[Thinlómien]

I am glad Peter Jackson is done with Middle-Earth. (Knock on wood.) The LotR movies are far from perfect, but The Fellowship of the Ring is actually a pretty good movie (and even a pretty good adaptation) and even the rest have great moments, not to mention the beautiful sets, props, costumes, music, cinematography, acting... they *almost* make up for the shoddy direction and the even shoddier scripts.

I have stopped grudging the LotR movies (even though it's still a little sad that with such an amazing crew they could have made so much better films). But to be honest how many people have fallen in love with Tolkien because of the movies? How many of us have friends we'd never have bonded with if they hadn't seen those movies and decided to read the book? I'm happy the movies got made - I definitely don't grudge LotR and fantasy as a genre becoming more popular.

I do grudge the mess PJ made of The Hobbit though. Fortunately, I believe the movies will be fairly quickly be forgotten by all but the die hard PJ fans and quite frankly, the Hobbit movies deserve to be forgotten.

I don't have anything against movie adaptations in general, quite the contrary. Actually, the idea that someone is going to make another movie adaptation of The Lord of the Rings in twenty or thirty years makes me happy, because I will be intrigued to see it, and I'm craving for somebody to challenge PJ's vision of Middle-Earth. I am even morbidly curious if anyone will ever try to film (parts of) The Silmarillion and what it will be like.

So, here's to the LotR movies and the phenomenon they became, and to future adaptations of the Professor's work that will have nothing to do with Peter Jackson. Cheers!