It's an ad, but it's dang freakin right. There is nothing more valuable than an image when trying to teach a concept or express an idea.
The saying goes:
A picture is worth a thousand words... unless you're Tolkien, then it's worth ten thousand.
Freaking true.

I've given many hour-long talks to many groups of people (in fact I'm working on one right now which terrifies me in that I will be presenting it in front of the gods of our field at an international meeting...) and pictures work a million times better than text... a billion times better. In my whole PowerPoint presentation, I have three slides of text and 30+ slides of images and diagrams, and the text slides are just PR and citing previous work by other people.

PICTURES COMMUNICATE.
TEXT DOES NOT.

Just recently finished an all week-ish Tolkien-a-thon. The Hobbit, LotR trilogy, Tom Bombadil, and the Silmarillion (boy was that a heavy read!) all of which I've read multiple times before besides Bombadil/Silmarillion; that's all my library has of the great late Beren, ahem, Tolkien. His books are such a guilty pleasure and great for when you find yourself unable to sleep; as he describes the simple comforts of life (food, rest, music, a warm fire, etc) almost TOO convincingly & quite often as he can. All too easy to find myself getting lost in the Tolkien legendarium. Currently on the market for some new science-related reading material...taking notes of what to look out for from fellow Sifters.

Right now I'm reading The Blind Watchmaker (Richard Dawkins) and the Children of Hurin (J.R.R. Tolkien).

I'm a big fan of fantasy and Sci-Fi.

Some of my favorite authors are:
Margaret Weis & Tracy Hickman (Dragonlance Chronicles and The Death Gate Cycle)
Robert Jordan (Wheel of Time)
Terry Goodkind (Sword of Truth)
Robert Heinlein
Roger Zelazny (Chronicles of Amber)
J. K. Rowling (Harry Potter)
R. A. Salvatore (Drizzt Books)
George R. R. Martin (Song of Ice & Fire).

Well there are just a few

Naaa...WOW isn't a video game. It's a drug. As for the dancing styles, I don't understand why the designers thought it was good idea to put in modern dance moves into a realm where the world of JRR Tolkien seems to be the style.

Uhh... okaaay...

I don't think Tolkien is turning in his grave because of a few commercials that had nothing to do with him or his books. Fauns and labyrinths have been a part of mythology for ages, long before Tolkien was even born. Strange how you could manage to sit through the whole movie (and decided to ruin it here for those who haven't seen it), considering your apparent revulsion of the whole thing. Too bad you were so busy looking for things to be offended by that you couldn't enjoy such a wonderful movie.

Karaidl: I used to feel the same way about subtitles. I don't really notice them after a few minutes into the movie anymore. For people that do, I would just say that some movies are worth the effort. Personally, I think English dubbing would have been much more distracting.

The TV trailers on this movie were,and still are, COMPLETELY MISLEADING. Now they are trying to tell us that this is a Tolkien-esque type movie---what an insult to Professor Tolkien!

We went to see it with great expectations and were completely disappointed. Many of the scenes were the most grotesque violence we've ever seen---like the demented General multilating the face of a cooperative humble prisoner. The poor little psychotic girl being shot and murdered at the end was about as sad and depressing as it could get. The creepy low-voiced sounding devil/mantis Pan figure was plain weird. The message given---reality is so violent and cruel the little innocent girl retreats into a weird fantasy-world and winds up getting murdered anyway. What's the point of showing this crap!

I womder about those of you who "loved" this kind of movie or thought it was "genius". Where are your heads at?

Hope no children are psychologically maimed for life after seeing this NIGHTMARE of a movie!

Alan Moore can get stuffed. If it had been made while Thatcher was still in power, they could have made the original film. But I suspect he's like Christopher Tolkien, and nothing other than the original book would be acceptable. Sorry, but there were aspects of the original work, like Prothero's doll collection, that would have been unintentional moments of hilarity. He's like those Lord of the Rings fans who hate Jackson's films because Tom Bombidill was dropped.