My basic view of India is of a super diverse country with a fascinating history and cultures, and really great food. Politically I see a country that unfortunately is leaning in a more authoritarian direction as time goes one, and one that is getting increasingly unequal to its inhabitants. I really think India has so much potential but little will to actually improve.

I didn't really follow the online conversations around the movie, but I did watch it and it's not entirely that long ago since I watched the animated movie either. If I was to try to judge the movie without the context of the orighinal, I'd say it was fine, nothing about it was terrible but I also didn't find anything about it particularly good or memorable. I think Will Smith did a fine job and I don't think he'd be anywhere near the top of the list of what I would criticise about the movie in that case.

But I do think context matters, and in context I think it comes out looking pretty poor. Genie as written for the live action movie pales in comparison to the animated one. In terms of craft I think the live action one feels like a soulless board-room directed husk, and I really miss the feeling of a creative voice in the whole thing.

If you're going to remake something, I it should be better, or enough of a reinterpretation to be considered distinctly different.

I am glad others liked it, but if I someone asked me which they should watch I would tell them the original animated movie because I think it is a better piece of entertainment, and that makes the modern one feel like an absolute waste of time, money, skills and effort that could have been spent so much better.

Do you mean back when he played a caricature of a conservative "talking head"?

On the Hobbit movies, I don't even think studio meddling was the biggest issue.

Peter Jackson had so much time to prepare for the original trilogy, where as he took over the Hobbit movies quite soon before they were scheduled to shoot and he couldn't use the preparation the previous director had done.

So he had no time to prepare and basically had to wing it with 3 movies and little to no prep.