Kathy, I am with you on Pippin being carried out to escort the soldiers from Gondor back in. It makes no sense, except to compress the story so that Faramir can see Pippin right then, and tell them about Frodo and Sam.

In general, the heroes were less heroic in the movie than in the books, and the bad guys were less evil. Eowyn was obviously less psychotic, but I think it's a reader thing to be able to associate with her psychosis; I doubt it would come through well on the screen. Sam may have come across as more heroic in the movies, which is cool, since I've always maintained that he's the hero of the books.

The line "Now that I'm here, I don't think I want to do what I came to do" was truncated and moved to the entrance to Shelob's lair. Funnier in that setting, but talk about sucking the power out of the dialog.

So. Guys. I got to the movies yesterday, saw this little flick. Not sure if anyone's heard of it, it's from New Zealand or something. It's pretty good, though they seemed a bit confused as to how big elephants and eagles really are. Expect a scathing review in National Geographic.

A friend told me the battle in that movie was based on the Battle of the Somme.

I had no idea there were really big elephants at the Somme.

I had no idea there were really big elephants at the Somme.

Raquel, may I please tag?

This is going to sound really dumb, but in a way the pterodactyls/dragons swooping out of the sky and randomly killing people *did* remind me of World War I. I could get this visceral feeling for how shocking and against all the laws of nature it must have seemed for there to be that kind of attack from above, for the battlefield to turn into a three-dimensional matrix when for millennia people had been thinking of it as a two-dimensional one. (Okay, I know that's not quite right and topography is important -- but figuring out how the lay of the land affects battles is just so different from being attacked fromt he sky.)

Katie - Re: your #7. I echo everything you said about Eowyn, every little thing.

I've been wondering why this seemed to me to be an exceptionally good movie rather than THE. BEST. MOVIE. EVER. And I think that, aside from my insane love of the Shire and thus wicked bias towards Fellowship, that the mishandling of Eowyn has a lot to do with it.

I love the Buffistas because they don't make me feel like a bad person when I don't like something as much as all my friends do.

Also, I'm 99% certain that Legolas was all set to marry Aragorn, before Aragorn caught sight of Arwen .

Micole, that didn't even sound dumb when you said it twice. When the dragon-thangs started divebombing the towers of the city, it gave me a dull sick "That's wrong, it's cheating, it's not fucking fair" feeling in the pit of my stomach (approximately the same feeling I had the entire six weeks my European History class spent on WWI).

how shocking and against all the laws of nature it must have seemed for there to be that kind of attack from above, for the battlefield to turn into a three-dimensional matrix when for millennia people had been thinking of it as a two-dimensional one

Yes, this exactly.

Oops, double-post. Thank you, JZ.

Have now seen movie twice. Almost gave away to my sister several times that I'd been too impatient to wait to see it the first time with her, but fortunately she was not looking for signs of this deceit.

My favorite bits are still:

the beacons (which is something I don't remember from the books at all)

Faramir asking his father, "What would you have me do?" with tears in his eyes (which maps onto one of my favorite bits from the books)

Is Caryn James even remotely aware that 2/3 of the writing team for this were woman? Also, does she think manly tears are unemotional? Also, I'm kinda said because I think she's a big Buffy geek. Whatev.

I finally saw it on Saturday morning. Haven't had a chance to post about it until now. I went with two other guys and a woman, and they all thought it was amazing (the woman gave up on Tolkein after trying to get through the Hobbit, so she didn't know what was going to happen). We joke about how we all got sniffly, but it least they were MANLY tears.

I loved it, but I had a few quibbles.

BHP addressed one of my big ones - Denethor. I didn't mind so much that they made him so nasty out of the box, but given the emphasis they gave it at Orthanc, and Denethor's comment about having seen more than Gandalf could imagine, I was certain that they were going to do a reveal about Denethor using the Paleantir (sp?), which would have gone a long way (if not 100%) towards making him more than a psycho villain. Also, it would have made the Paleantir less of a dropped ball (so to speak), since they didn't have Aragorn using it either. Kind of like it a reverse ass-pull.

Something no one has mentioned (and since Astin was so good in the role, it didn't hurt all that much), but two changes to Sam bugged me: 1) The de-emphasis on him being a ring bearer, even if only for a short time, and, more importantly, 2) him sparing Gollum on Mt. Doom, which parralled Frodo's mercy upon first encountering Gollum up close in TTT.

Also, not happy that they made stabbing the Witch King non-life-threatening, but I figure they 1) can have Eowyn in the Houses of the Healing in the EE becuase of her arm, and more importantly 2) wanted Merry at the battle at the Black Gate.

Really didn't mind Arwen, liked Eowyn, loved Pippin.

Also, I'd like to thank the Buffistas for warping me so that whenever Legolas made an entrance or reunited with a character I'd mutter "Still the prettiest" under my breath.

Funniest overheard conversation after the movie: a woman was berating somebody she was with who had misled her - "You said that Frodo died! You said that the elf died!" and then trailed off into invective at that point.