Tauriel, perhaps the most controversial Middle-Earth character. August 8, 2023

In the decades since its release, The Hobbit trilogy, has been split among people. I always thought it got more hate than it deserved. I agree some of the digital effects were used to excess, and maybe it did not need to be made into a trilogy. Too be fair, a lot of it was not Peter Jackon's fault, because they did not give him enough time to think up his vision for it, after Guillermo del Toro left. Even so, one of the additions they made that was controversial in the begging was the character, Tauriel. People were annoyed because a modern audience would feel like a story would need some female characters, which were nowhere in the book. I personally did not have a problem with her. The only thing I could do without was leave it the love triangle, which Evangeline Lilly was opposed to anyway. The trouble was they did not give Peter enough time to think of a point of having her there. What they could have done was have her show King Thranduil he needed to put his side his bigotry with the Dwarves and think beyond Mirkwood. Unfortunately, there was no time to develop that, so we had to have the love triangle. That said, I am now at the point where I will respect anything based on Tolkien's work. Whatever, Amazon has planned in the near future, I doubt anything based on his work will match Peter Jackson's masterpiece. I am not opposed to a remake, or making movies that take place during the events of the main trilogy. I will see the upcoming anime film, The War of the Rohirrim, next April, but again, it will never top the ones that were released between 2001 and 2003.