I think that the greatest loss was the entire interior dialogue Sam has in "The Choices of Master Samwise," but they really couldn't change the entire style of the trilogy to include it, sad to say. It would have bizarre to have Sam suddenly having this entire soliloquy in the midst of tons of Orcs/Uruks, so they had to move his low point to an exterior conflict to fit with the rest of the story, thus "Go home, Sam."

One of the things that they really did a good job of keeping in the pictures was the sense of things passing, of an end to the age of Elves and the rest of the wonders of Middle Earth, especially if you keep in mind the FotREE scene of the Elves travelling to the Grey Havens.

Well, "strike you down" avoids the whole you can't kill something that's undead problem, which we've talked over once or twice.

For me, generally speaking, the problem with the scene wasn't the lines, but the arc and meaning behind it. She could have said kill or smite or tickle-to-death, but movie-Eowyn was on the battle plain for a different reason from book-Eowyn, and I'm a little bitter about that difference. Movie-Eowyn was saying, "Hey, I love that guy, he's mine, you can't have him, although I'm afraid." Book-Eowyn was saying, "Please kill me right in front of my king, so that my death will gain some meaning thereby."

I was always painfully moved when she woke up in the Houses of Healing and realized that she had failed to die.

What is Merry's thought when he sees her, "She should not die, so alone, so ..." gah, what is it! The death itself wasn't the big deal, but the way of the death.

I don't think they could use "smite" there.

And it was "smite" that I missed the most. It doesn't sound right without "smite."

I really missed the Scouring as a way to point up the changes Frodo underwent; I get why it wasn't there, and honestly by that point in the movie if I'd had to see one more battle scene I would've screamed, but I thought it made Frodo's choice to go to the Havens harder to buy.

Playing off of the thing about costumes/sets/etc., one of the things I love best about the movies is how respectful they are of fantasy. I never got the feeling that anyone was snicking up their sleeve about it, you know? The creators took the story seriously.

Question: in the books, Aragorn and Arwen's relationship is almost exclusively in the appendices, right?

Yes. And they plighted their troth long long ago and Aragorn wasn't conflicted about possibly becoming the king.

Hee. Thanks.

Edit: Wait, I edit. Am I right in remembering that you don't even find out about their relationship until very late in the third book?

Also, Boromir much hotter in the movies. That's not going in my paper, but I wanted to say it.

Right. They have a scene where Frodo sees them talking in Rivendell, Arwen sends him the banner, there's an Arwen-reference the scene with Aragorn and Gandalf finding the tree, they get married, and there's the scene where Arwen gives Frodo her necklace. Oh, and Aragorn's scene on Cerin Amroth, but I can't remember if it's even made clear in the main story that that's about Arwen.

There are hints to the Aragorn/Arwen relationship at Rivendell in FotR, and again at Cerin Amroth in Lothlorien, also in FotR, but that's it until she shows up for the wedding in RotK.

Boromir much hotter in the movies. That's not going in my paper, but I wanted to say it.

An important distinction. Not only hotter, but more real, and more likeable. I mean, in his death scene, when he says how he would have followed Aragorn to the ends of the earth (or some such), I think he even surpassed Aragorn for a few seconds, and ignited my adoration of Sean Bean. Am now working through all of the Sharpes series. And even in Troy, Bean was one of the few who didn't suck.