Spoilers for the EE.

Mouth of Sauron! Frodo's mithril coat! Woo!

Is it stated to him, or understood?

Finally found it. Appendix A, Ballantine P. 422-5:

A great doom awaits you, either to rise above the height of all your fathers since the days of Elendil, or to fall into darkness with all that is left of your kin. [...]

Therefore, though I love you, I say to you: Arwen Undomiel shall not diminish her life's grace for less cause. She shall not be the bride of any Man less than the King of both Gondor and Arnor.

...actually, if book-Arwen had a spine at all, she probably would have told her pop to butt out, since she'd already plighted (??) her troth to Strider back when he was a mere 49 years old.

Yeah, which pretty much proves that Arwen was not so much with the spine.

I really much prefer Luthien. Luthien was not a woman who took crap from anybody.

Well I finally saw it and greatly enjoyed it. I now have to go back and reread all the white-fonted stuff.

Caryn James in the Sunday NYTimes expresses her general dislike of the 3 films. It's one if those "I don't get it, so there must not be anything to get" sort of reviews that are the reason I tend to hold critics as a class in contempt.

It's one if those "I don't get it, so there must not be anything to get" sort of reviews that are the reason I tend to hold critics as a class in contempt.

What about the 162 critics metered at rottentomatoes that liked it? They don't mitigate the class at all?

What about the 162 critics metered at rottentomatoes that liked it? They don't mitigate the class at all?

Nope-because I'm sure almost all of them have written that sort of review about other films.

I'll just add here that not having reread the books in many years, none of the changes bother me (since I didn't remember the specifics of the books well enough to notice them).

I just read the article in question. (It's here.)

Thing is, I wouldn't really call it a review per se. It's basically someone who doesn't like something that's both popular and acclaimed, trying to justify her dislike. Which only works if you do a much better job marshalling your argument than she does. She comes across pretty petulant and snooty. But it's really more a pop culture opinion essay than a critic's review.

"I don't get it, so there must not be anything to get"

That's really less that critics as a class are contemptable, but that this particular critic is idiotic enough to think that her opinion is more correct than the hundreds of thousands of people who've given their money over and over again and made the trilogy so successful.

Nope-because I'm sure almost all of them have written that sort of review about other films.

Okay, but maybe those films actually warrented such a review? I mean, not all movies are LotR, so some of them actually deserve such a scornful review, in which case those reviewers should be contempted, n'est pas?

I'm sure almost all of them have written that sort of review about other films.

You hold them in contempt because you're sure they've done something you dislike?

It seems a little broad to me, but that's perhaps because I have very little opinion of critics as a class, other than they kinda do the same job. But only kinda, and in different ways.

And for me it's just part of the evaluation process to figure out how closely a given critic's tastes match mine, and therefore how much their opinion should matter to my decision whether or not to watch a given movie.