Hmm, somehow I missed the Schiavo nonsense.

Sorry everyone.

Nothing to apologize for, Sumi. Different people will have different reactions.

Now if it had been spoilers...

Back here, pestering, having re-read a lot of the thread.

Yep - lots of the complaints about the choice of what to keep, what to cut, and how to alter it for screen mirrors what I've been saying all along. Not 100% satisfying, and RotK was the least-satisfactory of the 3 - but that's like a 7 on a 10-scale, where TTT was a 9 and FotR waffles between 8 and 10. (Depending on which version you watch, and how much sleep I've had.)

shrug

I could get into endless debates with all the well-educated, well-informed Tolkien fans and movie enthusiasts here about the strengths and weaknesses of these versions, but I don't want to fight with anyone. :) I tend to get REALLY uptight about this stuff, unreasonably so, and I recognize it, and simply avoid making enemies out of friends because I cannot be reasonable.

I do not kid when I say Lord of the Rings has religious meaning to me. I can joke about it, mock bits and pieces, laugh at the foibles of the Professor endlessly...and raise a toast on his birthday and death-day, celebrate the New Year appropriately, and get misty-eyed when I think about his tombstone inscription.

Parts of the films are absolutely what lives in my heart. The rest I can write off to the realities of making a movie in this world - it just doesn't have to be good, it has to be profitable, or it'll never see the light of day (or be nothing more than mental masturbation by the auteur crafting it - a work for his sake and no-one else's).

I've already rambled more than I wanted - once I start, I only stop when I lose my voice.

"She was (and knew she was) my Luthien. I will say no more now. But I should like ere long to have a long talk with you. For if as seems probable I shall never write any ordered biography--it is against my nature, which expresses itself about things deepest felt in the tales and myths--someone close in heart to me should know something about things that records do not record: the dreadful sufferings of our childhoods, from which we rescued one another, but could not wholly heal wounds that later often proved disabling; the sufferings that we endured after our love began--all of which (over and above personal weaknesses) might help to make pardonable, or understandable, the lapses and darknesses which at times marred our lives--and to explain how these never touched our depths nor dimmed the memories of our youthful love. For ever (especially when alone) we still met in the woodland glade and went hand in hand many times to escape the shadow of imminent death before out last parting." ~On why we wishes to include the name "Luthien" on Edith's tombstone (written to Christopher Tolkien)

...and his tombstone says "Beren".

I do not kid when I say Lord of the Rings has religious meaning to me.

Well you're not alone in that reverence in this thread. Not me (though I enjoy it all), but several Buffistas have made similar comments, and have as deep a grounding in the lore.

SH, you're among fellow major geeks here. I was one of a handful of people on one of my mailing lists who were horrified by a newer list member who thought it was a lovely idea to have one ring replica wedding rings for couples. Some folks didn't get what we were all going on about.

I literally sat up straight and dropped my jaw when I first read Eowyn revealing herself on the Fields of Pelennor (I was a trusting child and didn't realize who Dernhelm was). It was literally the first time I'd seen a female character stand up on her own two feet, prepared and able to kick butt on her own terms without asking or expecting help from any other person.

When I think about it now, it's rather an amzing thing in a book as full of "I'll be here waiting for you, hands gainfully busy while I dream of you" females.

I literally sat up straight and dropped my jaw when I first read Eowyn revealing herself on the Fields of Pelennor

This was me the first time through, too. I didn't have the excuse of being too young to catch it, I think I skimmed a bit during the Muster of Rohan, etc, where the hints were.

Really, the whole book of RotK is filled with sequences the packed more emotional punch for me than just about anything I've ever seen or read.

JRRT was so good at giving us a picture of what was happening without going into hyper-detail.

For me, an image that has stayed with me from the book is from Sam and Frodo's trek across the Plains of Gorgoroth. They've stopped for a rest, and Frodo has fallen asleep sitting up, his hands resting on the ground, twitching while Frodo sleeps. The first time I read this, I thought it was from pure exhaustion. Only after I matured and Frodo's internal struggle began to fascinate me as much as the outer one did it occur to me that his hands might have been twitching from wanting to reach for the Ring, even in his sleep.