[CSteefel]

I have to agree on the negative comments on Daniel Radcliffe as Bilbo. As mentioned above, he has improved--in the last film, he shows a sort of fatalistic, wry humor with respect to his manipulation by Dumbledore. But still he is too much on the serious side to the point where I don't see how he could play the (eventually) free spirited but very shrewd Bilbo.

One has to be a bit worried about the film as a whole to the extent that PJ still exercises a big role. The Hobbit has always suffered in comparison to the LOTR in its relative lack of grander historical substance. We have already seen PJ's penchant for cutesy scenes (e.g., with the dwarf Gimli), so I would be worried that the cutesy aspects of The Hobbit will dominate. Also, LOTR (the movie) suffered from too much focus on the battle scenes, so one has to wonder whether that last battle of the Five Armies will take up half of the movie.

All in all, this calls for a much subtler treatment of the historical context. There is the eviction of Sauron from Dol Goldur, but there is not quite enough substance there from Tolkien, so this needs to be just one element in a broader textured tale that includes the travels of Aragorn perhaps, and a more complete treatment of his relationship in the earlier years with Arwen, and the machinations of Saruman with the White Council as both he and Sauron search for the Ring...