The Peter Jackson team, triumphantly wielding the Ring of commercial success, miss their footing and plunge headlong into the fiery depths of Mount Doom artistic fraud.

Rating: 2/10 (20 January 2014)

One of the central themes of The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings is the manner in which different personalities are affected by the corrupting effects of wealth and power. Some, like Bilbo, are completely able to retain their integrity. At the end of Tolkien's novel he accepts only a small parcel of treasure for his part in the quest, such as one pony can carry. When he finds the Arkenstone he does not claim it for himself but bestows it in a manner that he deems morally fit. Thorin Oakenshield has a fatal attraction to the dragon's hoard of gold, but on his deathbed is able to retrace and find himself again. Smaug the dragon is hugely greedy, use his great powers aggressively, and is undone by his vanity (believing himself invulnerable).
It's quite clear, and ironic, that the makers of this trilogy were similarly blinded by the lure of gold.
Tolkien's novel is a literary classic, written in beautiful prose, and illustrated by himself. His special gift was to depict a magical world where characters are nevertheless wholly believable and realistic, and their actions faultlessly motivated. My question to the filmmakers is: why change anything? Why was it necessary to change the story in so many, many, many ways? And whence the presumption that they are entitled to do this? Overweening arrogance ... And embarrassing, actually.
The makers evidently felt they needed to pad out the original, but in the process they have lost so much. I'm still waiting for a definitive version. I imagine something animated, and faithful to Tolkien's original illustrations.