The internet was fairly nascent, so most of what I read was from the Deseret News and the occasional news article that I could dig up online (firing up the ol' 56k modem!).

It truly was a miracle. Jackson stuck to his guns on a multi-film adaptation, filmed back-to-back. And he kept creative control.

The Hobbit movies were a train-wreck primarily because the Studio meddled in the creative process from beginning to end. (It also didn't help that the scripts were mostly trash).

We truly are lucky to have LOTR in the form that we have it. So great from start to finish.