Enough with the "How will you be seeing the Hobbit" thread. This is a proper story discussion thread.

I just saw it (24fps 2D), and I liked it very much. It's too long, but it felt like watching the extended edition. I was relieved that it had a lighter tone than LOTR.

Radagast was great but a bit cartoony. The orc warlord was too similar to the gimpy one in LOTR (and too CG). The opening legends and dwarf dinner sequence were too long. Some of the action sequences were too long and too cartoony but had me wishing I'd been that clever as a D&D dungeon master.

Storywise, the film has two jobs: get Bilbo integrated into the party and get the party over a major obstacle on their way to the Lonely Mountain. The former felt a bit forced because Bilbo never really has a reason to want it. And the latter was done with the orc warlord instead of something more organic.

For example, show that Gandalf's needling really gets to Bilbo and makes him want to prove his mettle. Have the dwarves discuss what monsters they're likely to encounter, scaring Bilbo; Thorin explicitly states that if they get captured by goblins they're screwed. Then have Bilbo enable their escape via invisibility, paying off both requirements.