[Teleri]

I know what you mean about Frodo feeling alone, but... I think that the tension in the book was better. P.J. has already shown us that there won't be a lot of subtlety in the films, and that the actors will pretty much all get a chance to come out and "talk about their feelings". I guess this is good for the non-book audience, as they lack the voice at the back of their head narrating for them... The way that Tolkein showed this rift was much more effective. The fact that he never did have Sam pound the stuffing out of Gollom until the <B>second</B> time he was attacked, and that mostly because he wanted to continue on and help Frodo. Also, one thing I did not get: they have Frodo defeat Gollom at Cirith Ungol. Now, this was obviously done so that he would not appear as helpless as he did in the book, but this diminishes Sam's character, and changes Frodo's. A better way of doing this would have been Tolkien's more subtle rift between the three travlers. Frodo knows that Gollom means to betray them, but he has no hope anyway, and he also knows that Gollom wishes to keep the ring away from souron and his armies. This makes Frodo appear wiser, and is much better than his apparently blind, and unreasonable faith in Gollom. <P>One more thing I must say: I thought that Sam accusing Gollom of stealing the Lembas bread was kind of wierd. If something like that happened in the book, I think it would have been more likely that Sam would have wondered if he had been sleep-eating.