that I'd think of them as Peter Jackson's Middle Earth and try to judge them on their own merits.

And they are excellent movies, even if they screwed up the Faramir story and several other things.

I took in the Hobbit movies in the same way, and they just sucked as cinema, not just as terrible adaptions. They were such a waste of Martin Freeman.

I try to look at Rings of Power in the same way--as just another story that is LOTR-esque. The first season was meh. The second season has been better. One of my biggest pet peeves is actually how derivative the hobbit/harfoot stuff is and the attempt to Tolkien-ize all of the dialogue, blatantly ripping off stuff that other people said in the books. The show would be better without the harfoot stuff and not trying too hard on the dialogue. But it's been ok. I'd give the second season a B so far, just as a TV show.