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did that old man happen to be Magneto?

Boohoo, cut out thirty minutes of the languid slowmotion ending.

This page details all the problems I have with Jackson's choice: http://www.hollywoodjesus.com/lord_of_the_rings_feature.htm

Scientist in New York already developed a bigger better version

For that to be true the Shrek 2 models would have to look less human than the repulsive examples. I don't think that's true at all. Shrek 2 got the hair right and the sub-surface scattering for lighting the skin.

Some examples and how I'd rate them along the curve:

• Oblivion: Corpse. Bottom of the curve.
• Polar express: Creepy doll. More human-like than Oblivion, but pretty uncanny.
• Shrek 2: A little bit uncanny, but I found the characters pleasant to look at.

Keep in mind those are still shots. In actuality, Oblivion and Polar Express look worse when moving. Shrek 2 looks better.

Everybody switch to bicycles!

OK

Google Image Search works wonders. Here's Eisner. Here's Farquaad.
I seem to recall more of a similarity between the two. Now when I see both side by side, not so much.

Christianity in Narnia
I really hope the christian motives aren't going to be de-emphasised in the films. There's little "shoving down throats" and "religious propaganda" in the books, as others suggest. Rather, the Narnia series is telling the story of christianity from an entirely different perspective (in an imaginary world), where the "stained glass images are removed" (as Lewis put it), and the beautiful story, the warmth, the miracles, the courage, love, hope and faith remain.

Tolkien & Lewis
Someone wrote that apart from Tolkien an Lewis being friends, and the stories happening in imaginary worlds, there's barely a comparison.

I beg to differ; they were also both classisists and classically educated scholars, avid christians, and both wrote a series of fantasy novels about a fight between Good and Evil.

Tolkien and Lewis were both members of "the Inklings", a gentlemens' club of Oxford scholars.
Later on their friendship became much weaker, much to Lewis' disappointment.

Allegories
This possibly also explains about Tolkien detesting allegories:
Lewis' books were overtly allegories. Tolkien's books are also about good and evil, his story is intrinsically religious.
Lewis and Tolkien were friends. Both their books were fantasy novels, and became wildly popular.
Of course this led people to believe Tolkien's books were also allegories, and start explaining things in LotR. Tolkien hated that idea, he had meant to do no more than imply religious hints. So he avoided being seen as being close to Lewis. It was reactionarily.

Shadowlands
There's a film about Lewis' life, "Shadowlands" [hollywoodjesus.com] which is excellent. One of the best and most moving films I've ever seen. The story is told and acted beautifully. There's a lot of very subtle symbolism in the film. I recommend watching it to anyone who'd like a bit more background about C.S. Lewis' life.

The BBC films
The BBC films of some of the Narnia books were mentioned earlier here. I've also seen them and I thought they were very disappointing. Very low budget productions. Short films. Important bits left out. B-a-d special effects. And worst of all, none of the magic of the books.

The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe animation film
I hope when they start filming "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe", they'll watch the American animation film that was made of that book instead. This was also a low budget production, but it was done beautifully. I must have watched it twenty or thirty times as a child. It had all the magic of the written story, and some clever visual subtleties at that. For instance, Aslan was drawn larger in each scene where he was shown, hinting to an obscure reference in the book that Lewis makes to a verse in the gospel of st. John ("He should grow, and I become smaller.") Or the lamp post with the single stick ornament, as one was torn of by Jadis in Charn.
(Although I really hope the actors will be British children: American kids playing children in a British public school in the mid twentieth century would be so wrong!)

Seven
I really hope that they'll eventually turn all of the seven books into film. (Perhaps after the first five pay off.) I agree that some of the stories are easier to film than others, but after LotR this has ceased to be a valid argument. I remember when in the previous millenium I sometimes asked why a film was never made of LotR, people would always say it was much too long and complex a story to film..

As an anonymous coward, in the armed forces, fearful of IP tracking and alias tracking by Big Brother, (heavy gloom and doom tone on purpose), I knew that Uncle Sugar would soon become Uncle Satan when it required DNA data for new recruits.

Body identification etc. is all well and good but that data is not just for the future unknown soldiers, it'll be sold to insurace companies for health tracking by DNA, it'll be used for culling the herd, when that day comes.

The DNA data that has already been amassed is a goldmine that politicians and generals are already massaging to build a dbase of those they want and don't want. Recall that the Mormon church licensed/sold it's medical data/ family health history to a BioTech firm in San Diego (I seem to recall) for 7 million dollars. How much money would it take to buy a couple of politicians to put the armed forces health/DNA dbase up for auction?

Setting precedent in a court case for the *good* of the community is a necessary first step towards releasing *our* blood data to those who want to squeeze yet more money from it.

It wasn't very well done, but the movie Gattaca seems all the closer as a potential reality.