Beorn's role in the movie.

[Eomer of the Rohirrim]

Satisfied?

Those were some nice ideas in the original post. It's most unfortunate that the Beorn sequence in the film resembled the book in no way whatsoever. Well, other than there being a house and a bear involved.

What a waste.

[Zigûr]

Originally Posted by Eomer of the Rohirrim

What a waste.

Given how eager they were for added action, I don't see why they didn't have a scene of Beorn and his fellow bears fighting the Orcs. At least it would have been reasonably true to the source material even if Bilbo never sees it, and would have been a good alternative to the innumerable action shots we got of Elves jumping around shooting arrows at the Orcs. Then again Beorn couldn't have had his new, deeply exploitative angsty backstory of imprisonment and torture if other bears were available, could he?

[Eomer of the Rohirrim]

It was already a drawback that they wouldn't have the talking animals who set the table in this gritty, epic version of 'The Hobbit'. But even leaving that aside, they could still have made the sequence fun - like it should have been. Beorn was one of the best characters in the book, but in this film he's utterly forgettable.