[Lalaith]

I have sympathy with a lot of the viewpoints expressed here, from both sides of the discussion. <BR>Like all art, the film has varying levels of appeal, and this is my view of how successful it is on these levels.<BR>Visual/aural: near-perfect, I don't think anyone could have done better. <BR>Emotional: varying. The comradeship of the Fellowship was conveyed extremely well, as was the excitement and fear of being in the midst of battle. Other more subtle emotional issues were badly handled, with Tolkien's interesting and unusual perspectives turned into Hollywood cliches that audiences would "understand." For example, Boromir and Aragorn's relationship was turned into something straight out of a 'Nam movie, and Aragorn's chivalrous treatment of the lovestruck Eowyn into a Love Triangle. <BR>Intellectual: this is where the films are most unsatisfying. In FotR, the rich, layered narrative of the book was simplified to a computer game: walk, fight, walk, run,turn, walk, fight. In TTT, the narrative was still like a computer game, but one where you are stuck at a level, blundering about trying to find how to move to the next one. <BR>Anything that might have been in the slightest bit intellectually demanding - the council of Elrond, for example - was simplified with a result of pure cheese: "You Shall Be the Fellowship of the Ring!" Ugh. <BR>As for the changes, some worked and some didn't. Say what you like, but the bizarre Aragorn horse-snogging scene, the to-ing and fro-ing in Fangorn and Osgiliath did NOT add anything to the cinematic experience. <BR>I went to see the film three times, each time with people who had never read the books, that is, representatives of those 'mass audiences' that PJ was trying to appeal to. They felt confused and bored by those scenes.