Johnny Novgorod said:
There's no real reason to make The Hobbit into three movies. They already made a Hobbit movie in 1977 - it was 77 minutes long. And it's a lovely movie. The whole Necromancer/Saruman/Radagast subplot is just there for filler and to solidify the connections with the comparatively more mature LOTR, just as Galadriel is just there because the movie needs to cast at least ONE actress, and Tauriel was made up by the same principle, and Legolas is there for fanservice, and... you get the picture.
The necromancer storyline has been in the movie since the very beginning, even back when they planned to do it all in two movies. I personally love it being there, it gives Gandalf more to do and makes his presence and arc within the story make more sense. So that's where I stand on how relevant it is. They only split it into a trilogy VERY late in the game--I'm talking May of 2012, just six months shy of the premier. So to me, saying "there's no real reason to make it into three movies" doesn't make sense because it's still the same project they set out to complete from the very beginning. They're just giving all their ideas more breathing room. And yes, they do need to make a few connections with LotR, because unlike when the Hobbit was originally written they know a bit more about the world and what was going on. Hell, Tolkien himself edited some parts of the Hobbit after he came up with the story of LotR so that their continuities didn't conflict.
I'll admit Legolas is probably for fanservice, but his presence still makes sense because Thorin and Co still encounter his father Thranduil and his people in Mirkwood in the original story. It's not like they bent the story backwards, they just said "Hey, Thranduil is the king that imprisoned the dwarves, and even though Legolas wasn't a character when the Hobbit was written, it would still make sense for the son of the king to be there." In fact, knowing the full continuity, if Legolas weren't there in
some way they would have had to address it anyway.
They picked through the appendices to make parts of LotR make sense--for example, even though the book never shows how Aragorn died, they got the imagery of showing him on his deathbed during Arwen's vision from the appendices. And now they're doing the same thing in the Hobbit. Yes some things are different from the book, but it's all still from Tolkien and just as with LotR, what they can't adapt accurately they at least try to honor in some way or another.