Fact-checking.

Rating: 10/10 (17 January 2003)

(MILD SPOILERS)
"I found the added love story between Aragorn and the elf-girl to be pointless, as there was no kind of relationship between the two in the books."
Get over yourself, and read Appendix A. Better yet, start with reading the book. 'Elf-girl' indeed.
As to the movie, I can only say... WOW. I've read LOTR about five or six times in the past ten years, and I've dabbled into the lore of Tolkien quite a bit, and Peter Jacksons alterations are, to the contrary of what many purists say, merely trivial in the grand scheme of things. They do not detract from the story, they just make it more dramatic. See, in condensing a 1000 page book into 9-9.5 hours of movie, you're bound to have to spice some things up, and omit others:
You don't have 50 pages plus 50 more in Appendix F to explain why the elves are leaving, and to justify it, hence they'd seem terribly obnoxious, if not cowardly, if they just kept heading west. Thus, they come to the humans' aid in TTT.
Arwen and Aragorn get married in ROTK, and the audience would be pretty surprised at her arrival if she only showed up in act 4 of movie 3.
Theoden King can't hurry off to Helm's Deep to bravely fight the Orc army while the Rohirrim peasants head off to Dunharrow - it's near impossible to explain on screen why the orcs don't just march past said Helm's Deep and sack Dunharrow. And you'd have even more cuts between various locations, confusing the uninitiated to great lenghts.
Faramir is less nice than in the book because, in the book, he's as nondramatic a character as can be. Shows up, let's Frodo go. You can't NOT have Faramir, to stay true to the book, but you can't have him act exactly the same or you'll risk people falling asleep over the lack of any drama or tension in the whole encounter.
Lastly, the movie ends just a bit before the book ends in order to avoid overcomplicating the story, and totally destroying the pacing of the narrative. 'Yay, victory, now, before the credits, let's march to Isengard and talk to two hobbits looting Saruman's warehouse, smoking Old Toby'. 'Lest the audience thinks the film is over, we'll have Sam and Frodo meet their last great foe before getting to Mount Doom, conveniently making Return of the King a 1.5 hour documentary on two hobbits walking slowly towards a volcano'.
Not to mention that one of the major villains (Saruman), has to be disposed of somehow, and since the Scouring of the Shire would be the epitome of cinematic anticlimax, it's going to have to be done in Isengard, which adds even more importance to the other half of the Fellowship (who are, might I add, getting together with Merry and Pippin again) going to Orthanc, and seriously, you can't add all that to the end of a Two Towers movie, after the incredibly well done Helm's Deep siege. It just doesn't work.
Everyone who says they know how to make a better screen adaptation than Peter Jackson, while keeping truer to the book, please write a screenplay, act it out with the help of storyboards, and time your effort. You'll get a 5 hour movie which would make maybe 50 million worldwide, theatrically.
Wait for the Extended Edition, and wait for Return of the King before you pass judgement. All I can do for my own part is thank heavens for the genius of Peter Jackson et al. These movies are the greatest piece of cinema ever made, bar none.