Wait wait wait, I just remembered something from my looooong-ago reading of The Hobbit. I'm going to be really unhappy about the scenes in Mirkwood, aren't I? As in, watch from behind my hands if I open my eyes at all -unhappy, right?

Mirkwood is definitely not a Jilli-safe place.

Can he make the elves sufficiently sinister?

Making something sinister is like the one thing he does really, really well. I have no personal attachment to the book, but I agree with those that think another director could do the picture as well as Jackson. He should produce it, though.

Mirkwood is definitely not a Jilli-safe place.

Yeah, that's what I thought. Swell.

If it's Sam Raimi directing perhaps Bruce Campbell can be the porter. . . or Beorn.

Making something sinister is like the one thing he does really, really well

If we're talking a movie starring Michael J. Fox, sure. That worked. I adored The Frighteners. Heavenly Creatures creeped me the hell out, which is not something that I associate with TLotR. I also think it's two totally different types of sinister, and PJ's just didn't work in the Tolkein-verse, for me.

I could do without the CGI-porn, as well. (Hell, I even had a problem with the sweeping heli-shots of the actual landscape, because, beautiful as it was, who's perspective was that? I wanted more trudging down on the ground with the characters, not these long, impersonal distance shots.)

Um, I think I'll leave and take all my issues with me, yeah...

For me the sweeping vistas were the quick version. Just talking to a non-reader of the book who commented that he didn't like the second two movies because there was too much walking. I warned him to avoid the books. Because they are like unto a travel journal. Less trudge was good by me.

heh, I think the trudging was one of my favorite parts of the books. But what I'd meant was that I'd rather have been down on the ground with the characters, having character-stuff going on with a fantastic backdrop, rather than "Look! Gorgeous mountains! Oh, yeah, there's nine persons walking about as well."

But whatev, I just FF to the Boromir scenes.

Okay, I'm about to become a heretic to myself even, but yes, by the end of RotK, even I had gotten a little tired of PJ's constant "look! I recreated Middle Earth shots, but more importantly (to me) he completely screwed up the single most important scene in the entire trilogy by thinking his dialog for the Eowyn Kills the Witch King moment was somehow better than Tolkien's.

That almost killed my love of the movies. I was very disappointed.

He also screwed up my second favorite scene. All in all, RotK did not please me like I'd hopes it would.

By the end of ROTK, I was wondering how many times he could end the same movie. It's like listening to a band do the "strumming the final chord to build applause" thing for 45 minutes.

And I say this as a fan of the movies.