They could have moved to story on a little and maybe gotten to Shelob,which was one of the parts I was looking forward to. The sequence takes forever. I realize that in this day in age people want to see more action, but not to that much expense.

I think it was about right. The early reports were of a 45 minute battle, which would have been overwhelming.

ROTK is shorter, and TTT covers a lot of ground, so it's no surprise that elements from the second book will end up in the 3rd movie.

I loved it as is. It's the turning point in the war, and the rise of men, and needs to be shown in great detail IMO.

Plus, as Jason said, ROTK is shorter than the other two books, especially with the Scouring of the Shire not being included. This allowed Jackson to give Helm's Deep the time it deserved, and save the Shelob sequence for ROTK.

It's best to look at these films as one long movie, rather than 3 seperate ones. After all, LOTR is one book, not a trilogy. The books and movies all run together with no real breaks inbetween.

If you could edit them together, just cutting out the credits, and sit down and watch it all, you'd never know it wasn't one movie.

Thus it really doesn't matter which film events are put in.

They should have left Scouring of the Shire in the movie

I don't think that section would work too well on film ... too anti-climactic and unneccessary since not too much of the film was set in the Shire (meaning, why should we care about the land and inhabitants that we haven't really heard about on screen).

The Scouring of the Shire has nothing to do with the quest to destroy the ring, and hence doesn't belong in the movies.

There's simpy not enough time to cover what is basically and epilogue in the movies, given how much they still have to cover in the main story.

I liked the chapter too, but it's best left just to the book IMO.

what is the scouring of the shire?

The second to last chapter in the book where

Actually, PJ said in an interview that he wanted to save Shelob for ROTK because Sam and Frodo would otherwise have very little to do in the third movie. at least until the end.

I'm glad the battle scene was long. I felt like part of the movie was dragging up to that point. Funny thing is, I'm not really a big action fan, but I thought that was well done.

If it keeps the hobbit scenes at a minumum, I welcome it.

um......oook.