[skip spence]

As a principle I don't mind there being three films with lots of original plotting and characters, as opposed to more straight-forward adaptation that follows closely to the narrative in the book. I mean, I've already read the book and know what's in it, and prefer going to theatre not knowing exactly how every event will play out.
You may see it as a very ambitious and extremely well-funded fan-fiction project. They are going to make up a lot of new stuff based on snippets or out of thin air. That's how it was always going to be, with three films or not, and I don't see anything inherently bad in that. It may be bad, but not necessarily so. You know, like that old poster Sauron something always said, a big-budget (Hollywood) film is something altogether different to a book, like it or not.

Hopefully I will be positively surprised. At least in a technical sense I expect improvements. More than ten years have passed since FOTR came out, and the SFX people surely have learnt a few new fancy tricks. Not so hopeful when it comes to the scripting and story-telling, which is all the more important. And with three films, what will be the climax of each? One should think that defeating the dragon is a fabulous end to a film. But you can you end the second film with that, and then directly go to the aftermath with the battle of five armies as the grand finale? Will the first end with Sauron defeated in Dol Guldur? And what appendices material will get most screen-time? Well, I'm actually pretty curious to find out. If the first instalment turns out crap, I'd probably sit out the rest. But let us at least wait until we see it before we trash it, eh?