i believe the movie had a more accurate then people want to give. it is true both sauron and gandalf are maiar and so are balrogs and good ol' tom. sauron is far from the strongest of the maiar, but is the powerful in speech craft. the balrogs were the stronges of the maiar that came under the control of melkor. when sauron had the rings made tainted all but the 3 for the elves. sauron put is will and power into the ring so that his will would extend to the others that wore the other rings. 1000 years after sauron's defeat by last army of elves and men, the istari came to middle earth. the istari are 5 maiar sent by the valar to stop the coming great darkness. The istari are different than the other maiar that came to middle earth. The istari were limited to form of men and the powers that be found within the mortal world (talk about a handicap). Sauron does not have this limitation. The witch king was the most powerful of the witches even before given one of the nine. The ring would farther augment his ablities. to me in the books when gandalf tells pippen about the prophecy that he, in his heavily handicapped form, he did not seem to sure himself if he could defeat the witch-king. this comes from bestiary that david day put together, and it has an index to where to go in tolkiens works to find the information. i ready the lord of the rings more the twenty times (jurassic park i read almost 40 times). gandalf in middle earth is far from invincible and his body is still mortal. he did die after the fight with the belrog and in his words " he was sent back", this is also why he is a little confused when he is first called gandalf upon his return... you know like moving from one house to a bigger one, you still have everything (one hopes) you just got to find it again.
my biggest complaint was the lack of sam using the ring in the movies. in the book he uses the ring directly under sauron's nose, and sauron is none the wiser.
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