Plenty of people hated Donatello's version of the Magdalene, too. Or ... well, a near-infinite number of reworkings of familiar figures, stories, etc.
Rather than try to project into what a dead man thinks, why not try to watch each work exactly as it is meant: as its own work? Does it tell a good story? Does it tell the story well? Do the characters engage me? Why not treat this particular work as an especially ambitious bit of fan fiction?
Going beyond that is rarely productive. It gets the heart pumping but it rarely changes minds. We might get occasional insights (I didn't know there was a movie project during Tolkien's lifetime), but it's rarely worth enduring the shouting. Tolkien probably didn't like the Hildebrandt brothers' paintings either, but plenty of people loved them.
Rather than try to project into what a dead man thinks, why not try to watch each work exactly as it is meant: as its own work? Does it tell a good story? Does it tell the story well? Do the characters engage me? Why not treat this particular work as an especially ambitious bit of fan fiction?
Going beyond that is rarely productive. It gets the heart pumping but it rarely changes minds. We might get occasional insights (I didn't know there was a movie project during Tolkien's lifetime), but it's rarely worth enduring the shouting. Tolkien probably didn't like the Hildebrandt brothers' paintings either, but plenty of people loved them.