Adaptation by Vague Recollection

[Nerwen]

Originally Posted by Leaf

Those aren't things that PJ or the Screenwriters simply overlooked, misjudged or misunderstood. I find it hard to believe that the problem was the lack of ideas or a 'vague memory' (even though the result may feel this way). I'm thinking this way, because those things are relatively easy to spot and even easier to implement in the movie. If they wanted to only have a short appearance by Smaug, they could have done that. If they wanted to make Bilbo the real protagonist of this story, they could have done that. And if they wanted to have the dragonslayer appear, without a convoluted backstory, they could have done that as well. But, clearly, they didn't want to write the movies in that way. Instead, they chose to strip the story of those unconventional motifs.

Well, that's in part what I was trying to say, that they *chose* to- i.e. didn't *have* to.

It's said that Jackson was put under great pressure by the studio to give LotR the standard "Hollywood Treatment" (i.e. complete butchery) but dug in his heels and refused to do so; I'm sure he could have won such a battle this time around too.