[Elladan and Elrohir]

The movies . . . well, it's difficult to say what they did. I think they put Tolkien's world onto the screen. Yes, there were lots of changes, some minor, some major, but in the final analysis, it's just Lord of the Rings. You know?

As far as what they did for me on an emotional level, Sam's "There's some good in this world" line totally inspired me. I'm not a person who cries, at movies or at most anything else, but I wanted to cry in ROTK when Aragorn and the Gondorians bow to the hobbits and Howard Shore has the Shire theme going. It was beautiful. For all the complaints we have about the dumb jokes and inappropriate humor in the movies, in the end I think watching them is an emotional experience. It's majestic, it's glorious, it's wrenching, it's epic. It doesn't touch the book, but it's still an unbelievable accomplishment.

It's also difficult to put into words what these films have been to the film industry. I mean, you've got Hollywood churning out dumb flick after dumb flick, and even most of the serious ones aren't great, and then you've got something like this. Three three-hour films, no language or sex, and they're all telling this incredible epic story. What PJ and Co. did was audacious, really. And as we all know, these are three of the most successful films ever. And even though Hollywood continues to pump up the same trash, there have been a few bright spots since then. People are realizing, hey, you can make a good film, with a good message, without all the immorality.

And, shameless plug. If you want to see the biggest beneficiary of the LOTR phenomenon, show up at the theater on December 9 for "The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe." Yeah baby. Movies based on books by Oxford dons are the hottest thing on the market right now.