I'm extremely aware of set decor in movies--I'll rewatch a movie just because I like the interior of the house or apartment--so perhaps my reaction wasn't "average". But I thought Jackson was marvelously subtle but also vividly illustrative in making Bag End so warm and cozy, cluttered and welcoming in the yellow glow of candle and firelight in FoTR, and then showing the same interior stripped, cold, blue with the lack of warmth and light at the end of RotK. I find it difficult to comprehend that anyone who'd seen both FotR and RotK could not be struck by the difference, and understand from that how deeply Frodo had been damaged, and why he couldn't adapt to life in the Shire.

My vote for what the movies did most successfully in translating the book to film is what Beverly said, but in all aspects. The art absolutely and completely conveyed Tolkein's Middle-Earth, supported and explained and enhanced the story and the characters, and did everything you need a visual medium to do when interpreting a print medium.

The least successful transition was in the characterization of some folks. Whether it was necessary or not, whether it was the right thing to do when making a movie for 21st-century audiences or not, whether it made better characters than Tolkein did or not, the interpretation of Aragorn and Faramir as doubting, conflicted, and uncertain was not Tolkein's intent for those characters. He was creating a mythology, and the Men of Numenor were not three-dimensional. They were stalwart, brave and true, or they were corrupted by an external evil.

Merry and Pippin suffered in the other direction. Again, I think a good decision for the movie in most respects, but you do lose Tolkein's intent of all four hobbits being capable and "in on it" and bridge characters into the mythology.

The movie just missed what would've been the worst possible transition, making Arwen a Warrior Princess, thanks to Liv Tyler's inability to carry it off. FOTR toed that line a little too closely for comfort, but it could've been so much worse.

Normally I would list the absence of The Scouring of the Shire as a big problem also, but I'm not sure it fits the thesis.

What, you didn't want to see Liv Tyler in a metal brassiere doing backflips and flinging a chakram at the nazgul?

Eomer also has charm on Xena.

And wings.

They're really taking liberties with the historical accuracy of Julius Caesar, aren't they?

Yes. Julius Caesar, son of Aphrodite.

I have a very hard time turning off my brain for Xena, especially when one episode features the Trojan War and the next features Caesar.

Well, I was just watching for Ares anyway (weep, weep, Kevin Smith is gone).

Julius Caesar, son of Aphrodite.

Say again? Have these people seen busts of ole Julius? A funnier-looking guy I can't think of in antiquity, except maybe Nero. I mean, Narcissus son of Aphrodite, I could buy with appropriate hand-waving, or Julius Caesar bizarro love-child of Jupiter and Mars.

Also, wings? Since when do Roman emperors get wings??

It's a joke, Nutty. Karl Urban played both ol' Jules and Cupid.