Well, LOTR was more of an epic tale than the Hobbit; I haven't seen the second one yet but what I've heard isn't too reassuring. More like PJ took a great story and turned it into a flashy Hollywood epic, but somehow the source material got left behind in some way. As I said, haven't seen it, loved the first one though.
Well, in trying not give away any spoilers, I'll say that "I really liked it, but —".
He took a
lot more liberties with the story than he did on the first Hobbit, and there were a few changes that I thought were completely unnecessary and could have done without. Let's just say I would liked to have seen more of Beorn, less of Tauriel. It's also a bit CGI-heavy in places. I thought the way PJ did his cameo was great, though. So overall I liked it, and I can appreciate the fact that it
is just an interpretation of the book rather than a word-for-word facsimile of it. Personally, I liked how he interwove The Hobbit with the events from things like the Appendices; things that were canonically happening at the time, but weren't mentioned in the book. So, while I think Tolkien purists would find it disagreeable, as a casual movie-goer I rather enjoyed it and look forward to the final installment.
