It's the only casting decision I think was wrong, although many people say they can't get past Agent Elrond.

Agreeing with ita here. Hugo Weaving is the one that most people I know mention as a bad casting choice, but I think he's great (though less so in TTT, but that's mostly how he's written). But Arwen, post-FOTR, just bugs me. Le sigh. (Except for the scene in TTT when Elrond is describing what will become of her after Aragorn's death--I get a real sense of melancholy and unbearable loss, which is nicely done.)

I saw a preview for Iron Jawed Angels and I realized how much Hillary Swank looks like she could be Hugo Weaving's kid. Also got more gravitas than Liv. I didn't actually think she would have been better until Wednesday morning.

I only had momentary problems with Weaving (inidividual lines, mostly). I did not like how Elrond would not leave. I think it would have helped with Arwen at the coronation for him to not be there. Also, his apparent joy(?) really undermined the whole thing with him and Arwen. I wanted more "I will not see her again until the end of the world" from him.

And yet, perhaps contradicting myself here, I too loved the Aragorn/Arwen kiss at the coronation, because it's so joyful and uncomplicated. Mmm, Viggo.

Yeah, I liked it too, because Aragorn was looking so grim and old (but not as old as he looked before charging at Pelennor -- that got me too) and that moment helped lighten things. But so would Claudia Black doing it.

Liv just didn't have an upside for me.

I need to wait for second viewing to see if I love the Arwen/Aragorn kiss because I was dealing with being miffed by how the crowning ceremony wasn't at all how I imagined it.

I am OK with it now - but at the moment I was like - but but Frodo is supposed to hand the crown to ..... it's important!!!

I like Claudia Black a whole big lot, but the thing about elves is that they're eternally youthful for the most part, unless they're really really old like Elrond or Galadriel. Nobody seems to be complaining about Legolas's youthfulness....

Heh. Good point, Theo. I guess the thing with Arwen is that if she looks so much younger than Aragorn--even though she is much, much older--then it 1) lessens their relationship a bit, in my eyes, and 2) plays into some icky gender politics about her being the dewy-eyed damsel in distress, which I don't think is actually what Tolkein intended.

But really, I just want her to feel worthy of Aragorn's love. I want it to feel right that he can't love Eowyn but he can love Arwen, and I don't get that when she's such an empty character.

She was just nothing -- soft sighs and youthful but uncompelling pretty. I dunno -- give me Claudia Black, or something.

Gah! That would have been... something. But I'm with ita on this one: Liv Tyler is for me the one unmitigated casting mistake.

I do think they tried to make her more of a do-er, but all they could come up with was make her a fighter, and the single shot of Liv Tyler doing some practice fighting in the DVD extras was enough to convince me that would have been disastrous as well. Making her Halbarad would have worked, I think.

Nobody seems to be complaining about Legolas's youthfulness....

Legolas looks timeless to me. With the lighting Liv got, Judi Dench would look like she was on the other side of puberty. You give me someone who looks a) beautiful and b) somewhere around thirty c) like forever, and I'm good. Liv -- NSM. She looks like a girl. Legolas looks like a young man, with a large dose of unreality.

I'm thinking of most of the other elves -- Haldir doesn't look like a boy, either.

Yeah. Claudia Black, much as I adore her and think she's sex on a stick, is not pretty enough or young-looking enough to be Arwen.

The problem is that Arwen in the books *is* an empty character. So PJ was left with a kind of untenable choice - either he's stuck with Arwen (who gets to sit next to her father, sew a banner, get married, and give Frodo her place on the boat to Valinor - does she even have *lines* in the book before RotK?) or he's stuck making changes that will make the fandom shriek.