If you haven't seen the film I advise leaving this thread. If you have, please feel free to weigh in! Overall I loved this movie. It ended the series very well and stuck pretty close to the book for the most part, but there were some major differences. I'm not one to hate on a movie for changing what happened in a book because I understand that a movie is merely an adaptation, but I'd like to point out the differences that I noticed. [spoiler]Firstly is that Azog was actually killed during the Moria battle long before the events of [i]The Hobbit[/i]. I would assume Jackson decided to put him in so that there would be another antagonist besides Smaug, especially since you don't finally meet Smaug until the end of the second film. Fortunately his character arc in the films made sense, though the films never mention that Azog is actually Bolg's father, and that Bolg had been the leader of the orcs since Azog's death. As such, Thorin isn't killed by Azog in the book. As I remember he was just wounded in the fight and wasn't killed by anyone specific. I could be wrong on that one, though. Bolg wasn't killed by Legolas, in fact Legolas doesn't appear in [i]The Hobbit[/i] at all. Bolg was killed by Beorn, and I was actually quite disappointed that Beorn hardly showed up at all in this film as he was one of my favorite characters from the book. The Kili/Tauriel romance thing was completely unnecessary. I understand Jackson wanting to add a romantic subplot to the film, but Tauriel is a character that Jackson completely made up. At least the Aragorn/Arwen romance from [i]The Lord of the Rings[/i] was actually in the Appendices. I didn't feel that a romance added anything to the film, it's not that kind of story. That being said, Evangeline Lily made a great she-elf. In addition to that, the whole Legolas/Tauriel subplot was completely made up and unnecessary. While we're talking about subplots that weren't in the book, though, I'm going to bring up the White Council fighting the Necromancer. I'm sick of people complaining about these scenes. These ones weren't made up out of thin air, they are in fact part of the lore. They've been altered for the film (again, adaptation), but they are indeed taken from Tolkien's works, even if not[i] The Hobbit[/i] itself. According to Tolkien lore the White Council does go to Dol Guldur to banish Sauron, though Sauron later reveals himself in Mordor. I thought the scene with Gandalf fighting Sauron in the second film was great, and I thought seeing the three relevant wizards and the two most important elves fighting the Nazgûl was even better. That was a cool scene, so I don't wanna hear this "it wasn't in the book" bullshit. I certainly enjoyed that more than the Kili/Tauriel romance. Getting a glimpse into Sauron's rise to power really adds to the fact that [i]The Hobbit[/i] is a prequel to [i]The Lord of the Rings[/i]. On top of that, including Radagast was a great move, even if he wasn't in the book itself. We really missed out on him in [i]The Lord of the Rings[/i] films and I'm glad Jackson decided to add him into these films. The mere fact that Gandalf mentions the blue wizards in the first film was nice as well. Anything that expands on canonical Tolkien lore, even if it isn't in [i]The Hobbit[/i] or [i]The Lord of the Rings [/i]books proper, is cool with me. The only other noticeable change was making the orcs have a greater purpose. In the film they're part of the army that Sauron is trying to rebuild. In the book the orcs' only real motivation to attack The Lonely Mountain was that they were pissed off at Gandalf for killing the Goblin King. Other than that, the rest of the film mostly stuck to the book. I wish it had gone into the aftermath of the battle, primarily Dain succeeding Thorin and the fate of Erebor, but besides that I thought it ended well. Overall this was probably the best of the three films, though the entire Smaug/Bilbo scene in the second is probably my favorite overall. That was incredibly well done and Smaug was perfect.[/spoiler]