<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:<HR> He added it in because he thought it was better from a cinematic standpoint, as indeed much of it was from the perspective of mass audiences.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE><P>I totally deny this on most of the new material and many of the omissions. The scene at the ford was more exciting when Frodo was alone. The final confrontation between Gandalf and Saruman is tense and exciting and satisfies the wish of the viewer to know how Saruman was deal with. The whole breaking of the staff could have been moved from Orthanc to the Shire if time was a problem. I could have lived with that. But to just discard a major character because he has no more fight scenes is simply lousy story-telling.<P>The prologue disrupts the flow of the mood of the film; it was a mistake when Bakshi did it and it was a mistake when Jackson copied it. Jumping in at the Last Alliance is reminiscent of the sex-education sketch in Meaning of Life "What's wrong with a bit of the Nazgul on the Road, boy? There's no need to go charging like a bull at the Last Alliance! Then maybe the Black-Breath, that's good. Build up to it! Foreplay!" Slowly building tension is not Jackson's best suit; he assumes the audience has the same attention span he does and is simply tapping its collective feet waiting for the next bit of hack and slash.<P>The changes to the balrog scene made it too long and drawn out, actually losing tension compared to the book, particularly with the weak dwarf-tossing joke and the ridiculous "lean, lean" on top of that block of stone. The charge of Rohan at the end of the battle of Helm's Deep produced a few sniggers in the cinema when I saw it; the book's ending was much better and could have looked GREAT. <P>Elrond is simply a pain in the bum, as is Arwen. Frankly, no one that I know that has seen the movie (and, yes, they do all like it) give a damn about either of them because their characters are unsympathetic (Elrond) and boring (Arwin). They literally could be taken out of the movie without doing any (further) harm.<P>The Mirror of Galadriel in the book was a gift to a director working on a trilogy as it gave a chance to tease the audience with events from the third film (ie the scouring of the Shire) while at the same time building up Sam's character a bit more. But Mr Jackson missed that trick along with most other chances to be subtle and engaging.<P>The fight at Weathertop, if filmed straight from the book would have been fantastic: the Nazgul as black holes in the night sky approaching silently over the crest of the hill, their positions only marked by the background stars blinking out of existance. What a scene! Surely <B>anyone</B> could make that a thrill to remember!? <P>Apparently not quite anyone.<P>Instead we got to see the inflammable clowns that run into each other. That was another scene that got a lot of laughter in our local cimema and also marked the point where my optimism about the films really started to drain away.<P>Oh, god, the list just goes on and on! <P>Some changes had to be made, some characters never stood a real chance of making it in and although I would have liked to have seen old Tom I miss the Barrow-Downs more from the point of view of the story; Tom's role could have been reduced to the rescuing Frodo from the barrow-wight and been left more or less at that and at least the later reference to the Old Forest would have made some sense.<P>That's film-making and some things and people won't make it in. I have no problem with the principle. It was the practice that let me down.<P>These films have been badly directed, end of story.
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