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[Edmond Dantès]

Yes!

And I have to say I'm excited to see what the giants look like.



The

Spoiler

White Council/Dol Guldur

stuff I am really looking forward to. One of those (many) parts of the book that I would wonder about and wish that more info had been given.

Tolkien thought the same at one point when he had the urge to rewrite The Hobbit in a style more akin to LOTR. To go into more detail for that particular subplot as well as dealing with the patronising tone of the narrator throught the book amongst other things.

 

[Edmond Dantès]

One of the scenes that stuck with me reading The Hobbit and one I am looking forward to greatly is when

Spoiler

Bilbo and the dwarves are welcomed and feast in Beorns home

. I had a very specific look in mind for his house, and I wanna see how close they get to what I imagined in my mind.

Gandalf's cleverness and the uber politeness of the dwarves really makes that scene. Certainly one of the best parts of the story.

 

[Starsunder]

Tolkien thought the same at one point when he had the urge to rewrite The Hobbit in a style more akin to LOTR. To go into more detail for that particular subplot as well as dealing with the patronising tone of the narrator throught the book amongst other things.

I think I remember reading something about that years ago. Do you know why he never went through with it?

Gandalf's cleverness and the uber politeness of the dwarves really makes that scene. Certainly one of the best parts of the story.

Yep. It comes at a time when, after so much hostility from

Spoiler

trolls, giants throwing rocks, goblins, Gollum, etc

the dwarves and Bilbo deserve a break. It serves as a nice halfway point, in my mind, between the events of the first half of the book, and

Spoiler

Mirkwood, Smaug, and the Battle of the Five Armies

.

 

[bengraven]

Stuck my post in email tags as I'd rather it wasn't visible to anyone outside of GAF, so quote to reveal. It's nothing massively major.

MGM and Warner have the rights to anything that was in The Hobbit or LOTR. (nothing outside of that, say Silmarillion or Untold Tales)

The LOTR features dozens of pages of histories, timelines, family trees, etc, some extending back to the founding of the Grey Havens in the Second Age. So technically PJ and crew have the right to anything that happened in that time period as long as either a) Tolkien wrote it in the appendices or b) it makes sense in the time period. While The Hobbit may not feature that information, LOTR featured information that shared the Hobbit time period.

Which is a very easy out for PJ to bump up the storyline.

In the appendices, Tolkien mentions:

Spoiler

The White Council
Dol Guldur
The wars between orc hosts and the dwarves of Moria (which we can nearly guarantee to see in some prologue)
The hunt for Gollum (post-Hobbit)
Aragorn's life story (post-Hobbit)
The story of the rise and fall and rise of the Witch King in Angmar
The very important creation of pipeweed

All of which could feasibly be in the films and would be technically canon and Tolkien's vision for the period. And there are entire centuries of cool stories they could still tell.

 

[Jacob]

Like I said; benefit of the doubt. She's interpreting how she sees it (wrongly in this case).

Fair enough. I can see her point if she was speaking of spiritual power, but not knowing what she meant, I'll leave it at that.

They've probably expanded Gollum's role somewhat. Knowing Peter, he's going to milk the character a bit more considering his almost iconic status amongst LOTR film fans.

That's a good point, I wouldn't be surprised if this happens. Some of the Riddles in the Dark footage was shown at Comic-Con and apparently

Spoiler

it was played for comedy between Serkis and Freeman

, which rather surprised me.

Tolkien thought the same at one point when he had the urge to rewrite The Hobbit in a style more akin to LOTR. To go into more detail for that particular subplot as well as dealing with the patronising tone of the narrator throught the book amongst other things.

You probably know this already, but in case anyone else doesn't, Tolkien also abandoned that project (the 1960 revision of The Hobbit) after receiving negative feedback. It's worth noting that negative feedback didn't generally stop him when he had his heart set on writing a certain way. A few years later, he published the third edition of The Hobbit (1966) which preserves the whimsical (some would say "patronizing") nature of the work.

 

[Edmond Dantès]

Fair enough. I can see her point if she was speaking of spiritual power, but not knowing what she meant, I'll leave it at that.



That's a good point, I wouldn't be surprised if this happens. Some of the Riddles in the Dark footage was shown at Comic-Con and apparently

Spoiler

it was played for comedy between Serkis and Freeman

, which rather surprised me.



You probably know this already, but in case anyone else doesn't, Tolkien also abandoned that project (the 1960 revision of The Hobbit) after receiving negative feedback. It's worth noting that negative feedback didn't generally stop him when he had his heart set on writing a certain way. A few years later, he published the third edition of The Hobbit (1966) which preserves the whimsical (some would say "patronizing") nature of the work.

Sadly, that was also the case with The Silmarillion. He wanted it published at the same time as LOTR, but the publishers were all quite negative on it. He carried on working on it till his death in a hope of finally getting it published in some form. It's actually quite sad to read his latter letters and to see how disheartened he was about it, but still so desperate to have it published before his death. I think The Silmarillion would be far more popular if it had been released in conjunction with LOTR.

The War of the Jewels and The War of the Ring published together in the same year...if only.

 

[Jacob]

I love the version of The Silmarillion that Christopher Tolkien edited and have read it many times, but I would love to have been able to read the complete, probably much longer vision of it that JRRT must have had in his head. It's a shame he wasn't able to finish more, and I agree that he comes across as very despondent in later letters. However, I think the big difference between The Silmarillion and the 1960 Hobbit is that he never gave up on the former, even if he did slow down at times.

 

[Edmond Dantès]

I love the version of The Silmarillion that Christopher Tolkien edited and have read it many times, but I would love to have been able to read the complete, probably much longer vision of it that JRRT must have had in his head. It's a shame he wasn't able to finish more, and I agree that he comes across as very despondent in later letters. However, I think the big difference between The Silmarillion and the 1960 Hobbit is that he never gave up on the former, even if he did slow down at times.

Exactly, it was his true passion and dearest to him, in particular Of Beren and Luthien/Lay of Leithian as evidenced by his and Edith Tolkien's gravestone.

They were Beren and Luthien.

 

[kharma45]

Do you know how much they've supposedly added?

Nope, no clue how much actually has been added, just that said actor wasn't apparently keen on it.

 

[mrkgoo]

Here's something novel:

It's one of the fake leaves from the tree above Bag-end. When I was there, I was walking back down the trail and it was just on the path.

 

[Loxley]

Jackson discusses why they chose to not build "Bigatures" for The Hobbit like they did for The Lord of the Rings and go with 100% CG doubles for the sets (hint: it's because CGI has gotten a lot better in 12 years):

The technology that advanced the most, in the last 10 or 12 years, is really the fact that we did a lot of miniature shooting on The Lord of the Rings. All the big architectural structures of Middle Earth were really miniatures, some of them quite large. But, you’re limited to what you can do with a miniature because you literally have to have a big camera that has to sweep past it, so you can’t get too close to it and the detail doesn’t hold up too well, if you do.

This time around, there are no miniatures. It’s all done with CGI. Everything that we need to build, from a miniature point of view, we build as a CG miniature. I can now swoop in, over rooftops and through doorways. I can do things that I never could have dreamt of doing with the miniatures. For me, that’s actually one of the most profound differences.

Of course this is really only a bad thing because the Bigatures made for LotR were freakin' gorgeous creations:

 

[bengraven]

Wait, I saw this on the panel:

The music tracks that you’ll hear are just temp tracks. There’s a little bit from Lord of the Rings, there’s a couple of tracks from some other movies. Howard Shore hasn’t started to record his music for this yet. I think he starts recording with the London Philharmonic in about five or six weeks. So there’s none of Howard’s Hobbit score to be viewed on this reel at this stage, unfortunately.

So...what about the dwarf song from the trailer?

 

[Loxley]

Wait, I saw this on the panel:

The music tracks that you’ll hear are just temp tracks. There’s a little bit from Lord of the Rings, there’s a couple of tracks from some other movies. Howard Shore hasn’t started to record his music for this yet. I think he starts recording with the London Philharmonic in about five or six weeks. So there’s none of Howard’s Hobbit score to be viewed on this reel at this stage, unfortunately.

So...what about the dwarf song from the trailer?

He likely composed it specifically for the trailer. I mean obviously he had to do some work with the actors since they'll be singing songs in the films. Its entirely possible that as soon as he was brought on he began collaborating with Jackson for ideas for the first music they would put out. As soon as Jackson had the trailer cut he had Shore whip something up.

They're probably referring to the rest of the actual meat of the soundtrack.

 

[StealthGoblin]

How are Peter and co getting away with including plotlines in their movies that were not strictly part of the text? Surely The Tolkien Estate owns those works, especially if they are found in the HOME, Silmarillion etc.

They've said on record that they've mined the appendices. Do we think that the rights also include those?

 

[Loxley]

How are Peter and co getting away with including plotlines in their movies that were not strictly part of the text? Surely The Tolkien Estate owns those works, especially if they are found in the HOME, Silmarillion etc.

They've said on record that they've mined the appendices. Do we think that the rights also include those?

The Appendices are apart of The Lord of the Rings and not a separate entity, as such they're included in the film rights.

 

[Edmond Dantès]

How are Peter and co getting away with including plotlines in their movies that were not strictly part of the text? Surely The Tolkien Estate owns those works, especially if they are found in the HOME, Silmarillion etc.

They've said on record that they've mined the appendices. Do we think that the rights also include those?

The appendices are a part of The Lord of the Rings and therefore part of the licence, so they can freely use anything mentioned in them which is quite a lot as you know. More than enough to expand the films.

 

[maquiladora]

How are Peter and co getting away with including plotlines in their movies that were not strictly part of the text? Surely The Tolkien Estate owns those works, especially if they are found in the HOME, Silmarillion etc.

They've said on record that they've mined the appendices. Do we think that the rights also include those?

The Hobbit is different than the epic quest of The Lord of the Rings trilogy. Tonally, how does it compare?

JACKSON: The tone is partially set by the novel, which is very much a children’s novel. That all goes back to JRR Tolkien writing The Hobbit first, for children, and only after did he develop his mythology much more over the 16 or 17 years later when The Lord of the Rings came out, which is way more epic and mythic and serious. What people have to realize is we’ve adapted The Hobbit, plus taken this additional 125 pages of notes, that’s what you’d call them. Because Tolkien himself was planning the rewrite The Hobbit after The Lord of the Rings, to make it speak to the story of The Lord of the Rings much more. In the novel, Gandalf disappears for various patches of time. In 1936, when Tolkien was writing that book, he didn’t have a clue what Gandalf was doing. But later on, when he did The Lord of the Rings and he’d hit on this whole epic story, he was going to go back and revise The Hobbit and he wrote all these notes about how Gandalf disappears and was really investigating the possible return of Sauron, the villain from The Lord of the Rings. Sauron doesn’t appear at all in The Hobbit. Tolkien was retrospectively fitting The Hobbit to embrace that mythology. He never wrote that book, but there are 125 pages of notes published at the back of Return of the King in one of the later editions. It was called The Appendices, and they are essentially his expanded Hobbit notes. So we had the rights to those as well and were allowed to use them. So we haven’t just adapted The Hobbit; we’ve adapted that book plus great chunks of his appendices and woven it all together. The movie explains where Gandalf goes; the book never does. We’ve explained it using Tolkien’s own notes. That helped inform the tone of the movie, because it allowed us to pull in material he wrote in The Lord of the Rings era and incorporate it with The Hobbit. So we kept the charm and the whimsy of the fairy tale quality through the characters. Through the dwarves and Bilbo, who is more of a humorous character. He doesn’t try to be funny but we find him funny and find his predicament more amusing than that of Frodo in The Lord of the Rings. That was more serious. So the whimsy is there, but tonally I wanted to make it as similar to The Lord of the Rings, because I wanted it to be possible for the people, the crazy people in the world who want to watch these films back to back one day…

http://marketsaw.blogspot.ie/2012/07/comic-con-updates-for-hobbit-third.html

 

[bengraven]

Anyone else kind of excited for the new stuff?

I mean, I've read The Hobbit so many times and adore it, but it will be awesome to see the bits between the scenes...the "extras".

 

[Edmond Dantès]

Thought I'd post this quote from Christopher in here as it's probably lost in the other thread.

Strange as it may sound, I grew up in the world he had created, he says . For me, the cities of the Silmarillion have more reality than Babylon. At night, he came into my room and told me, standing by the fireplace, great stories, that of Beren and Luthien for example. All that seemed interesting was from his way of looking at things.

That sounds amazing, I can't of many other authors who I'd want telling me a bedtime story.

Just shows how deeply ingrained Arda is in Christopher's mind and heart (mind the sappiness).

Anyone else kind of excited for the new stuff?

I mean, I've read The Hobbit so many times and adore it, but it will be awesome to see the bits between the scenes...the "extras".

The more depth given to the world the better I think.

 

[Starsunder]

Anyone else kind of excited for the new stuff?

I mean, I've read The Hobbit so many times and adore it, but it will be awesome to see the bits between the scenes...the "extras".

Yep!

I said as much up-thread. I can't wait to see how he's woven parts of the appendices in with The Hobbit.

Thought I'd post this quote from Christopher in here as it's probably lost in the other thread.

That sounds amazing, I can't of many other authors who I'd want telling me a bedtime story.

Just shows how deeply ingrained Arda is in Christopher's mind and heart (mind the sappiness).

This, more than anything really, shows how much that world means to him.

 

[Mr Cola]

Is anyone else getting slightly nervous at how little overall buzz there seems to be? Alot of my favourite movie sites havent even run blurbs about the hobbit press conference, the best i can find is a few "is a third movie possible" posts. I understand the world has been visited but is the general population working under the assumption that "yep, well see it, no need to create buzz" or is there an undercurrent of ambivalence?

 

[Edmond Dantès]

Is anyone else getting slightly nervous at how little overall buzz there seems to be? Alot of my favourite movie sites havent even run blurbs about the hobbit press conference, the best i can find is a few "is a third movie possible" posts. I understand the world has been visited but is the general population working under the assumption that "yep, well see it, no need to create buzz" or is there an undercurrent of ambivalence?

Still long ways to go yet as Gollum would say. The marketing for the film will be ramped up big time from Autumn onwards and the excitement for the film will be fever pitch come Christmas time.

Also, I think a lot of the general public are treating it as a given. Peter Jackson? Hobbit? Yep we're there.

 

[Loxley]

Is anyone else getting slightly nervous at how little overall buzz there seems to be? Alot of my favourite movie sites havent even run blurbs about the hobbit press conference, the best i can find is a few "is a third movie possible" posts. I understand the world has been visited but is the general population working under the assumption that "yep, well see it, no need to create buzz" or is there an undercurrent of ambivalence?

Wait until after The Dark Knight Rises has come and gone Then they've got over five months of Hobbit-pimping time. Also remember that there's almost nothing of note being released in December, every major film studio is steering clear of The Hobbit for a reason.

 

[Mr Cola]

Im not really sure what im concerned about, family film, all ages, great history off and on screen, good heritage and trusted hands behind it. It just feels odd to have this huge movie in production and not have everyone as geeked about it as i thought they would be. But yet everything is living in the shadow of Batman at the moment, it will be interesting to see how the next few months play out.

 

[TheJollyCorner]

Jackson discusses why they chose to not build "Bigatures" for The Hobbit like they did for The Lord of the Rings and go with 100% CG doubles for the sets (hint: it's because CGI has gotten a lot better in 12 years):



Of course this is really only a bad thing because the Bigatures made for LotR were freakin' gorgeous creations:

will The Bobbit have anything this beautiful, I wonder?

 

[maquiladora]

Im not really sure what im concerned about, family film, all ages, great history off and on screen, good heritage and trusted hands behind it. It just feels odd to have this huge movie in production and not have everyone as geeked about it as i thought they would be. But yet everything is living in the shadow of Batman at the moment, it will be interesting to see how the next few months play out.

Trailer #2 will probably get the hype rising.

 

[maquiladora]

will The Bobbit have anything this beautiful, I wonder?

 

[Mr Cola]

One thing I have wanted to discuss for a while with fellow Lotr fans. Now im probably in the minority, but did anyone else feel that Bernard Hill completely stole the show in Return of the King? As a King who some who new he was never to return his scenes with Erowyn at the camp and his rising battle cries at the Pelennor fields, unbelievable. As much as i think the Fellowship belongs to Gandalf and the two towers Gollum the third film is Theodens.

 

[Edmond Dantès]

will The Bobbit have anything this beautiful, I wonder?

There's nothing of that scale in an architectural sense in the story, but there are a lot of beautiful locations. Not to mention parts of Middle-earth never depicted in a live action movie or at all (Dol Guldur). As well as cultures we haven't seen yet, like the peoples of Lake-town, elves of Mirkwood and not to mention dwarven culture explored in detail.

 

[Edmond Dantès]

One thing I have wanted to discuss for a while with fellow Lotr fans. Now im probably in the minority, but did anyone else feel that Bernard Hill completely stole the show in Return of the King? As a King who some who new he was never to return his scenes with Erowyn at the camp and his rising battle cries at the Pelennor fields, unbelievable. As much as i think the Fellowship belongs to Gandalf and the two towers Gollum the third film is Theodens.

Indeed.

He even surpassed Viggo in what should have been his big speech before The Black Gate. Bernard's speech before the battle and subsequent shouts of "DEATH!" "DEATH!" were spine-tingling.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sdnqZcmWk8U

 

[Mr Cola]

Indeed.

He even surpassed Viggo in what should have been his big speech before The Black Gate. Bernard's speech before the battle and subsequent shouts of "DEATH!" "DEATH!" were spine-tingling.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sdnqZcmWk8U

The only problem i had with return of the king, they used the wrong damn speech for Aragorn, the one from the trailer with the music was so so so so so so much better than the theatrical one.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I7YllAOqpF4&feature=player_detailpage#t=99s

 

[Loxley]

Indeed.

He even surpassed Viggo in what should have been his big speech before The Black Gate. Bernard's speech before the battle and subsequent shouts of "DEATH!" "DEATH!" were spine-tingling.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sdnqZcmWk8U

Manly tears. Every time. The speech, the lighting, the horns, and that viola kicking in at 2:31, gives me chills to this day. The Riders of Rohan may very well be my single-favorite track in the entirety of The Lord of the Rings' score. I love it whenever Howard Shore would kick the french horns into overdrive, which The Riders of Rohan has in spades.

 

[Mr Cola]

I cant find a clip but when they are fighting the Oliphants, the whole scene from the chants to his "REFORM THE LINE" chills.all.day

 

[Error]

Indeed.

He even surpassed Viggo in what should have been his big speech before The Black Gate. Bernard's speech before the battle and subsequent shouts of "DEATH!" "DEATH!" were spine-tingling.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sdnqZcmWk8U

the best scene in the entire trilogy to me.

btw I hated the EE of RoTK and much prefer the theatrical cut. I prefer the EE over the theatrical cut for the other 2 movies, though.

 

[Mr Cola]

my favourite moment is a toss up between Boromirs death (basically the whole Amon Hen scene) to the fighting the Cave troll. Fellowship is the best movie in my opinion, so much atmosphere.

 

[maquiladora]

Indeed.

He even surpassed Viggo in what should have been his big speech before The Black Gate. Bernard's speech before the battle and subsequent shouts of "DEATH!" "DEATH!" were spine-tingling.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sdnqZcmWk8U

I'll never forget that scene in the cinema. Just incredible.

However, for some reason I really dislike the shot at 3:24 with the camera swooping past the Minas Tirith miniature mixed with the CG armies. Something about that shot takes me out of the world every time I see it. I think its the movement.

Sometimes I wish Peter didn't move the camera so much. This is one of my favorite moments in the entire trilogy. My jaw hit the floor when I saw this first.

 

[UrbanRats]

So.. since i'm completely out of the loop on this:
There will be two films, right? Each film is long as one from the LOTR trilogy, or we don't know yet? I want to understand the scope of this in terms of content, basically.
Also, both have already been shot?

 

[MYE]

Best scene is Gandalf's speech to Pippin before the trolls invade the Minas Tirith ring they are barricated in.

Also, the scene of Samwise Gamgee talking about Rosie on an erupting Mount Doom in ROFK.

 

[Edmond Dantès]

I'll never forget that scene in the cinema. Just incredible.

However, for some reason I really dislike the shot at 3:24 with the camera swooping past the Minas Tirith miniature mixed with the CG armies. Something about that shot takes me out of the world every time I see it. I think its the movement.

Sometimes I wish Peter didn't move the camera so much. This is one of my favorite moments in the entire trilogy. My jaw hit the floor when I saw this first.

Howard Shore hitting the high notes with that piece of music known as Foundations of the Stone/Glamdring really made that scene. All of his music was brilliant but certain parts like this and Khazad-dum, Lighting of the Beacons, Rohan theme in general, Concerning Hobbits/Shire theme, Grey Havens and The Breaking of the Fellowship are on a whole different level of excellence.

 

[Edmond Dantès]

So.. since i'm completely out of the loop on this:
There will be two films, right? Each film is long as one from the LOTR trilogy, or we don't know yet? I want to understand the scope of this in terms of content, basically.
Also, both have already been shot?

Two films expected to be around 2 and a half to 3 hours long.

Principle photography just wrapped up and pick ups and the additional stuff Peter wants to film is still to come and post-production/composing of the score.

 

[maquiladora]

So.. since i'm completely out of the loop on this:
There will be two films, right? Each film is long as one from the LOTR trilogy, or we don't know yet? I want to understand the scope of this in terms of content, basically.
Also, both have already been shot?

The plan all along was to release two films. Shooting was completed for both films. At CominCon though Peter has revealed that he has approached the studio with a request to shoot a few weeks or maybe more next year for some more scenes, they haven't decided yet how that stuff will fit with what they already have, the speculation is either used for an extended edition or the 2nd film will get split into two, making 3 Hobbit films, a new trilogy.

 

[StealthGoblin]

Best scene is Gandalf's speech to Pippin before the trolls invade the Minas Tirith ring they are barricated in.

That, and the subtle hint of 'into the west' as he says those words is a real tearjerker for me.

 

[UrbanRats]

Two films expected to be around 2 and a half to 3 hours long.

Principle photography just wrapped up and pick ups and the additional stuff Peter wants to film is still to come and post-production/composing of the score.

The plan all along was to release two films. Shooting was completed for both films. At CominCon though Peter has revealed that he has approached the studio with a request to shoot a few weeks or maybe more next year for some more scenes, they haven't decided yet how that stuff will fit with what they already have, the speculation is either used for an extended edition or the 2nd film will get split into two, making 3 Hobbit films, a new trilogy.

Nice, so quite a lot of meat there.
I would love extended editions, although in the LOTR trilogy, they kinda hurt the pacing, more often than not.
They conveyed some useful infos for who haven't read the books though (like, everyone being super old, even Aragorn, kinda shocked by that)

 

[SUPREME1]

Wife and I walked into the theater to watch Brave this weekenright as The Hobbit trailer was starting up. I WAS SO HYPED. I clapped, but nobody else did...

: (


I thought it looked amazing. All my reservations about how it would look are all gone. DAY ONE.

 

[Zabka]

The only problem i had with return of the king, they used the wrong damn speech for Aragorn, the one from the trailer with the music was so so so so so so much better than the theatrical one.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I7YllAOqpF4&feature=player_detailpage#t=99s

I'm a little surprised anyone would prefer the trailer. He sounds very nasally and shaky, like a dinner theater actor doing Camelot.

Here's the Battle of Pelennor Fields in excellent quality: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nr7Ge4YB4E8&feature=relmfu

 

[Edmond Dantès]

Wife and I walked into the theater to watch Brave this weekenright as The Hobbit trailer was starting up. I WAS SO HYPED. I clapped, but nobody else did...

: (


I thought it looked amazing. All my reservations about how it would look are all gone. DAY ONE.

Sort of had a similar experience before The Amazing Spiderman here in the UK.

Total Recall trailer, people talking seemingly surprised at the reboot/re-adaptation. The Dark Knight Rises trailer...well much excitement as expected. Then finally the Hobbit trailer and...nothing, total silence. I'd like to think that everyone was just in awe of what they'd just seen.

 

[Dmax3901]

the best scene in the entire trilogy to me.

btw I hated the EE of RoTK and much prefer the theatrical cut. I prefer the EE over the theatrical cut for the other 2 movies, though.

Ha, I'm the exact opposite.

ROTK EE adds the Mouth of Sauron, The Witch King breaking Gandalf's staff (but getting distracted by the horns of Rohan), a smaller battering ram before Grond (something I thought added so much to the battle), the death of Saruman, Aragorn confronting Sauron through the Palantir.

The list goes on.

 

[Error]

Ha, I'm the exact opposite.

ROTK EE adds the Mouth of Sauron, The Witch King breaking Gandalf's staff (but getting distracted by the horns of Rohan), a smaller battering ram before Grond (something I thought added so much to the battle), the death of Saruman, Aragorn confronting Sauron through the Palantir.

The list goes on.

I think the pacing is really bad in EE, much so than in the theatrical cut. Lots of neat scenes for fans that have read the books sure, but the added scenes hurt the film more than help it.

 

[Dmax3901]

I think the pacing is really bad in EE, much so than in the theatrical cut. Lots of neat scenes for fans that have read the books sure, but the added scenes hurt the film more than help it.

I always tend to watch the EE's in more than one sitting, so I guess that may help. I know what you mean though, I wish there were cuts with all the great additions, like those I mentioned, but with the smaller, unnecessary ones left out.

 

[maquiladora]

This is great.