This is amazing. Count me in.

#WhatAreYouDoingHarry
#WhatAreYouDoingMalaria

Punning all three things at once is gonna be tough...

I didn't think the White Council scene dragged on at all, it worked for me. But I did think Azog sucked.

As for Taurolas, I'll bring up an idea I read somewhere else. Maybe Pete is setting up this relationship for Legolas so that he can lose it all to the forces of Sauron in the third movie (i.e. she gets killed), and maybe from there explain how he ended up at Rivendell in the Council of Elrond and why he was motivated to contribute to the fight against Sauron. Might be interesting, but also maybe no.

The second DoS trailer seemed more promising than the first for me. I liked the vibe and there was a lot of interesting stuff, but at the same time there were somethings that made me nervous about it; not the least of which being the fact that every frame has to look absolutely perfect, and a little cartoonish at times. What's with all the Legolas CG?

Also I think one of the bigger issues with this story as a whole so far is Thorin's character. He's pretty one-dimensional and I just can't bring myself to feel for him at all, or most of the dwarves for that matter. As a result, at this point in the story I don't really care if they take back Erebor. Plus, like Balin said, they built a pretty nice life for themselves since they lost their kingdom anyway. Thorin wants the mountain back for selfish reasons and I have a hard time rooting for that. Maybe that greed and selfishness will become more eminent and addressed in the next two movies as push starts inching closer to shove, but I felt like AUJ was telling me to root for people I didn't care for, and against people I didn't passionately hate.

After the first movie I'd say the only characters I'm 100% cheering for are Balin, Gandalf and Radagast. Bilbo too, but not as much. It seemed like his character started to come around by the end of the movie.

After watching the trailer I think I can just catch the last 15 minutes and have a good idea of what's going on. Seems like they told us just about everything but the ending. Not that I really care about it anyway...