[Tar-Palantir]

HC I agree with you - put aside LotR for a minute and you'll see that the majority of 'adapted screenplays' are not much like their source material at all. Movies like The Bourne Identity, Notting Hill, A Beautiful Mind, About a Boy, etc. all spring to mind. Would it really benefit the actor to know what the movie "should" have been like?<P>This applies to PJ's LotR too to some degree, since so much is different in PJ's world, but the key is in the lead character in my opinion, they cannot falter or the movies crumble. Thankfully LotR has a number of main charactes so they don't all crumble at once, if you know what I mean. For LotR Aragorn, Gandalf, Sam, Frodo, Gollum, Pippin & Merry (if their parts in RotK aren't cut down) and Saruman should all have read ALL the books. Others like Boromir, Elrond, Galadriel, Legolas, Gimli, Faramir, Eowyn, Theodred, Eomer, etc. really only needed to brush up on their own character's history and read their parts.<P>On another note, I don't believe Elijah when he says he didn't have the time. They had tons of downtime - and it wasn't about "being surrounded by ME anyway", it is about character development, of which movie Frodo is SORELY lacking.<p>[ March 20, 2003: Message edited by: Tar-Palantir ]