[the phantom]

For example, in my opinion, the Aragorn/Arwen kiss at the end of the RotK was an extremely corny, Hollywood-esque, sequence, put in for dubious reasons. Indeed, the whole sequence of the calm, tame, subdued Arwen arriving in Gondor does not jive with the Arwen seen rescuing Frodo. Her relationship with Aragorn is off kilter. This is, in my mind, a filmic difficulty, above and beyond any canonicity-related issues concerning Arwen. Quite frankly, Arwen isn't consistent within the movies.

Thank you for mentioning that. I've been forgetting to bring it up. You are right- Arwen was inconsistent. As soon as PJ threw her in where she didn't belong in the first movie, he was risking this sort of inconsistency. Remember what I said a couple of pages ago on the thread? ->

Every event has (or should have) an effect on the rest of the story. In other words, if Aragorn were to get his armed chopped off in the first film, that event should cause him to appear without an arm for the rest of the movie. If you add something, you must follow that change through to the end and make sure that the rest of the story reflects the addition you made. That is the danger in putting in things that did not actually happen.

This Arwen inconsistency is an excellent illustration of my point.

Harry Potter and the Philospher's Stone - a brilliant book, well crafted, great plot, great characters. The film followed this almost word for word and look how dull it is.

I never read the book. I loved the movie. Same as my friends.

Many more have seen the films and not felt such reservations

Yes that is true. And why is this? You answered it-

because they have not read the book

Hello! They haven't read the book! Therefore they are NOT going to have reservations about ANYTHING. They don't care! So why would we try to please people who aren't even going to NOTICE much less care about changes???

you do represent only a small proportion of the millions of people who saw these films

Yes, but we are the only group who would even notice a small change, so why not make it to our liking? Most of the movie followed the book so why not get rid of the parts that don't work (the inconsistencies of Faramir and Arwen)?? It would please the people who care and not effect anyone else.

I would say that they were enjoyed by the vast majority who went to see them

And they STILL would've been "enjoyed by the vast majority" had a few minor changes been made.

a multi-award winning, hugely popular, massively successful and critically acclaimed pig's ear...

...is still a pig's ear.

Better in what way?

Coherency is better than incoherency.

For whom?

For people who notice such things.

By whose standards?

By logical and intelligent standards (ie my standards ).