Adaptation by Vague Recollection

[Leaf]

Originally Posted by William Cloud Hicklin

Leaf, that's an excellent analysis- for the first part. But for the latter part I doubt seriously that it was a matter of studio-driven bottom line thinking- Jackson could make anything with the Tolkien brand on it and it would sell like hotcakes. He's like the Beatles, nobody is going to tell him what to do, and if he had filmed a vertbatim rendition of the book T/W would have rubber-stamped its release.

No, the problem I think is that neither Jackson nor Boyens has the vision or sensitivity to let Tolkien take them out of their very narrow comfort zone of cliches and hackneyed tropes; PJ's idol after all is Harryhausen not Fellini. This is the guy who filmed and almost kept a RotK finale featuring Aragorn dueling Sauron mano a mano......

I don't necessarily think that it was the producers, or the studio, who enforced this kind of decisions. It might very well be that Peter Jackson (and/or the writers) himself is thinking in this manner. I just find it curious that "their very narrow comfort zone of cliches and hackneyed tropes", as you put it, coincides with typical (and financially successful) movie tropes. But you are right, I don't think that subtlety is PJ's strong suite. A quality which is badly needed for a story like the Hobbit. He definitely wasn't the best man for the job, in that regard.