Tolkien was forgotten! - The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King Reviews

I absolutely loved the LOTR movies...until now. Someone please remind me, just exactly who created this whole Middle Earth thing and wrote an epic adventure intended to give Britain a mythological history of it's own...Tolkien did you say? Hmmm, funny; after what I saw tonight I'd swear some guy named "Dick" Jackson did. What a major let down! I was so hyped up getting ready to go see the movie. I was so nervous that in my little town the theater would sell out before I could get my opening day ticket. In the end, however, all those butterflies in my gut prior to the opening credits didn't make me want to throw up half as much as Jackson's interpretation! He left out almost all of the most crucial intricate events and details that made this a great epic which so many people can identify with. What happened to Aragorn fulfilling the prophecy that the King would return with healing hands? What happened to Eowyn getting over Aragorn and falling in love with Faramir? What happened to Sam putting on the Ring (for goodness sakes what happened to Sam putting on the Ring!)? Where were the other rangers? When the heck did Aragorn use the palantir to reveal himself and then match wills with Sauron? Where was the Hobbits' glorious return to the Shire and the clearing of the remaining Orcs? What happened to the SACKVILLE BAGGINS? As big a character as Sauruman was I can't believe they left his role in the Shire out in this one! Even in the end, where was the revealing of the identity of the Third Elven ring (Gandalf's ring)? I could go on and on, but it just makes me the madder. This movie was all Jackson, and had absolutely nothing to do with Tolkien. In the closing credits when it said based on the book..., I literally laughed as it panned by out of disgust. It wouldn't be so bad if Jackson hadn't started out saying we wanna keep these films as close to the book as possible. Tolkien was a genious and this is his work and we want to keep it that way, etc, etc, etc. But after seeing all the "Director's Privilage" implemented in this edition of the films, I really feel cheated from the value of the story. If you just care about the entertainment value and not the real story, then you will be more than pleased. However, if you are a true fan, you can't help but be heart broken.