'An attrocious movie which is a despicable insult to a wonderful book'

[Cazoz]

I wouldn't go that far!!<BR>I wouldn't say so much that he was an egotistical type, like Lucas or Spielberg with a God complex, but more that he thought he was improving it. I'd merely say that he was making it more practical in the most part for film production and also simplifying the plot by streamlining arcs/characters (cutting Bombadil, Glorfindel and so on) to make the film more watchable. If a part of a book confuses you, you can go back and re-read the passage/chapter. You cannot do that in a movie theatre thus it needs to be easy to follow. (Then again, if it was confusing, you might sell more dvds!) <P>Is the unabridged version BBC? I've never seen that and I have previously worked in the BBC/ABC audio department for some time.<P>And all of this having been said, I'm not a total PJ sycophant. He's not perfect, and obviously he has made mistakes and chnaged things that irk me. But on the other hand, many things about Tolkien's work I found irritating and inane too. Nothing <I>is</I> perfect. But the Faramir changes, whilst pragmatic in a way, really ****ed me off simply because I liked him so much as a book character. If I didn't like him so much, I wouldn't have minded. Equally with the Elrond sterness, and the whole Council really. But I digress, at least PJ cut Bombadil!