Bear in mind they have also drawn on the appendices as well for some of the movie. The whole section on Dol Guldur is not in The Hobbit but is a welcome addition to the plot as it’s all happening alongside the main quest for Erebor and shouldn’t really be ignored.

I think once again the key thing to remember is that this is an adaptation. It’s going to have some differences from the books – some sections omitted – some expanded – just like Lord of the Rings did. No one complains about it now but with Lord of the Rings there was uproar about a lot of the different parts of the book being changed and dialogue being passed around to different characters to fit in with the feel of the film. And now they are held up as sacred and loved. I mean, don’t get me started on Tom Bombadil and the discussion that raged around the Barrow-Wights not being included and the Hobbit’s meeting with him afterwards.

Peter Jackson, while not making the most accurate version of The Hobbit, has taken the book and adapted it to suit a modern film audience. I’m not one who has to be impressed by flashy action scenes and massive sweeping CGI sequences but I was pretty blown away by the work that they did when it comes to things like Goblin Town and the Barrel Chase sequence that was a welcome change of pace in the film which – to be fair from that point onwards is fairly slow until the mountain itself.

The book was a children’s story and so when people complain about the ‘comic’ nature of the Dwarves and how they are portrayed in the film I would have to say ‘yes, and?’. It’s not like they weren’t comical in the books. Bombur falls asleep and has to be carried around – they all have strangely coloured beards too!

The seriousness is pretty much nailed there too. Richard Armitage is a perfect Thorin in my mind and oozes foreboding and anger – the Battle of Azanulbizar is a pretty powerful set piece too and very much in keeping with the feeling of the Last Alliance battle against Sauron in Fellowship (which greatly omits the help of Gil-Galad if you want to talk about missing stuff! But was good anyway!)

While they added a lot to the film I feel it’s all been done in the ‘spirit’ of Tolkien. There’s no reason Legolas shouldn’t be in the movie for example. He is Thranduil’s son and therefore probably would have been around during this time. Same for Tauriel. Admittedly their story is pretty off the beaten track in terms of the book but if you’re going to introduce characters like Legolas and Tauriel into the mix then you can’t have them be a cheap cameo. You need them to stick around and become part of the narrative while not sacrificing the main story – and to my mind they didn’t sacrifice anything.

On the note of Bilbo and his conversation with Smaug I think the way that was handled was pretty good even if it wasn’t as the book dictates. That and the scene with Gollum from Unexpected Journey are two of my favourites and I think the dynamic between Bilbo and Smaug was pretty spot on.

A purist is never going to like the films – that’s pretty much agiven, and even the Tolkien estate isn’t that happy, well some of them at least, with the films and Jackson either – but as a lover of all things Middle-Earth I welcome the fact that the films were even made. They may have made changes in places but it’s to make the film watchable.

Think of it like the battle of Helm’s Deep. The Elves show up? Why…they don’t in the book. Because it showed a strengthening of good against Evil and humanised the Elves. Eomer is the one who rides down with Gandalf and not Erkenbrand Why? Because you can’t continue to shove in dozens of characters on screen because people end up forgetting about them and not caring. This way you built up Eomer as a key character and you felt that sense of ‘f**k yeah!’ when he rode in to save his kinsmen.

Essentially my standpoint is that the films are good films and decent adaptations of the source material made for a modern audience.

BoW Ben