The Hobbit: Too Much Movie and Not Enough Story

"The Hobbit" finally opened this weekend, and I liked it. I didn't love it, and I found all the excess stuff a bit... excessive. (If you don't know what I'm talking about, read "The Hobbit" and then see the movie-- Jackson included loads of stuff that isn't in the book. At all. But my son assures me it's from Tolkein's appendices and notes and other stories and that it's all wonderful and will tie everything together with *LOTR nicely. I'm not convinced yet...) For one thing, it is long, and when a film has battle after battle after battle without a lot of story, I get bored of the battles.  But I'm getting ahead of myself.