Peter Jackson hikes up the pace

Rating: 9/10 (21 December 2013)

Tolkien fans are in an odd situation when trying to rate Peter Jackson's work after Lord of the Rings. Personally, I have established two different rating systems to compare his work to. One rating is in comparison to all other movies on the market, the other rating is relative to the Lord of the Rings trilogy. This might be unfair as explained later. He did however inadvertently raise the bar for epic fantasy movies by creating a masterpiece like Lord of the Rings, so it seems necessary to separate his own work from the remainder.
Without a doubt, the first Hobbit installment fell short of the high expectations people came to have from Peter Jackson, with regards to the Tolkien universe, but people, and myself included, probably expected another Lord of the Rings movie, not a movie based on an entirely different book, originally written for children with obviously a very different pacing. Comparing it however to other fantasy/adventure movies, it's still an amazing film, despite it's slower pace and less epic dialog.
The second, much shorter, Hobbit installment was much more action-oriented and therefore had a faster pace, hence why people and myself included rate this movie to be, perhaps unfairly, better than the first one. We also saw previously unseen areas of Middle Earth like Mirkwood and Gandalf's behaviour at the very beginning of "Lord of the Ring - The Fellowship of the Ring" is explained in more detail, when Bilbo left and Frodo tells Gandalf him to take the ring, after which Gandalf tells him with great fear in his eyes, that this ring has even too much power for him to wield. The epic battle between powerhouse Gandalf and Sauron instilled so much fear and respect into Gandalf "The Grey", that this memory stayed with him all the way into the "Lord of the Rings".
In true Jackson fashion, "Desolation of Smaug" ended with a cliffhanger and left fans yearning for more. Once the entire Hobbit trilogy has been released, I believe fans will judge the first part more favourably and history will smile upon him kindly. The third and final movie will set the overall tone and explain certain dynamics like pacing, which were not understood yet by the time the first movie was released. I trust Jackson to pull it off.
9/10 compared to other movies 8/10 compared to Lord of the Rings.