it is sometimes I'd agree, the Starwars sequels were I think very cynical films as was Ghostbusters 2016, here though I think most likely someone from on high said you have to make the cast a bit more diverse(probably because they were afraid of negative PR) but really it didnt feel like it was being hard sold to me, you didnt really have cheap Girlboss and Mary Sue kind of stuff or as much promotion that way, what you did have was a big kick back from cultural war right wingers, many of whome didnt seem to care much about Tolkien beforehand.
I didnt think this was on the scale of those films in terms of lack of effort, really Abrams and Feig brought pretty much nothing to the table beyond preying on nostalgia, terrible comedy and some rather cheap tokenism. Here I think there was some effort to do more than that and I think some aspects were pretty sucerssful, it did feel like it belonged in the same world as Jacksons films to me were as Abrams SW felt like a cartoonish version of the setting with no sense of scale.
Again I feel like this ended up showing that Tolkien was actually a better writer than he's given credit for, not just someone who invented a mythology but who could tell a fantasy story in quite an individual fashion. This series to me felt more "Potterish" in that it depended a lot more on details and reveals around the mythology to drive its drama plus without the very exact sense of location of LOTR. Tolkiens story really is pretty simple with only a handful of mythology aspects really effecting the plot and only a few big twists, mostly its slow and atmospheric selling a certain tone.
