As an avid fan of Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings from long before New Line announced this movie "trilogy," I must say all three films were fairly large disappointments.  Now, mind you, I am not your usual, "The book is better" movie reviewer.  But it is almost like Peter Jackson went out of his way to take out the most crucial elements of the books and replace it with drivel.  Also every line that sounds even remotely cool in the books must be given to Gandalf, no matter who actually said it...  That's just frustrating, despite Sir Ian McKellen's stellar performance.  With what I would hope is the obvious exception of Orlando Bloom's third dismal performance as Legolas, the actors all did quite well; the characters were just not allowed to shine as they do in the books.

I see that the common consensus is that this movie is too long, and I agree.  What's most frustrating about that to me is that this movie had to finish The Two Towers since that film did not complete, and then this film left out the pivotal ending of the saga.  The Return of the King is actually the shortest volume of the three (there are six books, two in each volume).  As some have noted, the film noticeably scraps the scouring of the Shire, but for those who might have hoped for a fourth installment to finish that story, Peter Jackson dashed all hopes by disturbingly killing off Saruman at the beginning of the extended edition.  By the by, I understand many people feel that the scouring of the Shire is anticlimactic after the final defeat of Sauron, but for myself, I think the point that there is still evil in the world, and that heroes must still rise to fight it, is one of Tolkien's triumphs.  Back to my main point, though: the books were shorter while telling more story, because despite his depth and detail, Tolkien understood how to drive  a story along.  Peter Jackson, on the other hand, fails on that count.

Anyway, I am someone who always hoped that these movies would be made (I grew up watching the animations produced by Rankin/Bass and Fantasy Films).  But now I suppose I'll have to wait until someone is daring enough to try again, despite the overwhelming success of these films (which will probably not happen in my lifetime).  In the meantime, I'll continue to read the books every year.