gibingus

Disappointing to hear that the scouring of the shire won't be in the extended, i left the theater expecting that they would add it there. I guess they left Tom Bobadil completely out of Fellowship also, and no one seemed to pitch a fit over that. I would have liked to seen how they morphed him into a bear.

I was rather surprised that PJ and crew opted to have the dragged-out ending, basically 30 minutes of curtain calls in warm lighting which didn't move the story anywhere, and not use the time to stay true to the books with the anticlimax. i did like that he ended it with Sam though.

The other cool things that were totally dropped were the development of the Eowin/Faramir relationship in the infirmary and then the politics of Aragorn's ascention to the throne. Hopefully those will make the extended version.

I really liked the visualization of the army of the dead. I was looking forward to seeing how they were going to do that. What was missing was how the other characters react to Aragorn leading them, it is very cool in the book how that scares the hell out of everyone and shows his transformation from ranger to king. I guess they used the sword for that device, which was fine and dandy, but Tolkein's version has a more powerful impact.

I also thought moving Shelob into the third installment was a good move for the film adaptation. Frodo and Sam's journey through Mordor as written would have had awful pacing and been a real bore visually. All the drama in the book is in Frodo's mental conflict (nicely shown with the Gollum scenes) and the increasing weight of bearing the ring's burden. Great reading, but almost impossible to depict.

p.s. if a moderator wants to mark out where i may have spoiled, please feel free. i couldn't decide for myself.

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