The theater was half-full for the 7PM showing, but no kids present, thankfully. The audience was about half newbies, and half veterans of the LOTR trilogy. Plus at least one geek, me.
I qualified for that (and saved $2 by not having to rent 3D goggles) by using my genuine dwarf-style glasses. One of 5000 worldwide with the custom packaging and carry pouch.
The gals at the ticket counter thought the generic glasses with the special Hobbit plastic bag were custom. Nobody in the ticket booth even heard of these, and were almost in a swoon. That's what you get when you hire today's inexperienced yutes. :)
I won't offer any criticism of the movie right now (most of it minor), but I should mention that the 48fps image speed was a real eye-opener, no pun intended. It was most noticeable in quiet, well-lit scenes, where there's not a lot of action to distract you. I was able to let my eyes scan things, and realized it looked like the razor-edged HD video of live TV, and not the slightly softer look that always used to say "movie". I didn't notice it as much during break-neck action sequences, but it was undoubtedly there, too.
I can see where this will take three movies to tell the story. In a scene where Tolkien explains a big chunk of story in two paragraphs, PJ interpolates the scene into 15 minutes of action. And yet he keeps the storyline plausible, and finishes up where Tolkien finished.
Not that there aren't MAJOR digressions from the book, but we'll have to see how PJ handles them. Obviously some of it will be saved for the super-extended editions.
Bottom line: this is probably the best use of "real D" technology so far, so you might as well spend a few more bucks and see how the master did it.
Real firearms-related material tomorrow, some good, some maybe not so good. I'll see how hard they flog their dead horse tomorrow on the Beltway lovefests.