[Boromir88]

Essex, to add to some of Estel's points, not all complaints against the movies are against the changes from the books. There are many changes Jackson makes to the books, and I try hard not to focus on these, because I think as movies they need to be treated like any other movies. Critiqued, but from the film perspective, not because it's different from the books. But, since Jackson did base these off the Tolkien's books it's perfectly reasonable to compare and contrast, just like any other movie based off of a book.

For example, my main argument in the Mouth of Sauron scene was not that it differenciated from the book, but Jackson rejected the very Rules of War that other directors show clear understanding of. Messengers can't be killed, and the Mouth of Sauron could have been easily defeated, and shown in total shame by not having to cut off his head.

When you see a movie, or read a book you must ask yourself (for you to consider it a good story or not) does it show unity and continuity? Does it hold togeter and does it make sense? Is it believable? Not believable as in "there's Dragons and fireballs, this can't happen in real life, it's not believable." But believable, within the movies/books context, if it's a fantasy story you expect to see such things as dragons and basically anything is possible. There are cases when Jackson's movie just doesn't hold together and doesn't make sense within the movie.

For example, Gimli in TTT says "3 days on night pursuit..." when chasing the Uruk-hai. So from Amon Hen, to the plains of Rohan they've been on the hunt for 3 nights. So how does Haldir's Elves make it from Lorien to Helm's Deep in one night? (For what it seems, unless an explanation can be shown to prove otherwise).

Another one, Aragorn acts extremely out of character in the movies. He spares Grima, he stops Theoden from killing Grima, but then he goes and does the immoral thing of chopping off a messengers head. A complete 360, now Aragorn's character doesn't hold together. He spares Saruman's messenger Grima, who nearly caused the destruction and extinction of Rohan, but he kills Sauron's messenger who may or may not have had terms to deliver we don't know, and who had a message to give.

I think anytime you make, write, create (or even type out a reply on a forum) it's open to compliments, but not only compliments you must also accept it's going to be critiqued and criticized. Then I think you take the compliments and the criticisms into account to change and make better the next piece of literature you do. Anytime you make or write something, you're opening for an audience to see which means you're opening it up to criticism, not just compliments.