I watched the extended cuts of all of these.
There's an extent to which I just don't like this story. It has well-developed character arcs, but there's little in the way of moral ambiguity; every single character, even those who may seem to inhabit shades of grey, can be easily characterized as either a hero or a villain. This even seems to extend to entire species and groups of people. There are so many Haradrim, and yet none of them care to oppose Sauron? And then there are Orcs, who conveniently serve as a morally uniform army for the peoples of Middle-Earth to fight against. The setting is richly textured, but many elements of the story are told in broad strokes; if Tolkein's novel was more detailed, then Jackson eliminated a lot of nuance in favour of raw spectacle.
And frankly, I think raw spectacle is the level on which these movies are most successful. Despite the primitive aspects of Tolkein's storytelling, The Fellowship of the Ring remains delightful; even at three hours in the extended cut, it plays as a brisk jaunt through a spectacular, imaginative fantasy world. It's the only one of these films with constant forward momentum, and although it's way more lighthearted than the other two, that makes its moments of darkness all the more meaningful and gives its character arcs room to breathe. Tolkein's themes about greed and valor already shine through, and the central friendship between Frodo and Sam has already taken the shape that it would more or less retain through the rest of the series.
