So, Best and Worst Characters?

[Finwe-89]

I can speak for us all I think: We all love Pippin, he's funny when he's acting foolish, but that's all. I love him, but he's not my fave person. But I think it's cool you love him that much, at last some one else that likes a other person then Legolas, Aragorn, Gandalf, Eomer etc.

[Mithalwen]

I think the trouble with Legolas is that he isn't given a lot of dialogue in the books and a lot of the more profound stuff was discarded becasue it didn't "move the story along" (including just about my favourite lines from the whole book "I count you blessed Gimli son of Gloin")..... so while he gets plenty of fancy stunts his dialogue is limited to stating the obvious giving the illusionm of being "Prince Legolas the Perpetually Confused". In FOTR he seems so surprised by anything he encounters "Orcs!" , "Goblins!" "Crebain!" that I expecteted him to enter Lorien and exclaim "trees!" in complete bewilderment. Then in TTT old eagle eyes either fails to notice or doesn't bother to mention the hoardes of Warg-riders approaching... reducing him to resident pretty boy and "Laurel" to gimli's "Hardy".

I would add that I was very impressed by Karl Urban on looking at the EE ....he was probably the least known and experience of any in a major role and he more than held his own... I was nearly crying when he found Eowyn.....

[Avie]

My favourite (film) character is Gandalf. Ian McKellern just does such a brilliant job of conveying the complexity and depth of the character and even the horrible, jarring duel-with-Saruman scene in FOTR dosen't spoil his performance...gahhhh...what WAS PJ thinking to include that? he might as well have had them play a game of quidditch while he was about it...
Pet peeves include Faramir (O! Pray rescue me from the highest room of the tallest tower...etc etc...), Denethor (He's behind you! ) and and I'm probably gonna get royally flamed for this....Legolas. Easy on the eye but Orlando Bloom is more wooden than an entire Moot of Ents.
I also think that Hugo Weaving was horribly miscast as Elrond. He looks all wrong and his characterisation comes across as sinister and manipulative, for example, not telling Arwen that he had foreseen a son. His motives for doing this are certainly understandable, but I feel it undermines the integrity of the character.

[Boromir88]

Hugo Weaving is a wonderful actor, it's just the characterization that makes him, as well as Elrond look bad. Reminds me too much of Agent Smith. Which, Hugo is the only good actor in those movies. I love the way he talks, its rather computerish, fitting his role perfectly. (atleast in The Matrix).

[Tuor of Gondolin]

Hmm. Makes you wonder whether nine or ten thousand Elronds could have attacked Sauron and destroyed the Ring.

[Captain of Despair]

MY least favorite would have to be Denethor. I know it's been mentioned a thousand times, but I cannot get over how they ruined the character. Sure Denethor (in the book) had become somewhat maddened due to everything that had happened (Boromir dying, Faramir becoming ill, terrible visions in the palantir) but over all he was still a good man. In the movies he was portrayed as little more than a raving lunatic. But I digress.

Honorable mention in this category goes to Gimli. He was turned from a great warrior to a bumbling joke. Enough said.

Favorite character is extremely hard to pick, but if I have to choose I will make it a tie between Merry and Pippin. I'm not sure exactly why, but I just love those little guys. The actors and their portrayals were top notch.

[Mithalwen]

Avie ... I adore Hugo Weaving, I have been somewhat in love with him since I was 13 and he was in a miniseries called Bodyline ... so I can only second Boromir's comments about him being a wonderful actor ( for an amazingly intelligent and sensitive performance look at Priscilla...).

However, if you separate the actor from the role I do agree with you in some respects ...in TTT particularly there was a slight "creepy dad" element that I found disturbing. While IMO, just about all the characters were demeaned in some respect by their film treatment ..(Boromir perhaps being an exception being more shown more sympathetically), I think Elrond's character suffered most. In the book he is so noble and puts himself last .. the film makes him rather selfish.

I thought it was quite clever casting .... he has the right colouring and those wonderful eyes, and although I dislike Liv Tyler,it looked plausible that she was his daughter (although he is no where near old enough in reality!), and I reckoned as a Half elf he might show more signs of aging than a full blood... and he looked really good in armour *thud*.

One thing I will say for the film is that they do seem to have made an effort to make the families have a plausable resemblance although I am surprised they didn't make sean Bean lose the accent that blew the whole thing... but then he kept it even to play Macbeth on stage in London....

[CSteefel]

Originally Posted by Captain of Despair

MY least favorite would have to be Denethor. I know it's been mentioned a thousand times, but I cannot get over how they ruined the character. Sure Denethor (in the book) had become somewhat maddened due to everything that had happened (Boromir dying, Faramir becoming ill, terrible visions in the palantir) but over all he was still a good man. In the movies he was portrayed as little more than a raving lunatic. But I digress.

I just re-read this section in the book and I did not find the book version all that flattering as to Denethor's character either, at least at the end. Many of his lines are taken verbatim from the book.

However, I do agree that the scene where he congratulates Boromir on his recapture of Osgiliath portrays Denethor in a bad, even nasty light, and that this is absent in the book.