[Kalimac]

I don't know, goldwine, I've been reading the books since the age of ten and really liked the movie (whatever its weak spots, it was just such a gigantic undertaking which could have gone so horribly wrong that I will give all honor and praise to Peter Jackson for coming as close to the mark as he did). <P>Maril, thanks for the kind words . And as far as I remember, no theater I've ever been in asks you to please turn off your stopwatches before the movie - just don't let it beep during the Council of Elrond or some such quietish moment . I'm trying to think of a way to stretch out the Lorien/post-Lorien scenes more; it's difficult because, when you get right down to it, they don't really *do* much, especially in Lorien. It's been mentioned before that Frodo sounded far too suspicious with his "What will I see?" line in Lorien; it hadn't struck me that way at the time and then I realized that it was because the movie went along so breathlessly at that point that it felt as if Frodo had been attacked in Moria, stabbed by the troll, run from the Balrog, seen Gandalf fall, been confronted by bow and arrow-wielding Elves and had his mind probed by Galadriel - all within the space of about twelve hours! At that point it seemed like a wonder that he wasn't prostrate on the ground begging for mercy.<P>There probably isn't too much to do with Lorien; as for the scenes where they're boating down the Anduin...I'd probably have to resort to a fairly cheap device and just intercut more night shots there to show that this journey is really taking quite a few days. Maybe before the Kings of the Argonath scene you could a brief, wordless night scene of about 30 seconds where everyone is asleep and Frodo is on watch by the shore; then we slowly see two "lamps of eyes" glowing brighter and brighter. Frodo draws Sting, and they fade away. Quiet rustling of leaves for a moment, cut and fade to everyone scrambling into boats the next morning with Frodo looking even more burdened than he already does. If you didn't mind repeating effects, you could do the same thing with the winged Nazgul later on (maybe make that an evening scene, with everyone having late supper together), or leave it out if it seems like repeating effects too much. Anyway, having one or both of these prospective scenes would establish two things: (1) this is taking several days and is tiring for everyone (obviously Frodo isn't the only one taking turns on watch) and (2) Heeee's back! ("He" being either Gollum or the Ringwraiths, or both). <P>Apologies for the verbosity. Do you think these would work at all?<p>[ March 28, 2002: Message edited by: Kalimac ]