Dave the Gnome - Xena is wonderful! The most anachronistic, entertaining, humourous piece of action adventure I have seen in a long time. (Buffy beats it though). New Zealand looks amazing. Willow was filmed there too. It has such a fantasy landscape. Very Narnia-ish.
As a film, Lord of the Rings certainly won't please everyone (the book was voted "Book of the Century" by Waterstone's customers). I think it would have been better to cast complete unknowns in it, as then there are absolutely no pre-conceptions about the actors and reality just will not intrude on the magic created on screen. I guess that just doesn't pay though...
In my first year at university we were asked in an English class what books played a major part in English literature. I said "Lord of the Rings" on the grounds that it threw the floor wide open for a whole new genre of writing (some good, some bloody awful) and was a favourite amongst many, adults and children alike. Very few people agreed with me. Most just looked at me as if I wasn't being pretentious enough - one of the reasons I gave up English (too many people walking around with difficult and pretentious novels in their back pockets, wearing black, chain smoking and claiming they'd rather sit in and study Proust than go down the pub and discuss Neighbours).
Anyway, I'm looking forward to seeing it, but I don't think anything will ever be as good as reading it that first time...