[Quote] [i]Originally posted by garyi[/i] ...We went to see Lord of the Rings first. I have to say being a person who hasn't read the book, I found it dragged a bit to begin with. I didn't understand the relevence of the caretaker guy trying to burn his son, becuase in the film they don't give it context, I had to get that from Sheila afterwards, apparently in the book the caretaker had an all seeing eye. [/quote] So who else's seen it! I went last week and loved it - but since I've been a Tolkien nut since I was 8, and I was pretty happy with the first two (even thogh they completely messed up the escape from the Shire in the first one) this is not a big surprise. I thought that running the different threads concurrently in time (unlike the book) worked really well. I also thought the way they changed the role of the army of the dead was pretty good - although maybe a bit melodramatic. The Nazgul were not quite like I imagined, but I really liked them - particularly their screams. Was pretty happy with the effects - particularly the Mumakil (mammoths) - but possibly the rocks being thrown around were a bit too big to be believable and caused a bit too much destruction with each hit. There were also a few things I didn't like: Shelob was nowhere near repulsive, fetid and pustulent enough; they spent too long stringing out the will Gollum fall into the lava won't he etc.. which also turned the battle of the Morannon into a rather static tableau waiting for them to get on with it (although I was sitting on the edge of my seat even through I obviously knew what was going to happen). But Garyi's reaction above confirms that I think they made a big mistake in the handling of the [i]palantiri[/i]. They couldn't really avoid the Pippin incident, but two things were seriously wrong. Firstly, to bring in Elrond to see Aragorn at Dunharrow missed the whole point. Aragorn used the palantir to show himself to Sauron, have a fight with him, provoke him to action before he was really ready and determine from what he saw that he then needed to use the Paths of the Dead. And this also replaced the arrival of the Rangers/Dunedain - which showed that Aragorn actually did have a family/tribe/history behind him, and when he really took on his role of King, and wasn't just some pseudo-elf pissing Elrond off by fancying his daughter. And that bit about Arwen dying was sheer melodramatic shlock that really shouldn't have been there. And the other error was omitting Denethor's use of it: his use of the stone of Minas Anor/Tirith was part of his wisdom/learning/power and was what gave him his immense knowledge of what was happening, but also turned him to despair, because of Sauron's control of what he saw. And to have him running away down the Hallows on fire, rather than determinedly lying on the pyre with the palantir in his hands was just plain crass. I also thought that it really didn't do much to show how important Faramir was to the people of Minas Tirith - he only really got shown as some wimp being brow-beaten by his father - and I missed the 'King as Healer' stuff. Looking forward to the Director's cut - I guess about an hour longer? What does anyone else think? PS. And Frodo was still at least 20 years too young! Hobbits typically lived to about 100, and didn't come of age until 33, but Frodo was 50 (so maybe our 38-40) at the time of the journey! PPS Garyi - the Steward of Gondor wasn't quite like your average caretaker. He and his ancestors had been king in all but name, and the most powerful men in the whole of Middle Earth, for nearly 1000 years. Back to re-reading the Silmarillion and Unfinished Tales now :D