one wonders- apparently the Men of Dwimorberg were boneless? Skulls but no skeletons? Maybe they were cartilageneous like sharks?

because I would have to have access to the original in English, which I don't have a physical copy (nor a digital one)...

The Company came at last out of the ravine, as suddenly as it they had issued from a crack in a wall; and there lay the uplands of a great vale before them, and the stream beside them went down with a cold voice over many falls.

‘Where in Middle-earth are we?’ said Gimli; and Elladan answered: ‘We have descended from the uprising of the Morthond, the long chill river that flows at last to the sea that washes the walls of Dol Amroth. You will not need to ask hereafter how comes its name: Blackroot men call it.’

The Morthond Vale made a great bay that beat up against the sheer southern faces of the mountains. Its steep slopes were grass-grown; but all was grey in that hour, for the sun had gone, and far below lights twinkled in the homes of Men. The vale was rich and many folk dwelt there.

Then without turning Aragorn cried aloud so that all could hear: ‘Friends, forget your weariness! Ride now, ride! We must come to the Stone of Erech ere this day passes, and long still is the way.’ So without looking back they rode the mountain-fields, until they came to a bridge over the growing torrent and found a road that went down into the land.

Lights went out in house and hamlet as they came, and doors were shut, and folk that were afield cried in terror and ran wild like hunted deer. Ever there rose the same cry in the gathering night: ‘The King of the Dead! The King of the Dead is come upon us!’

Bells were ringing far below, and all men fled before the face of Aragorn; but the Grey Company in their haste rode like hunters, until their horses were stumbling with weariness. And thus, just ere midnight, and in a darkness as black as the caverns in the mountains, they came at last to the Hill of Erech.

The biggest reason the Hobbit films were on the whole failures was because there was nobody or nothing to rein in his self-indulgence.

[As opposed to The Lord of the Rings when...who exactly was in a position to rein him in?

I loathe this sort of narrative, whereby the films were only good in spite of the filmmaker. Its been said of George Lucas and its now sometimes being applied to Pete Jackson, and I don't think its true in the slightest. There's certainly nothing beyond circumstancial proof to back it up. Utter nonesense.

it looks to me like they have reached Erech, not Dwimorberg, as you claimed before.

At last the king’s company came to a sharp brink, and the climbing road passed into a cutting between walls of rock, and so went up a short slope and out on to a wide upland. The Firienfeld men called it, a green mountain-field of grass and heath, high above the deep-delved courses of the Snowbourn, laid upon the lap of the great mountains behind: the Starkhorn southwards, and northwards the saw-toothed mass of Irensaga, between which there faced the riders, the grim black wall of the Dwimorberg, the Haunted Mountain rising out of steep slopes of sombre pines. Dividing the upland into two there marched a double line of unshaped standing stones that dwindled into the dusk and vanished in the trees. Those who dared to follow that road came soon to the black Dimholt under Dwimorberg, and the menace of the pillar of stone, and the yawning shadow of the forbidden door.

Such was the dark Dunharrow, the work of long-forgotten men. Their name was lost and no song or legend remembered it. For what purpose they had made this place, as a town or secret temple or a tomb of kings, none could say. Here they laboured in the Dark Years, before ever a ship came to the western shores, or Gondor of the Dúnedain was built; and now they had vanished, and only the old Púkel-men were left, still sitting at the turnings of the road.

Merry stared at the lines of marching stones: they were worn and black; some were leaning, some were fallen, some cracked or broken; they looked like rows of old and hungry teeth. He wondered what they could be, and he hoped that the king was not going to follow them into the darkness beyond

Merry asked the question that was tormenting him.

‘Twice now, lord, I have heard of the Paths of the Dead,’ he said. ‘What are they? And where has Strider, I mean the Lord Aragorn where has he gone?’

The king sighed, but no one answered, until at last Éomer spoke. ‘We do not know, and our hearts are heavy,’ he said. ‘But as for the Paths of the Dead, you have yourself walked on their first steps. Nay. I speak no words of ill omen! The road that we have climbed is the approach to the Door, yonder in the Dimholt. But what lies beyond no man knows.’

‘No man knows,’ said Théoden: ‘yet ancient legend, now seldom spoken, has somewhat to report. If these old tales speak true that have come down from father to son in the House of Eorl, then the Door under Dwimorberg leads to a secret way that goes beneath the mountain to some forgotten end. But none have ever ventured in to search its secrets, since Baldor, son of Brego, passed the Door and was never seen among men again. A rash vow he spoke, as he drained the horn at that feast which Brego made to hallow new-built Meduseld, and he came never to the high seat of which he was the heir.

‘Folk say that Dead Men out of the Dark Years guard the way and will suffer no living man to come to their hidden halls; but at whiles they may themselves be seen passing out of the door like shadows and down the stony road. Then the people of Harrowdale shut fast their doors and shroud their windows and are afraid. But the Dead come seldom forth and only at times of great unquiet and coming death.’

Nonetheless he drew near, and saw Aragorn kneeling, while Elladan held aloft both torches. Before him were the bones of a mighty man. He had been clad in mail, and still his harness lay there whole; for the cavern’s air was as dry as dust, and his hauberk was gilded. His belt was of gold and garnets, and rich with gold was the helm upon his bony head face downward on the floor. He had fallen near the far wall of the cave, as now could be seen, and before him stood a stony door closed fast: his finger-bones were still clawing at the cracks. A notched and broken sword lay by him, as if he had hewn at the rock in his last despair.

Aragorn did not touch him, but after gazing silently for a while he rose and sighed. ‘Hither shall the flowers of simbelmynë come never unto world’s end,’ he murmured. ‘Nine mounds and seven there are now green with grass, and through all the long years he has lain at the door that he could not unlock. Whither does it lead? Why would he pass? None shall ever know!

‘For that is not my errand!’ he cried, turning back and speaking to the whispering darkness behind. ‘Keep your hoards and your secrets hidden in the Accursed Years! Speed only we ask. Let us pass, and then come! I summon you to the Stone of Erech!’

There was no answer, unless it were an utter silence more dreadful than the whispers before; and then a chill blast came in which the torches flickered and went out, and could not be rekindled. Of the time that followed, one hour or many, Gimli remembered little. The others pressed on, but he was ever hindmost, pursued by a groping horror that seemed always just about to seize him; and a rumour came after him like the shadow-sound of many feet. He stumbled on until he was crawling like a beast on the ground and felt that he could endure no more: he must either find an ending and escape or run back in madness to meet the following fear.

Suddenly he heard the tinkle of water, a sound hard and clear as a stone falling into a dream of dark shadow. Light grew, and lo! the company passed through another gateway, high-arched and broad, and a rill ran out beside them; and beyond, going steeply down, was a road between sheer cliffs, knife-edged against the sky far above. So deep and narrow was that chasm that the sky was dark, and in it small stars glinted. Yet as Gimli after learned it was still two hours ere sunset of the day on which they had set out from Dunharrow; though for all that he could then tell it might have been twilight in some later year, or in some other world.

The Company now mounted again, and Gimli returned to Legolas. They rode in file, and evening came on and a deep blue dusk; and still fear pursued them. Legolas turning to speak to Gimli looked back and the Dwarf saw before his face the glitter in the Elf’s bright eyes. Behind them rode Elladan, last of the Company, but not the last of those that took the downward road.

‘The Dead are following,’ said Legolas. ‘I see shapes of Men and of horses, and pale banners like shreds of cloud, and spears like winter-thickets on a misty night. The Dead are following.’

‘Yes, the Dead ride behind. They have been summoned,’ said Elladan.

What is interesting about the "Hobbit" films is that they had no pop-cultural impact whatsoever. I am not saying this matters a lot; on a broader scale this applies to nearly all of Hollywood's current output. I am pretty sure all individual Marvel films will fade out of the public consciousness in the next twenty years. But the half-life period of the Hobbit films was striking: They were released, general audiences watched them, and immediatly forgot about them. When the third film came out, someone on Twitter compared them to the TV series Navy CIS - equally huge audiences but hardly anyone (apart from original LotR fans) truly loved or hated them - just bland nothingsness.

I would not call any one the four scenes which you mentioned particularly good cinema. Yes, for the most part, they are far better than the noise that surrounds them but that's about it. Bilbo's scene with Gandalf after the Battle of the Five Armies has a nice touch (if one ignores the obvious green-screen effect in the background) but I think the main reason why people like it is because after two hours of interminable and incoherent nonsense they finally got a quiet scene between two characters where the actors were allowed to breath, and well, act.

Addendum: While the stair-case scene is not the most realistic action scene in the original trilogy, I find it implausible how one can roll one's eyes "at its implausibility" and voluntarily watch The Hobbit films at the same time. By that logic, the latter could induce severe ophthalmological issues. Relatively speaking and compared to what happens in Goblin-town - or Azog's ambush near the end of AUJ, the Mirkwood spiders, the barrel ride, the fight between the dwarves and Smaug, the entirety of the Battle of the Five Srmies, you name it - the stair-case scene is a textbook example of architectural and physical realism.