As a Tolkien freak, I got exactly what I expected from the LOTR movies (still haven't bothered with TH). Which wasn't a lot. I knew they'd mucked things up before the first one came out ("We've paid Liv Tyler $3M & she only appears for 3 mins in the entire Trilogy? Whut?! Make more of her part! NOW!!"). There are things I don't have an issue with. Leaving out Tom Bombadil caused a bit of an outcry amongst some, but he is entirely irrelevant to the plot. The only significance of the entire Barrow Downs episode is that that's where Merry gets the Numenorean blade that he stabs the Morgul King with at the Battle of the Pelennor Fields. It would have been fun to see him, but he isn't a loss.

On the other hand... I could go on at length. Nah. Not unless y'all really want me to start dissecting the major cock ups. {evil grin} Suffice it to say that the Jacksons are a pair of muppets (I seem to remember that Peter gave Fran a considerable amount of credit for helping to adapt the book into the (bad) script. LotR regularly tops polls of the "Best ever" kind but the Jacksons decided they knew better... And buggered the films up.

What annoys me most is that they made such a pig's ear of the story, whilst creating the look & feel of the world so well. No-one in my lifetime will dare to re-make it properly. If they don't follow the Jackson look, they will be told they're not doing it right; if they do, they will be dismissed as mere imitators. The fact that they're doing the story as it should have been will be ignored...

Jackson's single achievement is that he persuaded Hollywood to stump up the finance for all 3 films up front on the clear understanding that there was a long filming schedule & nothing would be released before it was finished, etc. Frankly, he is a rubbish director anyway, from what I've seen of his work. He mucked up the greatest story published to date, and buggered up the filming as well. With apologies to Mrzzy, I've still never actually seen any of the TH. For obvious reasons! One day, I will get around to acquiring Director's Cut DVD's (if there are such things) of all of them, because it's only version I'll ever get to see. But not so far...