The only peeves I can think of have already been mentioned (dwarf jokes, the “lidless eye” being an actual eye). Here are my two favorite likes though.
The anguished look on Gandalf’s face when Frodo says “I will take it”.
The fact that Legolas wasn’t as … goofy … as he was in the book. The scene froom the book that comes to mind is Legolas running around in little circles screaming “Ai! Ai! Ai!” when the Balrog shows up. :rolleyes:
Little nits in an otherwise glorious work…
–Boromir’s “They have a cave troll” quip and shrug at the door of the room in Moria. Very 80’s action hero, and should have been left on the Die Hard cutting room floor.
–Saruman walking briskly back and forth on his tower as the ents ravage below. Excessively melodramatic even by Christopher Lee standards, I picture Bach pipe organs and Bela Lugosi when I watch that scene.
–Minas Tirith and the surrounding country is far too bleak and featureless. It isn’t merely a barren desert, but looks like tired CG artists simply didn’t fill in all of the blanks. All of the little touches and details of love and life from the artists in the previous locations are gone here…even Phoenix, Az has more character.
–Not enough scenes of Rose, she was one mighty fine looking hobbit with a stunning smile. Swoon 
Legolas had the burden of knowledge. Plus he was half-french.
Well the first sentence shows you actually do learn in the Tolkien threads, I am heartened by this. The second shows you still have much darkness in your heart and poison in your spleen.
It was not as bad as the scene with Legolas clambering around that Oliphant, though.
What? Sting does glow in the movie. (I think it did in Moria, and it definately did in Sam’s hands in the mountains of Mordor when fighting Shelob, at the approach of the Orcs, and when Sam shoves it through the chest of an Orc from behind, while rescuing Frodo in the watch tower.)
Are you saying it should not have?
They’re good movies, really, but there are a couple of minor irritations that stand out for me more than the good ones do.
[del]Orcs[/del] Irks:
*The fifteen false endings in Return of the King absolutely drove me up the wall. One of the most annoying things I’ve ever seen in a good movie. There was no drama left in the story, and while there was no need to rush toward the ending, the end didn’t need to be dragged out for so long.
*The flaming ball of Denethor as he jumped off the cliff. This actually didn’t irk me, it made me laugh. But I know it wasn’t supposed to.
*The really, really gratuitous overuse of slow-mo in the scene where Frodo reunites with the other hobbits. I really have no idea why it was done that way. It looked very silly and sucked any emotion out of the moment. And you could just feel all the people who went “Frodo and Sam are totally gay!” going “Toldja.” all through that scene.
[Jon Stewart]Settle![/JS] 
I am having a brain drain today. I mean lascivious in the most sensual of terms, not in the most sexual of meanings. 
IOW, I can’t find the word to describe his enjoyment of his meal while his son goes to his death (or near enough). I know there’s a word for it–I just can’t retrieve it.
IRK (major irks for me I put in capitals): the drinking nonsense between Gimli and Legolas. Those elves knew how to party, dudes–there was no “I feel a tingle in my fingers” stuff. They got wasted on wine. Casks of it.
But that scene also gives me a pleasure: Gimli and his little hairy women comment. Gross, funny and yes, lascivious to boot! 
Eh? He looked worried, to me, when he said it… not panicky, but worried.
(Like when an infantry soldier realises the enemy brought tanks. “We’re in deeper doo than I thought…”)
We in the Evil Community do not SETTLE. We either exact swift, horrifying, gory, vastly disproportionate revenge involving acid-excreting parasitic tapeworms being teleported into our foes’ internal organs, or ignore it.
I’m ignoring it, but that’s not the point. I don’t know what the point is, but there is a point, and that’s not it.
Edacious. Rapacious. Gluttunous. Ravenous. Voracious.
There. You can even write a limerick now, if you don’t mind the poor scansion. 
That’s an irk for me. EVERYBODY knows that the only woman either of those two was interested in was Galadriel; otherwise they just lusted for one another.
A please for me: Virtually any scene with Miranda Otto; even apart from her remarkable beauty, she is simply the most interesting performer in every scene she’s in.
And an irk: That sick bastard Aragorn BREAKING POOR EOWYN’S HEART in RotK.
:mad::mad::mad::mad::mad:.
I know I’m supposed to be all evil & stuff, but I simply cannot abide this. Eowyn is too pretty to be sad, and any who cause her grief shall be beaten to death by whichever variety of monster I’m employing this week.
ETA the last clause of the last sentence of the last paragraph other than this one.
You know what, now I am not sure, did Sting glow consistently whenever orcs were around in the movie, it should have.
I was actually thinking of Andúril not blazing at Helm’s Deep. That was my real complaint.
It’s one of my favorite lines. Not for the words, but for the delivery. And he says it only to Aragorn–the two men attempting to protect the hobbits for that small bit of time before they figure it out for themselves. Of course, Boromir’s best scene is much later, as he dies. That one still gets to me.
umm… they actually left a few endings out…
I know. They didn’t leave out nearly enough.
I am amazed at how often John DiFool was reading my mind while he answered this question. I could almost repost his entire answer, but will refrain. Yes, far more care was taken with FOTR than the other two, and it shows.
Little likes:
-Showing the dirt on folks who are traveling and fighting out in the wild.
-Eomer shouting "For Lord and Lands” as he’s gathering the Rohirrim out of Edoras.
-Many little Frodo moments, esp. Frodo crawling on Mount Doom.
-Rosie Cotton dancing.
-The look on Faramir’s face during the scene in the Great Hall with Denethor and Pippin. Boy that actor nailed it, big time.
Little Dislikes:
-The eye as searchlight in ROTK. The Eye of Sauron in general after FOTR. This borders on a big irk.
-How all the elves look, except for Arwen and Galadriel. But I always knew they’d be hard to get right.
Big Likes:
The cast of actors, the look of Middle-Earth, the music.
Having Sam’s last line in the book be the last line in the film.
Big Dislikes:
-No Scouring. Yeah, yeah, I understand why it was taken out, but it was just so vital in terms of the themes of the book. See also – Saruman’s demise.
-Also disliked the short shrift to the Houses of Healing and Faramir/Eowyn storylines.
-Mishandling of Denethor’s death.
-Mishandling of Frodo’s charachter. He was a hero! gosh darn it! and it was an effing tragedy when he had to leave Middle Earth.
Could probably think of more, or go on all day…
I want the final interaction between Arwen & Elrond, confarn it. Not the conversation itself, but the angry moment when they go to talk in private, and then the tears when they part.
Ok, in the corner with you. And don’t you come out until you’ve really thought about what you did. <glares over glasses at Skald>
These are real nice, but not quite the word I was looking for. I’m sure to remember it-at about 0300 tonight. :rolleyes:
If you think I’m going to encourage people here to make limericks about LOTR, you’re in that corner for a good long time… As if we all weren’t weird enough!
I hope the chair you’re on is comfy-you’re in that corner forever, now. Enough with the ridiculous slash fic about the characters in these stories. Major IRK for me. Grrrr.
Your comment reminded me of Gimli and Eowyn’s interaction and made me think of a “please”–Aragorn’s joking with Eowyn re “it’s the beards”. Great.
But they’re not supposed to be together. Between you and me, Eowyn is the better woman, but Arwen is an elf. What are you gonna do? She’s a freaking elf. I don’t think she’s worthy of Aragorn, but he does, so that’s that. Eowyn is better off with Faramir–a much deeper and renaissance man than Aragorn (much as I love him) will be.
Liked:
Gandalf’s confrontation with Grima and Theoden. In the book, Grima insults Gandalf, Gandalf insults Grima, and then Theoden fires Grima and starts taking Gandalf’s advice. Ian Mckellan is a great orator, but I don’t think he is good enough to make that scene believable.
Legolas explaining the wonders of lembas, and the hobbits’ reactions.
Generally, when a favorite book is made into a film, the visuals are not as impressive as the scenes I had imagined. New Zealand’s forests and mountains are much more spectacular than I had imagined.
Irked:
The scene with the mirror of Galadriel. Jackson went for bombast when he should have gone for subtlety.
The orcs in Moria. Six-foot-tall mammals cannot scurry across the walls and ceilings like cockroaches.
There once was a poster named Ethilrist
When prompted for likes, he made a list
Of clothing and fights
and dark, misty nights
But dislikes are things that just make him pissed.
another small thing I liked: Boromir teaching the two hobbits to fight. Sean Bean’s delivery of Boromir’s speech at the Council is magnificent, by the way.
another irk: by making Legolas a bigger character, they make Eomer into a smaller one.
The shot when Gandalf first lights his staff in the Mines of Moria, when The Watcher collapses the entrance. The obvious, inorganic looks of the VFX around that shot looks so unnatural to me, and screams amateur compositing, that I almost close my eyes for it.
And, the whole battle with the Nazgûl on Weathertop annoyed me, because it just screamed SOUND-STAGE.
Also, there is a shot where we see the Balrog and Gandalf on the Bridge of Khazad-Dûm, it’s a wide, establishing shot, looking over the Balrog’s shoulder, and right before Gandalf strikes down his staff (“YOU SHALL NOT PASS!”) that looks so green-screened and piecemeal’d together, it hurts to look at for me. Just, flat and otherwise poorly conceived/executed VFX shot that makes me think they were flat out of time on the effects.
Otherwise, I want to watch all three extended DVDs, back-to-back, right now.
⑄⑃⑂⑁