So much wasted potential for this trilogy

Rating: 4/10 (8 January 2015)

To start, I rarely write reviews for films anymore. I see them, I feel what I feel for them and then I move on. However, after seeing this film last night, I had the urge to write this. I don't even know where to begin. Perhaps that I would say this is far and away the worst movie to take place in Middle Earth by PJ. So many baffling decisions that I can't understand where they could come from. In no particular order
1) The Dragon Sickness: The first time we see Thorin, we can see that something is wrong. He looks dazed, he's overly irritable. He's got...dragon sickness! What? The gold is cursed? Since when? Yes, his grandfather went mad with greed and an obsession for gold, but that was shown to happen over a long period of time, and not until after the Arkenstone was found. Why does it happen RIGHT AWAY to Thorin? Also, as soon as he uttered the word "false" I lost it. So you're telling me the gold has the same effects of the one ring? Give me a break
2) Dain and the dwarf army: So you cast a great, very recognizable actor in Billy Connolly to play Dain, a dwarf lord. Great! That sounds awesome! I can't wait to see what they...wait, is he cgi? They had to cgi a dwarf lord ala Robert Zemeckis? WHAT THE*#*#! Are you serious? Could you not get him on location? THEN CAST ANOTHER ACTOR! That may have been the worst abuse of cgi in a trilogy already over run with unnecessary cgi. And let's make the entire dwarf army look like we just hit copy followed by paste. Wow.
3) Randomness: Thorin, Kili, Fili, and Dwalin need to get to the top of that mountain to stop Azog, The Generic. Good thing these rams that have never been seen before in the entirety of the trilogy just happen to be right in front of us in the middle of a battlefield. Bilbo and Balin are talking as Bilbo says goodbye to all of his remaining dwarf friends (like Dwalin (who he hasn't actually spoken to since the first film), Bofur, Gloin, and...umm...who knows and who cares really?) and he shares a laugh with them. All of a sudden, we have a close up of a laughing Gandalf, who until that time I had no idea he was even in the scene! MAGIC! The Were-Worms (Were actually means "man" so...man worms?). Hey, check out this awesome tunneling worms! What's that, you've never heard of/seen them before? Well...SHUTUP! Hey guys, remember that half man, half bear guy that we introduced in the beginning of DOS and has a total of 2 minutes of screen time? The eagles are going to air drop him in! You guys should totally cheer, because he's a character we all love right? RIGHT?! Don't worry about his fate, we won't show him ever again after that.
4) Legolas: Do I even need to point out how stupid his character is in this film? Woof
There are more than this (like the monsters that look like Abe Vigoda in that snickers commercial), but I'll run out of space. The worst part about this film, and trilogy in general, is that I can see the potential for this being absolutely stunning. There are scenes where Jackson reminds you how amazing these films could have been, but they are far outnumbered by this Lucas version of Middle Earth. Just a sad, disappointing film and trilogy.