Umm... that's a no brainer, Gwyneth of course!

I was a kickstarter on these actually and I have to disagree that they lack substance. You'll notice that the further back in time we go, the more human and civilised the underwater people were. The repetition of the ritual that transforms the human that falls into the water is a demonstration of the decline of their power, their civilisation and the widening of the chasm between the races, primarily in terms of technology. As we go through the ages even greater parts of the ritual are lost, to the extent that in the 'end', in our modern day, the underwater people are just scary and savage animals dressed in rags.

Well they should be rewarded for not cutting a million times like most movies...

I love how almost every movie you review has a score of either 6 or 7. 

Ooh! I'd love to join, I've got a whole list of SW games and opinions and stuff.

Just got back. I enjoyed it but was constantly saying to myself "this isn't needed, I'd cut this whole section out of my hypothetical 1 movie supercut". Specifically, the entire sequence with the dwarves inside Erebor where Smaug uselessly chasing them around. There's a whole damn movie coming, so don't expect us to believe that the dwarves are going to prevail in their plan! Especially when you heavily foreshadowing that Bard's remaining black arrow is going to do the killing... Meanwhile your big bad villain is looking weaker with every minute that goes by without a dead dwarf.

Smaug and Bilbo was utterly brilliant (and Smaug in general, truly amazing work done on him), and is the highlight, much the same as the Gollum scenes in the first.

I was baffled by some decisions though, they add so much junk into the story, including a love triangle that seems almost entirely for the benefit of broadening the film's appeal, but skim over the Beorn scenes in just a few minutes. I guess I was disappointed as I always remember that chapter fondly - and the way that Gandalf introduces the dwarves gradually in groups so as not to overwhelm Beorn. It would have been a really nice call back to their introduction to Bilbo as well.

Finally, my main complaints about the Hobbit continue sadly, way too much going on, way too many cartoon stunts, and absolutely no subtlety. Further, the writers don't trust the audience to get anything without somebody saying it (and Bilbo appears to be the main voice here). But goddamn it, I still like them - they're Tolkien.