[Dilettante]

HARK! I think I smell a Mary-Sue. You can tell because they smell so sweet they make you nauseated.

(ROFL at all the Mary-Sue comments, I think I have read every one of those attributes in one fanfic or another. )

Really one does have to wonder what PJ and Co. are thinking. Mary-Sues are frowned upon by pretty much everyone, so I just don't get why a script writer would think they were appropriate for the silver screen. (Not that this Itarily-whatshername IS a Sue, but it's really starting to seem that way.)

I'm a female, yes, but I have no trouble at all relating to non-female characters. I relate just fine to dear old Bilbo when he's worried about adventures making one late for dinner, when 13 uninvited and unexpected guests show up and start rummaging through the kitchen (that's the stuff of nightmares) and I would certainly scream myself at the words may never return.

I can even relate a bit to that old miser Smaug who gets rather heated (literally) when a hobbit pinches a cup that he never looks at and barely remembers he owns.

Really I don't know why filmmakers think that you have to have romance to tell a good story. Frankly, romance gets a little dull and predictable after a while, there's only so much you can do with it.