[Kalimac]

Reed (OK if I call you that for short? ) I can see why you didn't like the change to Aragorn's character since it does depart from the book a good bit at first. I think PJ changed it for a reason, though - mostly trying to avoid too much telling as opposed to showing. Since not everyone's read the book or even knows that Aragorn has anything to do with Isildur of 3,000 years ago, they probably thought it would be better to establish the connection some way besides having Strider leap up at the Council of Elrond and announce his name, rank and serial number, thus leaving the audience with even more questions than could possibly be answered in any filmed scene of the council ("Wait, he's Isildur's descendant? Then WHY isn't he the King? Why's he just wandering around ready to rescue the hobbits?"). Working in the scene with Arwen where he says "The same blood flows in my veins" establishes that he's the heir without whacking the audience over the head with the fact, and having Arwen encourage him shows that they have a very close relationship and that she's pretty much his guiding light; again, that's much better than just being TOLD that Arwen is his inspiration without ever actually seeing her do anything inspirational for him. Also it gives a quick gloss of an explanation for why he hasn't gone to take back his throne a long time ago. True, this is different from the book, but imagine how much time it would take to summarize in a movie speech - even in the book it takes a while to absorb. And notice how quickly Arwen convinces him that he's OK after all, so he can go back to acting like the Aragorn in the book . (Whew! That's settled, I'm Isildur's heir, not Isildur himself. Now I can go back to being rugged and confident. Fear me, enemies of Gondor!) <P>As for Gimli and Moria - including the bit at the Council about how Balin is back in Moria but they haven't heard from him for a while - well, it's good but ultimately it's a thread that leads nowhere. It would take up at least a few minutes of screentime while Gimli and Gloin talked about it (not terribly fascinating for someone who has no idea who Balin is or why we should care about him). Then we get the Mines and find out Balin's dead - very sad and shocking, of course, but perhaps even moreso if you haven't had the heavy hinting that something's gone wrong. For someone who's read the book, it's fine, but if you haven't it would just look like pointless foreshadowing. I do agree, though, that Gimli was pretty slow in the uptake, i.e. corpses lying all over the place while he carries on about the warm welcome they'll receive. My only hypothesis on this is that they've just run into the mines and all they can really see is Gandalf's staff; we as the audience are, thanks to the magic of filmmaking, seeing a lot more than the characters are. As for the smell - well, the Fellowship probably aren't too fragrant themselves, after 40 days in Hollin or whatever it was .<P>The scene on the stairs was well-done but could have been cut a lot. And maybe fewer shots of the Ring in somebody's palm; OK, we get it already. And while it didn't really annoy me that the Ring kept going on and off the chain (surely the hobbits have invented clasps, so why shouldn't that be possible?) I did wonder how the Ring stayed ON the chain. The chain didn't seem to be looped around the inside of the ring; instead it seemed to be attached to a little hook on the top, except of course the One Ring doesn't HAVE a hook on top..oh well. Time for me to cool down. . <P>Just my $0.02. Thanks for reading.<P>- Kalimac