Capturing Tolkien's Vision vs. A Literal Interpretation

[Black Breathalizer]

[My Jack Nicholson voice]You can't handle the truth!!![/My Jack Nicholson voice]

Regarding the opening of FOTR, I can't imagine a more challenging bit of screenplay writing than the beginning of this film. There was SO MUCH to say and so little time to do it. In fact, New Line dictated to PJ that he could only do a TWO MINUTE prologue!!! Fortunately, he convinced them that he couldn't do the backstory justice in less than seven minutes.

I agree that Galadriel's comments about the "giving" of the Elven rings was dead-wrong. But think about how you smoothly handle an introduction about ALL of the rings that clarifies the real story behind the Elven rings without going into a lot of exposition that has filmgoers unfamiliar with the books going, "what the heck is she talking about?!?!?" The origin of the Elven rings is not as essential to the story as the mere fact that a long time ago there were many rings for the different races of Middle Earth.

The part about "ruling each race" is perhaps stronger language than most Tolkienites would like to hear but I don't see that as factually wrong.