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I wept openly! Amazing film, truly!

I'm still a little stunned . . . I'm sure that once the whole thing sinks in, really, really sinks in, I'll have better words to describe my amazement.

For right now . . . WOW!
:o)

Everyone bowing to the hobbits... yeap, that did it for me. Of course, it didn't help that I was still teary from the reunion. Where to start.

I thought so many things were done so brilliantly, which is why I was a little let down by a few things:

1) Gollum, on the stairs, is supposed to have a moment of near-change/redemption. This is when he sees Frodo asleep and feels compassion and pity for him, and started to really recall what he was before the Ring. And as he gently touches Frodo, Sam wakes up and ends the moment and Gollum's hope of redemption. I'm not overblowing that either, Tolkien himself refers to it. In the movie, it doesn't exist, instead Gollum sets Frodo against Sam.

2) Night-time leaving at the Grey Havens. Frodo is supposed to hold aloft the phial of Earendil and it's as if a star passes over the horizon(at night obviously) I know it seems minor, and maybe they did it for the people who wouldn't know where they are going(so having that light and the sun makes it more apparent.)

3) No Mouth of Sauron, no Easterlings and other human armies meeting the West at the Black Gates. No despair by the Fellowship that Frodo is dead(mithril shirt)

4) Denethor's end--I think the end in the book is more "noble" in it's own crazy way. Like Dan points out, it's almost as if GANDALF is the one who sets him on fire, rather than Denethor's own act of suicide(though I suppose he could have asked for help) I just thought the running off was a bit much.

5)No Saruman--I don't know, I think the end of Saruman is as compelling as the end of Sauron. There's something similar to Saruman in Saddam's end, both end ignobly and because of those whom they had abused and taken for granted betraying them(or merely gaining vengeance)

6) Sauron--What's with the "eye" looking at the tower collapsing around it? I liked the great cry that arose from
the tower in the book. But the eye looking at the collapse is kind of weird, but that's the choice they made from the first when they decided to make Sauron, LITERALLY, the Eye, rather than have that merely be an instrument of his great power.

That's about it though, everything else was mainly extraordinary. I think I need to see it again to take it all in. I welled up at several moments, even just as Eowyn says "I am no man!"

Oh is that little exchange between Eowyn and Theoden in the book, because it sounds EXACTLY like the final one between Luke and Vader---I mean, to the word.