Reading the second volume of The Lord of the Rings, I am reminded of something Eric Lipton wrote about the first film in the series:
Under the auspices of a lesser director, watching the film could be like watching a freight train go by. This happens, then this happens, then this happens, then this happens — as our characters are tossed from action scene to action scene. Tolkien got away with this in the books because his writing was extraordinarily boring. You could never really tell you were being overstimulated.
I’m enjoying The Two Towers, certainly, but there are times when you can definitely tell Tolkien was a linguist and historian first and a storyteller second.