The Hobbit: 10 Times Peter Jackson Ruined A Character

The combination of bad writing and Orlando Bloom's wooden acting, resulted in one of the worst character executions in the entire trilogy. Early on there was speculation that several characters from the Lord of the Rings would make appearances in the Hobbit. Elijah Wood would make a brief comeback as Frodo, and Orlando Bloom was rumoured to show up as the Elf-prince Legolas.

The prospect of having his arrow-slinging hero back onscreen clearly ran away with Peter Jackson, as it became clear Bloom's role was anything but a cameo. By now it's widely known that Legolas did not appear in the book, Tolkien didn't conceive of the character until he wrote the Lord of the Rings, years later. His inclusion is not altogether unwarranted, however, given the expanded life of elves and his relationship to Thranduil. It even made sense for him to have a significant role in the story given his status in Mirkwood.

But his time spent leap frogging over dwarves and performing wildly elaborate acrobatics just became tedious. Even the cursed Kili/Tauriel romance sub-plot, might have been saved, if Jackson actually had Legolas react to it in some kind of significant way. The Legolas character was indicative of these movies - he was the jazz hands distracting us from the lack of substance.