Excellent piece. The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings have been all-time favourites of mine ever since I first read them as a child. The films? I think The Lord of the Rings trilogy are cinema classics (though the book should never be neglected) but The Hobbit was a seriously mixed bag, as you point out here. It should only ever have been one or two films at the most. As it stands, it is like butter spread over too much bread with lots of completely unnecessary extra material.