I completely understand you, even as a fan. Tolkien style of fantasy aged like milk. It's contribution to the genre and literature as a whole is impossible to measure, but it's just not fun anymore if you never saw it before. The movies aged a little better, but still not great. Anyone who says otherwise has either seen his work a very long time ago, or is looking at it with nostalgia glasses. Noone in 2025 could get through all the goofy-ass singing, lack of any shades of gray, unrealistic battles, and tree branch backstories without rolling their eyes once or twice. It really requires the viewer to not treat it too seriously, something like orginal Star Wars Trilogy.
I completely understand you, even as a fan. Tolkien style of fantasy aged like milk. It's contribution to the genre and literature as a whole is impossible to measure, but it's just not fun anymore if you never saw it before. The movies aged a little better, but still not great. Anyone who says otherwise has either seen his work a very long time ago, or is looking at it with nostalgia glasses. Noone in 2025 could get through all the goofy-ass singing, lack of any shades of gray, unrealistic battles, and tree branch backstories without rolling their eyes once or twice. It really requires the viewer to not treat it too seriously, something like orginal Star Wars Trilogy.