[Boromir88]

The events depicted in UNITED 93 were based on actual real life events. Middle-earth is a contrived fiction, an imaginary world filled with imaginary characters.~Saruman

I was answering a question about what I felt would make a good representation of the books...or if the books were 'unfilmable.'

To which case I see it on the same level as making a movie off a real life event. If you want to make an authentic, and good representation of a real-life event, than you try to stay as true to the actual story as you can. Jackson did not do this in his films...there were other things deemed more important than staying true to what the author wrote. If you want a comparison to a 'fictional' movie based off a 'fictional' book, I would suggest The Day of the Jackal...which is a near carbon copy of the book.

There are many differences between the book The Day of the Jackal and LOTR; I doubt anyone would argue that you need to show every single blade of grass that is in the books. But my point is to create a good representation of whether it be a fictional book, a real life event, or whatever it is, than all you really need is a respect and love for what the author wrote (or a respect for the events that took place), and a respect for the intellect of the audience. My point with United 93 I never questioned Greengrass's ego, he was making a movie that would be as near to the actual event as possible, and never let his ego get in the way. I can't say the same for Jackson and company, who's primary focus always seemed to be money. Therefor, we end up with a very entertaining movie, yet a bad representation of Tolkien's story.

Jackson did hire many experts ranging from experts on the various langauges

I believe one of those so called experts PJ hired was a self proclaimed 'dwarvish expert.' I find that funny considering Tolkien never created a language for the dwarves (besides the names of a few places, people, and the saying 'Baruk Khazad! Khazad-Aimenu'). So this self-proclaimed expert in the dwarvish language, was just making up his own bilge.

The presence or absence of a tomato in the story is so trivial as to be meaningless to 99% of those who saw the films.

Again I'm not talking about whether it's good for the film or not (same can be said about The Scouring), I am talking about Jackson's ego in thinking he knows more about Middle-earth than Tolkien. Tolkien said in his story tomatoes didn't belong, Jackson got word of this and said 'that's just silly.' So what did he do, he put tomatoes in...that's disrespect towards the author and also has the arrogant air of 'I know more than some author who's past his prime.' To which case I think we can apply Tolkien's comments about Zimmerman in Letter 210:

He may think he knows more about The Lord of the Rings than I do, but he cannot expect me to agree with him.

I'm sorry but when the author of the book says that something doesn't belong in his story, or that something is 'essential' to his story. And the director responds with remarks of 'that's just silly,' and to prove his point that it's silly he goes directly against what the author said. That's plain out arrogance and disrespect.

It may be a trivial matter as far as the entertainment of the movie goes, but when dealing with whether these movies are a good representation of the books...it is surely not trivial. Especially when you have the director who was definitely aware of Tolkien's feelings on 'tomatoes' and 'The Scouring,' and he treats his thoughts in such a disrespectful way.

Am I being too harsh? Maybe some think so, sorry I'm very blunt and straightforward and not going to beat around the bush. Sorry if anyone's taken any offense, but I'm not going to crown Jackson the greatest director this world has ever seen, with the toilet humor and bilge he pulls.