Well, I tried to watch LOTR.

Poorly done ?! lousy effects ?? Terrible costuming ? Sounds like you are in need of glases. Sure the transformation from book to script could have been done differently. Thats a matter of taste. But A book can't ever really be compared to a film. You spend how long time with the books ? A couple of hundred hours.But the technical stuff could hardly have been done any better. In fact no film before this one has put so much efforts into models and costumes and computer effects.
Thats why the film won Oscar for best visual effects. They are simply outstanding. Seriuolsy watch the scene with the Balrog. I can watch that over and over again I took 7 years to make these films. I cannot even think of anyone on this earth besides Peter Jackson, that has both the compassion, the sheer determination, skill, strategic planning and the will to use more than 7 years of his life to make this film possible.
Maybe you live in a different universe

Man, i'd really have liked you to name a movie with better special effects, but since you never watched LOTR, you obviously can't Personally i seldom watch films on TV. Its just not the same thing, and especially with LOTR.And what does fox have to do with LOTR? It was a New Line Cinema who coughed about 500 million$ for these productions. AFAIK, fox had nothing to do with it.I think you have a very strong opinion about the technical quality of a film you haven't seen more than 1/10 of. If you felt that the characters didn't fit into you view of middle earth, thats fine- everyone has a different one. Some people choose not to watch it at all, so that they can keep their own images of it intact. But having that low oppinion about the quality of the production, which is so very nicely done, strikes me only as weird.