Peter Jackson Explains Why the ‘Hobbit’ Movies Are Such a Huge Mess

[Boromir88]

I think the visuals are the last things to complain about, actually.~Nerwen

I should clarify that most of the set designs, bigatures, costume and make-up department looked more real and had a feeling of being in a different world. I think part of it because Jackson didn't use the super high frames per second, relied less on CGI, and had a lot more time for set building/planning in the LOTR films.

I get a creepier feel about Minas Morgul than I do with Dol Guldur. There's a darker feeling around Pippin and Merry being in Fangorn, than the dwarves being lost in Mirkwood.

The biggest settings I didn't feel right about were Rohan and Bree. Rohan, not so much the rocky terrain (I'm pretty sure there's a description that says parts are flat and rolling plains and parts that are broken and rocky...although didn't seem like there was much flatness except around Edoras). But Rohan just wasn't green...like at all. Their flag is a white horse on a green field, and there's no green. Jackson in the EE says he wanted it to reflect "war time" in Rohan, and so wanted a bleaker/dead atmosphere, so no green fields.

And I should say it's the Prancing Pony that was wrong to me, not Bree entirely. The Pony was far too dark and created a feeling of the hobbits being misplaced/away from home. In the books there are other hobbits around and the Pony feels homely enough to lull them off their guard and feeling like they were back in the Green Dragon. Movies they look and feel so misplaced inside the Pony. I would guess the reason is since the Old Forest was cut from the movie, this is really the first "residence" outside the Shire we see the hobbits in and Jackson wanted to create that "not at home anymore" feeling that readers get in the Old Forest chapters.

But by visuals, it's really hard to shake off the image of Sean Bean's strawberry-blonde hair when reading Boromir's parts in the books. As just one example. So, I think, at least in my experience, the images from the movies seep into my brain while I'm reading the books, and it becomes hard not to picture John Rhys-davies' Gimli. (Edit: where actually The Hobbit it's fairly easy to shake off any of the dwarves and images because of how absolutely silly, wrong, or fake everything looks or feels)