I don't know enough about how they did the effects, but the one that jarred me the most was when Gandalf was inside Bag End. When the camera panned, the picture moved like the focal length was a lot wider than it looked like it was: I suspect this was an artefact of the forced perspective.

Actually, the film finally showed me just how long an epic fantasy adventure really is: approximately 2hr 40m for a third of the story - and that's after they've thrown nearly half of it away!

Other points:

* Caradhas? IIRC, Saruman does interfere. I'd have to read the book again to know.

* I thought the beginning was very clever, with Galadriel's voice-over describing the history of The Ring.

* Elrond was miscast. Hugo Weaving just doesn't work for me in that role. Everyone else was very good - particularly Bilbo.

* A lot of the travelling scenes seemed disjointed. Except for the Shire, the land they were travelling through seemed to change too quickly between shots.

Lastly, I liked the fact that Frodo solved the puzzle on Moria's back door! :-)

Wade.