No. I think this all happened between when Gandalf figures out that Frodo's ring is the One Ring and when he gets to the Shire to make sure Frodo still has it. They make it seem like a short time in the movie, but I think in the book there's like a 20 year time span between the two events.

Agreed. It sucks on the basis that it doesn't accomplish something it didn't set out to.

-3 because LotR sucks.

I'm not sure i get what you're trying to say. My point was that if your going to make a movie based on some unfilmed aspect of Tolkien's work, you don't have to get actors who sound and/or look like the ones who were in the LOTR motion pictures. Just do your own thing.....the LOTR characters have been interpreted a dozen different ways, doing it this way just makes it painfully look like you're trying to get low-rent imitators of the people in the theatrical versions.

I think the "look and feel" of the Lord of the Rings books were pretty well established before the movies. Jackson hired a few of the most popular illustrators as production designers, and I think most people would agree that the visuals were really good - perhaps so good that one could say they've pretty much nailed it. I don't fault these people for being attracted to that. Also I wouldn't be surprised if the audience for this thing would have been pissed off if it didn't look enough like the movies.

Yes.