MM, I'm kinda with you, if only because it made me think "Ya know, if they could've rounded up another two or three wood elves, this would be a piece of cake. Not like those candy-ass Galadhrim that showed up at Helm's Deep and then got slaughtered to the last elf."

Faramir is supposed to represent that the blood of Numenor yet runs true in Gondor.

JSw, wrod. Other than Faramir admittedly being a bit Tolkein!Sue as Jess put it, his uncorrruptibility serves a real purpose in the books, by telling us there's some reason to help Gondor. The only person we've got to represent Gondor before we meet Faramir is Boromir, who's pretty much a dick in the books. More sympathetic in the movie, but between him and Denethor, King Theoden's question of "And why should we aid Gondor?" seems reasonable. As far as the unspoiled can tell, Gondor's as big a threat to the quest as Isengard.

Sure, TTT TELLS us that Gondor's the good guys, but doesn't prove it. I'm not convinced ROTK proves it either, with the exception of the soldiers.

(Starts thinking about a screenplay without Faramir)

Gratuitous, sure. Improbable? How so?

Not getting into it. It's simply improbable.

I'm with MM. I hate Legolas jumping on the horse (in front of its legs!?!), the snowboard shield, and the death of the oliphaunt. They all leap out at me as gratuituous anachronistic crowd-pleasers.

And I like Legolas in general. Even if Orlando Bloom only has two expressions, the one where he narrows his eyes and the one where he widens them.

The horse bothers me, but less than it did. The shield doesn't bother me, but it will.

The Oliphaunt, not at all, aside from the places where it screamed CGI. I miss eye-stabby arrow-nocky Legolas, but I am about the kill count, so I'll take it this way too.

Faramir resisting the ring in the book always annoyed me. Because everyone else was tempted by it. Galadriel, Gandalf, all the other humans. (We'll ignore Tom Bombadil because he annoys the fuck out of me) It never struck me as plausible that he was the one human in all the world that was incorruptible.

Besides, incorruptability is dramatically boring. I mean, even Jesus got tempted by evil.

Give me shades of gray anytime.

I always figured that Faramir in the books didn't have time to be tempted, and assumed that he would've been had he been around it for long enough.

I mean, Sam is just barely tempted.

Sure, TTT TELLS us that Gondor's the good guys, but doesn't prove it. I'm not convinced ROTK proves it either, with the exception of the soldiers.

Mmm. Yeah, I missed the scenes in RotK-the-book that gave Minas Tirith some life; as it was (and again, all sympathies to the movie-makers) it was just Generic City Needing Defending #2.

meara time:

Like Raquel, I think the Scouring of the Shire is the heart of the book. It brings it all home to the hobbits, and sets up Frodo leaving for the Grey Havens. And yet I'm glad it's not in the movie. I think most moviegoers would be somewhat bored and confused by it ("why are they fighting again? didn't they win already? why hasn't the movie ended yet?")--those who hadn't read the books, anyway--and I'm not sure it would have translated well onscreen. So I miss it in theory, being one of my favorite sections of the book, but I think it's just as well it's not there.

In a friend's LJ, I've been discussing with someone whether or not the end of the book is depressing. She's very mad that PJ gave the story a Happy Hollywood Ending, and I've been disagreeing with her on two counts: 1) I think the end of the book is certainly sad but also hopeful, with Frodo finding peace on the ship to Valinor and Sam going home to rebuild the Shire and lead the kind of life Frodo sacrificed himself to save; and 2) I don't see the movie as having a Hollywood Ending (says the girl who wept buckets through the last half hour--twice so far). I think it preserves the melancholic feel of the book pretty well. Thoughts?

Am I the only Arwen/Aragorn fan here?

No, at least not book!Arwen. I never wanted Eowyn/Aragorn from the books.

That said, am I the only person who returns to the books and doesn't imagine the movie actors? They just fall away.

Again, no. I remember being almost surprised at how easy it was to forget the actors' faces when reading the book (same thing with HP, actually, for which I am grateful). Though I haven't reread since after FOTR came out; I wonder if it would be different now, having spent more time with the actors. (And I agree with tina and others, Sir Ian is Gandalf!)

I liked Gimli much more in ROTK than in TTT, for the reasons ita mentioned: I felt we were being invited to laugh at his jokes, not at him, and he didn't seem the boor that he came across as in the first two movies. I know the dwarves are supposed to be somewhat boorish (at least compared to the elves), but that scene in Lothlorien where he says "I have the eyes of a hawk and the ears of a fox!" (or insert appropriate animals here, I don't recall exactly) and then turns around to find Haldir's guards surrounding him... eh. Don't like it. He was much more competent in ROTK. (Okay, so he kicked more ass at Helm's Deep than on the Pelennor Fields, but he came off much less oafish on the whole in ROTK.)

As for Theoden, here's where I'm glad I don't know much about warfare and proper tactics etc., because I got to concentrate on him being all noble and kingly without thinking "dude, you've got a much better chance if you attack from over here" or whatever. When the muster of Rohan is gathered at the camp, after Aragorn leaves for the Paths of the Dead, and Theoden has his line about "We can't beat them, but we will meet them in battle nonetheless!" I did have a moment of thinking "okay, not the best plan," but then I remembered that, well, they're pretty much fucked either way if Frodo doesn't destroy the Ring, so they may as well do their best to take out as many of the enemy as possibly before they die.

I liked the Legolas vs. Dumbo scene, and it didn't particularly pull me out of the movie. I have a high tolerance for CGI, though, unless it's egregiously bad. I didn't even realize until just now that of course it must be at least partially CGI-Legolas as well. Hmm. Didn't bother me. Whereas the horse trick in TTT still doesn't quite work right for me, and totally threw me when I first saw it. And I hate the shielf-surfboard bit. And I'm a big geeky Legolas fangirl!

I have more to say about Faramir, but I need to organize my thoughts. I loved him in the book, and when he first showed up and was all mean in TTT, I was pissed. But he more than makes up for that in ROTK, and even in TTTEE. The first time I noticed that he's holding back tears when he releases Sam and Frodo was when I started to love movie!him. And I don't care if he's a big TolkeinSue, though I'm not sure I agree. I love what he represents, and I think he's an interesting character in his own right.

Oh, and I just wanted to brag here that my housemate and I are in the local paper's article about Trilogy Tuesday, which just came out today. He only got our first names and didn't quote us or anything, but he did say that we were there FIRST!

Right. The absence of minor characters like Ioreth and Bergil and Beregond, while cutting down the twee factor by 96%, also rendered Minas Tirith a giant wasteland of strangers, plus pitiless Creon Denethor.

That sort of texture problem I expect to be remedied in the EE, but it's a sign they just couldn't get all the story into 3+ hours.