Re-imagining the Ringwraiths

[Formendacil]

In hindsight, now that the question has been posed, I don't think I ever minded the visual look of PJ's Black Riders. Perhaps some happy medium would have brought them a bit closer to the movie-Dementors, giving more emphasis to their robes being something they wear "to give shape to their nothingness," but the overall look of the PJ Riders was fine by me.

But, I agree that there is something lacking about them, and I think that it's entirely the nature of the medium. The Nazgûl's chief weapon is terror and dread--though the ruined beds in the Prancing Pony should be a reminder that they do act more in the physical realm than floating Dementors. The main way that a movie conveys feeling is through visuals and through the score, but it's ultimately going to have the same issues as portraying stench: the medium simply doesn't do it.

As far as the score goes, I think Howard Shore actually doesn't a decent job with the FotR Nazgûl--at least until they're past Bree. It's the Winged Nazgûl of the later books that really get short-shrift. And this is at least in part because their magnum opus is Minas Tirith during the Great Darkness, but the movie never quite managed the darkness for me and the baseline of Minas Tirith was all messed up by a platter of juicy tomatoes (i.e. Denethor's descent into madness and despair, which parallel's his city's loss of hope under the shadow of the Nazgûl, isn't really a descent in the movies--he starts there).