Tolkien Geek Review + *SPOILERS*

Rating: 8/10 (21 June 2013)

CONTAINS HUGE PLOT SPOILERS REGARDING THE HOBBIT, LOTR & MIDDLE EARTH UNIVERSE
I love Tolkien, I love Middle Earth, I love The Lord of The Rings and I love The Hobbit – BUT, that doesn't mean that I've blinded myself when it comes to the film adaptations. The Lord of The Rings adaptations were absolute masterpieces and though many complained about things missing and things added etc I found that these were all for the better and I find them absolutely flawless as a trilogy and arguably the greatest trilogy in the history of cinema.
Now, The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey is, so far, a stand-alone film in a trilogy that doesn't exist yet so it will be different once all 3 movies can be enjoyed in one sitting but I know for sure that The Hobbit is a far from flawless film; I say this as the biggest advocate of directors cuts and the LoTR extended trilogy is amongst my most precious possessions but I really do think that, for a theatrical release, Peter Jackson has crammed far too much into The Hobbit.
I love that he wants to use the appendices at the end of Return of The King to pad out The Hobbit and make for more immersive and as rich an experience as possible before we all exit the world of Middle Earth for good (we all know that The Silmarillion is never going to be adapted to film) but there really are some things in this film that were just not needed at all. The fabrication of the Azog story arc for starters; SPOILERS this story is nowhere in Tolkien's writings as Azog was killed at the Battle of Azanulbizar by Dáin. It's obvious that the fabrication of the "White Orc" story arc in The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey was used to "hollywood-ise" the movie and I think the movie would be much more streamlined without it and certain events that Azog is involved with throughout the film could remain faithful to the book instead of involving him when he should've died years before.*
Still, remaining faithful to the book is all well and good but I've already stated that I didn't mind at all the changes made to The Lord of The Rings trilogy and as far as Radagast The Brown is concerned I actually quite like his expanded involvement in The Hobbit movie, even though he was completely omitted in the LoTR films, because how he travels to Dol Guldur and discovers the Necromancer (which isn't quite true, it was actually Gandalf that discovered the Necromancer) will helpfully coincide with the included story of how Gandalf aids in the second attack on Dol Guldur. (deep breath, SPOILERS) The first attack on Dol Guldur was before the events in LoTR and The Hobbit after Gandalf discovered the Necromancer there to be Sauron, after suffering defeat Sauron fled to mordor and returned to Dol Guldor many years later imprisoning Thráin son of Thror after taking from him one of the last 7 dwarven rings of power. Gandalf discovered Thráin upon another mission to the fortress where Thráin gave him the map and key, which Gandalf gives to Thorin in The Hobbit, before dying.
SO, I know that the 2nd and 3rd Hobbit movies are going to be fantastically exciting and may even include some more history of Dol Guldur and of Gandalf's visits there but I'm getting ahead of myself – The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey is about 30-45mins too long due to the inclusion of Azog and his expanded storyline throughout the film and back story included at the start of the film and I also think that maybe some of the goblin battles under the mountain go on for much longer than they needed to.
I still think the film is fantastic – but it's just much too long and stuffed with sub-plots that just aren't needed for it's first theatrical release. A theatrical cut should be around the 2 hour mark max, not closer to 3 hours.