10 Changes That Would Have Saved The Hobbit

When George Lucas released the prequels to Star Wars, the overriding criticism was that he favoured CGI over the prosthetic designs that gave his original trilogy charm. This was such a talked about point, that there is no conceivable way Peter Jackson was not aware that he ran the same risk.

History is fated to repeat itself, however, and Jackson followed Lucas like a lemming director into a pit of sloppy animation, and ludicrous characters.

The thing that grounded The Lord of the Rings trilogy was the sense of authentic grittiness. The orcs were believable as antagonist because it felt as though you could reach out and touch them, they had real weight. But when a character is CGI you're very aware that they're not real. Although Jackson used CGI in The Lord of the Rings, he only did so when it was necessary. He was never going to find a stand in for trolls, fell beast or eagles, but the audience was able to suspend disbelief, given the lengths Jackson went to to make the rest of the world feel grounded.

Many of these issues stem from the fact Jackson simply did not have the time to prep these movies. After the departure of the original director, Jackson stepped in, with only a few month to redesign everything. He was making changes all through principle photography. Azog for example, had been filmed extensively as an actor in prosthetics, but was redesigned at such a late stage, that the only option was to edit in a digital version in post.