Once arriving at Rivendell, the movie shifts gears; it assumes it's given enough exposition, and now drops the plot in order to start hitting the "high points" of Tolkien's work. To its credit, this means the characters actually begin to show a bit of the personality Tolkien infused them with. Unfortunately, without an adequate framework of plot to tie the scenes together and give them coherence and meaning, the movie simply becomes more confusing.
Screenwriter: People seem to love it, sir, so I figure it could be a good idea to take hours of storytelling and cram it into a 90-minute movie.
Producer: I mean, that's probably fine.
Screenwriter: Yeah, no, it's probably not a big deal.
Producer: I mean, that's probably fine.
Screenwriter: Yeah, no, it's probably not a big deal.
