Dumbing it down

[Essex]

Lord dor-lomin

Being faithful to the book in this way is a BAD thing, because PJ had already ruined it by NOT being faithful to the book when it comes to Merry's sword.

Davem

you can't pick & choose which bits you will faithfully reproduce from the book & which you'll change without a lot more thought for the implications than the movie writers seem to have put in...

I really can't argue with you anyomore if you take this viewpoint. So, you would rather PJ made up something totally different if parts of his adaption, which were TRUE to the book, clashed with other changes he made? No way, I would rather he stayed faithful to the book as much as possible.

In other words, you would have rathered Merry not attacking the Witch king at all? I really don't give a monkey if a non-book reader doesn't understand why Merry hit the WitchKing with such a savage blow. Read the books if you want to know. But to say you think it would be better to totally change the scene to cater for non book readers?

I've said countless times I wanted the sword from the Downs to be included, but I have to live with it. The scene, other than this, worked superbly.