I love both the books and movies but when it comes down to it, my heart belongs to the books. There are moments of such intense beauty in the books that can't really be translated onto the big screen and too many incredible book moments that the movies just can't match. Having said that, the movies literally changed my life and I'm ridiculously in love with them. I wrote about the movies for my personal statement when I applied to the School of Cinema-Television at USC and I'm fairly sure it was a deciding factor in my acceptance.

It was an incredible experience to actually see Rivendell and Lothlorien for the first time. It was awe-inspiring and surreal and breathtakingly beautiful. Far beyond anything that my imagination could conjure up of Middle-Earth.

But part of the reason I love the movies so much is because I love the books so much. The brief mentions of Luthien and Beren, the occasional references to chapter titles, the glimpses of Narya, being able to understand why Elrond was so bitter at the prospect of losing his daughter and knowing the full breadth of what Frodo gave up in order to destroy the ring. There's no way the movies could have affected me the way they did if I hadn't read and loved the books.

I used to be something of a purist and I had some MAJOR gripes about all three movies when they first came out, but now I'm able to watch and enjoy them for the amazing cinematic achievements that they are. Peter Jackson made the changes he had to make in order to bring the story to the big screen. Sure there were some changes that were highly unnecessary (ie: the butchering of Denethor's character, which imo was far worse than the changes to Faramir's character) but then there were other changes that worked perfectly for the movie (ie: Elves at Helm's Deep). So I guess it all balances out in the end.