I recently watched the Lord of the Rings; the Fellowship of the Ring. I also saw the cartoon movie version, made in 1976. I noticed that although the appearances of the characters was different, the characters were pretty much the same. This proves that the characters were not all that mutilated from the books. Congratulations to Peter Jackson for choosing his fabulous cast, especially Orlando Bloom for his fantastic perfomance as Legolas. Also to Elijah Wood for Frodo Baggins, though his character is a little on the sweet, wimpy, side in the movie in comparison to the book.