What did Christopher Tolkien think?

[drigel]

And, yes, I thought they were excellent movies- as movies. But as presentations of my most beloved tale?

The books are not suited to visual representation. Tolkien's language is absolutely essential to LotR. That's why the BBC Radio version works so much better than the movies.

As time goes on, I tend to agree with these positions. PJ did as well as one could, given the current state of technology, but I think that the product would have been in a much better quality (both as a finished product and as a vehicle for a specific audience - rather than all audiences) if LOTR was adapted into cinema in, say, 20-50 years from now.

Byt, if one believes that the Hollywood blockbuster will soon be a thing of the past, then we should thank PJ and NewLine for taking this project on now, with it's $300 million budget, as that kind of money may not be so ready 20 years from now.