Recently, one of my millennial age nephews, who also saw the films as a child, read the original books and he was blown away by how much better the book version was.
I have no plans on seeing this more recent bastardization of LOTR.
As an aside, if there are any "Game Of Thrones" fans out there of the TV show, you would do well to read the "A Song Of Ice And Fire" books by George R.R. Martin. Those are the books the TV series is based on (five volumes so far with two more on the way). For me anyhow, it was a very satisfying read. But it will take you a while - it's over 4,000 pages of reading (so far).
I can’t think of many examples of a movie exceeding the book on which it was based. Some cite The Godfather, claiming that the book was great but the movie was a next-level masterpiece. Perhaps. I’ve heard similar claims about Gone with the Wind. Maybe, maybe not.
Tolkien’s books are certainly a challenge because a fantasy-based world such as his leaves much to the reader’s imagination, and Peter Jackson’s imagination isn’t going to be the same as mine and vice-versa. I certainly felt like Jackson’s LOTR film trilogy wasn’t as enjoyable as the books but it was a decent effort at a film adaptation. Some things that were changed or omitted genuinely bothered me, but I’ve definitely seen worse adaptations. Much worse.
With the deaths of the last of the Tolkien children in 2020 and 2022 respectively, it’s all in the hands of the grandchildren and great-grandchildren now. And we’ve seen the direction that they’re willing to go: a total cash grab with no concerns at all about faithfulness to the source material. I guess that letting Amazon completely bastardize the old man’s stories into a Game of Thrones clone beats working for a living.
GOT’s final season ended my interest in any other GOT prequels, sequels or any other “quels”!
It was so poorly done and an obvious rush job. It was clear the actors had had enough and were only interested in cashing their checks and moving on.
Almost no movie matches the book it it based on. The book is almost always better, and LotR is great literature that is virtually impossible to encapsulate in cinema. That said, I feel that Peter Jackson and his team did a fantastic job with the LotR movies.
Jackson clearly loved the source material and tried to distill it as faithfully as he could. He delivers on giving a feel of Tolkien’s world and the major outlines of the story. The movies were a technical achievement of their day; the stand well on their own and they did a great job of introducing millions to Tolkien’s work who never would have read it before.
My kids like to pull the DVDs out a couple times a year and we all end up watching the whole extended edition. They have also worn out a couple sets of the books.
The Hobbit movies were a big let down in comparison.
I’ve read LOTR and the Song of Ice and Fire books, which is why I refuse to watch the film versions. I don’t mind reading a book after seeing the movie (usually), but it’s very rarely good the other way around. The only exception that I can think of was To Kill a Mockingbird.
The Jeeves and Wooster TV shows were pretty good, but Stephen Fry was just not the right actor to play Jeeves. Hugh Laurie, on the other hand, was exactly as I had always pictured Bertie Wooster.