If you could change ONE thing in The Hobbit triology

[Aaron]

Originally Posted by Nerwen

I would have cut the mountain chase/factory sequence. Really doesn't make Smaug look like an effectual villain and muddles his perfectly good reasons for attacking Lake-town.

No, what am I saying? It would be like cutting out the Warbats!

By which I mean: these are weird films, and changing a single aspect won't fix that. I think they might as well be as over-the-top as they can be.

Re: Azog. Indeed, why not have his son in that role? What does Azog "have" over Bolg? Well, he "died" (or, originally, just died, without the quotes), and I guess it's the rule now that everyone has to think the bad guys are dead, so they can be shocked on learning otherwise. Drama, you know.

You are right about the chase segment. For whilst it was an entertaining visual spectacle, it rendered poor Smaug rather impotent.
Same with the Goblins, and their apparent inability to defend themselves as they are hewn down in their hundreds.

Had we seen the Dwarves slowly accumulate more and more wounds - some losing limbs, some being horribly scorched by Smaug, some just being jittery and terrified of having to fight again - it would have presented things in a different light.
But instead, we have absurd scenes where, if memory serves, Thorin and another Dwarf all but point and laugh at the prospect of taking on about a hundred Orcs singlehanded.

The heroes in the LOTR trilogy either had to connect themselves to a massive army, or else hide and hope to Hell someone didn't gut them like a fish. But for some reason, the movies turned into a video game.
Go to Point A, defeat 500 Orcs, Go to Point B, repeat.