[Sa'ar Chasm]

[color=#000000ost_uid0][quoteost_uid0]only watched about half the features on the extended dvd and I'm already blown away by the attention to detail. [/quoteost_uid0]

Oh, yeah. I'll grant you that the sets and costumes were amazing...and accurate. Bag End looked exactly as it should, and Moria and Helm's Deep were fantastic.

I also don't miss Bombadil at all. I never did like that character. It meant that they couldn't go to the Barrow-downs to get the swords, which meant that Aragorn had to just hand them out, but that wasn't too jarring. Merry and Pippen, however, came off as a bit to buffoonish. Pippin was a twit, yes, but Merry was the capable one. It's nice to see that the charactes evolved somewhat (and even diverged from each other) in the second movie. I've been a fan of the books for a long time, and as you can probably tell I'm something of a nitpicky purist.


SPOILER WARNING SPOILER WARNING
If you don't want things spoiled, try not to read this bit.
*
*
*
*
*
Elves at Helm's Deep? Come off it. Small changes are one thing, but this is going too far. Faramir succumbing to the lure of the Ring and dragging Frodo and Sam to Osgiliath pretty much ruins that character as well. The Nazgul overflight in the swamp wasn't too bad - it served to relieve up what would otherwise been tedious slogging. Moving Shelob to the final movie is acceptable as well - I'd rather see two 3-hour movies than one 4-hour and one 2-hour movie.
*
*
*
*
*
*


Safe to look now.[/colorost_uid0]