The Lord of the Rings revisited

When the first LOTR movie came out I was, oh, in grade 8. People who didn't usually read started reading the whole series of books in a few days. I tried The Hobbit and gave up. But I loved the first movie, and I loved the second movie for the trailer. Then, after finishing the last movie I forgot about it. To this date I've only read The Hobbit and the first book.

Now my cousin is a huge fan of the movies and the story and can explain everything. So when I was at her house we re-watched the first and second movies and as she was getting more and more passionate about the universe I wondered why I felt that the movies are great, awesome, but still I do not LOVE the movies.

The ways in which I like the LOTR movies very much:
-the music. at the time I wanted to be a composer and this score convinced me more than ever. kudos to James Horner
-the trailer for the Two Towers. I lost count of the number of times I watched it
-the scenery - beautiful. i love the different worlds.
-the ensemble cast

The ways in which I cannot say I love the LOTR movies:
-to the uninitiated, there's too much happening at once, too many worlds to explore, too many things that are 'given' or 'taken for granted'. For example, in The Two Towers we see Kings and Princes and Princesses appear and we have to take for granted that these people are powerful.
-other than the love story between Arwen and Aragorn, nothing is personal. the plot is just too epic, too wide of scope in that we are dealing with whole kingdoms being massacred. do I care that Rohan is doomed? no. why not? i don't know any of the citizens 'personally'. they show a couple of clips where the villagers are fleeing, are fighting, but they become one big blur.
-the characters border on stereotypical. none of the characters are fleshed out, not even the main ones. it's true that throughout the trilogy, we experience the good times and the bad with the characters. through showing and not simply telling, we get to see that Aragorn is brave and noble, that Frodo is innocent, that Ringwraiths are evil and so on. But once we determine an adjective to stick onto a character they remain that way to the end.