I give Jackson an A on visuals and props, a B on the films as independent pieces of work divorced from the book, a C on faithfulness to Tolkien's story and detail, and a D (but only because I won't give an F when the student has shown evidence of trying) on faithfulness to Tolkien's spirit and tone. (link)

At this point it is necessary to reply to those who claim that films don't affect them, and that anybody except the weak-minded, the weird, or the juvenile can simply will themselves not to think of the film version while reading the book from which it was made. An epic, detailed, captivating film dramatization of a book somehow has no effect whatever on the mental state or image of the reader. Anybody for whom that is true must be one of those rare people who can win at the game whose object is not to think of a purple elephant. Such iron-mindedness is simply not the common [norm?] of humanity. (link)

And a movie can bury a book. Fans of L. Frank Baum have been forlornly complaining for over 60 years that his Oz books are quite unlike the famous film. And they're correct. But nobody listens to them. They think they know what Oz is like: they've seen the film. (link)

It doesn't matter where the book is, if the film is in the head. (link)

Voronwë does not like it.

He also says "Peter Jackson has a nine-year-old's understanding of Tolkien." Burn!

Looks interesting, as does the book itself.

I made a mistake in attributing all of the above to Bratman's essay. Only "At this point it is necessary..." is from the essay while others were posted online.

"Peter Jackson has a nine-year-old's understanding of Tolkien." - Harsh much?

I always shake my head when someone claims to have an insight on what, precisely, the "spirit" of a work of literature is.

To be fair Bratman does give examples to explain what he means by the "spirit" of Tolkien's work. Amusingly, at one point he cites the exact same quote by Jackson in support of his argument that Kristin Thompson (who reviewed the Tolkien on Film collection quite harshly in Tolkien Studies, by the way) uses in The Frodo Franchise to show that Jackson knew what he was doing.

Thus the unfalsifiable.

Well, thus any aesthetic evaluation that goes beyond merely describing the artwork in question.

Supporters of the trilogy assert that it is a worthy interpretation of the book and that most of the changes were necessary.[64] ... Boyens once noted that no matter what, it is simply their interpretation of the book. Jackson once said that to simply summarise the story on screen would be a mess, and in his own words, "Sure, it's not really The Lord of the Rings ... but it could still be a pretty damn cool movie."[66][67] Other fans also claim that, despite any changes, the films serve as a tribute to the book, appealing to those who have not yet read it, and even leading some to do so.

In 2005, the Mythopoeic Society published a volume of critical essays about the trilogy and its effects on popular culture called Tolkien on Film: Essays on Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings.

...

David Bratman[75] criticizes several arguments defending the films as adaptations, such as "It’s Jackson’s vision, not Tolkien’s", "But they worked so hard on it!", "It brings new readers to the book", "The perfect film would have been 40 hours long", and "The book is still on the shelf".

Cathy Akers-Jordan,[71] Jane Chance,[72] Victoria Gaydosik,[73] and Maureen Thum[74] contend that the portrayal of women, especially Arwen, in the films is overall thematically faithful to (or compatible with) Tolkien's writings despite some differences.

Dan Timmons[77] writes that the themes and internal logic of the films are undermined by the portrayal of Frodo, who he considers a weakening of Tolkien's original.

Kayla McKinney Wiggins[78] opines that the films misread and misinterpret the nature of heroes as understood in Tolkien’s writings and in his source material due to a shift in focus from character evolution to action adventure.

Janet Brennan Croft[79] criticizes the films using Tolkien's own terms “anticipation” and “flattening”, which he used in critiquing a proposed film script. She contrasts Tolkien's subtlety with Jackson's tendency to show "too much too soon".[79]