I thought I was going to die of boredom during Elrond's Council, which was one of the more fascinating chapters in the books. I thought most of the opening exposition of the movie should have been held until Gandalf's talk with Frodo in Bag End and Elrond's Council, respectively, keeping the intriguing mystery of the Ring mysterious as in the books. Some kind of brief concept of the time and space could have replaced that long exposition for neophytes to be not totally at sea. I found Lothlorien wrongheaded and Galadriel a dead loss (why does anyone hire Cate anyway?) Moria, on the other hand, was well done. Strider should have been more mature and rugged looking, instead of so cute. In the books Gandalf and Sam were both "types": Gandalf came off very well, but Sam ended up being mostly a cipher. Oh, hell, this can go on and on and ON and in each case others will just plain disagree and fair enough.
Iguana (I feel terrible addressing you that way) hits my situation right on the nose with the following:
For many years I was heartily opposed to the idea of a film adaptation of LOTR for the simple reason that I didn't think anyone could do it justice - or even begin to. Part of that was the sheer difficulty in getting much fo such a gargantuan work to the screen; part of it was the technology needed to convey so many supernatural elements; and part related to the likelihood of Hollywood's bowlderizing and crass commercialistic tendencies making a mush of things if the first two obstacles were surmounted.
Having said all that, I have to confess that while not perfect (in my eyes), Peter Jackson et al have probably done as a good a job in overcoming these obstacles to lens a film project reasonably faithful to the books as one could possibly hope for while retaining any hope of commercial success (or at least of recouping the massive costs).
I used to argue while in college (1968 to 1972) that the only way they could do justice to a movie version was to do a whole series of Disney cartoon movies. Special effects were relatively primitive back then without today's computer technology. (Interestingly, go back to a 1955 science fiction movie called "The Forbidden Planet", where a lot of the effects are recognizably Disney cartoons, but off topic I go...). I still think a lack of detail, as well as the wrong kind of detail, paradoxically ruined it for me, but there was no way around that given the understandable constraints. With me they weren't likely to win, and they didn't. I won't be spending $13 Canadian (that's aboot 18.5 cents U.S., Miss Hair :^)) on each of the next two, I'll wait longer to get them on the movie channels around here.
Miss Hair, you write: "I think the reason was to highlight and bring out a love story that is nice and beautiful." I still think I'm right, FreeRepublicspeak or not. As for Arwen, I enjoy looking at Miss Tyler as much as the next red-blooded male. But who needs the love story jammed in their faces? The books would have been far worse with more of it, and there was almost none, thank God and JRRT! But you don't want to hear my opinion of romance in fiction! To say it's not entertaining is as politely as I can express it. Pornography without having the guts to be actually pornographic is what others might say.:^) I will NEVER understand the entertainment value of two movie stars kissing!
I thought the Faramir-Eowyn scene in the books was embarrassing despite Tolkien's obvious efforts, and the books downplaying potential Aragorn-Arwen mush muck while still giving us the idea was decent and, actually, rather inspired. (The only romantic movie I really ever enjoyed was "Casablanca". Natch!)
So I still don't see a reason for the Arwen enhancement, other than what I suggested. The importance to character development of a weakened Frodo valiantly standing up to the terrifying Nazgul on his own at the Fords was vital, and there was just NO reason to have that role performed by a tough Elf broad! No matter how yummy!!