I didn’t watch the second two Hobbit movies. I was extremely opposed to them making a trilogy out of it.
I still don’t think it was inherently a bad idea, and I personally think the first two prove that you can make real movies out of only a portion of the story. The third really suffers from the split, though, it doesn’t do much to make itself feel like an actual story unto itself, rather than just an extended climax.
All of this could’ve been solved with more pre-pro time (and not, say, adding a movie after principal photography was over).