[Aganzir]

I was telling a coworker about the film (as a matter of fact I've been telling a lot of my coworkers about the film and have received varying amounts of sympathy) and he asked, 'What's next? Maybe Peter Jackson will film a trilogy about Tom Bombadil.'

Originally Posted by Kuruharan

Did they actually do a joke on this or did Kiligolas take an arrow to the knee and the writers left it to us to fill in the joke?

Alas the correct physiological name for it would probably be 'thigh', so it's me rather than the film makers who is joking here.

Originally Posted by Inziladun

Especially when in the book, it was Thorin who sought out Gandalf for help.

Exactly! Their dialogue is beautifully written in the book, and I love the feel of it! I love their dynamics in the Quest of Erebor, Gandalf getting annoyed with the dwarves and all, but PJ and his crew have put it upside down. It's Gandalf checking things off his How To Save The World list, and Thorin sulking 'do not want!' When you put it together with his singleminded determination later, it just does not compute. It's like he's a slowly programmable robot.

Now come on! Bilbo rescuing the Dwarves in the book alone was such a defining moment in his character! But no: not good or "cinematic" enough for PJ, I guess.

Nope. He cuts the web that keeps them in the trees, but they do most of the fighting - and the only reason he doesn't get captured along with them is, he's too busy further off fighting a spider that keeps him from his precious. All in all he uses the Ring very little - less than Frodo, even - and while I understand it's probably for cinematographic reasons, I think it would also have provided a brilliant visual challenge and would eventually have looked better too.

Hopefully there weren't many PDAs. Those theaters would have some awful messes to clean up.

No just a lot of weird tender looks and that closing scene where they hold hands. Even if the healing scene looks like she was doing something quite different.

Did Bard need money to pay off some old debts?

No, he just had hungry mouths to feed. Balin is actually very cute while negotiating the deal, and Gloin too when he tries not to pay his share.

Originally Posted by Legate of Amon Lanc

a joke made by Legolas about Gloin's family is funny

It's not, it's so cruel I can't even begin to describe it! My heart goes out to Gloin and his wife and little Gimli, and all the rest of the dwarves.

Thranduil is apparently a hero of the First Age, or coming from Gondolin (and so is Legolas, since the swords seem to belong to him by right) - that's maybe not so uncanonical, since originally Thranduil was, obviously, some sort of wannabe-First Age-maybe-Thingol-esque-figure, when Tolkien still wasn't sure what he's actually writing

Yeah, apparently the Gondolin swords were made by Legolas's 'people'. I beg to differ here even though I can understand why they would write it in. And I must admit I like Thranduil against my will - he's certainly not a favourite in the book, but they did a decent job with him, awful as he is.

Originally Posted by Zigûr

There must be some marketing reason, but it still strikes me as odd that Australia gets them substantially later than almost every other country in the world.

Does Australia have a competitive relationship with New Zealand? Do the countries tell jokes of each other? Does NZ want to play a prank on Australia? Or do they count on the most avid fans flying to NZ to see it?