Okay, so it's just named Weta, then? It's not an acronym?

Yep. Not an acronym, just named after a big friggin' insect.

Also, the big-ass battle against Sauron in the beginning, when he's a giant Transformer/Battlebot? Elrond is in that battle, right?

Yep.

And then the narrator (that's Galadriel, yes?)

Yep, that's Galadriel (who was also around back then*)

Or was it 3,000? In either case, that makes Elrond pretty fucking old, especially if it's 3,000. He must moisturize really well.

Three thousand. Yes, Elrond is quite old.

And, if I understood correctly, the Black Riders/Ringwraiths/Nazgul (they're the same thing, right, under different names?)...

Yes.

...are the original nine men who received rings when the elves and dwarves got theirs? Because that's cool, that the rings and greed for power turned them into big freaky shrouded dudes of death.

Yes, those are the guys. And the one who stabbed Frodo is the bearded one in the center. The Lord of the Nazgul, aka the Witch King of Angmar (that's a whole 'nother story not covered in the LotR stories).

Yes, you can mock me for my observations,

The thought never crossed my mind. It's actually pretty endearing.

(*Galadriel is, by the way, much older than Elrond. Elrond is old, and witnessed the battle which defeated Sauron, but Galadriel was there the day the sun and the moon first rose over Middle Earth. Yes, there was a fairly long period of time when Middle Earth was lit first by magical trees, then by magical jewels after the trees were poisoned and destroyed by Ungoliant, who was the mother of Shelob.

So yeah, the point of this footnote is that Galadriel has seen some shit in her day.)

Galadriel is, in fact, Elrond's mother-in-law and Arwen's grandmother.

Galadriel is, by the way, much older than Elrond.

Of course she is. She's his mother-in-law, after all.

(eta: massively geeky x-post!)

Galadriel was there the day the sun and the moon first rose over Middle Earth.

So apparently she REALLY hits the Botox hard.

Ooh, and my other realization was a big huge environmental/Lorax thing when Gandalf first went to Isengard. It didn't really click on first watching and in the next 2 films, but in that first Isengard scene, it's all pastoral and pretty. Not Shire-pastoral, but still. And then Saruman trashes it. Anti-environment wanker. The Lorax would kick Saruman's ass.

D'oh! I meant to include that fact as well, but forgot about it while overemphasizing the whole watched the first sun and moon rise thing.

So apparently she REALLY hits the Botox hard.

Yep.

Ooh, and my other realization was a big huge environmental/Lorax thing when Gandalf first went to Isengard.

Something that comes through even more in the books. Tolkien was very unhappy to watch industry destroying his cherished English countrysides.

The Lorax would kick Saruman's ass

He's like a tiny orange Ent!

Sooo...to continue on with Steph's line of questioning. The ring was known 3000 years ago, and then virtually lost. So much so that Gandalf didn't really know what it was, and had to bust his ass researching the thing. And then after that, everyone seems to know about it! What's up with that?

Yeah, that was one of the liberties Jackson took when translating the books into film.

In the books nobody knows squat about it, in the movies, everybody's a friggin' History of the Second Age, and it's Attendant Relics and Artifacts scholar.

Everyone knew about the One Ring from legend, but assumed it had been lost forever, since it had been a few thousand years since anyone had seen it. All Isildur's records added was the way for Gandalf to prove that Bilbo's ring was The One, and not just some Elvish trinket.

[edit:

In the books nobody knows squat about it

Well, not exactly. The hobbits were totally ignorant, but the more wordly characters had at least heard of it in a historical context.]