He owns the IP, but we all lose out from this system.

Art has asymmetric upside – bad art doesn't really harm anyone (usually just gets forgotten) but good art enriches millions of people's lives.

It might have been amazing. It might have been bad-but-interesting. We'll never know!

As a writer, I really would not like someone taking something I wrote, trashing it and then have that person’s version be the one everyone knows.

On a personal level I can absolutely empathize, but respectfully, I don't see why that should be the state's concern. The goal of IP law should be to promote the creation of good art, not to make sure artists' wishes are respected.

So, for example, theft should be illegal, because a world of unrestricted IP theft might be one in which we would get a lot less art. But allowing Tolkien to block adaptations of his bestseller 14 years after publication was probably not good for art.

The creator of Pepe the frog might disagree. It's a fine line.

If it would have been done poorly, no one might have funded Jackson, it’s hard to judge in hindsight.

Do bad adaptations prevent good adaptations? Lynch's Dune flopped but Villeneuve had a $165m budget.

We can't know the contrapositive but I don't see why giving the author a veto makes good outcomes more likely, especially decades after a book is published.

Why should an author have the right to prevent adaptations?

If Tolkien had been alive he probably would have put an end to Jackson's efforts, too.