The Hobbit was a masterpiece of a childrens story: a fantastic story of courage, friendship, loyalty and greed. It also set the tone for Tolkiens subsequent magnum opus, the Lord of the Rings, and frankly it was a great tale that didnt need any changes whatsoever. However, Peter Jackson, thought better than that. By adding concepts from the appendices of The Return of the King, as well as ideas that were never in the original story in the first place, Jackson has taken a beloved Tolkien tale and created something else entirely. The decision to turn the much shorter story of the Hobbit into a trilogy was a questionable decision in itself, but there are more questionable decisions in the film's storyline, characters, and plot that are also impossible to ignore. This isnt to say that Peter Jacksons films are bad; far from it, in fact, but no film is above reproach or critique, and Jacksons works are not exceptional to this rule either. His decisions to put box office gains, and appealing to a more general audience ahead of staying as true to the source material as possible is the main reason why his films are being far more critiqued than his Lord Of The Rings trilogy...