SMOKIN'

[The Saucepan Man]

Although I'm all for personal (adult) choice on this issue (being partial to the occasional cigar myself), I do object to anything that might make smoking more attractive to minors.<P>So, I'm in two minds about smoking in the LotR films, given that a large proportion of the audience is "underage" as far as smoking is concerned. On the one hand, it is an integral part of the books (and cannot be removed from them unless we get into an ultra-silly censorship situation), But, on the other hand, Jackson has made a number of (well-documented) changes from the books, so why not remove the pipeweed from the films? It is not intrinsically important to the plot.<P>I would hate to see the LotR films without the pipeweed, but society has moved on a lot, in terms of its outlook on tobacco, since these books were written.