: Everyone on this board must be a Tolkien fan, why else would you be here reading endless discussions on Tolkien's work? My problem is this: Tolkien never intended for LotR to be a film, in fact, he never intended for LotR to gain the popularity that it has done and become, in my view and many others, the Novel of the Century.

: Tolkien never had a film in mind and therefore making a film out of this novel is very difficult to do especially since Tolkien's descriptions of characters and, for that matter, races is very scant so that the "blanks" are filled in by the imagination of the reader, this is one of the reasons,IMHO, why LotR is such a brilliant piece of work.

: Anyway, to my point. We, as Tolkien fans, are always going to find someting wrong or even slightly incorrect with the films because we sit here day in and day out discussing LotR endlessly but that doesn't necessarily mean the films will be bad. So what if the elves have pointy ears, so what if hobbits have big feet or if the scenery and weaponry and clothing has a slightly medieval look. I say that if this film is good enough that non-Tolkienites will get a kick out of it and then go and read LotR, then Peter Jackson will have done a great job!

: I'm really looking forward to the film and I am beyond the point of caring about how close it will be with the novel, as long as I have fun. It doesn't really matter how good or bad the film is, the novel will always be there and will never change.

: That's the end of my rant for the day, thanx for reading this far. ;^)

It's not that simple. A bad movie will seem like a mockery to LotR, and will cause people to have some wrong ideas about it. Plus, it Does make Me feel bad when a good (or a very good, in this case) idea gets ruined. I still remember how dissapointed I was when I saw Starship Troopers: lot's of action and special effects, but no movie and almost nothing in common with the book. I shiver when I think that this can also happen to LotR.