I think, in Jackson's case, it's just what he knows best. Battle and mayhem is his forte. I actually wasn't bothered by the Goblin Town battle, which was about the same as in the book (that is, a prolonged and chaotic retreat), and only took a few minutes. The emphasis of that section was on the interaction with Gollum, as it should have been. Actually, my main problem with that scene was that Orcrist and Glamdring didn't glow.
I'm still worried about the battle scenes in the sequels, though. If I know Jackson, the fight against Smaug will be drawn out into a 20+ minute battle featuring multiple characters, rather than the anticlimax it was in the book, and the Battle of the Five Armies will probably take up about 60 percent of the third film, interspersed with the fight of the Wizards against Sauron (and I have no idea what that will entail. I suspect Tolkien never did either, which is why he was vague about it).
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2013-01-07 09:58 pm (UTC)I'm still worried about the battle scenes in the sequels, though. If I know Jackson, the fight against Smaug will be drawn out into a 20+ minute battle featuring multiple characters, rather than the anticlimax it was in the book, and the Battle of the Five Armies will probably take up about 60 percent of the third film, interspersed with the fight of the Wizards against Sauron (and I have no idea what that will entail. I suspect Tolkien never did either, which is why he was vague about it).