While stirring up the pot over at the OneRing.net forum (one of my favorite pasttimes as of late), I made the simple point that the change from TABA to BOFA was inevitable, as "There and Back Again" refers to the main character of The Hobbit. But there has been a diminution of the character (if a hobbit could be further minimized
) that has been an ongoing point of annoyance in the first two films of this bloated trilogy.
As Zigur inferred, Tolkien primarily centered on a single character, Jackson on so many sundry subplots (whether canon or fan-fic) that poor Bilbo is no longer the central attraction in his own story. So, the Battle of Five Armies will take up 45 minutes to an hour of film and the Battle of Dol Guldur will hog another 1/2 hour of the movie, and dear old Smaug must get another 1/2 hour to complete his fiery swan song. Throw in the probable tear-jerking death of Tauriel in the arms of a sobbing Legolas, and you really haven't got much left for Bilbo Baggins.