The hideousness that were the Hobbit films were due, once again, to the Studio Suits. Let’s review. LotR was a huge hit, meticulously planned, financially backed, and basically had all of New Zealand backing it.
Companies changed. Personnel - mostly at the very top - changed. Guillermo del Toro, another Tolkien fan, was brought in for the second trilogy. Not the cleverest of moves, but PJ and Fran were making a monkey movie. The project was basically left unattended and mutated into something ugly. They hired Martin Freeman as a lead, who cannot act. They added female Elves and thinking, planning Orcs. They scrubbed every element of charm from the script. Somehow Radagast got a big role, and Galadriel learned the martial arts. The first was not so bad for the first twenty minutes or so, and then just went merrily down the shitter. Some lovely images, but Justice League has some lovely visuals as well. It still sucks. The second started promising Beorn, and what they delivered was … not Beorn. Please note Beorn is one of my favorite characters of all time.
It was bad, and got worse. By whatever the hell the second one had got to it was a far, far cry from The Hobbit I read at eleven. That was a wonderful book. These were three shitty movies. And I hated what they did with Smaug!
