I guess this is one of the sequences, that really highlights PJ's insistence to make Merry, Pip and Gimli something like fools - and I really don't like it. I can see, that there are very simple-minded people out there, and they are potential ticket payers too. But c'mon! Why do you have to a) make someone a fool at first to show that he has matured during the adventure? b) have a fool in a movie in the first place? The roles of these three are in the worst instance like copied from a Disney film, where there always has to be those good and bad fool-servants...
About the Balrog and the orcs / goblins. I could see their relation along the lines of a lion and the hyenas. Hyenas will follow and fear it. That metaphor should not be stretched forwards though, as it breaks immediately after stating this basic fact.
Otherwise, its funny how perceptions change with knowledge. As I first time saw the movie, I thought the Balrog to be just a ME version of the Jurassic Park T-Rex, and was a bit disappointed. But after seeing the "making of"-stuff on the dvd, with all that stone and fire -thing, I started to appreciate it, kind of started to see, what it was all about - and both saw and heard it differently...
Also, I seem to belong to those people who think that the cavetroll thing was a bit farfetched and overemphasized. Basically just a tool to justify an action scene with swordplay and lots of tight situations - showing simultaneously some abilities of the members of the fellowship with it. But as I understand the anguish of Alatar's children, I myself really liked the portrayal of the death of the troll - it was so... humane (NO!) ... so...? The sound of it dying was awesome (what was it: a walrus and a backwards-tiger or something?) and kind of made me sad also!
The staircase that goes tumbling down and leaving the heroes in a tight situation and a last moment escape... Maybe decent actionfilm-wise, Tolkienwise, no. But the Maori-music was great there! (Indeed, if you listen to it with Finninsh ears, you hear them singing repeatedly "musta-musta-musta"... - in Finninsh that means "black-black-black"...
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