The Good and The Bad - a Quick Look at the Movies

[Lush]

it is, after all is said and done, a weak reader who reads only with personal touchstones.

Beth, I wouldn't attempt to characterize anyone's relationship to the literary work based on this discussion. As I've stated upthread, I don't believe the thinking woman's Aragorn and the fighting woman's Aragorn to be in conflict with one another. I think it's a false dichotomy, whether it's applied to Aragorn, or something or someone else. And I read the mix of tears and cheerfulness at the breaking of the Fellowship scene very differently than you do. If you think that Viggo Mortensen's "designer stubble" has warped my mind, you are free to do so. But I think it takes away from the conversation.

Mortensen makes a good Strider, but not a good Elessar.

That's something that I've always thought as well, Macalaure, though I don't limit his good scenes to Bree. I even think he's good for most of TTT. Then RotK happened, and I sat there wondering if the pod people had kidnapped the character. I could go on and on about my theories on this, but they're all boring.