I was astonished at how well Jackson used the landscape of New Zealand to recreate Middle Earth. It was exactly as I had seen it in my mind’s eye after reading the books four or five times. The costumes and set design too.
My one and only regret about the LOTR movie was that there was no room for the Scouring of the Shire. Well, that and the loss of Tom Bombadil.
I had lots of regrets about the movies too. I didn’t like the whole Ent part. I didn’t like the way they made Gimli into a joke. I just finished listening to the trilogy which they finally last year, got into a wonderful unabridged audio version. But the movies, whatever their flaws, provided me with a vision of Middle Earth that I will always treasure. My mother read the trilogy every year for years and I do regret that she didn’t live long enough to see the movies. Oh well, she’s living them now which is what I always think when I regret someone who has died didn’t do something on earth.