“loved the animation, hated the CGI”

This chapter draws on materials gathered in world hobbit project whose 36,000 responses from across the world are contained in a searchable database, to present some findings and draw some tentative distinctions and conclusions. The World Hobbit Project was an ambitious attempt to gather responses to Peter Jackson's trilogy of films developed from J. R. R. Tolkien's The Hobbit. The chapter suggesst strongly that, for many viewers of the films, the notions of "effects" and "animation" are more readily used positively than is the notion of "CGI," which appears to carry a strong negative weighting. The Hobbit films were quite modestly received, with even many of the most enthusiastic viewers recording criticisms of particular parts— and yet often forgiving the films because they were felt to belong with the better-loved The Lord of the Rings.