Great movie - shame about the changes

Rating: 8/10 (29 December 2002)

I liked the movie as it was, and I'd give is a pretty solid 8/10. It woould have been 10/10 if PJ had just left bits out of the book that were unnecesary, but the addition of made up stuff and tons of changes detracted from it overall.
It has a great many changes to the story and for the life of me, I can't really understand why. As others have pointed out, if you take out the 45 minutes of made up stuff, you could have put back all the other stuff he left out.
But more importantly it seemed there were changes for changes sake. I kept getting anoyed that the introduced material was making a long movie even longer. I didn't go along to see this film, I was expecting Tolkien's story.
Tolkien's story was at the top of the list of books of the century. I really think that qualifies it as having a pretty good story line to begin with. Why the tampering.
Overall it was an enjoyable romp, without the classic appeal that Fellowship had. Changes there were made to simplify the storyline, not alter it materially. The altering of the characters though is what hurts the most. Their motivations and actions have materialy changed, and not, unfortunately, for the better.