[Mithalwen]

I certainly don't shere your feelings about Finding Neverland My sister brought it over Christmas and I only saw it as moving wallpaper while I did other things - boiling a ham appropriately enough - (since Kate Winslet and biopics that are travesties of the truth always annoy me) then my aunt pointed out what huge ears one of the boys had and not even the divine Mr Depp could stop us crying with laughter for the rest of the film.....

As for the lord of the rings trilogy, I think it is natural that there is less emotion in the second and third films and I think that the scene just outside the gates of Moria sounded a slightly false note given that they are far from safe. The first film has no full scale battle scenes. The loss of Gandalf and the death of Boromir particularly are essentially private scenes. I think it is important to remember that British reserve and the stiff upper lip are not myths. Tolkien belonged to a generation that was brought up not to show emotion in public.

The characters do feel deeply but they show it subtly and in realtively intimate environments. It would jar with the book if these warriors who "avenge griefs before they speak of them"
started snivelling in public. The deaths in the later films occor in massive battles with the fate of the world at stake. The devastation is too overwhelming, everyone is suffering. There is no time for "look at me" mourning when survival is still at stake. They just have to get on with it. Laughter is a carthartic substititute for tears (Orwell wrote about the black humour of the tommies in the trenches) and it is also an act of defiance. I thought that Legolas's "you're late "was spot on although I can't say that the plot change that caused it was great). But as Gandalf would say "not all tears are an evil". There is emotion, particularly in the extended version with Eowyn's dream and Gandalf's words to Pippin. I cried during Pippin's song and when Eomer found Eowyn (though the scene in the book when he rides off to avenge her in fell mood and his subsequent discovery of her survival are one of my favourite parts of the book and one I would have loved to see - along with more of the houses of healing). But Jackson chose extended battle scenes over character development and emotional depth so you get the movie shorthand of Eomer and Pippin's battlefield wanderings - they worked in context but it is relatively superficial.

Given that so much was cut, adding more overt emotion to the mix would not be a high priority for me.