I thought RoTK had serious pacing problems.

Me too. I didn't have a problem with the Massing and the Portent, actually -- although Gandalf's endless exposition can get wearing. I thought the pacing problems were in the second half, where all the Things Which Must Happen were kind of jammed in together. And there were bits that I thought deserved more buildup, but I'm getting hung up on my knowledge of the books and where the tension came from there, which is different than the movie, so I'll shutup.

Actually, in order to include some scenes to a length I thought excessive, other scenes, which I thought more iconic and mythic and cool, had to be chopped or cut entirely.

Yes, this. But I am as one with Nutty on much of this.

why Minas Tirith has a heliport at all. And if it does, why it has no fence around the part of it that leads to a 500 foot sheer drop! Hello!

Well, Moria was the same way, though. I spent the entire Moria sequence thinking "dwarves never heard of railings? Oh, come on, no one would live like this! One bridge as a defensive measure, okay, but can you imagine raising a toddler in this place?"

(Moria was kind of a disappointment for me, actually. I wanted it more claustrophobic. Oh well.)

I thought RoTK had serious pacing problems.

Me three and I noticed it right away. I remember during the Gollum talking to himself in the water scene, I kept thinking "hurry it up - this isn't where you want to spend time!! we've seen this already in TTT and there is SO MUCH MORE TO GO." and that comes in the fist half hour I think.

Related to the cavalry question... I had a big What the Fuck when they tried to draw out the forces of Mordor, arrived on horse, then attacked on foot. Why? Why would you give up the huge advantage of a cavalry charge? Why why why?

I never thought of it as a heliport until Nutty coined the term. I just figured a city cut into the rock needed a big place for people to congregate.

So many of the cities and homes are cut into the geography -- for the hobbits it works well, since they're cut into the occasional hill, but a Helm's Deep or a Moria needs artificial open spaces (well, if Helm's Deep were a regular home, it would). I'm glad Moria wasn't claustrophobic, because it was supposed to be not a mine, but a splendour.

David: I had a big What the Fuck when they tried to draw out the forces of Mordor, arrived on horse, then attacked on foot.

Problem I had there was that ignoring the horse issue, they were all together on a rise, absolutely surrounded by many times their own strength. Under those circumstances, the absolute last thing you do is break formation and attack. They lost the high ground and the shoulder-to-shoulder formation that was their only defense. By rights they should have been cut apart within minutes.

Tolkein knew this, but PJ sacrificed the logic for a shot of Aragorn screaming and charging.

t sigh

I'm glad Moria wasn't claustrophobic, because it was supposed to be not a mine, but a splendour.

I remember most of it (other than the Great Hall that we see in the movie as well) being described as pretty claustrophobic, though. Anyway, that's my Eight-Year-Old Katie memory of Moria - dark, and musty, and the weight of the mountains overhead, and that desperate run through tight passages after Gandalf collapses the Chamber of Mazarbul, and the orcs on the wrong side of the fire.

And the drums, of course. Drums in the deep.

Since we're on the subject of problems with the film, I have to say that a number of sequences that got dropped from the film (some of which, but not all, will be in the EE) were among my all time favorites in the books.

And, as most of us here have quote lengthy passages from those sections, we mostly know what those passages are.

Now, most of what was cut from the earlier two films, I was fine with, as those sections were boring (Tom Bombadil), or the different choices were more cinematic (NOT telling the destruction of Isengard by the Ents in flashback).

But my great disappointment about dropped stuff in RotK is that the stuff dropped was not undramatic, or even uncinematic.

The full dialog exchange between Eowyn and the Witch King should have been left intact, dammit. It would have gone down as one of the greatest scenes ever put to film, I'm sure of it. I so badly wanted to hear Miranda Otto spitting "Begone, if you be not deathless, for living or dark undead, I will smite you if you touch him." She would have given fabulous delivery on that one. Truncating that down to one "I'm not a man," line made me very friggin' sad.

When the EE comes out, we will get a version of the confrontation between Gandalf and the Witch King, but it won't happen at the first gate of Minas Tirith, where it should have happened, and where it would have been plenty cinematic, dammit.

Okay, if I go on about this too long, I'll get myself all worked up about it, and I do still actually love the movie, and think the trilogy as a whole kicks the ever-loving snot out of every trilogy before it, and stands to do so to all who come after for quite some time.

Is that the inscription from the One Ring on the collar of Richard Taylor's coat?