> how is this even taken seriously, given the Peter Jackson movies pretty much did justice to the books? (I'm assuming they did from the fan following. I never read the books)
I love the books, but even I will admit they're are fairly dry with large, long-winded descriptions. Peter Jackson did a brilliant job with the movies, and I'm really not sure what could be done better or even differently (outside of a fan-fiction TV series).
He did OK, but they were overlong, inconsistent, poorly paced, full of one-dimensional characters and set-piece battle scenes with deus ex machina outcomes, and so. much. exposition. You couldn't do a better job serving the books with more editing, but you could make three better movies by getting each (with the possible exception of Fellowship, which is a strong movie that just starts a little slow) down under 100 minutes.
But that's not a problem for a TV series, which is why GoT --- despite being categorically worse source material! --- is in the aggregate stronger than the LoTR films, even if you leave out the execrable Hobbit movies.
>He did OK, but they were overlong, inconsistent, poorly paced, full of one-dimensional characters and set-piece battle scenes with deus ex machina outcomes, and so. much. exposition.
Sounds quite faithful to me. The books are plodding, most of the characters are fairly simple, and there's entire chapters that describe rolling hills and lush forests...to say nothing of the songs.
I love the books, but even I will admit they're are fairly dry with large, long-winded descriptions. Peter Jackson did a brilliant job with the movies, and I'm really not sure what could be done better or even differently (outside of a fan-fiction TV series).