Easterhay said:

I don't believe Peter Jackson makes films for kids, though. From a child's point of view (if I may dare to be so bold) he makes films that are long and boring with quite a few frightening moments. King Kong? Dull as ditchwater until they land on the island. Then it's scary scenes with the natives (not at all child-friendly) and sub-par CGI dinosaurs. Lord Of The Rings? Again, for any kid (and even some adults) it has incredibly long sections where not much of interest really happens (a lot of talking and walking) and then scenes with Orcs that, as with the natives in King Kong, are terrifying for kids.

Fair enough. Maybe Harry Potter is a better example, especially the latter installments. I didn't see the early HP films in theaters, but when I went to the last three or four it was prettty much an equal balance of kids, teens and adults (not parents, people like me who went to see it because they wanted to see it).

I always just have a very vivid memory of a 14 year old girl crying with emotion in the seat in front of me during the end of Return of the King--genuinely being moved by the story and characters TO TEARS--can you imagine that? That's something people sometimes talk about but never actually witness, and she was actually crying with emotion. By contrast, I have a very vivid memory of an an entire movie theater laughing their asses off when Darth Vader went "NOOOOooo" in Episode III. I'm not making any of this up, and people laughed at a lot of dialogue they weren't supposed to be laughing at elsewhere in the movie. Even though I feel like I am one of the few people here that actually really like Episode III that to me was a perfect example of why LOTR won armfulls of Oscars for being really good and the prequels won armfuls of Razzie's for being really bad.