Arwen Already
John K.

Arwen will surely not be leaving from Rivendell in the place of any of the Fellowship characters I believe and here is why:

Peter Jackson said so, and stated that a major change like this would be straying too far from "what we know and love."

Each character in the Fellowship is indispensable in my opinion. One character omitted or changed would carry with it great alterations throughout the entire story and movie. There would then be many many brand new lines of dialogue and story alterations throughout the whole of the movies for that changed character.

I have faith in Peter Jackson, that he will create a movie as close as he can to the books, which is no easy things in the amount of time he has to tell us the story on the big screen.

Arwen or Galadriel "expanded" a bit doesn't bother me. But huge and totally unnecesary alterations to Tolkien's work would, especially if it is done in regards to being "politically correct" or "changed to fit today's standards." It is totally unnecessary to change the nine major characters of the Lord of the Rings.

To me, making a large change in the original story, like changing one of the Fellowship members is also like saying "Tolkien didn't choose his major characters right, let's fix it." Tolkien's story is very intricate, he gives us a great deal of history for all the characters and even the landscape itself of Middle Earth.

 In my opinion it is his attention to detail, that when altered or changed creates great conflict to what we all "know and love" about the Lord of the Rings as Jackson put it.

Gandalf is not your run of the mill fantasy Wizard that shoots fireballs from his hands, nor is Legolas simply a run of the mill Santa's Elf. It would be simple to imply these things and to say they are just like any old wizard or elf without reading the Lord of the Rings, or reading it carefully and then placing Tolkien's LOTR in the generic medieval fantasy genre. The history of Middle Earth, as well as the characters is very deep and well defined, and changing something, especially a major character, has a major effect on not only the story, but the deep history Tolkien gives us as well.

Arwen especially, is a character that has very little dialogue at all in the story. Even much less than Bombadil. But her character is very strong for who she is and what she stands for. Expanding her character a bit is fine to me, but taking her character and adding her very early on with the joining of the Fellowship is too huge an alteration to the story.

Max B stated:

"The fellowship is a major chunk of plot and screentime, the addition or alteration of a member is no true problem as I see it, not for the audience and not for the movie."

I have to wholeheartedly disagree on this. If the Fellowship is a major chunk of the plot and screen time, then it is perfectly ok and is not a big deal at all to alter or change this major part of the plot that resonates throughout the entire movie? Which pretty much makes up the entirety of the story?

And furthermore, why go through all the trouble to do things like create Middle Earth weapons/armor by hand, etch Elvish runes in Eomer's helm, create the Shire and all the Middle Earth locations so perfectly, and do all those very intricate things, to then not tell the real story of the Lord of the Rings?

I think Peter Jackson will do a good job in maintaining the integrity of Tolkien's work. And to those that say that people are crazy for wanting the integrity of the books upheld, or implying that they deify Tolkien, well it's simply just an absolutely great story, and no one is probably going to have the chance to make three back to back movies and millions of dollars to do it in our lifetimes again I believe.

Now is the time for a movie of the Lord of the Rings and I think PJ's gonna do the job well.