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What frustrates me no end are those occasions where PJ took a scene from the book, and somehow decided he needed (and was qualified) to "improve" it. Case in point: the Mouth of Sauron. Tolkien's scene is tense and dramatic, and above all carries the superior character and moral strength of the Captains of the West. So tell me, please, what cinematic imperative required turning Aragorn into a war criminal? Does film-as-a-different-medium require that on this page of the script another decapitation is mandatory?
Again, the Voice of Saruman: Why does Gandalf prevent Legolas' "sticking an arrow in his gob?" Why, because "we need information." Whatever happened to "he was great once, of a kind we should not dare to raise our hand against?" Or for that matter, "do not be so quick to deal out death in judgment?" PJ again has ignored, indeed inverted, Tolkien's moral and spiritual compass.
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The entire plot of The Lord of the Rings could be said to turn on what Sauron didn’t know, and when he didn’t know it.
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