Yes the CGI is good and yes the implementation of the 3D is good, and yes the higher frame-rate is great once you adjust to it.
But these are all technical things, and while I think it's a great piece of cinema, corporate greed has tarnished it.
The Hobbit strikes me as the kind of film that, when released on disc, won't have any deleted scenes included; and the reason for this is, they didn't delete any scenes!
The Hobbit could probably have fit into a single movie quite happily, but instead the suits at Warner Brothers demanded another trilogy. And what do you do when you have a book a third the size of 'The Fellowship of the Ring' but have to stretch it out to fill three, 3 hour movies? You add stuff in and drag stuff out.
While I understand that in order to keep the audience awake it's necessary to have some sort of constant danger, but an albino Orc hunting them with 'revenge' as the only motivation seemed very token to me. Azog was long dead in the book as far as I can remember.
The other token things were appearances from Galadriel and Saruman. They didn't contribute anything of great importance to the story and Galadriel's constant telepathic conversations with Gandalf (which conveyed mundane observations in an intense way) really spoiled her mystique in my opinion.
Overall, these unwelcome intrusions from Hollywood, which includes creating a trilogy and unnecessary appearances from familiar characters, left me feeling a bit disappointed with the Hobbit.
Not to say that it's not entertaining, and I'd watch it a thousand times over before going to see Die Hard 648 (or whatever number they're up to).
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