[LadyBrooke]

Originally Posted by TheMisfortuneTeller

The elves? Look what short shrift he gave the hobbits! I mean, the wounded Frodo didn't get to ride Glorfindel's great white horse to safety at the Ford of Bruinen. The brunette elf chick Arwen got to do that. Merry didn't get his big dramatic scene with Théoden on the Pelennor Fields, sending the dying King off to drink mead with his ancestors in Valhala. The Rohan blonde chick, Éowyn, got that big moment. And of course, all the hobbits lost out when they didn't get to scour the Shire of evil men, Saruman, and Wormtongue. Talk about getting royally screwed so that some barely mentioned Appendix girls could get in more implausible, forced screen time swapping spit with -- or simply drooling over -- Aragorn. The elves got off lucky by comparison.

Well by elves, I was mainly referring to the male elves...to be frank, I tend to forget Arwen was even there. Out of the male elves, Elrond now has a receding hairline, anger management issues, and a hatred of men. Celeborn has grey hair and a speech impediment, Haldir and co are apparently such bad soldiers that every single one dies at Helm's deep, Legolas apparently has to state the obvious (A Diversion! Orcs! A Chair!*) every single time, and half the unnamed elves, you can't even tell their gender.....

Now that Peter Jackson has to make a movie ostensibly about one particular hobbit -- and a confirmed bachelor at that -- he invents yet another elf-chick character to waste precious screen time that the schizoid Smeagol-Gollum could easily employ to memorable effect.

Ahh...but then PJ wouldn't have his own characters, and he'd just be *gasp* following what the books says. Everybody knows that audiences these days can't watch movies that don't have Action! Hot Women! Dumb Jokes!

If any character deserves an expanded role in these films, then the pathetic/treacherous Smeagol-Gollum does. I mean, face it, the elves have pretty much given up on Middle-earth. They mostly just want to leave. So I say, let them. At any rate, Bilbo Baggins and Smeagool-Gollum have more to do with the fate of Middle-earth than any elf-chick afterthought possibly could. These films should make that truth abundantly clear.

Not all the elves do...Celeborn and Thranduil both stay past the end of the War of the Ring, which is a big reason that I like them better then Elrond or Galadriel...they seem so much more alive. It's also one of the reasons I dislike this Tauriel character so much - he already has wonderful elves in Galion and Thranduil for Mirkwood, he doesn't need another one.

I have no confidence that the special snowflake Tauriel will look anything but instantly risible next to just about anyone: elf, dwarf, man, or hobbit -- ugly or otherwise.

That was sarcasm on my part...note the special snowflake description. I only call people that when I'm implying that they're really only special because mommy (or in this case, PJ) thinks they're oh so special. PJ, in my opinion, has messed up so badly that he's no longer deserving of the term adapter - he's no better then a glorified fanfic author.

*One of these might be an invention on my part, however, everybody knows Legolas was thinking it at some point.