# Question for those who enjoyed Jackson's LOTR films **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [October 30, 2014, 4:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-for-those-who-enjoyed-jacksons-lotr-films/703027 "2014-10-30T16:47:26Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![well\_he\_s\_back](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/3ab097/32.png) [@well\_he\_s\_back](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/well_he_s_back)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2014, 4:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-for-those-who-enjoyed-jacksons-lotr-films/703027/1 "2014-10-30T16:47:26Z")
For those who loved (or even liked or mildly enjoyed) Peter Jackson’s LOTR movies: Has the clusterfuck that is his adaptation of The Hobbit ruined your enjoyment of the LOTR movie trilogy? Why or why not? For me, nothing can take away the awesomeness of the Fellowship movie. As a lifelong LOTR book fan I approaching it with trepidation, considering boycotting. But then I saw it and became a fan of this view of Middle Earth. Even the major flaws in The Two Towers and Return of the King couldn’t take away from my enjoyment of the visuals, the score, the acting, the art design. I still love these films. However, I sure have a lot less respect for Peter Jackson after the bloated, forgettable Hobbit movies (so far). This despite the best efforts of Martin Freeman and Ian McKellan, Andy Serkis and some of the other cast members. I didn’t hate the stupid addition of Tauriel or Legolas so much – it was the constant repetitious, overdone battle scenes; the terrible pacing, the loss of the charm of the original book. Of course I watched them (once) but don’t plan or owning or multiple rewatching as with LOTR films. ---
**Author:** ![teela\_brown](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/d9b06d/32.png) [@teela\_brown](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/teela_brown)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2014, 4:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-for-those-who-enjoyed-jacksons-lotr-films/703027/2 "2014-10-30T16:55:02Z")
Your post is a spot-on, perfect description of my opinion as well. I watched the Hobbit movies (once), but fast-forwarded through the unending battle scenes. Even the eagerly-awaited Smaug scenes somehow didn’t do it for me, and I’m a Cumberbatch fan. I was looking forward to hearing his deep velvety voice and instead got a computer-enhanced recording which somehow seemed less sinister than the real thing. Feh. I suppose I’ll rent and watch the third one, but my finger will be over the fast-forward button the whole time. ---
**Author:** ![Ethilrist](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ethilrist/32/4604_2.png) [@Ethilrist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ethilrist)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2014, 4:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-for-those-who-enjoyed-jacksons-lotr-films/703027/3 "2014-10-30T16:59:54Z")
I think the problem is that he set the bar so high with LOTR that it wasn’t really possible to live up to those expectations (similar to something George Lucas said just before The Phantom Menace opened, and for much the same reasons). I still think it was terrific to let Orlando Bloom do another Pirates of the Caribbean movie. That was nice of them. ---
**Author:** ![Crotalus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crotalus/32/41_2.png) [@Crotalus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crotalus)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2014, 5:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-for-those-who-enjoyed-jacksons-lotr-films/703027/4 "2014-10-30T17:05:48Z")
I saw each of the Lord of the Rings movies in theaters and was happy to receive the DVDs as a gift. I have watched them a few times at home. When I heard that The Hobbit was being made into three movies, I was pretty sure that they would not be something I would enjoy. I have not seen them. Most of what I have read about them confirms my initial impression. If I feel the urge to return to Middle Earth, I have the LotR DVDs. ---
**Author:** ![Skammer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skammer/32/143_2.png) [@Skammer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skammer)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2014, 5:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-for-those-who-enjoyed-jacksons-lotr-films/703027/5 "2014-10-30T17:08:31Z")
I love the LotR movies, and nothing Jackson does or has done with The Hobbit will change that. But to say I have been disappointed by the new movies is an understatement. The original movies transport me; The Hobbit movies annoy me. ---
**Author:** ![teela\_brown](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/d9b06d/32.png) [@teela\_brown](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/teela_brown)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2014, 5:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-for-those-who-enjoyed-jacksons-lotr-films/703027/6 "2014-10-30T17:10:27Z")
I forgot to add one thing: I think the whole “Riddles In The Dark” scene in the first Hobbit movie was as well-done as anything in the LOTR movies. But it’s the only scene I can wholeheartedly praise. ---
**Author:** ![Miss\_Mapp](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miss_mapp/32/369_2.png) [@Miss\_Mapp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miss_Mapp)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2014, 5:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-for-those-who-enjoyed-jacksons-lotr-films/703027/7 "2014-10-30T17:19:38Z")
They haven’t affected my appreciation of LOTR, except perhaps that I appreciate them more now. Fellowship remains one of my favorite movies. Watching the Hobbit movies, it seems to me that Jackson is trying way too hard to hit exactly the same notes all over again, and they feel false and forced. By this, I mean things like Thorin Oakenshield echoing Aragorn, Kili and Fili trying to be Merry and Pippin, and lots of little scenes, shots and lines that look like they want to be in LOTR–only this is a different story. Wasn’t there supposed to be something about a hobbit in this one? I did buy the DVDs of the first two movies, because there are a handful of scenes in each I do like and when it’s all done, I want to see if I can get a short movie out of the whole thing by judicious use of chapter skipping and FF. ---
**Author:** ![Zebra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/c0e974/32.png) [@Zebra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zebra)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2014, 5:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-for-those-who-enjoyed-jacksons-lotr-films/703027/8 "2014-10-30T17:20:24Z")
I enjoy or not enjoy each film on their own merits. I’m certainly not going to like the Hobbit because I enjoyed RotK So it won’t go the other way either. ---
**Author:** ![Gretchion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/8edcca/32.png) [@Gretchion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gretchion)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2014, 5:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-for-those-who-enjoyed-jacksons-lotr-films/703027/9 "2014-10-30T17:21:26Z")
I loved the LOTR trilogy. I put it right along the original Star Wars trilogy. I was disappointed when I heard they were going to stretch The Hobbit out into three movies, when each book from LOTR was longer than The Hobbit was. Unfortunately, the movies have done nothing to quell my disappointment. I’m hoping that once all three movies are out, someone cuts out the extraneous parts and makes a simple 2-3 hour edit of The Hobbit, because that is something I would add to my movie collection. ---
**Author:** ![Sattua](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sattua/32/11906_2.png) [@Sattua](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sattua)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2014, 5:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-for-those-who-enjoyed-jacksons-lotr-films/703027/10 "2014-10-30T17:22:08Z")
The Hobbit should have been a single three-hour wank-fest, not three. Had he confined himself a single film, I think all would be well. But yeah, I can’t enjoy what it has been turned into. Way too much invented crap that isn’t entertaining at all. ---
**Author:** ![Miss\_Mapp](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miss_mapp/32/369_2.png) [@Miss\_Mapp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miss_Mapp)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2014, 5:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-for-those-who-enjoyed-jacksons-lotr-films/703027/11 "2014-10-30T17:22:08Z")
> [@teela\_brown](#): > > I forgot to add one thing: > > I think the whole “Riddles In The Dark” scene in the first Hobbit movie was as well-done as anything in the LOTR movies. But it’s the only scene I can wholeheartedly praise. This is one of the sequences I also like. It’s the heart of the whole big story–Bilbo and Gollum, and a little game of riddles. ---
**Author:** ![Tim\_R.Mortiss](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tim_r.mortiss/32/142_2.png) [@Tim\_R.Mortiss](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tim_R.Mortiss)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2014, 5:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-for-those-who-enjoyed-jacksons-lotr-films/703027/12 "2014-10-30T17:30:57Z")
I agree with the OP: love the LotR movies, mildly enjoy the Hobbit movies, with reservations. I saw all the LotR movies at least four times in the theater, and bought BOTH versions of all three DVDs. I saw the first Hobbit once in the theater, rented the DVD, and the second one I didn’t see at all until it came out on DVD. But it in no way dimmed my appreciation for the LotR flicks. I still watch them a lot! ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2014, 5:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-for-those-who-enjoyed-jacksons-lotr-films/703027/13 "2014-10-30T17:31:09Z")
I feel Jackson did a great job making _The Lord of the Ring_ trilogy. And I feel he did a terrible job trying to turn _The Hobbit_ into another _Lord of the Ring_ trilogy. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2014, 5:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-for-those-who-enjoyed-jacksons-lotr-films/703027/14 "2014-10-30T17:39:14Z")
[I already said:](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/archive/index.php/t-714918.html) > [@Kimstu](#): > > Jackson’s Middle-Earth has occasional brief longeurs but it’s still Middle-Earth to me. > > I tend to take the same attitude to his movies that I do to the post-trilogy works in Ursula K. LeGuin’s “Earthsea”: basically, that these works are genuine ancient archival material from a long-cherished fantasy world, but some parts of them have been redacted by anonymous well-intentioned but ill-informed and biased editors who did not know or understand it as well as I do. > > (And yes, I know that in LeGuin’s case it’s the original author herself that I’m putting in that category. I don’t care. It’s not about any principle of privileging authorial intention, it’s about my own subjective feeling for what is “right” and “true” in this alternate world.) > > So when I watch or read these later works and see something that rings false to me, I just roll my eyes and think “silly meddling redactors”. And when I see something that rings true to me, even though I don’t recognize it as part of my accepted previously-attested authoritative canon, I think “Yes! They got that part right! That is EXACTLY how it really happened! I can’t believe I never realized that before!” > > And that there is some powerful brain hooch. I don’t really care if Jackson throws some things into his movies that I think are silly and false. The point is that he’s shown me enough things that I was able to accept as new but true facts about Middle-Earth that I’m willing to sit through quite a bit of botched reporting for the chance of finding some more of those new but true facts. > > (I think I’ve mentioned a while ago in this forum that one of those new but true facts from Hobbit I is the idiosyncracies of Dwarvish beard braiding. That obviously is EXACTLY what Dwarvish beards look like, and I can’t believe I never realized it before.) [And I also said:](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/archive/index.php/t-703676.html) > [@Kimstu](#): > > I like 'em. They’re not as epic, in any sense of the word, as the LOTR movies, and I’m not saying I didn’t have my share of eyeroll moments while watching them, but ultimately it was still a Middle-earth I could believe in. And that’s plenty good enough for me. ---
**Author:** ![Smapti](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smapti/32/17938_2.png) [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2014, 5:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-for-those-who-enjoyed-jacksons-lotr-films/703027/15 "2014-10-30T17:41:12Z")
I think you’re all crazy and I’m not sure what movies you saw, because the Hobbit movies I saw were great. ---
**Author:** ![Roderick\_Femm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/roderick_femm/32/14875_2.png) [@Roderick\_Femm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Roderick_Femm)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2014, 5:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-for-those-who-enjoyed-jacksons-lotr-films/703027/16 "2014-10-30T17:53:12Z")
The Hobbit was read to us by our teacher in the 4th grade. It was my first exposure to Middle Earth stuff, and as such it has always held a very special place in my heart. I’ve never grudged most of the changes\* that Jackson made to LotR for the movies; I could see that there were difficult choices to be made and that they had to make the movies work in their own right. (And they still work on that level for me.) But no such excuse exists for what he did to The Hobbit. The book was aimed at children; the movie should have that level of charm and no more danger or horror in it than a 10-year-old can stomach (which is still quite a lot, I imagine). More importantly, the movie should be able to stand alone, as the book does, and not be some horrible bloated prequel to a movie to which it only has the most tenuous connection. The ring is not that critical to The Hobbit, except that it gets Bilbo out of a couple of tight places. It doesn’t really function as a Great Ring of Power here, and it shouldn’t have that significance in the Hobbit movie. The Necromancer should remain a sideline figure and mention of him should only give the merest _frisson_ of possible future danger. I’ve only seen part of the first movie, and maybe a small amount of the 2nd, and I was uniformly unimpressed and dismayed throughout. I wish someone else had done this movie, with the same technical skill but with a much better sense of the fitness of things. A good writer knows when to leave the viewer wanting more; what can we conclude when all we hear is “Less! Give us Less!”? \*Changes that are forgiven do not include the stupid Aragorn falls off a cliff and is saved by his trusty horse bit. Yeesh. Completely cringeworthy. ---
**Author:** ![Frylock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ce7236/32.png) [@Frylock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frylock)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2014, 6:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-for-those-who-enjoyed-jacksons-lotr-films/703027/17 "2014-10-30T18:10:55Z")
The second and third LOTR movies made me re-evaluate the first one. Now I dislike all of them, and knew the Hobbit films would be everything I dislike about the LOTR films turned up to 11. For that reason, I have not even watched the Hobbit films. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_Bravo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_bravo/32/493_2.png) [@Johnny\_Bravo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_Bravo)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2014, 6:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-for-those-who-enjoyed-jacksons-lotr-films/703027/18 "2014-10-30T18:32:34Z")
The worst part about the Hobbit movies, for me, is that there are flashes of brilliance and traces of real genuine love for the source material. Unfortunately, that’s all overshadowed by the enormous piles of crap that got shoveled all over those flashes and traces. When you watch the LOTR movies, you get a sense that finally, yes, here is a movie that has been made by a _fan_ of Tolkien. Here is a movie for _us._ Here is a movie meant to be savored and appreciated by those who have spent years re-reading and loving the books. And then he went and did The Hobbit films. A movie that seems to take that same group of nerds and _laugh in its face_. Oh, you enjoyed this book? Well prepare for THREE MOVIES of completely random nonsense with the occasional brief, beautiful scene that feels like it was ripped directly from its pages. It’s heartbreaking, and while I’ll always enjoy the LOTR movies, I’ll never quite forgive Peter Jackson. ---
**Author:** ![Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skald_the_Rhymer)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2014, 6:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-for-those-who-enjoyed-jacksons-lotr-films/703027/19 "2014-10-30T18:44:07Z")
Can I answer if I loved _Fellowship_, liked _Towers_, and hated _Return_? I have only seen the first Hobbit movie, and found it ludicrously bad. But not SURPRISINGLY bad. _Return of the King_ and _The Lovely Bones_ had together completely soured me on Jackson. But I’ve also decided that he’s not exactly a bad filmmaker; it’s more that his taste and mine are very divergent. ---
**Author:** ![bbonden](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ecb155/32.png) [@bbonden](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bbonden)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2014, 6:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-for-those-who-enjoyed-jacksons-lotr-films/703027/20 "2014-10-30T18:58:23Z")
> [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](#): > > Can I answer if I loved _Fellowship_, liked _Towers_, and hated _Return_? > > I have only seen the first Hobbit movie, and found it ludicrously bad. But not SURPRISINGLY bad. _Return of the King_ and _The Lovely Bones_ had together completely soured me on Jackson. But I’ve also decided that he’s not exactly a bad filmmaker; it’s more that his taste and mine are very divergent. I’m not far from this. I think that _Fellowship_ is, if anything, underrated. Superb movie. _Towers_ was somewhat incoherent. I think that _Return_ had a tougher task and came closer to the mark. Overall, there is a consistent pattern, in my view. Where Jackson is adapting the written word, I’d call him full-on brilliant. I love his images, characterizations and pacing of the book events. That carries over to the _LOTR_ deleted/extra scenes, as well. Where Jackson is interpolating, he is a disaster. ALL of his additions are poor at best, and horrible as often as not. The _Hobbit_ series is, unfortunately, almost entirely interpolation. And at the “horrible” side of the scale, as well. But the (precious few) bits that are actually from the books remain good! [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-for-those-who-enjoyed-jacksons-lotr-films/703027.md?page=2)