We did meet one of out short range resolutions and finally saw the Lord of the Rings. Funny, our watching the movies oddly paralleled the story itself. The first movie was seen with a bunch of long standing friends (much like Merry, Pippin and Gandalf). The Two Towers brought us a whole new group of friends (mostly co-workers of mine, we’ll consider them the Elves and the Ents). The final chapter came down to the two of us, Frodo and Missus Sam. We loved the movie overall, although sometimes I think the scenery and CGI work actually outdoes the story line here. Granted, Tolkien had stretched himself out pretty thin by this point in the books and had a lot of loose ends to tie up before the last page. The only complaint I could level was the ending, or should I say endings. Peter Jackson originally thought it best to wrap up the story at various points along the way, but after making a dozen different endings, he couldn’t decide on which one to use. Rather than choose, he used them all. This decision makes the last 30-45 minutes of watching seem as interminably long as the Ents trying to give the Gettysburg Address. Several fade out shots for no real reason (it’s pretty easy to pick out where half of the dozen endings begin and, uh, end). There were also enough slow motion shots that I could type this blog entry without missing a minute of useful footage and, after the last major battle, it just was a long plodding trek to the final credits. Kind of like the books, but with better visuals.