For ita and Nutty and amych, yes, Bob Anderson is god. I sure hope he has some prize students who can take up his trade when time finally overcomes him.

I know of at least a couple of guys who call themselves swordmasters because they make their living entirely from having a salle and teaching fighting with swords. Seems fair to me.

"He taught Errol Flynn."

"Cool! (Who's Errol Flynn?)"

I thought the pumpkin hobbit was played by the Deagol actor, rather than Serkis. I could be wrong.

I also don't rmember Amon Sul having been referred to as Weathertop previously onscreen.

I don't remember a reference to Weathertop in FotR.

I do-but it could be a false memory.

Ted

My reactions, as posted in my lj. They basically boil down to "wow!"

I sat through most of the movie with my mouth open, and I didn't spend much of it with dry eyes, though for the most part I was expecting things and I didn't get into the whole sobbing-so-hard-you-can't-see-the-screen that FotR and TTT have sometimes done to me. Mind you, I suspect that a home viewing, where I'm prepared to be really emotionally involved and not analysing the plot changes may do that to me yet.

TOR.n's got a link to a new TV commercial for RotK up. It's one of the "critics' best" reviews, and it has only three voiceovers: Gandalf's "We come to it at last..." , Mippin's "We'll see each other again." "I don't know." , and Frodo's "I'm glad to be with you, Sam, here at the end of all things." BTW, I never noticed that it's a neat inversion of the book line, "I'm glad you're here with me..." and changes the tenor by somehow making them more equals, IMO .

"I'm glad to be with you..."

I did, in fact, notice the change, and thought Frodo (or Jackson-Walsh-Boyens) was going for a deliberate acknowledgement of Sam as a partner, without whom they wouldn't have succeeded.

Also, maybe I blinked, but the confrontation on the street in Minas Tirith of Shadowfax, bearing Gandalf and Pippin, skidding to a halt before the grounded, wing-bated Nazgul scene from the trailers wasn't in the movie, was it?

Nope, and neither was the Aragorn and Legolas scene, where Leggy has his hand on Aragorn's shoulder and holding his bow in that suggestive manner (although the shot of Aragorn falling to his knees is still in the new TV ad).

I just got done watching a good 15-minute (or so) long behind the scenes documentary. (Quicktime required.) Some good clips, and the actors mostly have interesting stuff to say.

So I didn't miss that! Thanks, Kathy-- I thought I'd blinked. Was the Sam cradling notdead!Frodo scene slightly different in the movie, too? I didn't notice spider-web in the poster.

Am-Chau, that poster isn't notdead!Frodo in Cirith Ungol -- it's reallytired!Frodo as they climb up Mount Doom/

Heh. I was driving to Chicago last night, and one of the roadside stands had a letter burned out. So what was left was 4-foot-high, red neon letters saying FIRE ORKS. Took me aback, I can tell you.