Smaug exacts revenge upon Laketown, as the dwarves fortify the mountain kingdom against those who would try to take it from them, elves, men and orcs.

Lots of action, with the best part probably being the demise of Smaug, and with an emotional impact in Bilbo's leaving. The battle itself was nicely choreographed, but is more of the standard action that doesn't grip me on a personal level. I wish Thorin's final battle with Azon hadn't been so predictable.

Cool effects and a fun but overly long battle. I like the music from the battles a lot. I'm dissappointed that they didn't cover The Last Goodbye in the appendix discs, as it should have been a central part of the end of this era.

The extended edition of this movie doesn't add much of anything to the story. I was hoping for a continuation of Thorin's father (from the extended Desolation of Smaug), and a little more depth to several of the scenes, but that didn't happen. It was almost entirely new battle gags, which were completely unnecessary. The only relevant extended scene is where the greedy clerk from Laketown launches himself into the mouth of an ogre to meet his end.

After listening to the soundtrack for hours on end, I was looking forward to seeing the movie again. It did not disappoint. There were a lot of cool elements, with a lot of character themes. I still think they could have found a good way to insert more Bilbo, but his heroic way of standing up to Gandalf made up for some of that.

Definitely the best of the trilogy. Maybe it's because I can finally see where all the character arcs were going. The love story between elf and dwarf works because Kili dies in the end, and it shows some compassion for the elf-king, who is otherwise unlikable. It also gives the reason for the dwarves who are left behind. I think the movie improves on several aspects of the book here, too. I liked the personal confrontation between Bard and Smaug just before he shoots the arrow. I also liked that we get to see what happens after Bilbo is knocked out, which is left completely unknown in the novel. The only misstep I think the writers took was the lack of Bilbo in most of the movie, though he can't be in most of the scenes, of course, due to the nature of the movie.