At first, I didn’t enjoy Peter Jackson’s film adaptation of The Return of the King.

Why? It was obscenely long (and just think, that was just the theatrical release– the extended version is yet to be unleashed upon the Tolkienophile masses), parts of it dragged out far longer than they lasted in their original form (most notably Frodo and Sam’s plight in the Shelob’s lair), other parts were chopped entirely (a complaint common to all of the films), and the ending was just a little too happy to do justice to Tolkien’s original work.

Now, to redeem myself: on second thought, it’s an astounding work of film. The cinematography was incredible, the acting top-notch, and the computer-generated everything was convincing. I felt as if there really were such creatures as cave trolls and 100-foot-tall “oilephants.”

Part of the problem, I believe, is that I knew the ending long before the film was released. I read the books in the days before movie shots dominated the paperback covers (though, I admit that I own movie-edition paperbacks), when, though they were acknowledged as the grand-daddies of modern fantasy, the books were still essentially cult-classics. That was before a cocky thirteen-year-old could challenge my knowledge of Middle Earth, even though he’s only seen the movies, and doesn’t read the books until after the release of each film because he “doesn’t want to spoil the ending.” That was when there was a kind of fraternal bonding between those who had read Tolkien’s works, a kind of special club formed around the Fellowship; it could be divided into ranks of those who had read The Hobbit, those who had read The Silmarillion, those who had read Unfinished Tales, or those who had read all of literature available on Middle Earth.

I can remember the days when Tom Bombadil (who did not appear in the theatrical release of the films at all) and Faramir (whose character was reduced to a blurb) were important to the story. I remember when I could mention The Lord of the Rings and people would not know what I was talking about. There was a time when the mention of Tolkien’s work would not elicit a groan, but now, because of what has been an almost overexposure, it does.

I don’t mind that Jackson has opened the doors of Middle Earth to the masses; they were open long before, but books aren’t as accessible as film in this age of functional literacy (a term that I have coined to describe those who can read, but just don’t). His films, though, are not an accurate representation of Tolkien’s work, and a lot of people have gotten the wrong impression of a beautifully written–though sometimes long-winded–piece of literature. It’s a good thing that the public is finally starting to read something a little more challenging than Harry Potter, but on the same coin, it has become popular to hate the saga. The same elitists who read the books before the films brought them to popularity have decided to turn and not read them, and to make fun of those do.

In the same school–though a different classroom–of thought are the Tolkien snobs who are pretentious about having read the books before the films were released. I read them, yes, but I don’t mind that others did not until after seeing the film, as long as they appreciated the work. Those elitists are the ones that really bug me, constantly griping about what Jackson has done wrong, where he could have done better, and why he should be hanged forever by his beard.

Yes, there are things that I would have done differently, had I been the one making the film. I was not the one in the director’s chair, however, and I’m OK with that. So, all complaints that I have aside, I have to say that Jackson has done well. With a final product that runs well over twelve hours (director’s cuts), he’s done the best that he–and I daresay any modern moviemaker–could.