[Diamond18]

Well, regardless of that, it still wouldn't look good for PJ to have the bad, mean dark Dunlendings attack the poor, innocent fair Rohirrim. He wouldn't have time to go into detail about why the Dunlendings are serving Saruman, or the aftermath of Helm's Deep where the Dunlendings are being pardoned. So, if you can't take time to go into that sort of depth for marginal characters, it's better not to make such a blatant steriotype of dark skin = baddies, light = good.<P>As to Bree...this is a whole nother discussion, but PJ made Bree look sinister and dangerous, so to put some dark skinned people there would have had the same effect.<P>And since Tolkien must have mentioned the Harfoots' hue all of once, it's easily overlooked. PJ probably just formed his own mental picture, without meaning to slight anybody. After all, Tolkien didn't go on and on about Sam being dark. Or maybe I'm just making excuses because I overlooked it, too. In my own defense, I never form that strong of a mental picture for the particular hair color, skin tone, etc. of characters in stories, anyway. Not even when they're my own stories—if you get one hint as to their appearence from me you're lucky. (Hey, I'm working on it, honest).<P>Anyway, what am I rambling about? Oh yes: PJ is put in a tight spot by Tolkien, with ol' Tollers stronger descriptions of the bad dark guys than the good dark guys. I fully expected the Southrons, Easterlings, and Dunlendings to be fairer than in the book. Now, if Gahn-buri-Gahn and his people are white as snow I'd be surprised.<P>Oh, and just to add, it makes sense for those Wild Men to be Dunlendings because in FotR Legolas says, "Crebain from Dunland!" So Dunland is included in the landscape of Middle-earth for the movie.