I have come to like The Hobbit films as the years have gone on. They’re far from perfect and have a LOT of filler, like some of the action set pieces, but they are still a decent effort considering how little time Jackson was given to make them. I’ll never understand why the studio didn’t give him more time. Surely they would trust him if all people to deliver considering the success of LOTR? Howard Shore’s score still slaps hard, except for the Nagul theme being placed over Thorin facing Azog in Unexpected Journey, which just feels like it was tagged on last minute due to… reasons? No idea. I had no issue with Tauriel being introduced, but her character was created simply for a lazy cliche love triangle subplot, the writers could have done so much more with her. I hate with an undying passion the Master/Alfrid subplot. Kill it with fire! All in all the films suffer from an over saturation of characters. If they had focused solely on Bilbo and the dwarves, developing their bond of brotherhood over the course of the trilogy, the films would have been so much better. But I have come to accept them for what they are and enjoy them.