'An attrocious movie which is a despicable insult to a wonderful book'

[Dain]

I think it was inevitable that the film versons would simplify things (I'd say "dumb it down", but that may be provocative ). Some of the characters in Tolkien are too subtly powerful, and that wouldn't work on screen. Hence Theoden having to be physically possessed and excorcised, and the take much, much longer to recover (though his face popped right back!). And with Faramir, they needed to make the tension of his decision more dramatic, so he takes them to osgilliath and only at the last moment changes his mind. I don't need or want these changes, nor do many of us, because we know the characters and the books so well that we know instantly when something is wrong and what is going on. But why are we viewing the glass half empty? I rather think it's half full--and more, really. I mean, as Erulasto says, we still have the books, but now we have a visual as well, and they got an amazing amount of that right, for me. And when you get the extended DVD, you can always skip the bits you didn't like and pretend they happened the right way, or fill in the missing bits. <P>Davem--funny, it went the other way for me. 1st time, hated it. 2nd time, blown away by parts of it (still couldn't understand some of the changes...)