Dumbing it down

[Boromir88]

Jackson & the writers' tendency to take things from the book which Tolkien mentions in passing, or of which he makes a very subtle use & repeatedly belt the audience over the head them with till we're pleasing with him to 'STOP!, because we get it already!'

Very true, somethings he beats into our head, and others, I don't think he gives a lot of explaining which leaves a lot of non-book readers puzzling what the heck is going on? Like the famous questions...

"Why didn't Gandalf summon the eagles sooner?" (From ROTK it definitely appears as if Gandalf summons them).

or...

"Why did Frodo leave?"
"Why didn't Sauron guard Mount Doom better?"

I still wish his target audience had been literate adults rather than illiterate teens.

My favorite experience would be...someone (who will remain unnamed) totally oblivious to the basic plotlines. For example, this particular person though Sauron sent the 10,000 army to Helm's Deep, and was totally oblivious to who Saruman was. Then had the nerve of saying "I don't think I'm more clever then the screenwriters, just more clever then the book."