Almost everything about the Peter Jackson films rubbed me the wrong way: everything was too obvious, too childish, too dumb. The opening info-dump neatly robbed later scenes of any dramatic tension. In the book, the reader is in the shoes of Frodo (and the eavesdropping Sam) as Gandalf slowly reveals the true provenance of the Ring; likewise, the Council of Elrond chapter wouldn’t work in the film, since everything was already revealed in the first five minutes like a cheap hooker flashing all she got by the roadside, somewhere in Bradford.
I was likewise disappointed by the films’ depiction of Sauron. In the books he is a shadowy malevolence, though it is clear he once took on physical form and fought on the battlefield. However, Tolkien presents even this battle in very impressionistic terms, as befits ancient memory:
‘I beheld the last combat on the slopes of Orodruin, where Gil-galad died, and Elendil fell, and Narsil broke beneath him; but Sauron himself was overthrown, and Isildur cut the Ring from his hand with the hilt-shard of his father’s sword, and took it for his own.’
Jackson of course presents Sauron as a Transformers-looking mech-giant, to appeal to the teenage audience. I was discussing this with a Zoomer student, whose only interests were superhero films; he was mildly retarded but surprised me by suggesting that Jackson could have presented the battle from Sauron’s perspective. That would have been an interesting choice: a giant but still approximately human figure, staring out of armoured slits at Gil-Galad and Elendil; the sense of alien stature and purpose, of strange power and perspective, the terror and awe in the faces of His adversaries, their instinct to yield, even to bow, to serve a Maia.
But, as with so much in these films, Jackson opted for the crudest, tackiest of all possibilities.
I remember feeling somewhat this way when they first came out - there was a lot of stuff that irritated me, especially in the first film. The whimsy of the Shire. Merry and Pippin pratting around. Gimli played for laughs. Too much silliness. They could be better. But they've grown on me over the years and I rewatch them often and feel enriched by the experience. On balance I still think we are lucky to have these films, made before the woke deluge, mostly respectful and faithful interpretations of an important novel of genius, written by a deeply conservative Catholic with values and opinions that would render him unemployable and unpublishable in Keir Starmer's bleak dystopia. (I never bothered watching the Hobbit films and probably never will.)