The Lord of the Rings movie trilogy was as transformative for fantasy as Star Wars was for science fiction - people didn't even think the trilogy could be filmed, much less be successful, as fantasy (like comic books and, ironically, science fiction before Star Wars) was considered cheesy, juvenile schlock forever doomed to box office failure. Peter Jackson not only filmed the unfilmable, but wound up creating what many people would consider one of the greatest motion picture trilogies ever, on many levels, beyond just spectacle. There are probably millions more Tolkein fans across the world just because the trilogy was as good as it was.

Given that the canonical onscreen adaptation of the trilogy until that point was a cartoon by Filmation from the 70s, I would hope purists could maybe see the silver lining around the cloud.