Very good film, but barely Tolkien!

Rating: 10/10 (3 July 2003)

Having seen FOTR and loved it - the acting, the scenery, the sets, and the fact that the film captured the spirit of Tolkien, I was desperate to see TTT. I knew that it was going to be changed from the book more than FOTR had been, but didn't know that it was going to be changed to the extent that it was.
1. The nauseating 'Arwen' inclusion is a disaster. It has nothing to do with Tolkien, however romantic and 'beautiful' they tried to make the scenes, and despite the fact that they had Hugo Weaving's seductive voice in one of them (in point of fact that was the only scene with 'Arwen' that bore a remote resemblance to Tolkien, i.e. the appendix). Putting this virtually new character into the film has meant that various changes were made which took away from much needed time that could have been used to explore the real Tolkien story. For instance, why have the Warg fight - just so that Aragorn could fall over a cliff and have 'Arwen' change into a horse over him? It was totally unnecessary to change Tolkien's storyline - the original story is brilliant enough in itself.
And why does 'Arwen' appear everywhere in the promotional stuff - is she being used to promote the film? The main characters in the story are FAR more important, and they are who most people feel is important to the story, and want to see.
2. Why did Eomer disappear for virtually the whole film? Why was Treebeard - supposedly the oldest and wisest being in Middle-earth - portrayed as stupid? Where was the noble Faramir? Why wasn't there more of Gandalf, who is the figure around which everything turns? Where were the wonderful Huorns, and all the action involving them, which we were so much looking forward to? Why was there so little about the Hobbits, who with Gandalf are the main characters in Tolkien's LOTR? None of this is the fault of the actors, because the casting for the film is excellent - it is great that they used mostly British, New Zealand and Australian actors who weren't known 'movie stars', which would have completely ruined the film. It is to do with the way the story was rewritten.
Certainly there are brilliant things in the film - Gollum, Gandalf leading the charge on Shadowfax at the end of the film, the three running at the beginning of the film, the horses, Edoras, Helm's Deep, the marching Uruk Hai, New Zealand as Middle Earth, the costumes, among other things . . . but it would have been so much better if the story had been stuck to. The changes just seem so pointless, and I've heard far more criticism than praise for them.
I really, really hope ROTK will go back to the books, but think this may be a forlorn hope - for one thing, I don't know how they could squash everything in from TTT that wasn't included in the film, and still do ROTK justice.