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As they point out multiple times in all of the extra features in the special edition DVDs of the Lord Of The Rings: Things have to be changed, added and left out to translate a book to film, because the differences in the media demand it. A direct from-the-book translation would span several seasons of a TV series for Lord of the Rings. Books have the advantage of being able to take days weeks or even years to be finished at the reader's own pace.
A movie has to be able to hold an audience, and there was no way that they could have been made, in a watchable way at any rate, as an indy film (plus there are neither gay cowboys nor pudding) without a huge budget, and the only way to get said enormous budget is to make it pg-13 and accessible to a wide (IE, lowest common denominator) audience in order make it economically viable, therefore even be able to be made.
At least an attempt was made to keep the essential elements and characters the same. Jurrassic park takes 90% of the core of each character and tosses them right out the window. In the book, one o fthe most essential parts of the Grant character was that he LOVES KIDS, because they are the only people who share his passion for dinosaurs. In the movie, kids mean (ew...) commitment to grant. Icky.
I guess my point is that Peter Jackson did better than most (at least he was a life long fan of the series not just some big budget director who saw dollar signs (Speilberg)), and that a more faithful adaption would either be prohibitively long, or completely unwatchably boring.
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