[The Saucepan Man]

I may be wrong, but I have a sneaking suspicion that many of you are going to be disappointed. <P>Since when did films ever finish by telling the audience the subsequent life stories of each of the characters? The only ones that I can think of are films like <I>Animal House</I> where they have pictures of each of the characters with a comical caption explaining what became of them. Hmm ... perhaps Jackson will do that. I can see it now. A picture of Gimli proudly holding up handfuls of golden locks with the caption *Gimli: Opened up a successful chain of barber shops in Tol Eressea* <P>Seriously, I doubt that most film-goers will be interested in knowing that Legolas built a boat and sailed with Gimli for the Undying Lands. Heck, I didn't even know that they did that until recently, having had a copy of the Book without the Appendices for many years. <P>What really matters is that we see through the stories of the main characters: Aragorn (and, by association, Arwen), Sam and Frodo. We will have the weddding of Aragorn and Arwen (and I suspect that we will only hear that Faramir and Eowyn marry unless there is a double wedding). The final fate of Aragorn and Arwen has already been foreshadowed in TTT, although I suspect that it is likely to be reiterated in RotK. <P>Other than that, we will have the Grey Havens and the final journey of Frodo and the other Ringbearers (preceded, I hope, with a scene or two showing why Frodo can no longer remain in Middle-earth). And I suspect that the film will end as the Book does with Sam saying "Well, I'm back". The screen shot knocking about of Sam scooping his daughter into his arms is likely, I believe, to be the final scene. There may be some final "tying up" narrative by Galadriel, but I strongly doubt that it will go into what happened to each of the characters. Which is right in my view, since I feel that a long drawn out narrative here would destroy the dramatic impact of the final scenes.<P>As I said, though, I may be wrong ...