Loved the Dragon Hoard. Smaug's design is fantastic and there was so many "oh shit, that got that perfect" in all those scenes. The way he plants the thought in Bilbo's mind that Thorin doesn't really care about him is great, and then Thorin just goes and proves Smaug right.
The contrast between the Dwarf's forges and Saruman's/Sauron's forges in LOTR is interesting. Saruman's/Sauron's feel "cheap", like they're only designed to forge iron into weapons, and cheap, mass produced weapons at that. The Dwarf's forges feel "expensive"; they can handle gold and silver and can forge them into a lot of different things. And the weapons that they do forge are works of art themselves.
Tauriel was nowhere near as bad as I thought she'd be. She definitely feels more like a "Silmarilion" elf then an "LOTR" elf though. Actually, all the elves we see in this film do, which is great. You can tell that they've been in this war with Dul Gur for the long hall and have had to get personal with it. They're not like the elves in Rivendell or Lothlorian where the Enemy is far enough away that they can afford to be "philosophical" or "detached" from what is going on with Sauron. So they've got reason not to spread their forces too thin or want to wage war on another front. Also, the design of the elf caves was fantastic. Unlike the dwarf caves, which are all geometric, the elf caves are all natural, and there's tree roots running though it and stuff. Even though they live underground, they feel connected with the surface in ways the dwarves don't.
Thorin... man, do they do his character so well. You can just tell that he could be this great leader, but he's so unwilling to let go of his pride that it cripples him, as well as the people who follow him. You're just waiting for him to mature as a leader, but he doesn't.
Dul Gur... why didn't Tolkien include this?!?! It was just slightly important for explaining Battle of Five Armies in the book. Very creepy, and Sauron... to be honest, there's only so many ways you can indicate an un-bodied spirit... really drives home why he wants the One Ring so bad; without it, he can't have a physical form.
Laketown... you get the feeling that Laketown is very isolated from the rest of the word and is just surviving. And the style.. it's amazing how different it is from the humans we see in LOTR. For all that Rohan and Gondor are human kingdoms, they're very well connected and have a lot of influence. They've also got something to take pride in whether it's Rohan having the best horses in the entire continent, or Gondor being the legacy of Numinor. But Laketown? it's the remains of Dale and is protecting itself from a dragon by locating itself smack-dab in the middle of a lake. It almost feels like anyone could say they were Thorin and the town would jump on it. It's lost it's hope.
And man, does Peter Jackson know how to pick his ending credit songs. Smaug goes out to destroy Laketown, Bilbo says that last line... and then "Fire" plays... and you just know that's what everyone in Laketown is thinking. And I now have that song stuck in my head.
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