I am looking forward to see it tomorrow. I am one of those freaks who buys both versions of the DVDs. I agree with Voo. Too bad that we still have to wait for august for the first version.

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I haven't seen it yet, but from what I have heard it follows very closely to the book.

I won't go into details or spoilers, but I would say it has far too many changes to say it follows closely to the book. Of the three movies it was the one with the most changes from the books.

I can deal with most of the ommissions in the three movies. What I found more frustrating were the additions. In particular the second movie, where Faramir drags Frodo and Samwise off to Osgiliath rather than (as in the book) letting them go almost immediately, which demonstrates his nobility or "quality". It not only changed the dynamic of Faramir's character, it forced poor old Frodo and Sam to add a few miles to their journey, and added minutes to an already long movie which surely could have been better spent on filling in some of the ommissions from the book.

Slightly off-topic perhaps, but for me the most significant deviation in an otherwise superb adaptation of a great book.

There's no scouring of the shire and Saruman is not in it at all. I would say those are pretty significant deviations.The scouring of the shire would have been too much for a movie which I can understand. Not having Saruman in it at all was troubling though.

brad maybe the extended DVD will have that hopefully.

brad maybe the extended DVD will have that hopefully.

It's my understanding that the scouring wasn't even filmed as PJ didn't even care for that. And yes, Saruman will be in the extended edition although his death is different than in the book, as well as Wormtongue's (unfortunately from my readings they've "hollywoodized" the death). I'm trying to find the article I read this in, believe some of it was from Newsweek on MSNBC, if I find it I'll post a link. Other stuff, the hollywood death, were from theonering.net iirc.

they don't really show what happens to sauroman, it was cut out of the movie, but is getting put back in when they release the extended version

it was filmed, just made the movie too long, 3 and a half as it was now, you'll get to see it later

IMHO
There was a certain amount of poetic licence taken for sure, but as a whole Jackson managed to capture the books extremely well. I was left at the end of the third movie feeling the same as the novels left me.
The movies are an amazing accomplishment of translating a difficult literary work to the big screen. If the movie(s) don't capture some critical acclaim in the form of awards; there is no justice (box office recipets aside

Yes...Phil said it well...

I came out of the third one pretty well gob-smacked.....thought it was brilliant.....and thinking through all three of them, they were/are a fitting 'tribute' to the power of Tolkien's work.

One word?

Magic....

agreed, I was quite moved at several points during the story, in the same way and for the same reasons that the book moves me

hope Jackson gets the necessary go-ahead to make The Hobbit...

I just ordered the full book from Amazon...I cant wait to start reading the book, the movies are easily my favorite. I tried getting tickets to one of those all-day back to back to back marathons but they were all sold out. I still ended up waiting in line for 45 minutes to see the film at a regular theater...was well worth the wait...

gob-smacked

hmmmm....sounds like something I might like