Tack said:

RicOlie_2 said:

Hal 9000 said:

That's why I had a sinking feeling for a lot of part three: so much of the stuff I didn't like was integral to the story. Stuff like Bard's son acting as his bow, Thorin dying on ice away from the rest of the action after a drag out fight with Bolg Azog, etc. I was feeling pretty good after part one which had most of its junk fairly segregated from the good/important parts.

How the heck did that work?

He set the arrow on the kid's shoulders and then launched it at Smaug from there. It was a little less goofy on screen.

I really liked that part, despite its goofiness. And though the fight between Thorin and Azog is painfully bossfight-ish, there may be a way to get rid of Azog completely from the movie: The movie could be from the point of view of Bilbo, who gets knocked out during the battle and misses the fight. He recovers afterwards and finds Thorin dying on the battlefield. It's more similar to the book in that way.