a facinating thread to read! there are many quotes from esteemed contributors that I could refer to, but I will just throw in my pence for what its worth:
To me, there are corollaries between film making and myths. Primarily, it involves storytelling. To weave a tale, ahh so.
Where the medium fails is in the interpretation. PJ IMO used his medium as well as one could to capture some of the Truths that are in the heart of the myth, and still make money.
As referenced earlier, all Arts have this condition. Wasnt the literary device that JRRT used as his "reference" was Aelfwine's account and history, as told to him by immortal elves? How would Aelfwine critique LOTR? hehe would he say: "aaaah, but he missed the point of the story here.... and here..."?
Even spoken word has the same effect. What starts as a story turns into a fable, and eventually (if the stars are aligned just so) a myth. What JRRT accomplished to me was to bypass the millenia of cultural / political influence that molds, or reinvents myths to tools of use (which of course is one reason why the myth remains alive to a people in the first place). These same influences also discards them altogether, forgotten forever, which what JRRT sees with Englands mythology, and to a larger extent, the ushering in of the modern age of technology. Here, in his work, we see the Myth as it was, unaltered. A history, as it were.