So, three films huh!
Regardless of your fears and forebodings of PJ-isms.
What should be in them, and what do you think will be in them?
With Lal's scrolly zoomy thing here
http://forum.barrowdowns.com/showthread.php?t=18011
it looks as if the first will be 'The Hobbit, An Unexpected Journey' following the plot of The Hobbit reasonably well, judging by the images, from the start up to 'Barrels out of Bond'. The only bit not in the book so far is a meeting between Gandalf, Galadriel and Elrond, likely a meeting of the White Council. So far so good. I'm happy to see wolves that look like wolves and the 'G for Grand' rune on Bilbo's door at any rate.
This also means that The Hobbit Trilogy doesn't start before The Hobbit (which sounds odd but it might have done if the appendices were really strip-mined) though no doubt there will be all sorts of flash-backs to Smaug devastating Erebor, Galadriel being portentous etc.
So what is left for the second and third films? From The Hobbit it's Esgaroth (though exactly where film 1 ends I don't know) the Lonely Mountain, the death of Smaug and the Battle of the Five Armies. This could all be fitted quite neatly into one film. How can it make two?
I'd bet on the White Council getting some more time on screen and the assault on Dol Guldur featuring heavily. Note that the books don't make at all clear whether this was a military assault or not, but knowing PJ I'd guess it will be. This will likely be in film 2.
Film 3 being some sort of bridge to LoTR is going to be really tricky, the logical place to end The Hobbit is surely at the end of the Battle of Five Armies or Bilbo's return home.
Some things that occur in the Tale of the Years between TH and LoTR are-
- Gollum searches for the ring
- Sauron declares himself in Mordor
- Aragorn and Arwen
- Last meeting of the White Council, Saruman spies on the Shire
- Journeys of Aragorn
- Balin and Moria
- Saruman ensnared by Sauron via the Palantir
So how would you do it? What would you like to see in the three films?