[bertold]

Originally Posted by tirsales

Annoying, yes - but would you prefer watching Ents talk for days?

There was no need to show them debating for days, but letting them make the decision without being tricked was necessary. And the whole trick idea was done very poorly anyway. First they debate for a long time on whether to go to war or not. Then they decide not to. Then Pippin tricks Treebeard into going near Isengard and seeing the devastation. And what happens after that? A single cry from Treebeard is enough to overrule their carefully made decision and immediately then and there attack Isengard! It's ridiculous.

Originally Posted by tirsales

Hmm, I didnt feel the elves are painted unjust - bunsh of ignorant racist, the whole lot of them

Movie-Elrond has very little to do with book-Elrond. Book-Elrond did not think Men were weak and couldn't be trusted.

Originally Posted by tirsales

Oh well, how to paint an exorcism?

First, you are talking about Theoden. I was talking about Denethor. Gandalf beat him with his staff when Denethor called for surrender at Minas Tirith. Second, there was no exorcism in the book! This whole notion of Theoden possessed by Saruman is a silly invention of Jackson's dreadful imagination.

Originally Posted by tirsales

you simply cannot take a book and paste it 1:1 into a film.

Of course not. A 1:1 conversion would not only be impossible, it would be boring and unwatchable. But the problem with how far Jackson deviated from the source material is that he butchered most of the characters and, what's worse, completely twisted and perverted the main themes of the book in order to accommodate his action flick format. He obviously has no understanding of the book and its characters. If he did, he wouldn't have come up with the whole Frodo-Gollum-Sam and lembas scene. He wouldn't have had Faramir take Frodo to Osgiliath*. He wouldn't have made Arwen into Xena the Princess Warrior. He wouldn't have made Eomer a second rate nobody, Treebeard an easily tricked fool, Gimli a pathetic clown, Legolas a blond, effeminate buffoon. He wouldn't have sent the Elves to Helm's Deep, since that was so utterly against one of the main themes of the book. And so on, and so forth.


* One of the most startling things about this whole scene was not that Faramir took Frodo to Osgiliath, but that he let him go later. He witnesses a scene in which Frodo is willing to very easily give the Ring up to a Nazgul showing no self control whatsoever, yet thinks that the Ring will be safer with him none-the-less! It's just all too horrible to comprehend.