[Kalimac]

I thought it was as good; more was changed and the Faramir bit was just wrong (though I'm taking the view that all will be forgiven as long as Faramir behaves himself in ROTK - let 'em get the "character development" out of their systems in this one and then let him be what he really is at the last). But here they were starting with numerous disadvantages which they didn't have with FOTR. First off all, all those separate storylines. FOTR is quite linear, but I think I would weep at the thought of trying to integrate Merry & Pippin subplot/Theoden subplot/Frodo and Sam subplot plus all the minor skirmishes and of the course the major battle. Granted they didn't help themselves by throwing in a fourth subplot, which was Arwen - Leaving Or Not? but it's very understandable why it was there; we need more backstory on her for those who don't know, also simply need to be reminded that she's there (and get a glimpse of WHY Aragorn has stuck to her for so long).<P>So there's that. Then there was the fact that FOTR was such a huge success. Think about it - before I went to see FOTR (and most of my Tolkienhead friends were the same way) mostly we were just praying that it wouldn't be a total disaster - something along the lines of "OK, God, I realize this is a movie, just DON'T let them do A, B, C, D, E, F..." we were really worried. After seeing it and sleeping on it, we realized it was an incredibly good movie, went to see it numerous times, etc. Expectations were raised to a really, really high level, much higher than we'd had for FOTR. And when TTT turned out not to be the same as FOTR in terms of sticking to the storyline (and FOTR does diverge a good bit in places, however we've gotten used to it by now) we're angrier because we really expected a lot this time.<P>And I think we did get a lot - we got a movie that in the end WILL seem to be as good as FOTR, just done with a different approach. TTT really was the hardest one to do - it's got that "middle child" syndrome; no beginning, no end, and six million unresolved subplots. I'm sure that in ROTK - when the characters start to converge again - we'll be thorougly happy again (at least I really *hope* we are...arrggh...Faramir...)