Thorin just immediately going “fuck this hobbit dude” was so jarring and cliché. I looked up Azog just now to double check and apparently this fucker died ONE-HUNDRED-AND-FIFTY YEARS before the Battle of Five Armies?! But his son was there and they could have used Bolg?! Also they completely removed Bilbo’s role in defeating the trolls and just had Gandalf save them by breaking a rock?
The Hobbit is the only book I’ve read more than once and yet I won’t even watch the second or third movie and that makes me, honestly, kinda sad. But I still have the book, and that’s a happy thought.
It took watching the extended edition to get an explanation of why the orcs are different. There still are practical effect orcs, but the CGI orcs are not comparable, they don’t feel real the way the OG movies make them feel. The lead Uruk-hai for example felt real, but also huge and badass and threatening. Azog just felt flat and plain to me.
I could be wrong, I've only read the book this once. But in the book, wasn't it Gandalf who tricked the trolls? Bilbo hears a voice several times that sounds like the trolls, and the trolls mistake the voice for their own multiple times, and afterwards it's revealed that it's Gandalf's voice
The Books are all good.
But the movies? From the first LotR to the last Hobbit Movie it was a long way down.
From near perfection (Fellowship of the Ring),
passing quite cool (Return to the King) and uncomfortable (Hobbit 1) to "Please have mercy with my soul and turn this off" (Hobbit 3)
The Hobbit does grow more serious as it goes on, the first third is... an experience to read, i agree. LOTR is much more serious, the elves are much more the wise old beings (still jovial at times, but in a less childish way).