Look, some of us liked “The Hobbit” trilogy. They’re not the perfect movies, but it’s a perfect adventure. Oh, and there’s a dragon who’s a total baller.

Other people, however, didn’t really appreciate the films. In fact, they really hated them.

And that’s how frenemies are made.

The criticism has been that the movies were overly exaggerated, there was too much CGI and it didn’t need to be stretched into a trilogy. Now, a fan theory suggests the films were actually meant to be a little ridiculous and needlessly drawn out.

The Theory: “The Hobbit” films were bloated with CGI and long-winded because they represent Bilbo’s own exaggerated retellings of his adventure.

Redditor Questionbdp posed the idea as “internal justification” for why the movies were a “disappointment,” and it actually makes sense. The Redditor explains:

What Bilbo actually experienced during his adventure with the Dwarves was probably far less significant and monumental than the movies make it out to be, because the movies show how Bilbo retells his adventures, not how he actually lived them.

The theory goes on to say Bilbo probably felt bummed after he returned from his adventure to find all the other Hobbits didn’t care and were selling off all his stuff. (You nasty Hobbitses!) Because of this, he makes his story larger than life and “events which only filled a small book turned into three separate movies.”

Commenters called the theory “brilliant,” and one even joked, “Lol, Peter Jackson, is that you?”

Speaking of Jackson, even he says “The Hobbit” movies were meant to be a different tone than “Lord of the Rings,” but could this be the reason why?

In J. R. R. Tolkien‘s original stories, Bilbo authors his own memoir, There and Back Again, so it’s entirely possible that he embellished a bit. The dude was pretty good at making stuff up when explaining how he escaped the Goblin tunnels to his Dwarf bros, after all. And how else would you explain Legolas running up a crumbling tower?