[HairOfTheDog]

Regarding Arwen, I can't even consider it as anything so crude as "feminist pander" either. The word just doesn't fit, it seems so alien to anything in the movie that I have a hard time answering it. To say her being there in any way panders to some feminist agenda sounds to me like knee-jerk paranoia.

I think PJ brought her in to start the love story. No other reason. I don't forget that we are talking about a New Zealand movie maker who is not sitting here in America being fed daily doses of NOW versus the world. Nor do I think he seems like the kind of guy that would dig NOW. Perhaps it is our glasses that are tinted and not his. He seems a bit too laid back and hobbity for their tastes. Maybe he did what he did because he thinks women in the audience would like to see it, maybe he likes the romance himself. Maybe he likes pretty women who can ride and carry swords. Maybe, just maybe, he isn't threatened by it nor thinks it fights some issue larger than his story. Maybe he thought it was cool. (I just wish her line was better at the river)

[Overtaxed]

Morning (or is it afternoon over there yet?) Hair!

I don't have a problem with PJ playing up the romance part. I just think it's a pander because it was out of character for Arwen. I guess PJ thought that the women in the audience couldn't wait for Eowyn to show up!

[Lucius Cornelius Sulla]

Maybe he likes pretty women who can ride and carry swords.

All of us like pretty women who can ride and carry swords! (You can carry a sword, right!)