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Updated LOTR Nitpicker's Guide
The LOTR Nitpicker writes "A list of deviations to be found when comparing the text of The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien and the translation of those texts to film as undertaken by Peter Jackson, et.al. updated to include deviations from the recently released extended edition DVD of The Return of the King. This story originally appeared on Slashdot back in January."
1) I see Saruman throwing fireballs. Now I believe Peter Jackson didn't want to make *that* kind of movie with wizards casting fireballs when I see the original theatrical releases, but now this? Come on. If they wanted awesome effects they could have gone with something that's actually *in* the books, like Gandalf casting lightning from his staff (Gandalf vs. 9 ringwraiths, on Weathertop).
2) This isn't The Return Of The King, it's "Half Of The Two Towers And The Return Of The King". They could have cut out most of the extraneous scenes from the TTT (like the Arwen ones) and kept stuff from TTT in TTT. Then they could use the Extended Release of ROTK to include the Scouring of the Shire. I realize the reason for not including it in the theatrical release (audience would get tired of a second battle etc.), but come on, the DVD release doesn't have those problems (after all, it's the fans who are gobbling up these Extended Editions).
That said, I welcome the new scenes. I always wanted to see the part where Aragorn calls up Sauron with the Palantir, and gives him the finger.
"Backups are for wimps. Real men upload their data to an FTP site and have everyone else mirror it." -- Linus Torvalds
Agreed. Whereas some movie adaptations of great novels do suck (Lynch's Dune), some are good enough to make us forgive the changes required by the new medium (Cuarón's Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban). Jackson's Lord of the Rings is simply a perfect interpretation of the books, keeping all the mood, atmosphere and imagination from the original material. Having watched ROTK:EE yesterday, and as a big cinema addict, I can say that few movies have moved me as this trilogy. It transpires the passion of its makers and the soul of Tolkien is omnipresent, in the images, the elvish language, the characters, the epic atmosphere of the whole story.
Nitpicking about adaptation changes is pointless (though the author does somehow acknowledge it is). I cannot imagine anyone making (a) better "Lord of the Rings movie(s)".
Peter Jackson did it, along with an extraordinary film crew, so let's all praise them for it and enjoy these fantastic movies.
theefer
You don't get it. The Nitpicker's Guides are fun to read in and of themselves. You don't have to be an anal-retentive nerd to enjoy one; in fact, it's postmodern surrealist anti-humor in that the joke is that anyone would notice and catalog such an array of minute flaws. They're something to marvel at, but are also incidentally filled with interesting trivia - like a Guinness Book of Records for dweebs. Lighten up.