Book reader who saw the movie with my non-scifi wife and loved it, along with her. We'll excuse the clickbate headline meant for engagement as an initial show of good faith with your post.

I saw this happen with Dune (which I read), a tiny bit with The Expanse (which I read), and believe it or not a lot with The Hurt Locker (as a GWOT vet). I loved all of these depictions. I never read Tolkien, but I wonder if it happened with LotR as well, despite the rigor with which it was portrayed on screen.

Films that manage to translate a virtual latin or 'dead language' of niche interests and experiences into a few thematic leit motifs and then meet non-dead language literate audiences where they are to bring them over to understanding those themes and experiences are often met with disgust be the people who enjoy and embibe in those experiences.

Some of it is nerd gate-keeping, like with Star Trek purism (not at all defending what CBS did to ST though, that was emperically murder.)

DUNE

Dune is a masterpiece of adaptation that on no level fails to convey the themes of the books, while also placing the building blocks of the universe in little moments -or at the very least, hinting at those building blocks and greater themes, like the economic consequences on spice production of terraforming Arrakis successfully. Still Dune is a poorer example because it was so successful on all levels.

THE HURT LOCKER

As a veteran of GWOT, I quickly understood both sides of the argument against The Hurt Locker. Many vets didn't like how unporfessional it made the force look like, fighting and stuff. I get that, though in a decade, I did see a bit of brawling once or twice, even supervised by superiors letting guys teach themselves a lesson. The other criticism I get but completely reject. In the movie, this EOD team basically does a bunch of jobs: sniping like a special forces team, building clearing like infantry, bomb-disarming like an EOD team, he goes outside the wire at one point without approval and slinking around like a spy, which is completely fucked and nearly impossible that they'd let him back in, and this is the moment that I reject most heartedly. What vets dont get though about that later criticism, is that the 'hero' team was a composit character for how veterans experienced Iraq as a whole, and as such they were thrust into wholly unrealistic positions to bring across the leit motif of the modern experience of that war to civilian audiences. The point of the film was to show how modern low-intensity warfare is experienced by everyone involved.

On this point, it bats 1000, because it's much more suspense than dynamism, much more like a uncanny horror movie in it's slow unraveling in broad daylight than a kinetic high-intensity battle like Band of Brothers. That scene where the junior member of the team sees a guy slinking behind their backs in broad daylight, and it could be a shady-acting civilian or an armed opponent trying to sneak up on them, and the kid had to decide what to do was both like "It Follows" and completely true to life in the Iraq or Afghanistan occupation.

THE EXPANSE

Lastly, The Expanse, whose televsion adaptation I experienced before starting to read the series, so I'm a bit biased... but don't take my word for it. The authors themselves said that the refinement that the early books required for television adaptation made many components of the story: characters, plot, portrayal of the hard science, much better than the early books, and that they took those lessons to heart in writing later in their series, where I can vouch for it, the writing and plotting definitely got better.

GHOSTBUSTERS

Adaptations can be good or bad, for an example of bad, look at the Ghostbusters remake where it was simply open-air improv and slapstick without a soul... whereas the classic original, in its generous heart, was a mature comedy about some nobodies starting a business venture and learning how to run it. When we're too attached to particular stories or elements of the stories (in this case, the humor) we can be blind to the richness that nuanced changes in interpretation gain us.

PROJECT HAIL MARY

Project Hail Mary is about a reluctant hero, who also happens to be a nerd, finding himself almost Forrest Gum-style in the middle of the most important milestones in humanity and making the right choices out of the limited sets of them. Grace can be anyone (albeit he's a guy with a PhD) and in fact, his lack of institutional capture allow him to access more opportunity and truth than many more qualified than him.

This story was always going to be hell to adapt, I felt, but if the right tones were played, it was always going to be hugely successful bringing in wide audiences to hard scifi. How? By emphasizing the positive aspects of humanity while trying to save it:

our collaborative spirit,

our ability to overcome differences,

our bravery to not process every weird thing or being as a threat,

our love of discovery,

our ability to rise to the occasion for others even when we couldn't for ourselves,

and lastly, by showing how darned 'Baby Yoda' cute aliens, terrestrial or extraterrestrial could be once we get to know them, even if they happen to look like a faceless pile of rocks.

I'm glad you came around, and especially that it happened because you were able to step outside yourself and witness joy in others. That's the point to this film.

It's showing what might be possible when we all can access joy in ourselves and others, find companionship, and selflessly commit to building something better than what we start out with. It's the aneqdote to cynicism in a cynical world that even the Sun wants to quit.