Lord of The Rings is way too long... way too dry... and too lacking in characterisation for my tastes.. JRR did capture the 'epic' feel of mythology, and was a fantastic world builder, but as a story teller, in LOTR, it's about as emotionally deep as a Vulcan math quiz...

What I liked best bout the movie, was, just like William Goldmans 'retelling' of s. Morgensterns "The Princess Bride", it's the GOOD PARTS version... all the highlights of the tale, with sprinkling of creative licence so that PJ wasn't hamstrung with having to follow the text verbatim... I can experience the tale without having to put up with JRR's literary diarrhea about the leaves and the trees, and the sunlight through the leaves and the trees, and the shadows on the grass of the leaves on the trees.... please... spin ON!

And don't get me wrong, I used to be JUST as pumped about LOTR as every other geek out there... but studying fantasy lit and reading more especially contemporary speculative fiction has lead me to the conclusion that Ol' Prof JRR had his strengths on the more academic side, but as 'creative' individual, he's been way out done...