoyed to see him get as much focus as he did.
Squick: Radagast has two long streaks in his hair, made up of bird droppings.
With the exceptions of Thorin, Kili, Balin, Dwalin, Fili, and Bofur, the rest of the Dwarves in the company are given little to no focus throughout the series and are more or less extras. Doubly disappointing in that unlike in the books, they all have unique personalities while sharing the goal of reclaiming their long-lost home.
The Master of Laketown. Not only does he suffer an unnecessary Death by Adaptation, his role was taken by widely-hated Canon Foreigner Alfrid Lickspittle. Many fans felt that veteran comedy actor Stephen Fry could have pulled off the storyline without becoming The Scrappy, especially because the Master of Laketown in the original book was a minor character who died offscreen, which would have fit better with the role Alfrid has in the final product.
Bolg. In the book, Bolg was the commander of the goblin army in the Battle of Five Armies, is the last antagonist that Thorin and Company had to deal with in the wake of Smaug's death, and was ultimately responsible for the deaths of Thorin, Fili, and Kili. Bolg could easily have been the tertiary antagonist of the film trilogy and taken the exact same role that his father Azog ended up playing. Very little changes would have needed to be made to the script, except making his vendetta against the line of Durin a matter of revenge for his father's death at the Battle of Moria. Instead, Azog is Spared by the Adaptation and gets used as said tertiary antagonist, and while Bolg does still lead an orc army from Mount Gundabad, he ultimately becomes reduced to a henchman for Legolas to fight.
Bard and Thranduil's wives, especially given the filmmakers' desire to add more female characters. They had the perfect opportunity to develop two blank slates who exist within canon and have real reasons to be involved in the story, and instead simply added them to Middle Earth's long list of dead/absent mothers.
Ugly Cute: Radagast applies; he's filthy and crazy, but cute at the same time.
What Do You Mean, It's for Kids?: The original book was a kid-friendly story. Even the films, early on, seem to be aimed at a younger audience. However, it isn't long before we start seeing all manner of Family-Unfriendly Violence (not to mention deaths), some VERY extreme Nightmare Fuel, including lots of Body Horror, some innuendos, and even a few swear words. The extended edition of the third film even got the R-rating, which none of the previous Middle-Earth movies had.
Woobie Species: The majority of the Dwarvish race who are displaced, nomadic and downtrodden, yet choose to remain strong and proud.
; it's a fantastic (non-orthodox) Expository Theme Tune! It yearns for a kickass cover done in Rhapsody of Fire 's or Blind Guardian 's style. See a good example here
