I'm going to see this movie for the 7th time tomorrow, and I STILL love it!!!

Rating: 10/10 (17 January 2002)

10/10!!! I've always loved the books. I got caught up in the hype way before the movie came out... (when I came out of the theater after seeing "Harry Potter" in November, my first comment was: "well, that was great. Now: December 19th, who's with me?")
I've seen it six times so far (ask me tomorrow, and I'll be able to say SEVEN), and I still can't get enough of it! Wow! I was so hyper after seeing it for the first time in the theater, I couldn't even fall asleep that night because all I could think about was "when can I see it again?". :o) I've never looked forward to any movie with this much anticipation before... and never seen such a good movie-based-on-a-book. Everyone knows about certain scenes and characters that were altered or left out of the movie, and I'm not even going to START on the exaggerated character of Arwen... (if people need a "strong female character", just wait for Eowyn in "The Return of the King"). And while I'm looking forward as much as anyone to seeing all the deleted scenes on the DVD version, it's not going to stop me from going to the theater as often as I can and loving the movie more each time!!!
The scenery... awesome! New Zealand just made it to the top of my vacation list!!!
The acting... perfect! Even Elijah Wood was better than I thought he'd be. Orlando Bloom, yay! And Viggo Mortensen IS Aragorn, a.k.a. Strider (especially at the Prancing Pony scene... that was SO true to the book!) And GOLLUM!!! EXACTLY how I imagined him!!!! the first time I saw the movie (opening night) everyone in the audience was COMPLETELY QUIET (which, I think, is rare in a movie theater) because they were so caught up in this amazing movie! The second time I saw it (two days later), I think a lot of other people had seen it at least once before, because....
*** minor spoiler below! ***
When Aragorn hacked off the Uruk-Hai's head at the end of the movie, nearly the entire theater started clapping. I've never seen and audience do that before... when I went back a THIRD time, my friend and I clapped, but no one else did. Since then, we've been trying to get the audience to clap with us at that part, but no luck so far. :o)