Thank God! Great poser, and do I ever have an answer!!
Lord of the Rings
I wrote my college thesis on Tolkein, and I love Lord of the Rings second only to the Torah. I hated the movies with a deep and abiding passion. I myself could have written a better set of screenplays based on those books. People actually occasionally accuse me of resembling Peter Jackson, which I take deep offense at, because if I ever meet him, I will hand him his ass. A couple of his casting choices were okay, they were just grossly misdirected and given poor dialogue; as for the rest, it should've been cast as follows:
Frodo: Ewan MacGregor
Sam: Damian Lewis
Merry: Jude Law
Pippin: Heath Ledger
Bilbo: Ian Holm
Gandalf: Ian McKellan
Tom Bombadil: Gerard Butler
Aragorn: Daniel Day-Lewis
Elrond: Jeremy Irons
Arwen: Catherine Zeta-Jones
Boromir: Ralph Fiennes
Legolas: Orlando Bloom
Gimli: Brian Blessed
Galadriel: Cate Blanchett
Treebeard (voice): James Earl Jones
Eomer: Hugh Jackman
Wormtongue: Johnny Depp
Eowyn: Kate Winslet
Theoden: Patrick Stewart
Saruman: Christopher Lee
Faramir:Joseph Fiennes
Gollum/Smeagol: Alan Cumming
Denethor: Ben Kingsley
Farmer Cotton: Robbie Coltrane
Or at least something close to that. Tolkein's work needs serious, quality actors, with a serious, quality director.
Kenneth Branagh should've directed it, or someone with the same flair for taking the essence of English lyricism and translating it into cinema. And certainly not some hack who would cast fucking Elijah Wood as Frodo, and turn a great, self-sacrificing hero into a damn pussy.....