[Man-of-the-Wold]

The thing I'd just ramble on about with respect to the Bashki effort is that that arose because he convinced the heirs that it could not be done except by animation. It was not so much a question of technology necessarily, although that now helps a lot, because much of the special effects in LOTR:FOTR are relatively longstanding. What's different now is the money for the time and labor to get them right.<P>This was just before Star Wars, and big bucks just weren't thrown at movies, and for three whole blockbusters films, $270m is going to be an pretty good bargain, to say the least.<P>And the reason it waited this long to be done, as it must be, was that the rights got all tangled up. But finally.<P>The last part of the Bashki film is just a diaster, but it has its good points. And seeing the current film -- which will be the first one ever that I see twice during the same release, when I go back tomorrow -- I could see where PJ couldn't help but make some of the same good decisions as were made the by Bashki.<P>But seeing it then in the theaters (picked up the video about four years ago) I knew it was O.K. in some ways but would fade into obscurity.<P>And in fact it can't be done rightly with animation. Middle-earth is a real-like world for the most part, with very real characters, and needs to be acted out.<P>The original material is too intense and too brilliantly integrated and rich to be fully equaled through any dramatic or cinematic rendering, but this is as great a movie project as could be hoped for, and anyone who does not give that cast the highest possible marks does not know what they are talking about.<P>To ask them to be any of those characters in the way that you would be is impossible and churlish. I don't know who could have done as well.<P>To have seen Boromir so beautifully potrayed is in and of itself worth 20 evening-time tickets. Now for Eomer, Eowyn and Faramir, who along with Aragorn was Tolkien's greatest testament to the potential of true men.