hairy_hen said:

Even before the first of this three-film disaster was released, I knew that the only way to undo the damage would be to massively re-edit them all down into one film, cutting out everything that isn't actually in the book and restoring a proper pace and momentum to the story.

As it stands, the whole thing is just an exercise in how to pad something out for length far beyond the point where it even makes sense anymore, as well as a blatant money-making grab by the studio. I consider it a shameful mistreatment of Tolkien's story.

Since there is some good stuff in there, nearly buried under the weight of Jackson's foolishness but nonetheless apparent, pruning it down to the essentials would certainly result in one film's worth of watchable material. I'm glad to see I'm not the only one who had this idea, and once all the movies have been released I'd love to see a project like this happen.

I do have to admit that Benedict Cumberbatch as the dragon's voice is an inspired choice. ;)

^ This! We should all be thankful Jackson did in fact make three films. All the more material to pull from for a Hobbit book version.

If anyone else had made the movie and it wasn't up to par, we would just be stuck with that. This gives me great hope.