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If you're making a three-part multi-multi-multi-million dollar movie, concessions have to be made. And do you honestly think they could have done Tom Bombadil and still made it a success. On the whole, they did as good a job as they could without alienating a non-fantasy audience.

Robin Hobb's stuff is worth a read, though I'm beginning to lose patience with Robert Jordan's never-ending Wheel Of Time saga.

Sharpe's wit is a mixture of farce, the grotesque and biting satire. And it usually involves large middle-aged ladies in fetish gear whipping people.

I agree that there are scenes which are just impossible to do justice to it in only 9/10 hours

Its one thing to leave out scenes

Its another to change what Characters do and say

Pivotal moments like Rohan.....the whole story there has been turned upside down for what I can see for nothing other than dramamtic effect and nothing to do with being able to film a certain scene

I think I now understand my a friend of mine who studied it for 4 years has bypassed watching any of it

You'd have to do a TV serial to capture every thing in its place I guess

cheers
B....OZ

PS I'll keep those aithors in mind and I agree Robert Jordan is just milking that series....Volume 11 and I will go no further...its the same old stuff just repeating itself...like watching Dr Who...lets hope he doesn't get up to volume 4567 and still think its not quite finished

The curious thing about the movie was that I found some of its characters a lot more appealing than their literary equivalents. Boromir, Eowyn and especially Gollum were portrayed a lot more sympathetically.

Don't worry about re-reading the book. I tend to do that about once a year. And before anyone accuses me of being an anorak, I do the same with Great Expectations and Catch-22.

I'm waiting for the extra DVD version of The Return of the King. I still can't get my head around the decision to exclude the entire Scouring of the Shire.
My viewing of Part 1 on TV recently was enhanced by having toured all the Wellington region locations. It says something about the town planning here that there are still extensive "Green belts", "Domains" and parks in the city. Some of the first filming, the Hobbits encounter with the Nazgul when they hide under a tree's roots, was a location within walking distance of the city centre.

Mart

Ours is not to reason why

Which ever way you look at it the story has some basic elements changed purely for dramatic effect(or cheap effects which ever way you see it)

The biggest probably being Aragorns Sword being reforged just in time when everything looks dire in the film but in the book this had already been done already been done before the fellowship set out

The there were the Elvish Archers turning up at Helms Deep...never happened in the book but very dramatic on film

One thing the film does do well in is the score,costumes & the sets IMHO

cheers
B....OZ

The Elvish archers were a bit OTT, as were some of the battle scenes at both Helms Deep and Pellenor Fields.

All three film scores by Howard Shore were superb. And the songs (yes, even Enya) were just right.

Oh, stop being such a guilt-filled fanny, Maggs. If the only reason we ever spilled our seed was to fulfil God's order to have children, we'd be knee deep in the buggers.

One thing that confuses me: if devout couples only make love to create children, do they then have to beg forgiveness of God, if they are not successful on the sprogg front, for sinning?

Its a fine line between actual footage and mass animated characters

The battle scene right at the end always struck me as farcical given that they were surrounded on all sides but only charged in one direction

The charge on Pellenor fields was a laugh....I'm sure they hired a few local Jockeys because one of them looked like he was using the whip..lol

For all its short comings still worth a peek every now and then if only for the score at pivotal moments

cheers
B....OZ