Too many deviations from the book

Rating: 1/10 (6 May 2005)

As someone who read The Lord of the Rings 15 years back and has been re-reading it ever since, the movie just takes too many liberties with the plot. The scriptwriters have introduced many twists that destroy the story and I'm sure Tolkien would have been horrified if he ever saw this. All in all, a good action movie but really ruined by some very lousy scriptwriting.
Plot deviations include: The entire return to the shire is omitted so as to show the movie concluding with the defeat of Sauron, which just removes probably the most tragic part of the book. Frodo, manipulated by Gollum, asks Sam to leave him and go home in the climb to Shelob's lair. Faramir decides to take Frodo and Sam to Osgiliath(out of nowhere!! where did the scriptwriters dream this up from?) and many others too numerous to mention such as Tom Bombadil's scenes being assigned to Treebeard (???)
AWFUL!