Mmmmmm - sort of follow you, Guest. The story was not followed exactly but I did not have a problem with that. I can see how some would.

I think you may be quite surprised at the Character development in the second though, particularly the relationships between Frodo and Sam and Legolas and Gimli. The charater of Gollum is the best I have seen in a long while.

Although I am a long term Tolkien fan I can see that the criticisms leveled about his characterisations not being the best certainly hold water in a lot of cases. Some other writers certainly have deeper and more complicated characters but I believe that LOTR is primarily a story and do not worry too much about believing in or relating to the players.

Peter Jackson has, in my mind, taken some of those issues and made a lot of the characters much more understandable. After the last film and subseqent re-read of the book, I certainly saw Boromir and Elrond in a whole new light.

Give it a whirl - what can you loose but 3 hours of your time and a few quid!!! Let us know what you think. (Constructively of course) :-)

Cheers

Dave the Orc