ash nazg durbatulūk, ash nazg gimbatul, ash nazg thrakatulūk agh burzum-ishi krimpatul "One Ring to rule them all, One ring to find them, One Ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them." I have but one thing to say: WOW. Alright, so I lied. That wasn't the only thing I had to say. In fact, I have so much to say, that I don't know if I should subject you to it... but, of course, I will. *grin* First of all, I am a Tolkien fanatic. Thoroughly and completely. That's where I'm coming from. I read the books twice this year, plus two readings of The Hobbit and The Silmarillion. And that was in between school, a fiance, work, and the rest of the books I read. Secondly, I am a pseudo-purist. That means that yes, I analyze little details and get slightly peeved when scenes/dialogue/etc. are changed or cut in movie-to-book adaptations. However, I can eventually let myself enjoy them anyway. Despite these factors, I can honestly say that this is my favourite movie of all time. Yes, it does surpass 'Labyrinth' on my list by far. One major point I have to make is this: SEE THE MOVIE TWICE. At least. I say this especially for Tolkien fans. Every Tolkien geek I've talked to so far has agreed with me on this point. We all loved the movie better the second time. Our theory on this is that during the first showing, we were somewhat distracted by picking out the details that weren't in the movie, rather than those that are. Too many phrases like "but what about...?" going through our heads. Luckily they didn't distract us from adoring the movie the first time, but we could tell how much we missed with our analyzations. Frankly, they stayed true to the book about 95% of the time, which is incredible. The elements that were changed were done well and with good reason, and they flowed with the story. I was going to to a long review of the acting, visuals, and other nonsense (which were all spectacularly and perfectly done), but that has already been done by hundreds of others. I simply wanted to add my own positive "huzzah!" in Peter Jackson's direction. So, take a trip over to The OneRing.net and see others' reviews. Ta!