Besides some nitpicking (which we've certainly done our share of) I thought these movies were fantastic. I loved every part of it.
But what I really loved was how they came into my life.
I started reading LotR in the summer of 2001 with absalutly no idea there was going to be a movie. But the fact that the movies were there to be watched just as I finished the books turned what would have been just one story out of many into an entire experience. These movies rekindled the fandom that existed after the books were published and ensured that they would continue into the new millenium.
It's kind of like a passing on of the torch kind of thing. Very much in the way the Red Book of Westmarch was passed from Bilbo to Frodo to Sam etc. The great stories and myths are always passed from one generation to another and shaped to fit the imaginations of the times. So, in anther half century we'll have yet a new revial of Tolkien. In what way, I can't even begin to fathom, but I'm glad I'll still be around to see it.
We are all just passing characters in the great story of life
