Yes there is one thing I loved about LOTR and Silmarillion is that they seem so connected to nature. The movie didn’t reflect it very well.
I went in with low expectations to Peter Jackson’s worldly vision of TLotR, so I was not excessively disappointed, but it was typical secularized Hollywood fare.
I could write a short book of criticism on how he did not understand the philosophical or spiritual underpinnings of the story.
I know that Christopher Tolkien despised those three movies.
He was his father’s sounding board and eventual biographer and chronicler. Tolkien sent him chapters of the trilogy as they were finished, to read and give feedback in WWII, while he was in the RAF in North Africa. These are precious to him - no pun.
I will say that I adore the Howard Shore scores. As a professional chorister, I sang in the live presentation of the movies with full orchestra and chorus on the West coat, at San Jose’s Center for the Performing Arts. (The East coast version was at the Lincoln Center.)
We got standing ovations at every intermission and ending: six performances. Quite exhilarating.