[FS]

Oh my... GOD. That was most definitely, most definitiously the best movie I have ever seen. There were some choices in the end I didn't agree with, but it didn't change that this was godlike. A quick run-through:

-When the movie started, it took me a while to realize I was looking at Andy Serkis. I liked the brief "devolution" backstory, and I think the non-book readers will have appreciated it too.

-Pippin's song gave me chills.

-When Sam and Gollum had the little talk about 'sneakin' I thought of Willie's comments in the Two Towers Extended Edition thread :o

-Almost everybody got their chance to shine... save for maybe Gimli and Legolas, but they had plenty of moments in the previous movie. Eowyn was terrific, Merry and Pippin managed to break out of the "those two other hobbits" classification, and Sam... Sam kicked mountainloads of ass. He was the star of the movie for me, and Sean Astin should get an Oscar or something.

-The fight with the Oliphaunts reminded me of my favorite scene from Star Wars; the battle on Hoth, against the AT-STs.

-Much as I didn't tire from the mass battles, the better part of the movie was obviously for Sam, Frodo and Gollum. The end of the ring was as breathtaking as I'd imagined it. It was so great to see Gollum throw aside all the facade and just try take the ring at all cost.

I think that's all I gots to say 'bout thayat. In the end I did feel that too many liberties had been taken from the book. It's been long since I read Return of the King, but I distinctly remember either Merry or Pippin dying under the fallen body of a troll at the battle at the Black Gates. I don't think they should've taken that out. I also thought (but wasn't sure) that Aragorn was almost mortally wounded at that battle, and was eventually healed with Eowyn by his side. I don't remember Arwen showing up at all anymore, but maybe I'm wrong. Jackson seemed to want to spare the audience the rather melancholic ending Tolkien wrote, but I think he overdid it. In the books, even defeating Sauron couldn't stop the slow decay of the world, and you didn't really see that now.
What I did think was a good choice, was dropping the Hobbits' homecoming and finding the Shire industrialized. I hated that in the book, it was like Superman coming home from saving the universe and having the battle his landlord for another fifteen minutes.
Looks like they also went by on Sam's eventual departure for the Grey Havens, but of course, he was never shown using the ring to escape the orcs, as he did in the books.