19/12/2001 - 5:56 p.m.

Mr. Eggbert must die.

Now, I've just finished reading Master Ebert's "informed comments" on FOTR, and I think he should be found and shot. (If you're a fan of his, get out now.)

The last time he read the books was in 1970; I finished them night before last, so I definately know that I know the stuff better than he does. Let me say here and now- Hobbits do not live in treehouses, and they do not dress like Robin Hood's merry men. They don't even like to build stairs in their smials, and when they do, they certainly never sleep on those floors! They are partial to large buttoned waistcoats in chiefly yellow and green, and they do not wear shoes. They like to eat SIX meals a day (if they can get that many). AND they certainly shouldn't be expected to go asking a wizard what the hell they're supposed to do about a ring the significance of which they do not even know. The Hobbits are only involved for our sakes, they're like us, basically. I mean, you could hardly put regular humans on the same pedestal as Gandalf or Aragorn- Boromir, maybe, but otherwise, we're Hobbits! And as it is, Gandalf is there advising poor Frodo up until Moria, because no one else can be trusted to bear the Ring. The power is too great, but for some reason that no one understands, the stuff that Hobbits are made of is immune to it for much longer than anyone else, which is why Bilbo managed for so long.

And I am so sorry that your vision doesn't match with what the movie does- why did you even write about it if we're supposed to forgive you of it? Why not just tell us you had a biased opinion that you based on some long forgotten rememberances that you couldn't even bother to make sure were RIGHT when you started to write to damn thing? That was the one thing I was willing to forgive, the difference between my vision and someone else's, because I am not the director, am I? However, I think they should at least do their best to get the story straight, which he doesn't bother to comment on at all (because obviously he doesn't remember it!), because he's too busy counting the number of words in the Balrog scene! So what if it's 500, you have to know that they DO have the technology now, and they may as well use it. The Hollywood of The Wizard of Oz could not have pulled this off- first of all because the book wasn't even WRITTEN then and second of all because there wasn't a mindset willing to accept it, which is the reason it hadn't been written yet and the reason that the books didn't catch on until the late 60 early 70's when Mr. Eggbert bought his copy so that- I don't know, he could be cool like everybody else?

Now, I may not like the movie. They may cut the book horribly and I will be dissapointed, but at this point in time, I say he's just being nitpicky because he read the book (does anybody know- did he READ Harry Potter before he saw the movie, or what? If he's going to complain about transferring a book to a movie, he might pick on that one, but no, that piece of work got five stars!).

That little man royally pisses me off and so must die. I hope I love it and I hope it gets loads of awards just to show his little ass up. He's getting too damn cocky.