Jackson's LoTR Movies from the Perspective of JRRT

[Bêthberry]

Tolkien has become a monster, devoured by his own popularity and absorbed into the absurdity of our time," he complained. "The chasm between the beauty and seriousness of the work, and what it has become, has overwhelmed me. The commercialization has reduced the aesthetic and philosophical impact of the creation to nothing. There is only one solution for me: to turn my head away... They eviscerated the book by making it an action movie for young people aged 15 to 25."

Oh, wait, you wanted JRRT's likely opinion. This was Christopher's (as quoted in a 2022 Screen Rant article).

I would add to Morth's rant the depiction of Aragorn, full of modernish angst and not in the tradition of heroism which Tolkien depicted.

I disagree with Morth's idea that Tolkien would not mind the omission of Bombadil; I think that's a guess rather than a given. While we often focus on Tom's nonsense as something immaterial to the plot, I think we overlook the important point the Bombadil episode adds: that Tom is immune to the influence of the Ring. It might not be a major point to the story but it helps to increase the mystique and mystery of the Ring itself and makes Frodo succumbing to it that much more tragic and conflicted. It also helps establish the long history of the mythology, the mythic sweep that intrigues many readers. Even Goldberry's washing day helps to establish that mythic time frame, to say nothing of the treacherous Old Man Willow in the frightening forest; in fairy tales and old lore, forests are scary places and weather is not a natural or metrological phenomenon (see Caradhras for personification of the natural environment), and so there are intimations of the later threats with Ents and Huorns. Jackson, in my memory of the movies (which I haven't watched in years), mostly overlooks this tantalizing aspect of the narrative, that there is more, far more, than this one vanquishing of evil and that the world is not something which humans control.