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.
With every movie, including LOTR, I make it my business to find faults. And having read the book makes it all the easier. I don’t like what Peter Jackson did to Denethor, and Aragorn’s character didn’t seem quite right. Some of the action scenes were ridiculous. Aragorn and Frodo on a 100 thousand ton slab of rock teetering back and forth, and Aragorn says “lean forward”. Or the signal fires going off one by one all the way from Gondor to Rohan when all they did in the book was send a rider. But actually, I was relieved that the movie wasn’t as Hollywoodized as I’d originally heard. There was a rumor early on that there was going to be a sex scene in the inn at Bree. What I really like about the movies is the music. The extended version of The Two Towers has the entire score playing at the end.