There are some confusion here

- The Hobbit was written over 20 years before LoTR for kids.
- The early title for LoTR was The New Hobbit.
- The Hobbit received two revisions:

1951) Before LoTR, while he was writing The New Hobbit. He changed the personality of Gollum, more agressive and consumed by the ring... in the first edition Gollum didn't even hate Bildo for stole the ring... the ring was not that important... it is a normal ring and not a powerful one.

1966) After LoTR. Only changes in the narrative to look more like LoTR style and some Elves names changed.

So no... the revisions didn't changed the plot/story and the biggest changed happened before the LoTR (1958-1959).

I can't how anybody can say Hobbit was written after LoTR... LoTR is a direct sequel... Hobbit success = LoTR.

I thought the 1st Hobbit movie was really good! I found the Frodo/Sam scenes dreadfully mushy and -way- too sobby. I cringed everytime they happened. And they got worse and worse toward the end.

I enjoyed the Movies more than the books, I found the paces very slow in the books. Same goes for The Game of Thrones books actually lol, I find the books to slow and prefer the movies/series over them. The Hobbit I read when I was quite young but I think the book is better than the movie so far, I'll see how the other 2 pan out first before making a full assessment. 

This, except it's three big movies.

Besides being a shameless cash grab, it drags the film's momentum to a crawl. The first one, though good, took 3 hours to tell an hour and a half of story.

People need to realise that the Hobbit is a light-hearted book. Things had not yet started to go real bad.

I've read all the books and seen all the extended editions of the movies (except the Hobbit). Out of all that time spent in Middle Earth The Hobbit is the only thing I genuinely enjoyed. The books and movies take themselves way too seriously. I don't understand their popularity.

The problem is that The Hobbit isn't the LOTR. While they are related, they are two completely different stories written in very different ways. LOTR is this huge grandoise fantasy epic, while The Hobbit is essentially a children's book.

The other half of it is that since LOTR had already been made into a hugely successful movie trilogy, people are naturally going to compare the two and expect The Hobbit to live up to the same standards set by LOTR... which is why a short children's novel that could have been done in one 2-hour plus movie has been turned into three 3-hour epics.