I pretty much had the exact same experience as Dobber. So I won't expand on that part.....I guess I was doomed to feel like this though because LoTR came at a different stage in my life and of movies in general. Nothing even close to it had been done before and (not knowing the story going in 10+ years ago) I was literally swept off my feet. That wasn't possible in this one. It also wasn't possible to feel as connected to the characters as I did in the first Rings because a) you know Bilbo and Gandalf live....and b) there are just so many dwarves. I did find Thorin pretty cool and was glad they focused on a few dwarves more than others.

I know dwelling on this stuff is pointless.....just getting it out there.

All in all i enjoyed the movie and thought the scene with Gollum was fantastic....although a littler hard to hear his riddles at some points. But really...if they're expanding this to three movies to show more of what went on with Gandalf leading up to the original series, it would be a cry and shame if they did not do the same with Gollum.

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12 team H2H Keeper
G,A,PP,PIM,SOG
W,GAA,SV%,SO
C:Giroux,Zberg,Marleau,Kadri
LW:Ovi,Neal,Pach,Benn
RW:Perry,MSL,Wheeler
D:Yandle,Subban,Edler,OEL
G: Lundqvist,Miller,MAF

12 Team H2H
R,2b,3b,HR,RBI,AVG,SB,BB,K,E
W,L,SV,HLD,K,ERA,WHIP
C:Buck
1B:Santana
2B:Kipnis
3B:Zimmer
SS:Tulo
LF:Marte
CF:McCutch
RF:Pence
Util:Ozuna
SP:Cain,Moore,Latos,Kennedy,Ryu,Guthrie
RP:Henderson,Rivera,League,Gregerson,Herrera
DL:Hart,Anderson,Bailey

I did enjoy the rivalry between Thorin and Azog though. Im sure they realized that a big problem with the Rings movies for non book readers was that Aragorn did not have a rival in the end (hence the whole dilemma as to whether to have Sauron come back).

Two things....wish Azog wasn't CGI......wish Azog wasn't Voldemort on roids...

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12 team H2H Keeper
G,A,PP,PIM,SOG
W,GAA,SV%,SO
C:Giroux,Zberg,Marleau,Kadri
LW:Ovi,Neal,Pach,Benn
RW:Perry,MSL,Wheeler
D:Yandle,Subban,Edler,OEL
G: Lundqvist,Miller,MAF

12 Team H2H
R,2b,3b,HR,RBI,AVG,SB,BB,K,E
W,L,SV,HLD,K,ERA,WHIP
C:Buck
1B:Santana
2B:Kipnis
3B:Zimmer
SS:Tulo
LF:Marte
CF:McCutch
RF:Pence
Util:Ozuna
SP:Cain,Moore,Latos,Kennedy,Ryu,Guthrie
RP:Henderson,Rivera,League,Gregerson,Herrera
DL:Hart,Anderson,Bailey

Couple things here. I think we are looking at the perspective wrong. The Lord of the Rings could have easily been more than three movies, I think he was forced to fit into 3. With this series, he had the ability to make a great set of films without cutting anything out.

Everyone is prejudging am trilogy they havent seen. Again, the Pale Orc, the Necromancer were not in the book. The history of Thorin was not in the book. These are things taken from the Appendices because they are important to the story and the depth of the series.

Great point about tone. This is something that was clear to me after I watched the movie and I think jackson nailed this. My first reaction was that "why wasn't this one as serious as the LOTR series?" It makes sense, this was made more light-heartedly, it is very clear after you've watch it. and when comparing to to the Lord of the Rings, his tones clearly reflect what you indicated hey_robbie.

After reading that I most definitely move my 8 of 10, to a 10 of 10. I left the theater loving the movie and not really understanding why the tone was different. Now that I know it was delibrate, beautiful.

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10 Keepers (Finished 2nd, lose 1 keeper)
C: Malkin | Nugent-Hopkins
LW:Nash | Ryan
RW:Gaborik | Kessel | Voracek
D: Green
G: Miller
IR:
10 Team, 10 Keeper
Head to Head: G,A,P,PPP,SHP,BS,FW,GAA,SV%,SO
Daily changes: 3C, 3LW, 3RW, 4D, 1Util, 2G

Don't mistake opinion for fact.

CGI is a movie fight noone will ever win... its unavoidable these days. I loved the character, he was tough as nails.

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10 Keepers (Finished 2nd, lose 1 keeper)
C: Malkin | Nugent-Hopkins
LW:Nash | Ryan
RW:Gaborik | Kessel | Voracek
D: Green
G: Miller
IR:
10 Team, 10 Keeper
Head to Head: G,A,P,PPP,SHP,BS,FW,GAA,SV%,SO
Daily changes: 3C, 3LW, 3RW, 4D, 1Util, 2G

Don't mistake opinion for fact.

Wow you opened my eyes some by taking exactly my point and making it an argument against my original perspective. First, you're right that I (and others) should probably back off decrying things we haven't seen yet. Second, I'm now looking forward to seeing the movie again (although admittedly not completely devoid of trepidation). Third, as a kid one of my favorite parts of The Lord of the Rings was the appendices in my edition of the last book. Given that, maybe I should be excited that the story will play out over three films, because that likely means more of this type of background material will make it into the story.

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H2H 10 GMs Keeper: keep up to 4 at cost of draft pick (round in red) G, A,+/-,PIM,SOG,PPP; Wins,GAA,Sv% Start 2C 2R 2L 1 Util 4D 2G, weekly starts
C: Tomáš Plecanec (10), Jonathan Huberdeau (11)
LW: Patrik Eliáš (14), Pascal Dupuis (10) Иlлья Kovalchuk (1), Brandon Saad (10)
RW: Jarome Iginla (3), Phil Kessel (2) Jakub Voráček (9)
Util:
D:Ryan Suter (7), Mike Green (4), Brent Burns (10), Mark Streit, Justin Schultz (12)
G:Craig Anderson (6), Дeвaн Dubnyk (17) Cepгeй Bobrovsky (9), Niklas Bäckström (8)

Glad to help

I totally understand where everyone is coming from. I personally was suprised it was going to be three movies. I am actually greatful there are three because I get to enjoy even more of Tolkien's world.

I DVR'd Hobbit Week on the Colbert Report and watched them last night. Very interesting information. So the Hobbit was originally a children's book and that is why is was so light hearted and simple. Tolkien rewrote the Riddle's in the Dark chapter after he wrote LOTRs. He made it slightly darker to foreshadow the future.

According to Colbert, in the Appendices he started rewriting the Hobbit in the same tone as the LOTR books to give a more mature telling of the Hobbit's tale. I can only assume (since I am still only reading Fellowship, TWO CHAPTERS LEFT!), most of the extra material in the new movie comes from this part of the book.

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10 Keepers (Finished 2nd, lose 1 keeper)
C: Malkin | Nugent-Hopkins
LW:Nash | Ryan
RW:Gaborik | Kessel | Voracek
D: Green
G: Miller
IR:
10 Team, 10 Keeper
Head to Head: G,A,P,PPP,SHP,BS,FW,GAA,SV%,SO
Daily changes: 3C, 3LW, 3RW, 4D, 1Util, 2G

Don't mistake opinion for fact.

Just saw it last night, was pretty solid.

Pros:
-Great pacing, considering
-Nice balance of fun and action
-Great acting
-Great sound
-Nice work bringing material in from outside of the Hobbit, and weaving it into the film

Cons:
-Action scenes were rather poorly done for the most part(especially the one in the mountain with the goblins). Also the one where the brown wizard is supposed to be leading the goblins away, but is instead keeping them dangerously close to the group. Made for an anti-climactic, wtf is going on minute or two, and was just poor scene planning/writing.
-Too many useless "Look how awesome our CGI is" scenes, like the stone golem battle. Such a useless scene.
-The final bit with the pale orc and Thorin and whatnot could have been done so much better. Considering pretty much every battle that wasn't a flashback was boring and anticlimactic, they really needed a good one to prop the movie up on at the end, and that wasn't it. Thorin comes out with an oak branch for a shield and that sword...cool. Pale orc comes at him with a mace, on a warg, and beats the shit out of him instead of engaging in singles combat. I mean, sure, I don't doubt for a moment that the orc would do that, but through a film where there are so many coincidences and somewhat out of character moments, could they not have decided to pull the "orc wants to earn his pride back, and demolish Thorin's in part two of their battle", instead of annihilating all the tension that had built up around them throughout the film? They could still have Thorin bested, and Bilbo come in for the save like he did. Would have made for a more intriguing and satisfactory fight. Instead, it just made the film limp to a conclusion.

All in all, I'd give it a 7.5 out of 10. I figure, if you're going to turn The Hobbit into an actiony film, you'd best do the action right, which...it didn't. *shrug*

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ZFHL
------------
Ovechkin-Couture-Kovalchuk
Benn-Ott-Eriksson
Halischuk-Berglund-S.Thornton
Bowman-Legwand-Mitchell
Faulk-Orlov
Martin-Y.Weber
Wilson-Smid
Niemi

Butler,Horak,Nodl,Omark,Bartulis, Carson,Demers,Staios,Garon,Schneider

PROSPECTS
Nyquist,Bennett,Guptill,Haula,Knight, Kristo,Ranford,Rieder,Sundher,Barberio
Dumoulin,Deslauriers,Janosik,Klefbom
Ness,Sproul,Vatanen,Poulin

Hope you are enjoying the rest of the trilogy. Here's an interesting article which explains why, now that I've finally seen the movie, I think your take on it fit very well and there is some good reasoning behind this "simple tale" being fleshed out into multiple movies.

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-c...tory=fullstory

I also agree with Lockedge that the 3D and CGI flaunting was a bit gratuitous, but that the work of weaving in the many threads from past and future was deftly handled.

__________________
H2H 10 GMs Keeper: keep up to 4 at cost of draft pick (round in red) G, A,+/-,PIM,SOG,PPP; Wins,GAA,Sv% Start 2C 2R 2L 1 Util 4D 2G, weekly starts
C: Tomáš Plecanec (10), Jonathan Huberdeau (11)
LW: Patrik Eliáš (14), Pascal Dupuis (10) Иlлья Kovalchuk (1), Brandon Saad (10)
RW: Jarome Iginla (3), Phil Kessel (2) Jakub Voráček (9)
Util:
D:Ryan Suter (7), Mike Green (4), Brent Burns (10), Mark Streit, Justin Schultz (12)
G:Craig Anderson (6), Дeвaн Dubnyk (17) Cepгeй Bobrovsky (9), Niklas Bäckström (8)

Thanks man! Very good and interesting read. I am 1/4 way through the Two Towers. I am loving every second. The movies were awesome, but the depth and detail of the book is unmatched. Of course things will be different, because movies general have to create a different feeling of adventure and drama than a book provides.

I am pumped for more of the Hobbits tales.

__________________
10 Keepers (Finished 2nd, lose 1 keeper)
C: Malkin | Nugent-Hopkins
LW:Nash | Ryan
RW:Gaborik | Kessel | Voracek
D: Green
G: Miller
IR:
10 Team, 10 Keeper
Head to Head: G,A,P,PPP,SHP,BS,FW,GAA,SV%,SO
Daily changes: 3C, 3LW, 3RW, 4D, 1Util, 2G

Don't mistake opinion for fact.

Finally saw the movie - overall I thought it was mediocre.

It's moving along way too slowly and it's missing the epic battles that defined the first 3 LOTR movies. Way too much boring dialogue, not enough action. Doesn't hold a candle to its 3 predecessors.

Definitely should have been one movie.