Kathy, that repost from C-O-E was a help in explaining why that scene was soooo long and soooo slow. My first impression was to find it kind of pander-y, like it was wringing the tea towel for a few more drops of water, and thus it didn't work for me. As always, knowing the reasons behind a choice makes me much more willing to accept that choice. I think I'm one of very few who probably would like the films better on a first viewing if the first viewing had commentary.

(I do come around in the end, mostly.)

I finally realized what was subtly bugging me about Minas Tirith, which may be completely blameable on the books but is more obviously wrong on a screen. The city has no suburbs! It's got no nearby farms, no shanty-towns set up outside the walls -- just the white citadel that looks a little too clean for regular humdrum people to actually live there. I was thinking back on it and it was the vast, flat expanse of the plain as Faramir led the Freudian Assault on Osgiliath that clued me: absolutely nobody lives outside the walls of Minas Tirith, except that they live hundreds of miles away.

It was just kind of odd. I imagine exacerbated by the fact that Denethor never mustered Gondor, so there weren't any temporary tent camps peppered around the plain, or anything like that. It was like someone had come in and tidied a bit too well!

Nutty, my wank for that is Minas Tirith is too close to Mordor for people to live outside the walls.

BUT one problem I had that was besides the tree being dead, I didn't get a sense that Gondor and MT had fallen into hard times under the stewards as opposed to the Kings as it is described in the books.

Minas Tirith not fallen into hard times? Come on! Remember the condition of the library? Clearly, they'd cut back severely on staff in the Archives!

That's the truth. Anybody who doesn't have a problem with open flames next to 3,000 year old manuscripts obviously didn't actually pass his archiving classes. Also, NSM with the indexing and organization.

There were a couple of posts upthread about Frodo's pity being an integral element of his success and I agree entirely. That pity importantly links back to Gandalf's speech about mercy and to Bilbo not killing Gollum when he had the chance, and how that affected Bilbo's ability to resist the ring. In a sense, Frodo understands that his pity/mercy for Gollum is crucial to his own resistance to the ring. Sam is in the right when he argues for getting rid of the old villain Gollum, in that he knows Gollum will betray them. Frodo may make the less tactically sound decision, but it is the merciful one, and he is rewarded for it, in the grander scheme. It is a good reminder that being right about something isn't always what is most important or even best. Even the very wise cannot see all things.

Then again, being right makes you less likely to be stabbed by a giant spider and mummified, later stripped, beaten and tied up by orcs. I firmly maintain that it takes both attitudes (mercy/distrust) to get to the goalposts, and privileging either one over the other is a mistake.

When I think about all the horrible things that COULD have happened, casting-wise, I can't really get too worked up about the pretty pretty elf princess.

This is how I feel as well. Just imagine Bay and Bruckheimer casting this movie, if you want to break out in a cold sweat.

shudder

cold-sweat?

I have read in more than one place that Russell Crowe turned down the part of Strider.

I have been a fan of him in some movies, but talk about *shudder* as far as these movies are concerned.

Viggo meets the Queen (of Denmark) - read what he said in the "comments" below the picture.

Oh, and I must admit that when Gollum is in the midst of his transformation to the Gollum we are most familiar with -- I noticed a distinct resemblance to Michael Jackson . . . talk about scary!