It adds more emotional depth to their relationship, and therefore more contrast against the budding relationship between Aragorn and... oh, god, I've forgotten her name.
Eowyn
Having the Shelob sequence in the second movie would have been too much and would have undercut the emotional impact of the victory at Helm's Deep. To me, it would have made the movie more cumbersome. But in reading the books, I always thought the Shelob sequence would have fit better into the beginning of the third book anyway. The cliffhanger in the book did nothing for me. I'm just weird that way.
I just disagree. I think the endings of both FotR and TTT are in the perfect places. What I _can_ see is that the proper ending for TTT may have been too much of a cliffhanger for those that don't know the story. I know the ending of the first movie pissed a few people off (I have to wait a year to find out what happens!!!) but you know, when it's all said and done, it would have been better for the story to do it right.
?? They left out and/or changed a *lot* in FotR. For example the whole
Tom Bombadil sequence was removed, the barrow wights were removed,
instead of having several months between the birthday and Frodo's exit
it seem like days at most, the entire character Fredegar Bolger was removed,
The major cut - from Crickhollow to the Barrow Downs really didn't detract from the story the way the haphazard changes in TTT did, IMO. Bombadil and the Old Forrest were wonderful parts of the book, but not essential to the story.
there were lots of changes during the Council of Elrond,
Nothing very substantive that I recall.
there were *massive* changes during the Moria sequence,
They added that part with the pathway (or whatever) collapsing (which they could have cut completely IMO) but other than that there weren't any big changes that I can think of.
the movie ends at a different point than the book...
I may be wrong, but I thought it ended in exactly the same place.
I could go on but I won't because most of those cuts and changes made sense. Pacing works entirely different for movies than it does for books, and the entire Lord of the Rings trilogy could easily have taken six long
movies to adapt. The trick is to tell the emotional core of the story, not to stick slavishly to the details. Some things work really well on paper but not at all on film, and vice versa.
I agree, and I think they did very well with the first movie - better than I expected. Maybe that's the biggest reasoning I was disappointed with TTT.
I disagree. The changes shortened the story to manageable length, strengthened the characterization without resorting to cheesy voice-overs to show the thoughts of the characters, and worked as a very effective short-hand for the more complicated events of the book. The movie (the extended version, at least) tells the same emotional story as the book, but does it in a more succinct and more visually-oriented format. All IMHO, of course.
We'll have to agree to disagree on this one - at least as it concerns the theatre version. I think the changes lengthened the movie in places where it didn't need to be, and was truncated prematurely. And I don't think any of the changes strengthened the characters with the exception of Arwen.
YMMV, of course. If you're interested in giving it a chance, maybe you should consider renting or borrowing a copy of the extended version, so if you're still disappointed at least you won't be out thirty bucks.
Oh, I'm sure I'll get a look at it...
-- Doug _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
