Only three things bugged me about the movie which, while minor, did not detract from my enjoyment of the movie. Issachar covered one of them:

> * The film doesn't adequately convey the passage of time, which makes some events confusing.

The only time I noticed this was near the beginning of the movie with Gandalf leaving the ring with Frodo, then returning in the middle of the night. In the book (I know, it's a movie adaptation of the book so things have to change a bit), it's years and years later. As Iss says, it should be weeks later. However, it feels like only a day has passed in the movie, which made me wonder if Gandalf just ran down to the Shire Public Library (Hobbiton Branch) to do his research.

* In Moria, it looks like Gandalf just lets go to fall to his death. Why didn't the fellowship help him? The orcs weren't firing at them yet. Just run out and grab the wizard! Sheesh! In the book, he's already falling and there's no chance the others can save him. But in the movie, even Frodo could have run out there and helped him up.

* It seemed like every time we saw Saruman's tower, it was preceded with a longish zooming around "Look at all the computer-generated activity around the tower" shot. Okay, fine, you spent lots of money animating miners and trees falling over and built a really huge CGI tower. You don't have to show long, swooping shots of it every time we switch back to Saruman's house.

By the fifteenth time the zoomed pan across the computer-generated landscape was done, it reminded me of the fast-moving zoom and spin of the Otherworld tower in Mortal Kombat.

The other animated effects were done so much better, so much smoother, than the various establishing shots of Saruman's. These were the only shots that stood out as obvious computer-assisted special effects shots. I suppose that was done to call attention to the usage of special effects so LotR could win the Visual Effects Academy Award. It is my opinion that the only modernday movies that win that award are the ones that feature obvious computer gimmickry.

-Faux "besides that, I loved the movie" Pas