The Dwarves have a very short goodbye with Bilbo, and then there’s a montage of Bilbo travelling back to the Shire with Gandalf. They part on the outskirts of the Shire and Gandalf reveals he knew all along that Bilbo found a magic Ring in the Goblin tunnels (he doesn’t know it’s the One Ring though). They part on good terms, though Gandalf looks ominous as he walks away.
Bilbo arrives back in the Shire to find the Sackville-Bagginses auctioning off his things, it’s quite humorous until he’s back inside Bag End, and then the weight of the journey is felt and things take a dark turn as he searches for the Ring in his pocket. We transitioning back to Old Bilbo holding the Ring and then there’s a knock at the door. “No thank you, we don’t want anymore well-wishers, or distant relations” … “and what about very old friends?”
The end.
All in all, I loved it. It’s absolutely not going to convert anybody who hated the previous Hobbit movies. If you enjoyed the first two, you’ll love this.
However, it’s very much an action-movie first. I can feel moments where scenes will likely be Extended next year with the Extended Edition.
Very much like Desolation of Smaug, prior to the release of the EE recently, it feels like they cut out most of the ‘slow’, character-driven moments to avoid criticism. These usually turn out to be the best scenes too and it’s a shame that Peter was affected by the negative criticism so much.
The majority of Dwarves in Thorin’s company had zero lines. Only the main ones (i.e. Balin, Dwalin, Fili and Kili.)
Beorn has seconds of screentime and his introduction in the theatrical version of Smaug seems almost pointless with how little screentime he has here, there’s zero payoff for his character.
There’s no implication of Dain becoming King after Thorin dies. He has zero scenes after the battle. The Dwarves and Bilbo’s parting felt colder than it should have. It was very brief.
I’m happy to answer whatever questions you have
