The Hobbit Desolation of Smaug support thread.

[Legate of Amon Lanc]

Originally Posted by elvet

IMHO, Tolkien's greatest legacy is to have been the inspiration for readers, authors, and artists ( including film makers). I feel lucky to be able to have such a great time at the movie, and not be bothered by the differences between it and the source.

That is actually the attitude I'd like - and which it (hopefully!) will be like after a couple of years or decades, when the movies disappear from general knowledge and will be just one of the many adaptations of Tolkien that could be remembered if one tries. The main issue I have with the movies now is that they seem to eclipse the books themselves and, to most of the people, seem to be THE representation of Tolkien (or not even Tolkien, but LotR/Hobbit). But I really like the attitude, if one sees the movies in this perspective: it's a work of art just the same as a painting of Isengard or a music piece representing the Fellowship, and one can judge how good piece of art it is, and that's it, instead of (consciously or subconsciously) putting equation between the movie and the book (which even I did, by default). This other way of thinking sort of puts the distance between oneself and the immediate experience, and it can be evaluated more objectively - or, actually, subjectively.