On the one hand, we have the fanboys, for whom ¡°The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies¡± will be the ¡°Best. Film. Ever.,¡± as director Peter Jackson delivers a ginormously action-packed finale to his second Middle Earth trilogy. Kicking things off with a fire-breathing dragon razing the town of Lakewood, Jackson moves quickly into a supersized battle between elves, dwarves, men, goblins, bats, wizards and orcs, but alas, no winged monkeys. One film to rule them all . . . at least until ¡°Star Wars: Episode VII ¡ª The Force Awakens¡± comes along.
On the other, we have Christopher Tolkien ¡ª son of author JRR Tolkien, who wrote both ¡°The Hobbit¡± and ¡°The Lord of the Rings,¡± and the man in charge of the Tolkien estate ¡ª who has said that director Peter Jackson has ¡°eviscerated¡± the books by making them into juvenile ¡°action movies.¡±
¡°The chasm between the beauty and seriousness of the work, and what it has become, has overwhelmed me,¡± said Tolkien in an interview with Le Monde. ¡°The commercialization has reduced the aesthetic and philosophical impact of the creation to nothing.¡±
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