During my first viewing, all I could think during that scene was "That must be the crappiest job in the world." Luckily I found that I could appreciate it more on the second viewing.

Ouise is me exactly!

and had a lot more beacons than the book.

Actually I looked this up (initally because of the apparent time-zone change, or maybe crossing the terminator of Middle-Earth) and Tolkein mapped out quite a few beacons down the spine of the mountains. I haven't been back to count the number of beacons shown, but I bet it's close.

Weren't there beacons to the south as well as to the north (in the book)?

When Aragorn, Gandalf, Legolas, Eomer and the standard bearer ride up to the Black Gate, for just a second you can clearly see Pippin's scale double's face. I guess they figured since she was wearing a helmet no one would notice.

In watching various FYC ads on tv, something occured to me.

When Aragorn is making his "...come together in freedom..." speech, he looks really constipated.

Looking for a Gollum photo to use on a website mockup...found this instead.

At one point, when Frodo is confronting Faramir in the cave in The Two Towers, they tried out having Frodo partway-transformed-to-Gollum makeup. It's not in the extended edition movie body, but it is in one of the commentaries.

I'm so glad they skipped the makeup on that scene. I hated the Morphing!Bilbo in Rivendell. Not everything has to physically expressed. If you've got good actors, they can show enough mental/spiritual deterioration to get the point across. I would trust Sir Ian Holm to look nearly demonically possessed.

I'm so glad they skipped the makeup on that scene. I hated the Morphing!Bilbo in Rivendell. Not everything has to physically expressed. If you've got good actors, they can show enough mental/spiritual deterioration to get the point across. I would trust Sir Ian Holm to look nearly demonically possessed.

The thing of it is, in the book, they did have Bilbo appear (to Frodo) to change. I thought the makeup in the scene was an effective echo of what Frodo was experiencing.

(They had a similar scene in Return where Frodo hallucinated Sam morphing into an orc, in the tower of Cirith Ungol, when Sam was holding the ring and offering to hold it for Frodo for a little while. This time, in the movie, they just went into the slo-mo, auditory hallucination mode.)

I saw this morning on CNN that RotK won the Chicago Critics film of the year award. I also saw that there are 45 members of the Chicago Film Critics Assoc. Aren't there only two major papers in Chicago?? Seems like a lot of critics.

they tried out having Frodo partway-transformed-to-Gollum makeup.

And he looked like he really enjoyed those teeth. I mean, no less so than the airbrush they used to make him veiny and gross, but he was showing off the teeth with great elan.

Agreed that it wouldn't really work in the movie. There is such a thing as too much explicitness, and I'm glad Jackson can sometimes pull back on the reins.