Bated, I think you mean - unless you just had fish! ;-)

Sorry, I just couldn't resist.

I think the point isn't laughing at yourself. It's having bigoted Hollywood atheists stereotyping for political purposes. If they made a move about leftist actors and their foibles that would be a different thing.

Hmm, $10 to have some Hollywood bigot spit in my face? I think not.

I'm hearing the Princess Bride there. "You keep using that word. I don't think it means what you think it means."

Just wondering where the conservative tie in is here? Hmm, gay sex, gay agenda, liberal actors and actresses, sex, drugs, etc. Sounds like more of the typical Hollywood bilge to me.

You mean like forcing a redefinition of marriage on everyone through a supreme court ruling? Totalitarian actions deserve opposition and reprimand, which the people of California dealt out.

What does any of this have to do with the price of tea in China? Unionization also left us with cumbersome work rules, a lack of flexibility, debilitating illegal strikes, SEIU corrpuption, Teamsters corruption, the NEA's destruction of the school system, etc., etc.

I agree, Pippin and Merry were not properly developed in the movies, and become stock comic sidekicks. Still, I think that the movies totally missed the tragic nature of Denethor's fall in the books. He was a good man who suffered from too much pride and ultimately despair in the books. In the movie he was just a pretty disgusting character, to the point of grossness in the scene where Pippin is singing.

My least favorite portrayal, ultimately, was Aragorn. They made him into a wishy-washy wuss in the movie, who was unsure of his desires and lacked all of the nobility of character in the books. I read an interview of the screenwriters, and they said they did this deliberately. Apparently you can't have truly noble characters in today's Hollywood.

I could easily let this discussion digress into a longer list of complaints. It surely does feel good to share this with others who feel the same way!

What a great comment. I was first excited by the LOTR movies, but as they progressed I became more and more disgusted. They took a wonderful series of books and abused the characters to make it a Hollywood flick. What was done to Aragorn, Gimli, Denathor and others was shameful. I recently tried to rewatch the first movie but stopped halfway through because of the way they tortured Tolkien's story.

The difference is that this is an allegory to America, and Americans are uniquely bad according to liberals. All other nations are good, or oppressed or deceived by Americans. It is the old portrayal of American Indians as uniquely noble, brave and honorable people, who were living at one with nature until those bad old Europeans came along. The Indians were just like everyone else - oppressing and being oppressed, enslaving and being enslaved, etc.

The problem with movies like this isn't that they portray humanity as evil, it is that they target the very people who have brought freedom and prosperity to so much of the world, magnifying theirs sins while ignoring the good that has been done.