I've finally seen the last Hobbit movie today. In watching the first movie, I couldn't help think of the prequels. The feeling of disappointment was familiar. The second continued the trend. The two trilogies don't share all the same problems, but it was so disappointing to see some of the prequel's defects pop up here: the sudden heavier reliance on CGI, the stilted romance, heavy-handed silliness, the way some concepts felt like poor copies meant to echo (or "rhyme") what we saw in LOTR. I thought the third was the best of them, though even that makes me cringe in recalling how ROTS was favored for its heavy action...which maybe does paper over many failings. I think the biggest similarity is in how far the movies fall below the expectations of many fans of the original trilogies. The best thing, as others have said, is how much material there is to work with now for edits.