Doing a rewatch of all of Peter Jackson's Middle Earth movies on Amazon Prime, which of course they made available because they needed to hype up the release of
Rings of Power. Jjokes on them though, a watching these movies makes their excrementof a Tolkien series look even worse in comparison. Even with some missteps on Jackson's part his adaptation of Tolkien's work is still a 100 times better than any shite that Amazon can come up with.
So with that out of the way, here's my thoughts. I'm doing a break from tradition though, and watching all the movies according to the order of Tolkien's books.
The Hobbit first then
The Lord of the Rings.
The Hobbit trilogy (
An Unexpected Journey, The Desolation of Smaug, The Battle of the Five Armies) - So after watching these movies again, I've come to the same conclusion as I did years ago. They are very FLAWED and really don't live up to the LOTR trilogy. That said there are some good things in here that are worthy of praise.
PROS
Casting - Martin Freeman is perfect as Bilbo Baggins. Also good are Richard Armitage as Thorin, Ken Stott as Balin and James Nesbitt as Bofur.
Retuning Cast - Ian Mckellen as Gandalf is always a pleasure to watch, as are Hugo Weaving as Elrond and the late Christopher Lee as Saruman. Cate Blanchett as Galadriel though, is the best performance of the old cast and shows us why the Lady of Lorien is to be feared (see Amazon? This is how you portray Galadriel you fucking hacks)
Smaug - Bar none, the greatest dragon ever put to screen. And he's voiced and mocapped by Benedict Cumberbatch who gives a sinisterly great performance.
The Music - Can't go wrong with Howard Shore, who gives the Dwarves a great theme that plays multiple times throughout the trilogy. And I know some people may hate him, but I really liked Ed Sheeran's I See Fire, which is the end credits song to the second film.
CONS
Visuals - The trilogy has this bright, glowy color palette that's always bothered me. It doesn't have the grounded visual look of LOTR, which really help sell you that Middle Earth was a real place. Maybe because it was shot in digital rather than film, in addition to being made for 3D. The Hobbit trilogy really looks like it was shot entirely on green screen and comes off looking worse as a result.
Too many CGI characters - What the hell Weta? Why'd you go and make the orcs and goblins bunch of cgi npcs? What happened to your awesome makeup and prosthetic work to create the Goblins of Moria and the Uruk Hai of Isengard? They looked awesome in comparison to Azog and Bolg.
The Necromancer subplot - I do not give a shit about finding out who the Necromancer is, because anybody who's read the books will know it's Sauron. It's an unnecessary detour that drags down the films and distracts from the real plot, which is the Dwarves' quest to reclaim Erebor.
Greenwood Elf jerks - Why'd they have to turn the Elves of Mirkwood into a bunch of hateful jerks? They weren't assholes like this in the books so why did Jackson turn up their animosity towards Dwarves up to 11? I just want to punch the screen everytime that jerk King Thranduil pops up onscreen, and a returning Orlando Bloom as Legolas is just as unpleasant to watch. On that note...
Legolas the Super-Elf - Back in LOTR, Legolas' feats of superhuman ability happened on rare occasions and looked AWESOME. Here, it seems in every other scene he's doing some AWESOME thing that it verges on the ridiculous. It's completely over the top and runs counter to the grounded and somewhat believable action of the LOTR trilogy. And Legolas is not the only guilty of this, as the Dwarves do have their moments of ridiculousness, particularly the River chase scene.
Elf/Dwarf loving - Oi vey. Did we really need a romantic subplot between Evangeline Lilly's Tauriel and Aidan Turner's Kili? What purpose does it serve to the plot? At least Aragorn and Arwen's romance had a reason for being there in the LOTR trilogy.
Whew. There's my thoughts on watching
The Hobbit films again. Am halfway through
The Two Towers now and I'll be giving my impression on the LOTR trilogy soon.