Personally, as a fan of Tolkein's works, I thought LoTR was fine. I didn't necessarily agree with all of Jackon's decisions, but, in the end, I enjoyed watching the movies (and still do). The Hobbit films are a different beast, for sure.
Exactly my opinion as well. What worries me is that we saw what ten years of market shift did between LotR and The Hobbit. Now it's been another ten years of it. Instead of showing bad people tearing down trees to fuel industry, we're going to have some good character give a five minute long speech about it. There is going to be a romance plot between an orc and a non-orc. There is going to be a female orc and she is going to be a strong independent woman. There is going to be a ruler who is as bad Denethor but they're going to make a strong point about him also being a racist.
All of the classic stories we tell kids have evolved over time and are no longer true to their original source material. We take the thing we need, ignore the things we don't need, and add what's missing from our modern eyes.
If you go back to the source material for things like Snow White, Pinocchio and trace them through the ages you'll see that they have constantly changed and adjusted.
https://decider.com/2022/05/30/fantastic-beasts-the-secrets-...
(warning: Lots of spoilers in there...)
What he got wrong is that they're perfectly fun and good films in their own right - it'd be more accurate to say they're heavily inspired by the LoTR books rather than being direct adaptions. In some cases they cut things which just would never have even worked on screen, and in general I don't think a deeply ponderous and weighty mood would have really been received that well. That said, some of the changes they made (e.g. to Denethor) were just gratuitous.
My number 1 gripe was the army of the dead being the deus ex machina making rest of the battle pointless joke. This is after making perfect entrance for Rohan
I like the movies and enjoy watching them, some parts are masterpieces but some not so much.
But they are not “an army at the ser ice of Aragorn”. They just want to be liberated and to do so, they fulfill the promise they broke. They are not obligated to more (and Aragorn has no power to keep them “here”), much less to make them obey him.
If Star Wars, which let's be frank here, is a 2 bit creation compared to Tolkien's works, managed to become a multi billion dollar franchise, then the LotR world should be able to do the same, if it's managed wisely.
The Amazon LOTR proposal is basically some new fantasy stories set in a different millennium from the LOTR world which loosely tie in with some chronologies Tolkien wrote as lore rather than narrative, with a license which prevents them from reinterpreting events from the LOTR/Hobbit books from a Tolkien Estate that isn't exactly keen on giving the series canonical status. Instead of hobbits from the Shire and kingdoms of Rohan and Gondor under threat - all places that don't exist, never mind the characters - we've got a blank slate fantasy civilisations called Numenor and Eregion (which will resemble LOTR in the same way most high fantasy civilisations tend to) and a pretty loose narrative arc which implies the bad guy eventually destroying them.
The output might be very good stories in their own right, or it might be bland as hell, but the hardcore Tolkien fanbase is going to be hard to please. Create a series of episodes purporting to show the full history of the Second Age and it'll be [probably correctly] accused of being disjointed and completely lacking Tolkien's epic storytelling skill; create a compelling quest narrative involving dwarves and hobbits and it'll be accused of discarding Tolkien's actual histories in favour of a cheap knockoff of his plot structure.
I mean, a licensee could probably randomly choose a third rate LOTR fanfic plot and sell millions of tickets to watch it, but that doesn't necessary mean its a good idea from a creative standpoint.
I mean that had some very textual readings that would have been easily loved by the woke crowd. (The Beren storyline, overall strength of female heroes during the narrative)
It also clearly shows how all the cash grab attempts generally fail and how those that get the freedom to create something with passion usually end up successful. So yeah...
looks sideways to The Silmarillion
looks sideways to The Children of Húrin
looks sideways to The Fall of Gondolin
While it may be possible, money grubbing capitalist pig scum like Disney seem completely incapable of it, so I doubt this will end well. Capitalists destroy everything because instead of focusing on stakeholders they focus on profit above all else.
Potential can be squandered though.
Hits too close to home and it hurts, I guess. Because I've seen the same many times -- people literally seeking for problems because their lives are so careless and leisurely.
I would say Hobbit is about the least suited part of the universe for adoption. There are far better stories.
It feels like Peter Jackson has already tackled all the really interesting parts of the LOTR world.