[*Varda*]

I personally don't feel that Liv Tyler should be judged on her previous roles - it's completely irrelevant her playing Arwen. <P>All I'd seen of Liv Tyler's roles before LotR were Armageddon and bits of One night at McCool's, but when I was watching both FotR and TTT, neither of those roles so much as entered my head. <P>I think Liv Tyler's performance as Arwen wasn't great - but I put this down more to what the directors did - bad lines for her, etc. The first times I saw the movie I was too busy wondering why they changed what they did to really pay close attention to her acting. <P>I think part of the problem for Liv was that it was harder for her to get into Arwen's character, as Tolkien never developed it as much as the others. She didn't have as much material to work from, just some paragraphs in the actual book and a part in the appendices. <P>Also, taking on the task of playing such an ethereal character such as an elf, almost other worldly, must be pretty daunting and difficult in itself.