[Sauron the White]

WCH -- why do you persist in battling strawmen of your own making - not once but over and over again?

My point was certainly NOT the McDonalds argument as you call it. The fact is this - and this is NOT news. Normally, films which are embraced by the masses - as evidenced by their dollars and ticket purchases - are not well reviewed by the professional critics. And those same fan favorites usually are not the big winners for industry proffessional awards such as the BAFTA's and Academy Awards. Those three categories of measurement of a films success usually are mutuall exclusive - at least for one factor out of the three.

McDonalds may indeed have a large number of customers but they DO NOT win industry awards for the quality of their food, ambience or service. And I have never read a review of a professional food critic in which McDonalds is ranked with the likes of The French Laundry or other five star restaurants. Your attempt at being clever with the phrase using McDonalds is not even an apt one.

The three LOTR films were wildly successful by all three measurements of a film success. This is a very rare occurence. That should tell you that the vast opinion of both the average person, professional critics, and industry professionals all felt the films worked and were very good films.

Of course, the inside intelligensia who feel they are the true holders of the JRRT flame conveniently ignore this and prefer to compare apples to cinder blocks and surprise nobody when they declare that yes indeed folks, apples taste better and cinder blocks are much harder.

Like Claude Rains in CASABLANCA, I am shocked.