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Comment by 11thEarlOfMar | Hacker News Reader

I suppose we've all wondered what Tolkein would think of the Jackson films.

I don't think he'd have hated them. I think he'd have loved the visualisations of all of his places and creatures (even if they didn't match his own imaginations) and been thrilled with the amount of story telling we could do with film now... and then been more than a little disappointed that Jackson put in so many sword fights and told so little story.

At least the Tolkien Estate has voiced disapproval for all of the Jackson stuff.

Personally I did watch the first part of the Jackson's Lotr and oh the horror. I wish I could erase my memories :/

He would have hated them, that's for sure. And let's not even talk about the ridiculous mess that the Hobbit movies are.

I dream about what might have resulted if studio politics hadn't driven Guillermo del Toro away from directing the Hobbit...

Whether or not it would have worked, who knows, but it almost certainly would have been something far, far, better than the thinly-veiled amusement-park ride that the Hobbit movie ended up turning into under Jackson's tutelage.

[Yeah there are lots of "what ifs" in the world, but for a while, a GdT Hobbit actually seemed like it was going to happen...]

> thinly-veiled amusement-park ride that the Hobbit movie ended up turning into under Jackson's tutelage.

If it were only that... let's not forget the major changes in the story and the reintroduction of LOTR characters who had nothing to do with the story in the first place. It does not make any sense at all if you have ever read the book.

At least the LOTR movies kind of followed the story, but the Hobbit is just something else altogether.

I'd argue that a lot of The Hobbit's issues were in the writing rather than direction, sure, a better director may have made it "less bad" but overall given the same script you'll get a similarly flawed set of films.

I will say I actually enjoyed the LOTR's prequel content in The hobbit movies (e.g. meeting at Riverdale, battle at Dol Guldur, etc). It was the terrible love subplot, family issues (Legolas daddy issues), newly constructed bad guys that made no sense (Azog, et al), the final battle's numerous plot holes, and the movie's overall pace (LOTRs left a lot of "breathing room" in the plot, it had a good set of beats between high pace and low pace content, The Hobbit was high octane all of the time, it was exhausting).

The prequel content was equally bad. I was actually looking forward to the first time Bilbo and Gollum meet, since this is such a central event in the whole story. PJ botched it. It lost all of the magic that it had in the book.

> a lot of The Hobbit's issues were in the writing rather than direction, sure, a better director may have made it "less bad" but overall given the same script you'll get a similarly flawed set of films.

I don't disagree with this, but I think if GdT had directed, he would also have had a lot of influence over the script and general direction the movie went in. He's not just a hired gun.

Sadly, we'll never know for sure... TT

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