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I met Karl Urban at a convention last year. He was very friendly, if obviously exhausted from the Dredd promotional tour. I like his work but it's a shame he always turns up in "modernisations" that I don't really enjoy or approve of - the films of The Lord of the Rings and the (to me) lamentably brainless reboot of the original Star Trek, although he was one of the best parts of the latter, and if anyone has seen Dredd it's a very enjoyable film for what it is.
Frankly I think Éomer was underused in the films, and I daresay most of the time which could have been his was re-allocated to Éowyn. I missed the development of his friendship with Aragorn in particular - there's no particular reason why he, not Erkenbrand, needed to arrive for the succour of the Hornburg in the film version. On a recurring note for me, the moment at the Pelennor when he discovers that Éowyn is apparently dead (especially after his relatively stiff-upper-lip reaction to the passing of Théoden) in the book is to my mind yet another missed opportunity in the films, with his reaction largely transplanted into Théoden's speech at the beginning of the battle, with less justification:
"Éowyn, how come you here? What madness or devilry is this? Death, death, death! Death take us all!"
"Death! Ride, ride to ruin and the world's ending!"
The moment when Éomer, who has been so stolid for so long, utterly cracks in the face of the apparent death of his sister, is so powerful in my view that it would have been better in its proper time and place. But that might have distracted from magic green ghosts swarming all over elephant legs, I suppose.
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