definitly Gundark. I don't think LOTR could be done much better, baring a few changes which are strickly due to my taste and have nothing to do with how the movie would be excepted by a larger audience (for example I liked the original idea of not having the prologue in Fellowship that NewLine made them add in. The prologue is cool but I would rather it was revealed throughout as flash backs, and I wish they didn't show sauron)

But like I said these are minor things, and as a whole the trilogy works in a spectacular fashion.

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But, Jackson redid a lot of the story to allow for a female-appeal love triangle with Arwen, Eowyn, and Aragorn and it helped immensely to bring in women.

I think this is a really valid point, because what I think is ultimately the key to the trilogies success is the female appeal. The books have none, there is no real female presence at all. Its very male, and in many ways very homoerotic (see also the wonderful Master and Commander) But something I didn't count on was that women would swoon over Aragorn and Legolas the way they have. Infact its been my observation that in many instances the female fans now outnumber the male ones.

But I think more importantly on this note, what really helped the films was that 2 of the three writers were women. Smart women. and it gives this whole undercurrent of emotion and feminity to the films and not in a bad way. Opening the first film with Cate Blanchetts voice pretty much sets the tone throughout. And in all the DVD materials I'm always impressed with Phillpa Boyens who seems the very model of a smart artistic women with a stong understanding of filmmaking and good story telling.

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" A multinational cast of epic proportions. Brought in people of all cultures because they want to see some of their fellow kinsmen. Unlike the Harry Potter films whose only non-UKer was Verne Troyer (Mini ME in a cameo), these have the appeal of having people from around the world cast in it.

true however its still pretty brit oriented, there are a few americans, and the rest are Aussies and New Zealanders. I think actually the main problem (and this could not really be helped while remaining true to the source material) is that there are no characters of colour or any real diverse ethnicity. There isn't much appeal for black audiences, its a very white story filled with very white characters. Though I'm glad the at PJ managed to keep in the Easterlings and Southerns while managing to move far enough away from the Asian and Arab stereotypes which they obviously are meant to be in the books.