And talking to yourself again.... You need a vacation!
Here is a bit of pre-vacation mood music:
BOAT DRINKS Jimmy Buffett
Boat drinks. Boys in the band ordered boat drinks.
Visitors just scored on the home rink.
Everything seems to be wrong.
Lately, newspaper mentioned cheap airfare.
I've got to fly to Saint Somewhere.
I'm close to bodily harm.
Chorus
Twenty degress and the hockey games on.
Nobody cares; they are way too far gone,
screamin' "Boat drinks," somethin'
to keep them all warm.
This morning I shot six holes in my freezer.
I think I got cabin fever.
Somebody sound the alarm.
I'd like to go where the pace or life's slow.
Could you beam me somewhere, Mister Scott?
Any old place here on Earth or in space.
You pick the century and I'll pick the spot.
I know I should be leaving this climate.
I got a verse but can't rhyme it.
I gotta go where it's warm.
Boat drinks.
Waitress, I need two more boat drinks.
Then I'm headin south 'fore my dream shrinks.
I gotta where it's warm.
I gotta go where it's warm.
I gotta go where it's warm.
I gotta go where there ain't any snow,
where there ain't any blow,
'cause my fin sinks so low.
I gotta go where it's warm.
Well, I watched FotR last night for the crucial second time (my wife too). My wife was greatly helped by seeing the story the second time, she was able to follow the story-line pretty closely all the way through with only a few questions about the importance of the broken sword and that sort of thing (she has not read the books). (It also helps watching at home where you can stop the movie and replay parts that run by too swiftly).
For my part, the second viewing helped in that I was able to sum up all of what I think the drawbacks are into one word: Pacing.
Even at three hours we are about 4 hours of movie short of getting the correct pacing of the story. This is a drawback of movie-making in general (from books), not of this particular movie. The movie is certainly faithful to the main story-line and captures middle-earth visually in a magnificent way (with one exception: Lothlorien is too dark and brooding - as is Galadriel - most of the scenes are at night, and, of course the time spent there is truncated greatly, which happens throughout the movie).
In the movie we run at a hell-bent pace between crucial decision points and pivotal scenes, with very little of the reflection, travelogue, lore and character development that happens, in the book, in-between those crucial decision points. The movie tends to jump rapidly between these necessary points, you don't get the impact of long journeys down the Misty Mountains or the Great River or through Minas Morgul.
This pacing is simply the necessary difference between art forms (literary, visual), and is one of the main reasons books are rarely as convincing on the screen as in print.
The Arwen issue (appearing early in a role that was not hers) is, I think, not a problem at all. It was an effective way of truncating the movie -- eliminating an unnecessary character (from the movie's standpoint) while introducing a necessary one.
However, there is one form of this type of truncation that does bother me, and I think will have a negative impact on the movie later: That was when the Hobbits (other than Frodo) acquired their "magical" swords by simply having Aragorn get them from somewhere (nowhere really) and toss them on the ground saying: "here are swords for you to use". Those enchanted swords play a crucial role in the story later on and the manner in which they were obtained is one of the very best, and most ingenious, instances of fore-shadowing in the entire tome. And in the movie they are merely gathered out of nowhere (Aragorn wasn't carrying them with him on the trek) and thrown at their feet. Not good.
With all that, still an enjoyable watch and a true feast for the eyes. The representations of the many creatures of middle earth, from Balrog to Orc to Dwarf to Troll, simply could not be better. I'll never be able to think of these creatures without the visual of the movie coming to mind. My wife was able to follow the thread of the story very effectively, which meant that the movie-makers took care to keep the rather complex thread intact.
Well worth the while, even if I did find the pacing problem a little distracting.