I had never read any of the books, but Mister had read them all some years back, and confessed that he and his friends used to play-pretend Lord of the Rings, and he always got to play Aragorn. (I guess because he was the tallest, I don't know.)

Anyway, I loved the movie, and it was completely because of this that we finally got a DVD player. And yes, we have the DVD. We haven't actually watched the movie yet, because we've been playing with all the bonus stuff!

Personally I felt very sorry for Gollum. He is a sad character. I think Sam Gamgee is my favorite, though.