I read the posts in another thread, and didnt want to put spoilers where someone who hasnt seen the movie would see them, so forgive the spam.
Well, Here goes...
****NOTE: MOVIE NOTES AND OPINIONS TO FOLLOW!!!****
I followed the film for about 90 min until the HUGE differences between the movie and the book distracted me.
Dont get me wrong, it was a great movie, and I plan to spent the $50 to buy the enhanced DVD with all the extra goodies when its released.
But it strayed SO far from the book it was hard for me to keep from thinking "Now thats not right..."
Main points:
-Gimli has been turned into a bumper sticker. He is a one liner spewing comic releif. His role has been totaly trivialised.
-Faramir is a joke. In the book he was the second son of the most powerful king in Middle Earth...Passed over by his father in affection and attention for his older brother Boromir. Frodo confides in him what his errand is, and it is a test of Faramirs character as to what he will do, as Frodo and the Ring are at his mercy. He choses to set them free to complete their quest rather than risk his city and fate on the ring. Not so in the movie. He takes them back to Gondor...(which by the way is almost destroyed at the time...dont know how they will fix it all back by Return of the King).
-Theoden was NEVER a wussy. Even when Grima and Saruman had him totaly under theis sway, he was never the whimpering simp he was portrayed as being in the movie.
-The Ents were turned into gutless turds. "oh its not our war"..."This does not concearn us" ...Utter Crap. Treebeard and Quickbeam knew what was going on, and after the Emtmoot, they marched to war with authority befiting their noble (but tragic) race. In the movie its more like "This isnt our problem, can I give you a ride?
-Here is the bigest thing that bothered me. Parts of the story were changed for no discernable reason. THere is a part where Aragorn falls over a cliff into a river. Not only did this not jive with the book, but it had no reason behind it. And the bomb Saruman puts in the sewer grate...Why? The story was there already, and I understand that some has to be left out because of time constraints, but why ADD content that has no place?
Well, rant off, it was a cool movie, and I think that book devotees should see it once to get all the finger pointing out of the way, and then go see it again to enjoy the film.
My only other naging thought is that people who see the movie first will be the oposite of me, and look at the pages thinking "Now that didnt happen..."
). He's a goddamn warrior, not a clown.
