I thought this trilogy was doomed from its inception. Trying to bring to the screen what for some was a classic part of thier childhood. I like many others read the books over and over as a young person and had my own vision of what Middle Earth would be like and exactly how Hobbits behave, live thier lives and such. I can say themovie surpassed my expectation. The effects were state of the art, the soundtrack incredible and the acting was again better than I hoped. As you can tell I am normally very pesimistic about these kind of things (just look what happened to Star Trek and Star Wars) but I will be one of the first in line next holiday season for the next installment, as this one surly was up to par.