A good place to end would be the death of Smaug. You could fill almost a half an hour in the buildup to the ensuing battle, along with the Battle, of course. Plus a wrapup of going home. But technically you’re probably right because that still leaves 2 hours for new stuff and the Necromancer 
I just saw it, my impressions are a bit jumbled yet.
I did see a big Tolkien Felony at the “white council” : so the Witch King’s body had been buried where “no light could ever reach”, behind “unbreakable” spells, and the Necromancer is bringing/has brought him back to life? PJ, what the hell is this crap? The Witch King was never slain, and he had no corpse to capture if he was.
I did like how Saruman was placating the others at that confab, while Galadriel and Gandalf talked behind his back, which fit well with the books, but I don’t know what a non-LOTR appendice reader would take away from that scene.
At one time the Witch-King was a Numenorean King, thus he had a body.
There really needed to be a purpose for Sauron to be at Dol Guldur other than hanging out and growing old. This nonsense about springing the Witch King gives him a motive to be there.
A descendent of Numenoreans. He was, when living, the King of Angmar, one of the Northern territories or Arnor, the sister country of Gondor. Probably a distant cousin of Aragorn.
At the time of this movie WK hadn’t been corporeal for 2500+ years, and had never been captured.
Hrm. Well, I’ll see how that plays out. The hints in the this movie grated a bit and didn’t seem to move the arc very consistently, but maybe it’ll work in some way I can’t see yet.
Bwah? He was, when dead (well, “wraithed”), the Witch King of Angmar. We don’t know really anything about him when he was “alive”.
According to JRRT he was a Numenorean “Great Lord” while alive. But in any case, at one time, long ago, he was alive and thus there was a body.
wiki:
“Yet Sauron was ever guileful, and it is said that among those whom he ensnared with the Nine Rings three were great lords of Númenórean race.” The Silmarillion, “The Akallabêth”, p. 267.
^ Tolkien writes: “the name and origin of the Witch-king is not recorded, but he was probably of Númenórean descent.” Wayne G. Hammond & Christina Scull, The Lord of the Rings: A Reader’s Companion, p. 20. The relevant passage was later removed by Tolkien from the notes for translators, and does not appear in the version published in Jared Lobdell’s A Tolkien Compass.
Yes, exactly! We don’t really know anything about him when he was alive (although you capture some speculation) and he’s never been captured or buried as this film would have it, and it’s really unclear if he’s been corporeal in any sense since TA 1300. Thanks for the summary!
This non-LOTR appendice reader thought all the scenes featuring Sauramon/Galadrial/Gandalf/(and one other) appeared to be a clumsy attempt at continuity. Bringing some people from the LOTR movies to this one for no reason other than, what? Contractual requirements? A desire from PJ to have more familiar faces than Gandalf/Elrond in the new movie?
Dol Guldur was a feint IIRC while he quietly built up in Mordor.
Thanks, clearly I’m mis-remembering quite a bit. I’ll have to go dig the book out of the garage. . .
A feint is a little strong - a feint implies he didn’t have any goals with it.
Dol Guldur was clearly a ‘cover’ - in that he clearly felt that if he just popped up in Mordor at that juncture, everyone would’ve gone “Crap. Sauron’s back. Better get at him.” and he wouldn’t have had sufficient strength to repel them, so he decided to reappear at Dol Guldur first, but at the same time, he was able to taint The Greenwood (Mirkwood) with his influence and establish a stronghold that would threaten Lorien and the realm of Thranduil, so it’s not like he was twiddling his thumbs or something.
Nope. It is made clear all that stuff was going on, unbeknownst to Bilbo, while they were on their little trek.
For those who watched it multiple times, did you notice any camoes?
Peter Jackson
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Something that bugged me was Gandalf casting “Lay on Hands” to heal a critically wounded Thorin. It made other suspenseful moments in the trilogy seem less significant- when Frodo got stabbed by the troll in FotR, Gandalf looks with dread. But if he could just heal him presto, why worry? “Ugh this Hobbit newb, keeps drawing Troll aggro now I gotta waste a 60min cooldown to rez him”
And for being the prince (king?) of dwarves, Thorin did pretty mediocre vs Azog. I thought it was gonna be like Aragorn vs that Orc captain in FotR (convincec Azog would get his other hand hacked off in true cliche fashion). Azog had some pretty rediculous facial expressions too; he looked like kid with downs syndrome getting excited.
Azog was a sign of the biggest disappointment in the movie for me: replacing real actors and practical effects with CGI. The big Uruk-Hai in Fellowship was played by a real guy and looked cool. Azog looked like one of the zombie/vampires from I Am Legend, and most of the other goblins looked like cartoon/video game baddies. The whole movie felt less “real” to me. Even Thranduil and Thror had that CGI-cartoony blur going on.
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Gandalf was not there when Frodo got stabbed.
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Frodo was stabbed with a Morgul blade, something far worse than a normal injury. Even with magical cures, Frodo suffers on the anniversary of the wounding, at least until he travels to the West.
His beast did all the did all the dirty work. Thorin didn’t fight Azog, his warg did all the damage. At least the big Orc (Lurtz) fought Aragorn man to man.
He reminded me of the Witch King in ROTK vs Pippin, Gandalf, Theoden, etc.
No, I was talking about when the fellowship was in the Mines of Moria. The cave troll stabs Frodo with a spear, and everybody thought he was a goner.
Gandalf et al thought he had been run through with a spear, perhaps resulting in injuries beyond his magical healing powers. Of course, Frodo wasn’t stabbed at all, thanks to his shirt of mithril.