The Hobbit: Book VS Movies

"The Hobbit" is a book by J.R.R. Tolkien, telling the story of Bilbo Baggins's (a hobbit) adventure with thirteen dwarves (not dwarfs) to reclaim the latter's homeland.

This story was adapted into three movies, which had a lot of scenes that were absolutely useless to tell the original tale.

These are the ones that bother me the most:

• Legolas's (a character of "The Lord of the Rings", another of Tolkien's works) presence in general;

• The addition of Tauriel (a she-elf) and the resulting romance between her and Kili;

• Gandalf's side quest;

• The mere appearance of orcs;

Now, some of these changes i can understand (and even accept):

• Since they had to show the elves of Mirkwood, and since Legolas (who i think was from Mirkwood) was already known, and would probably already be alive (since the elves who appear are hundreds/thousands of years old), it would meant one less character to invent from scratch;

• For some reason any book that gets adapted into movie/s need to have some sort of love story. Regardless of how unromantic the original story may be. And as far as i can remember there are no women with a slightly important role in the book, so inventing was all that was left;

• In the book Gandalf comes and goes rather randomly, with the only explanation being that "he has to take care of some other business". So though the invented story makes little sense, I can understand why they placed it in the movies.

And before i move on to the last (and most exasperating) change in the story, i'll refer a few details i actually liked:

• Actually giving the king of Mirkwood a name. I can't remember whether his name is ever mentioned in any other book, but in "The Hobbit" he is only mentioned as the king of elves or Elvenking;

• Giving some sort of backstory to Bard the bowman. When he is introduced in the book he is simply the negativist bowman who descends from Girion, Lord of Dale.

And now, for my last and greatest annoyance with the movies:

• ORCS!!

I wouldn't be so furious if they had simply replaced the goblins with orcs, but since they included the goblins anyway (for the scene when the dwarves are captured). Was it really necessary to add the orcs? Couldn't they just keep the goblins through the whole movie?

They are barely (if ever) mentioned in the book. And Azog (the pale orc in the movies) was supposed to be a goblin killed in Moria and though he was killed by a relative of Thorin's (i can't remember if it was an ancestor or a cousin), it's not such a important part of the story and he is referred only two times in the whole book.