Spotlight on LOTR

I know that it has been a couple of years since the Peter Jackson grand oeurve was released with his three installments of Lord of the Rings. However, each time I watch them (which is quite often) I'm amazed at the achievements of Peter Jackson and the writing of J.R.R. Tolkien. After many years of avoiding the grand tomes that are the basis for much modern fantasy, I finally picked up the novels after seeing Jackson's works of movie magic. As I read through them, I am amazed at two things: how smart Jackson was with what he put in and what he left out of the movies and how the most amazing scenes from the movie were actually crafted by Tolkien. One interesting thing that I just realized as I was finishing up 'The Two Towers' was that Sauron gets his finger cut off by Isuldor who then takes the ring. At the end of the movie, Frodo gets his finger bit off by Gollum who also takes the ring. Both Isuldor and Gollum die by falling into liquid (a river - lava) and the ring falls to the bottom - the first time just to be lost and the second time to be destroyed. Amazing. On another note, while the parts of the movies that feature Frodo, Sam, and Gollum are the hardest to sit through continuously (and according to them the most horrible to film), the part that Andy Serkis played as Gollum was quite amazing - you can't read the books without thinking of his portrayal.