I find that a lot of people have a hard time with the books. Let's face it, Tolkein is dense and it doesn't help that every fantasy book since then is pretty much a copy of it, making the original look hackneyed (with a few exceptions, like Amber)

As a side note, my favorite Tolkein knock off series is The Belgariad.

The only real complaint I have with the Jackson movies is that Eowyn vs the Witch King was not epic enough. I mean yeah it was a cool scene but in the book everything fucking stops to watch this shit go down and Jackson cut it up in favor of Legolas surfing.