(I only realised the film was coming out a couple of weeks before it arrived in cinemas!)
Both rolling and in awe of this.
Granted I'd heard they were trying to make a LOTR movie around 1998, but I'd seen enough advertising months beforehand to know it was a ~big deal~ and even randomly asked classmates if anyone was seeing it opening weekend. You have made me wonder how I followed any of the film-making process before TORC, though! I didn't do spoilers until after FOTR, and I can't remember any of my news sources from back in the day. But I knew when Elijah was cast and how they were going to digitally shorten characters, and remember thinking Legolas was played by Mark Paul Gosselar when I first saw the trailer that summer.
Andy Serkis' production video #2 showed a costume fitting with Cate Blanchett. I nearly fainted. So... still prefer the elves,
but I look forward to meeting dwarves who aren't Gimli, in the hopes that they have no choice but to give some of the crowd different personalities.
*E*