[HCIsland]

The real issue with Towers is the decision to remove Shelob. Once that was done, you were pretty much forced to make Helm's Deep the climax of your story and then all other decisions fall from there. Taking out things like Theoden's exorcism or the Warg attack wouldn't have helped King as they would have only served to shorten Towers. <P>If Shelob were put into Towers, these things (especially the Warg attack) would not be necessary, but imagine King with Shelob taken out. The argument that it leaves precious little for Frodo and Sam to do besides march over Gorgoroth is a sound one. Shelob worked well in King not only for timeline reasons but mostly because it put the Frodo/Sam story on even footing with everything else that was going on, and in the end it is these two that the story is really about.<P>So yes, the movie definately felt rushed to me but honestly, is it a credit to Jackson's story telling ability to make a movie that is 3 hours and 20 minutes long that feels like half that.<P>H.C.