Peter Jackson kicking Lucas ass!

Well I wouldn't go so far as saying that the FOTR screenplay wasn't great. After all, it *did* get an Academy Award nomination, which is excellent in itself, even if it didn't win. You have to give credit to Peter Jackson for converting such a thick book down into just a 3-hour film. It would not have been by *any* means easy. However, one thing's for certain: the screenplay for FOTR was far better than that of AOTC.

He didn't conver it though. He chopped out huge chunks of it and the continuity was all wrong. It just didn't FEEL like the passage of time that it's meant to be. Three days through Moria? It seemed like three hours.

And Lucas WROTE AOTC, Jackson, again, didn't write LoTR. Can you criticise Lucas because he can't write as good a story (in your opinion) as Tolkien? I don't think so.

I think you need to realise that novels and films are very different forms of storytelling. Each media has its own tools and limitations.

To film LOTR totally accurately would be silly and would run for god knows how many hours. It would also be impossible and pointless.

Arwen replaced Glorfindel because Glorfindel is not an important character. Arwen's role is beefed up to create a female lead (sort of) character for mainly commercial reasons (ie to get girls more involved in the story). Another major reason is simply to simplify Tolkien's world. Too many characters in a film is confusing. It works in the book (well, it is still hard to keep track of everything - Talkien was a nutty dude), but having all of those incidental characters in the film is needlessly complicated.

As long as the story is intact, films should not be pedantic about recreating the book, it doesn't work.

It was more the case of *showing* Arwen and Aragorn's relationship earlier on (it was *already* established to a degree in the book: refer to the Appendices), rather than having Arwen say that she loves Aragorn at the very end of the film, which would be very sudden and less believable for those unfamiliar with the books. This plot change had *nothing* to do with 'satisfying the chicks'. Peter Jackson didn't make the films like that: he made them to satisfy the fans only, and that is a fairly even mix of