Actually to be fair, although Sam says that about her...there aren't actually many moments of cheer recorded in FOtr that I recall..... and I do see Galadriel as Cate now.......but then she very much ressembles aiee either John Howard or Alan Lee's famous pictures of G so I guess that that helped...seeing as they were responsible for so much of the design....... and I was lucky enough to see the LOTR exhibition in London last october and that dress was amazing..it really did seem to radiate light..in a non tacky way.....
Liv Tyler was not my idea of Arwen and her acting did not win me over ..... and though I have mellowed because she does seem saner and more grounded than you would expect given the unorthodox upbringing amd marrying someone named after the "League of Gentlemen" village but I am afraid I still find her profoundly irritating... irrational maybe but there you go.... To be fair I think she would have been more convincing somehow if they had kept Stuart Townsend as Aragorn (but thank the Valar they didn't) somehow they make a more convincing couple... I feel Viggo needed someone with more depth and although neither he nor Miranda Otto exactly fitted my ideas of their chars (think Hugh Jackman maybe and oh bother can't think of the name...) ....there was a much stronger chemistry between them and both have now usurped my previous mental images...
For me Frodo and Sam have Iam Holm and Bill Nighy's voices from the BBC radio version - I think they outclass the too young and irritating Elijah and Dopey Sean.... and I think it got the nature of the relationship better .... far less gay... With Elijah and Sean... I just thought "Ted and Ralph"..... and nearly got thrown out of the cinema for laughing during Shelob....
Christopher Lee won me over as Saruman aslong as I forget the "honey tongue" ... his voice is powerful but not enchanting....
Darling, beloved Hugo is definitely Elrond.... *thud*... Legolas was not a plutonium blonde I am sure but he's got the moves if not the touch....
Sean Bean as Boromir was good, though I wish he had diluted the yorkshire accent a bit .......
However Faramir and Denethor were definitely impostors..... Denethor would never have had such table manners and Faramir should have looked more Numenorean ...... I mean David Wenham looks nice enough but Fararmir was rather special.... should have looked like a younger Hugo Weaving
