Dec 18th 2012, 19:54:41
For the most part it was a good movie. I'm not a big fan of them adding things, as the story flowed well already. Notable changes: Azog being an actual character and part of the story; Radaghast and the rabbit pulling sleigh, seriously? The whole fight at the end of the movies and only being in one tree. The part of them being 15 "birds" in five fir trees plays into the very next part of the book; the eagles actually speak with them in the book; Frodo should not have been in the movie, period; Bilbo was a well-to-do hobbit and really is portrayed as a bit rounder in the book, so to speak; Thorin is portrayed a much more a hero and badass in the movie than he is in the book... you get my points.
I do say that the scenes with Bilbo and Gollum are well done.
As to LotR, yes, it was originally written as one book, but his publishers wanted it split into three. The Simarillion is broken up into a distince parts, with the beginning focusing on the creation of everything, and the main story, the Quenta Silmaril, about the Elves, the creation of the Silmarils, and their pursuit of and war with Morgoth/Melkor to try to recover them. I don't know that they could ever make The Simarillion into a movie, as it spans thousands of years.