First, we need almost absolute adherence to the story. This means not just including all the major events, but doing so sufficiently slowly to retain the feel of the book as well as allow the audience to keep up. I think a good rule of thumb for translating books into movies is that there needs to be at least one hour of movie for every hundred pages in the book.

Second, I think that the story should be more fully developed than it was in the books. Tolkien himself admitted that the book was too short. There are a number of important subtexts that were not sufficiently developed. Also, Tolkien rushed some parts of the story. Let me give some specific examples.

Aragorn and Arwen: Their relationship is a big secret through most of the story, and when Arwen arrives to marry Aragorn at the end the event is a bit anticlimactic. Some of the information about their romance that is available in the appendix should be made part of the story. This would help people to better understand Aragorn's motivations, it would humanize his character, and besides, romance is good for the box office. Last but not least, it would help explain Aragorn's treatment of Eowyn. Tolkien should have included this material in the story, but I think he felt very awkward about dealing with romance.

The Paths of the Dead: The first few chapters of The Return of the King have a very rushed feel to them. I suspect that Tolkien was in a hurry to set the stage for the climactic events at Minas Tirith. Aragorn's motivation for entering the Paths of the Dead is not adequately explained. I think there should be a scene where he sits down and describes his plan to Legolas and Gimli, as well as telling them just what happened when he looked into the Palantir. Also, the battles that occur in Gondor between the Army of the Dead and Sauron's forces would be spectacularly exciting - why are they barely mentioned?

To do the job right would require a movie many hours long. This simply would not work in a release to movie theaters, as you can't chop up the story in self-contained pieces like they did with Star Wars. The only viable approach would be as a mini-series on TV. Now many might object to squeezing Middle Earth into a picture tube, but remember, if this ever happens it will be on digital TV, with a large high-resolution screen proportioned like a movie screen. This just might be tolerable.

I recently read the LotR for the first time in many years (my 11th reading). I read slowly and painstakingly, taking care to double check with the appendices and other sources when something confused me. Parts that were always a little fuzzy in my mind became much clearer, and I feel that I gained new appreciation for the work. Some of the ideas I thought of I have mentioned here.

I mentioned at the begining of this posting that I believed a movie should show "almost" absolute adherence to the story. I say this because I think some changes would have to be made to make work better as a story and as a movie. Done right, such a treatment could even more fully realize Tolkien's vision.

Of course, this could only be achieved by filmmakers who not only know and love the book, but somehow have the resources to pull it off in spite of idiotic movie producers. We all know that the chances of this happening are next to zero, but at least its fun to talk about.