I guess I'm in the minority, but as someone who grew up with the books and pretty much enjoyed everything apart from Hobbit, I've been thoroughly enjoyng the show. First season was a tad slow to grab me, but after the slow start the episodes have been the highlights of my week.
I have zero issues with using the great lore as source of inspiration and doing new stuff with it.
As someone who has read the series 3 times, they absolutely woke-butchered the series and fucked things up. Everything that I loved was rewritten, the characters were changed, and the pacing was off.
For me that was the first wheel of time book. First ones definitely stay with you. For me the Hobbit seemed lackluster, finished it in one evening and it felt too basic
oh man starting with wheel of time im not surprised you found the hobbit lackluster. surprised you liked lord of the rings with that as a start. thing is that it would have never existed without much of what came before.