a relatively short amount of time before production. What's funny about those films is there are moments that are really good. In fact, a lot of it is actually very faithful to the book. I thought the riddles in the dark scene was excellent. So was the scene where Bilbo confronts Smaug. But the films were overall so bloated and filled with useless, unnecessary garbage that added nothing. If it had been streamlined to two films, I think they would have been actually pretty good.