Bravo,
Morth! (Also, well said,
skip.)
It's disconcerting at best to come back after a long absence from our beloved 'Downs and find a thread I opinionated in
years ago still going. (Perhaps it makes me feel old, more than anything else.)
But, on topic, I don't think Jackson & Co. very properly represented Gandalf -- or the Witch King, for that matter. True, he was rather a menace, but how much of a threat was he, really, pitted against a
Maia? The Witch King, evil and menacing though he was, was only a man. Faded to wraith or no, he was still not much more than human. True, he had one of the Nine, but Gandalf had one of the
Three. The odds were pretty stacked against the poor WK. Scary as he was, he was just not as inherently powerful as PJ wanted to make him out to be.
Anyway, that's my two cents. Again.
[Edit: It's also a little disconcerting to find that some of the original posters no longer exist on the 'Downs...]