> Stylistic Complaints:
>
> * Locations like the elven city of Lothlorien looked *too* otherworldly, almost dreamlike; I would have preferred something less stately and more natural-looking. Likewise, Galadriel and Celeborn didn't need to have a faint glow around them; I wanted to see them in focus, in natural lighting, like any other character. This complaint applies to many scenes in the film: I would have much preferred to see a world that appeared solid, sharp, tangible and real.

I'm with Sam on this one. The elves looked how I pictured them: otherworldly. In fact, that's how I pictured all of Middle Earth. For my money, the locations were dead on, particularly the Shire. After seeing Jackson's take on it, I get why Gandalf (and Frodo, Bilbo, etc.) could have such a fondness for it.

> * Related to the previous complaint, the pace of events felt extremely rushed, especially in the first half of the movie.

THANK GOODNESS. The pace of events in the first half of Fellowship the book is slow to the point of being dreadfully boring at parts (TOM BOMBADIL). I saw quite enough of them wandering around, thank you very much.

> The "Just Plain Stupid" Department:
>
> * Boromir's last fight. THWAK! An arrow hits him. He falls, gasping and looking remorseful, then his face fills with resolve and he rises again and beats down some more orcs. THWAK! Another arrow hits him and he falls, gasping. Then his face fills with resolve and he rises again and beats down some more orcs. Lather, rinse, repeat. Come on P.J., this isn't the WWF.

Hrm. I dunno, I liked it. A bit over the top, but still. I thought it was a good way to sort of show Boromir redeeming himself.

A few complaints I haven't seen mentioned:

Aragorn. Why did they cut out some important Aragorn stuff? In the Prancing Pony, Frodo was supposed to get a letter from Gandalf identifying Aragorn as somebody to be trusted. This is gone from the movie, which makes it a bit confusing why they follow him. Frodo has a line of dialogue to Sam about how they have no choice but to listen to this crazy ranger, but still.

Also, why did we never get to see Aragorn repairing the sword that was broken? Or even identifying it as his? This is pretty essential to his character. Maybe I'm just being picky because he's my favorite character (after ol' Bombadil, of course)...

When Galadriel went for the Ring and turned into Evil Mecha Galadriel, what the heck was Jackson smoking? That was a bit over the top. Bah.

Some good things:

As I noted, Jackson went for the smart money and cut out a bunch of the "walking around for a billion years" junk that Tolkien's editor should've cut. Blasphemy, I know, but I don't believe that the books were perfect, and that stuff would've been boring as heck to film.

The Council of Elrond was not one long exposition scene. YAY! By moving a bunch of that exposition elsewhere (such as Gandalf being imprisoned and the story of Isildur), the story didn't have to come to a dead stop halfway through.

I was totally impressed with the look of the movie through and through. The Shire was fantastic looking, Moria was nice and imposing and Isengard underwent a fantastic transition from being an awesome looking place to a horrible one.

I know Iss had some complaints about Saruman's character, but I liked that he was brought into Fellowship more. Dave mentioned in an e-mail that he's now actually looking forward to Two Towers to see Saruman get his come-uppance, and I agree. It definitely makes us dislike Saruman more and earlier. I have a feeling that we'll get to see more of his character's background in Two Towers (where it is in the books).

Overall, I thought it was a fantastic movie. I'll probably post more later when I've thought a bit more about it.

Stephen