WOW great replies everyone! now I'll wrirte a bit more about my feelings on Lord of the Rings.
Sonkem, you sound just like my dad! (he's one of the biggest tolkien freaks I've ever met, including you guys!)

he was really disappointed about the ents and faramir, too... and i was as well! the elves at helms deep didn't really bother me, though. faramir was the worst.
we just bought the TTT DVD (which is what inspired this topic

) and when the extended version comes out, my dad'll buy that, too! the extended FotR was incredible, and i can't wait for TTT.
Lizzy, I don't think you're really in the minority for liking TTT better. perhaps on this site, but most of my friends like it better, too. I think I just didn't like it because they changed so much. I am
really looking forward to RotK though. It looks (from the preview) better than the first two.
The movies are wonderful, i think basically the best job that could be done was done. but, nothing can beat the books (in my opinion). just the depth that Tolkein went to, its hard to put that on screen. the stories are so complex i don't think movies can capture the "particular charm" as gecko put it.

Tolkien made up his own language, for goodness' sake! i don't know if even JK has put that much into HP. I think the LotR movies had a little more effort put into them than HP, too. The people who were involved in LotR really had a love for the books and had for a long time. not to say that the HP crew don't love HP, but it just seems more commercial to me than LotR. I don't know if I can really have anything to back that up, its just my feeling about it.