The Hobbit Movies Are Holding Me Prisoner

I have mixed feelings about Peter Jackson's Hobbit movies. On the one hand, it has been dragging on, the inclusion of characters like Tauriel and the Laketown mayor were not necessary, and the heavy use of CGI has been distracting. On the other hand, I like the tie-in of material from the LOTR Appendices (because Tolkien wrote more material that tied the events in The Hobbit timeline to the LOTR timeline), I like Martin Freeman's performance as Bilbo, and SMAUG WAS WORTH THE WAIT CAUSE HE IS AWESOME!

Best use of CGI in the movie

Keep all this in mind while revisiting the teaser trailer for the final installment of the Hobbit trilogy

Again, mixed feelings. On the one hand, I know I'll enjoy the action scenes as well as the conflict between the main cast of characters, and all of the main plot points from the previous two movies will be resolved. On the other hand, I know it's going to go on for too long, it's going to involve unnecessary characters, it's going lose focus on Bilbo, and not to mention Smaug is going to get killed off pretty quick. That's not a spoiler. The last movie lended on that cliffhanger, the events in LOTR would not have happened if the dragon had still been around, and Peter Jackson has to make room for 90 minutes of battle scenes.

"Wasn't this whole thing finished in one chapter in the book?"
"Yeah, so what? Didn't it take you 90 minutes to read that chapter too?"

I just feel like I'm a captive of the Hobbit movies, like they're holding me hostage until I see the whole thing through. It's like when the Harry Potter film series was coming to a close. I didn't particularly enjoy the fifth and sixth movies in theaters, so when it was announced that the last book was broken into two movies and the first part was coming out I was thinking "Oh well, I've dragged through all the films so far, might as well see it til the end".

The good news is, I really enjoyed those last two HP movies, they were very well done. So, there is hope that this Hobbit movie will surprise me and be the best one of the series.

The amount of screen time the mountain goats get is the deciding factor

The big question is: Why do I feel the need to see this movie? Well, I have twice attempted to read the Hobbit book and hardly got past the beginning both times. While there is still hope that I will pick it up and finish it before this final movie comes out, there is no guarantee. So the only way I know the full story synopsis of the Hobbit before this is by the Rankin/Bass cartoon version from the 70s.

In case you don't know what I'm talking about, here's this:

That made-for-TV release was only an hour long and covered the basic essentials of the story. The Peter Jackson movies, though, go very deep in depth into the story and the world. Also, as I mentioned before, it includes part of the Middle Earth history that ties in to the events of LOTR. It will be cool to see that part of the story brought to life, which has not made it into a screen adaptation before.

I want to see this last movie because I want to visually see the whole story played out in its entirety. I like most of these characters, so I'd like to watch their story lines come to a conclusion. Also, this may be the last time I get to see Middle Earth and its inhabitants on the big screen (at least it will probably be a long time before someone else does something with a Tolkien story). So, I guess I'll have to be satisfied with being a captive of the movies until the release of The Battle of Five Armies.