Jeff Lasala's Tor.com defence of Peter Jackson's The Hobbit trilogy has its good points. Namely, that yes, Jackson's The Lord of the Rings, expanded the series's popularity among mass culture.

Says Lasala:

“The point is that untold numbers of people have enjoyed all three Hobbit films, sometimes because of—and sometimes despite—their Jackson-expanded elements. Now that The Battle of the Five Armies has marched into theaters and the trilogy has concluded, I’d like to weigh in on the bigger picture.”

Lasala also conceded that some of the book's more delicate parts would be difficult to render on the big screen:

“Of course, it’s hard for any film to portray a character’s internal thoughts, which is all that moment is, but I think most of us would agree that Martin Freeman would have done an excellent job visually depicting Bilbo’s trepidation. Peter Jackson opted not to try this, and we can and must live with that. The book is not demeaned, but the movie is the lesser for it.”

But the point is that Peter Jackson didn't make a movie based on Tokien's The Hobbit. He made a film series which incorporated bits from the book, but which relied too heavily on extra-canonical, plot-sapping elements including:

- a stupid love story
- rabbit Santa
- Sauron
- Alfrid
- melodrama
- overbearing darkness
- a long, boring speech between the dragon-dog and Bilbo
- the Laketown plot
- the Laketown fight
- a dragon that, instead of killing, flaps his tail like a dog and flabbers too much

The most egregious is that a small, fun book was split into three lumbering, disjointed films. There is simply no good light to shed on this series, long essay or no.