I don't think it needed to be longer. I'd have been happy exchanging some of the endless amassing for battle scenes for more character moments, like the Houses of Healing.

See, Jess, I found those to be character scenes. In the senses of the characters involved, the nations as characters, and the quest as a character too.

If I went to snipping, it'd pretty much be a random 10s off of every third scene, or something.

Until Xmas week so grandmother can babysit.

You know what the funny part is? The funny part is that grandmother heard about this plan and said, "No, wait, I'm going to this movie too."

There may be a series of viewings among the Nuttykin, each a different set of people with one left behind to keep track of Casper. I am doing my part by seeing it, with brother, tonight.

Hurray for Fandango and cell phones, as my planning is very much of the last minute. It is a womanful job, trying not to read the whitefont.

In the senses of the characters involved, the nations as characters

I can see that. For me, after the third or fourth time it happened, I was getting a little tired of PJ cutting away from Frodo & Sam to show us yet another wide shot of the Biggest CGI Armies Ever. I wanted to see more people fighting.

Those shots got a fair number of "oohs" from my last audience, Jess. I thought it was because of the increasing bleakness of it all -- the endlessness of Sauron's forces.

I mean 6000 sounds like a big number, doesn't it? But it's nothing.

So while I got the basic they're outnumbered premise, it kept being hammered harder and harder home. Although I enjoyed Frodo and Sam climbing more than I enjoyed them walking last time round, I didn't need to see any more of it. In fact, I was grateful for cutting from scenes I was really deep into (basically all Pippin) because I needed recovery time.

I mean [whitefont] But it's nothing.

Actually, that's a nitpick of mine -- he says "6,000 spears, less than half of what I was expecting." So he was expecting 12,000, at least. So what was with all the "Ten THOUSAND?!?!?! Nobody's got an army THAT big!" talk in TTT?

It's a small thing, but it caught my ear.

What's the exact line from TTT? I'd read it as Wormtongue saying that Saruman can't just get an army that big. It's not like he was working from a warlike country's population, or anything. The orcish numbers must be reasonably known and constant.

The line was "A force beyond reckoning" and, a bit later, "But my lord, there is no such army." I suppose he could have meant just orcs, but Theoden's reaction seemed to me like it was an unbelieveably big number, period. Which, if he was expecting to get 12,000 even after their losses at Helms Deep, it shouldn't have been.

Didn't Theoden look out and say "Is this all he's got?" I'm in a daze, so I'm not remembering well.

Yes, though I read that line as "They outnumber us, but they're REALLY easily beaten," not "Hey, that's not so many."