Having read the books long ago, and recently listened to them narrated by Andy serkis, holy shit the books do NOT translate into movie form.

Maybe a miniseries like Battlestar Galactica, but the budget for it would have to be insane.

People don't seem to understand that nobody is going to fimund their dream movie adaptation, because their dream movie adaptation has a larger budget than most countries' GDP.

I would LOVE to have seen Tom Bombadil and the barrow wights. I'd love to have gotten to see everything in the book, but let's be realistic here.

Go back in time with a few metric tons of gold, fund it however you see fit. I think if given proper funding, and more strict guidelines to keep the funding, he'd make as perfect an adaptation live-action could get in a miniseries. Make it like 90-100 minutes per "episode" and stretch it out however long it takes.

Do people not realize he was told initially it would have to be shown in ONE movie? And he fought to have at LEAST two, and that the studio we finally got insisted on 3 because this story is too long and complex (and lucrative) to be only two movies?

It could have been much, much worse. But hot damn do I wish it were better, even recognizing how good it was.