Fantastic experience- but

Rating: 9/10 (21 December 2003)

I first read the LOTR when I was 15-16 (thats 30 yrs ago). I have read them again from time to time- so yes I'm a bit sad as far as the book goes. The film was a great experience, and I watched it with my 2 sons (boys aged 15 & 13) and they loved it- the eldest one has read the book.
However, the part that worries me the most is the part of the film we enjoyed the most (a bit of a paradox, I know)- namely the Battle of the Pelennor Fields. It just doesn't end like that- Aragorn does not arrive on the battlefield with a bunch of ghoulish knights, but with men from Gondor's outlying regions. I let the absence of Tom Bombadil go (I understood the need for brevity), I turned a blind eye to the Glorfindel/Arwen controversy in the race to the Fords at Rivendell (not that important), but the need for brevity or the director's elevation of the romantic interest does not explain this deviation. I think Tolkien wanted the decisive element of the battle to be the work of men- just as the book's final chapters show that the Hobbits can sort out their own problems without the intervention of wizards and kings. Anyway enough of my paranoia about faithfulness to the book- if you watch the films in isolation it has to be 10/10- otherwise 9.9.