There's not much nerdier than fantasy movies.

He didn't know whether the One Ring would be found again, but he certainly knew of an upcoming war. He discovered that it was Sauron who was the dark force behind those changes of the world, and he found that out at least a hundred years before the events of the Hobbit. He aided the dwarves because he feared that with Smaug active, Sauron would be able to regain the northern passes, re-establish Angmar, and then have the kingdoms of men encircled.

Because he'd been fascinated with Hobbits before, and the disaster of the Long Winter (pre-Hobbit) and the orc attacks made it clear to Gandalf that hobbits had an inner strength to them. He befriended the Bagginses at that point.

+1 to that.

Dude, you've been listening to Christopher Tolkien too much. He's far more purist and hardcore than his father was.

While Tauriel doesn't seem to have a point besides speaking the most banal of lines... most people who read the Hobbit later in life and aren't used to its eccentricities will reach a moment when they realize "wait a minute. I've read a few hundred pages and I don't think I've even heard a mention of a female, even in passing. Hey, all these characters are single dudes, do woman even exist in Middle Earth?"

Might be sooner than you think, he's over 90 years old.

Silmarillion covers fascinating material, but it's an encyclopedia.

That was my assumption for awhile, though I surprised to see that Jamie Selkirk, editor on Return of the King and supervising editor on the other two films, was also the editor on Jackson's way-too-long, needed-far-bigger-edits King Kong remake.

The editor of all three Hobbit films was Jabez Olssen, who really hadn't done any editing outside of Cleopatra 2525 and the Lovely Bones.

I think the last 45 minutes were extremely good. Riddles in the dark, Thorin's stand against the orcs, and the rescue of the eagles (The Flight to the Carrock in particular fits in well with the majestic portions of LoTR). Unfortunately I had to sit through 100 minutes of pretty bad movie to get there, so maybe it doesn't make as good an impression as it should.

I think you're right, there. The second movie didn't actually anger me like the first did, but it didn't impress.

I thought it was ok.. but Jackson, who has always been a bit over-the-top, seems to have absolutely no restraint anymore. A scene that should have been short ended up dragging on and on...

Based on a Mark Twain novel, no less.

I haven't seen it yet, but if it has the same problems as the first two films, it will be that film stretches out the wrong parts, while still giving short shrift to interesting scenes. Why was most of the Mirkwood journey cut out? Why was much of the interactions with Beorn cut? They spend a whole chapter in Rivendell, and are in and out in ten movie minutes. Hell, I would even have liked to hear Gandalf's conversations with the eagles (who do speak..).

Which is why almost every home theater designer/installer knows to turn that "feature" off of TVs.

I think part of that problem was the design of the transformers themselves. Way too much going on to make individual sense, and part of one transformer tends to look like any other part of the same robot (or any other robot, for that matter). I don't think it was the 24fps that made it such a visual mess, Michael Bay literally said "put more stuff on the stuff" when he was shown robot designs. I wish I was making that quote up.

A big part of that is because it was really intended to be HFR 3D. If you're not watching it in HFR 3D, then you're not watching it as it was intended when filmed, and you're right, the lighting is critical. 3D sucks on a number of levels, one of the biggest being that it cuts way down on the brightness. I saw the first Hobbit in HFR 3D, and it was first 3D movie I had ever seen where I thought the colors, the lighting, everything just looked right.

Specifically, if a movie is in 3D but not HFR, it's not worth it, I see it in 2D instead.