Lessons learned from Lord of the Rings Trilogy Day (Warning: Possible Spoilers):
1) You wouldn't think that watching movies all day would be that tiring, but the Trilogy was over 10 hours long and it was freakin' exhausting! More so than a day at work.
2) Managing not to know anything about the story (I tried reading the series when I was 7 and gave up halfway through The Two Towers, so I never knew how the last half of that and Return of the King went and the parts I read I couldn't remember) and keeping the willpower not to read ahead once the first movie came out was worth it. I think I was the only one in theater that didn't know what was going to happen when Frodo made it into Mt. Doom, or that Gollum was still coming back, or ... (repeat ad infinitum). I highly recommend it, not that anybody can actually make a choice as to this at this point.
3) I never would have imagined that Helms Deep was a "small battle" until I saw the third movie ... Helms Deep was like an elementary school game of Red Rover. Holy crap.
4) I've talked about this to many people and I'm shocked that just about nobody has agreed with me. If you're Sam at the end, there's absolutely no question that you charge Frodo and push him in, grabbing and jumping in with him if that's what it takes. This should be premeditated and there shouldn't be any hesitation on your part, especially when you've seen how messed up Frodo's become. The stakes are just too high here, you don't give him a chance, you don't take the risk - you already know that if he fails and decides not to go through with it that it'll be too late - the ring gives him too much power for you to stop him. As it turns out, it was a lucky fluke that saves the world because Frodo did fail ... take advantage of the hesitation and push his bitch ass in! Same goes for Elrond with Isildur, for that matter ... I just can't understand how this wasn't obvious to everyone involved.
5) Peter Jackson completely owns George Lucas. Sorry, Lucas, but you're looking strictly amateurish at this point.
--Nick
Does it make me wholly un-American if I say that I was a little bummed by Saddam's capture?
Don't get me wrong ... I'm glad that we finally caught the bastard ... but really, couldn't it have waited until after Bush's ass was tossed from office? I shudder every time something else good happens that will help his reelection.
Yuck.
--Nick