Am I the only one disappointed?

Rating: 7/10 (20 December 2001)

Being a fan of the LOTR books, I waited what seemed like forever for this movie to come out. What I didn't expect was to be just a bit disappointed. I've never liked when Hollywood has taken great books and turned them into movies. They've never seemed to capture the same essence on the screen. The same holds true with FOTR.
I thought the effects, location, set design, costumes, etc were amazing. That was by far the best part of the whole movie. But the storyline, while trying to follow close to the book, wasn't exactly there. They changed too much. And, even though they seemed to leave out 1/4 of the book, which really wasn't anything too too important, the parts they did leave in didn't account for much character history or development. The poor girl sitting next to me, who obviously hadn't read the books, was lost and kept having to ask her friend about history and such. They just left too many viewers wondering and guessing.
Sure, I understand they have to change things for film, and take a few things out otherwise we'd be stuck with a 6 hour movie, but if you're going to make changes, at least spend some time working on the script. Let us get involved with the characters, wrapped up in them like we did when we read the books. Dont leave us walking out of the theatres scratching our heads going, "Why?"