I agree with all your observations here Ardo. I did prefer the mixing of the timelines in the movie rather than having the first part focus on the Fellowship and the second part on Frodo and Sam. It was kind of letdown to go from lots of action in the first part to virtually no action in the second the way the book was organized. I also like the idea of keeping the time lines in sync so we could see what was happening to Sam and Frodo at the same time things were happening in the outside world of men. It gave me a better perspective on how things were progressing. And I wasn't going to sit down and try to match up the moon phases in each book to get a chronology! 
And I do think the movie had to deliver more action to satisfy the audience, especially since there wasn't a lot in the Fellowship movie. There was even an extra big battle for Osgilliath with another threat by the Black Riders to Frodo. I guess that is why my impression of the later movies was a lot of battles when there really wasn't all that many in the books.
As far as "inventing" was concerned, there was a whole lot of that! Except for the major characters and major events in common, they were two totally different stories. And even the major characters had different personalities and different problems.
I suppose if we had more time, it might be interesting to discuss a lot of the changes. But there is just too much to even begin a discussion in the week available. Maybe the next time around.
And I do think the movie had to deliver more action to satisfy the audience, especially since there wasn't a lot in the Fellowship movie. There was even an extra big battle for Osgilliath with another threat by the Black Riders to Frodo. I guess that is why my impression of the later movies was a lot of battles when there really wasn't all that many in the books.
As far as "inventing" was concerned, there was a whole lot of that! Except for the major characters and major events in common, they were two totally different stories. And even the major characters had different personalities and different problems.
I suppose if we had more time, it might be interesting to discuss a lot of the changes. But there is just too much to even begin a discussion in the week available. Maybe the next time around.
oldBPLstackdenizen wrote:Hi, lorien ---[ Stepping into the "Waybac" Time Machine, again...]In High School, I had an aquaintance ( of several years already ) - who was once in the middle of a conversation with some other "fellows" - revolving around LOTR...His summation of how he felt about the second "book" in "The Two Towers"[ which, of course, deals almost completely alone with our three weary wanderers, Frodo, Sam and Gollum ]was that it was kind of boring - or at least, that it made him feel very impatient..."I kept wanting to get back to 'The West' and find out what was happening there..." he said.In all my day-dream imaginings of how a LOTR movie might turn out - I always felt there could be no other way to arrange it than to be frequently "switching back and forth" between the scenes involving the rest ofThe Fellowship ( which do tend to involve much more "activity" - a tremendous battle-scene - more new characters - more excitement in general ) --- Which also makes more sense in lining all the events up in a more coherent/contiguous framing for the chronology of events ...[ and also, so everyone did not nod off to sleep in the "second half" of the story, which tends to be a little drearier and more depressing than the "first half" ] ---And of course, the movie-makers saw that there was no other way to do it, as well...But there did seem to a goodly amount of "inventing" going on in the movie-version - especially with all those momentuous events going on in "The West" -- whereas exciting stuff that was already "in there"[ in the first half of TTT ] got cut out somehow. I think on the whole it was still pretty well done, but there was an awful lot of "jazzing it up" going on there, too - I guess maybe they wanted to make sure all the viewers got more "Bang for their Bucks" ---Ardo...
