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In Battle of the Five Armies there is a scene of the Orcs summoning the "earth eaters" and then a while later the were worms bust out of the Earth. I was kind of excited to see what kind of havoc these creatures would wreak. But then they don't show up again. What was the point of the were-worms in the movie?

If you don't tell me now I will never find out because I am not watching the Hobbit movies ever again!

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    +1 for "If you don't tell me now I will never find out because I am not watching the Hobbit movies ever again". I thought I was in a minority of one! I loved the LotR movies, despised the Hobbit Movies! – Binary Worrier May 25 '15 at 14:19
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    @BinaryWorrier I just hate so many things about the Hobbit film adaptation: it had very little heart (I don't remember feeling much of anything during these movies); it added way too much stuff; it was far far too long (at ~8 hours total it would take less time to read the book, and be more worth your time). – zipquincy May 25 '15 at 14:49
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    @zipquincy: I adore the book, and have done since I read it aged 10 (that's 35 years ago, gulp). I have never been more disappointed with a movie adaptation. Jackson didn't so much translated the Hobbit for cinema, he made 3 massive epic movies as prequils to the LotR movies, and the book got lost in the noise. I'd love to see a movie (possibly one) which captured the tone, the spirit and the story properly. God knows Jackson didn't do that (and again, I'm a Jackson fan, loved LotR, King Kong, Beautiful Creatures, Lovely Bones etc) – Binary Worrier May 25 '15 at 14:55
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    I liked the scene in Bilbo's house at the beginning. – Mr Lister May 25 '15 at 17:33
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    They are Nidus worms from Starcraft 2, which are meant to transport units into an enemy base, which is what they did, they don't cause havoc directly. – Maxim May 25 '15 at 18:02
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They were referenced only as mythical creatures in the books, so all we have to go by is what happened in the movie.

Most likely, the were-worms were only useful (for whatever reason) for digging the tunnels the Orcs were traveling through, and could not be used in battle - perhaps they simply aren't trained well enough to fight, maybe hate noise and being outside, maybe they are really easy to kill, we don't know. All we know is that after the Orcs used them to dig the tunnels, they were apparently done with them.

Transporting your troops through new, secret tunnels does definitely offer a huge advantage - it's not like they were worthless.

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    I must have went to the bathroom when the Orcs came out of the tunnels. – zipquincy May 25 '15 at 14:46
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Tell me what you want done, and I will try it, if I have to walk from here to the East of East and fight the wild Were-worms in the Last Desert.

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Far, far below the deepest delvings of the Dwarves, the world is gnawed by nameless things. Sauron knows them not; they are older than he.

These two quotes, from Bilbo in the first chapter of The Hobbit and Gandalf in the chapter called "The White Rider" in The Two Towers, represent everything we know about the film portrayal of these strange creatures. Whether Tolkien intended both these quotes to represent the same beings is unknown, but the appearance of them in the Battle of the Five Armies film was unexpected to say the least. Their main purpose was to create tunnels to hide the approaching forces of Sauron until the last possible moment. I think it was nothing more than a shout-out to the fans of the books, but I enjoyed their presence nonetheless.

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