like most people, i thought the overall mistake was deciding to make 3 movies in the middle of the production!!

i dont care if you have the combined talent of john ford, kurosawa, bergman, spielberg, miyasaki, coppola - no one can do that. I have said elsewhere that PJ is the craziest filmmaker of all time (watch his early movies) so although shocking, it wasnt out of character.

For me - AUJ was great, if somewhat sluggish, but DOS flirted with mediocrity with a couple of critical storytelling mistakes and was saved by Smaug, Barrel Sequence (and really, is orlando bloom really that popular!? and WTF is wrong with his eyes!?!?!?).