[Kalimac]

Wow, go to late showing, sleep in, and miss all the fun here apparently . I must admit (and I'm probably in a minority here) that overall I really, really liked the movie. First: about Faramir (the Faramir thread seems to have been shut down) in my case, forewarned was definitely forearmed: if I hadn't known I probably would have been crushed and it may have ruined the movie for me. As it is I was just able to endure it, and at the end when he lets them go, it was a good sign that he'll come around and behave himself in the third movie (he'd better, for Eowyn's sake ). As for letting them go for selfish reasons, I don't think that's a reasonable explanation when they have the bit about "your life will be forfeit" and he answers "Then it is forfeit." That is an intrinsically unselfish thing to do. Having Frodo offer the Ring to the Nazgul was pretty idiotic, but again not fatal; we've seen in the first movie how the Nazgul came within inches of the Ring and still didn't manage to get it, so it's not totally unbelievable that they'd snatch defeat from the jaws of victory yet again (presumably they're still blind at this point). <P>Good stuff; Gollum was FANTASTIC - people in the theater were laughing, and so was I, but it was nervous laughter, which considering his behavior is a natural reaction (and come on, that "taters" scene is pretty funny). Rohan was wonderful; and Helm's Deep was beyond description, alas, I can't get too worked up about the Elves being at Helm's Deep (Bad Tolkienphile!). Changing the result of the Entmoot was annoying, but considering how little screen time Merry and Pippin get in this one, and the fact that they probably had about 10 lines apiece total, it was the only way to give them as much character development as they experienced. <P>Oddly enough this reminds me very much of the first time I saw FOTR: I actually came out feeling slightly disappointed because all the changes were fresh in my mind. (Pippin and Merry stealing cabbages, forsooth!) It was the second time I saw it that I realized how wonderfully it worked as a movie on its own. And as much as TTT departed from the book, it still had enough spark in it to carry over to ROTK, and since PJ has said that TTT departs most from the book, I think we have nowhere to go but up . I did care very much about the characters and was disappointed when it ended. All said, I'd go for this ANY day than some slavish adaptation a la "Harry Potter" which carbon-copies the book scenes onto the screen while leeching all the spirit out of them.<P>Sorry, that was probably fairly incoherent. It's just that while they came to edge of idiocy several times, they always managed to pull back onto track in the end, and that was the most important thing.