I don't have much time right now, but I do wish to say something about the suggested narration or voice-over in these scenes. The problem is, I think, not only that a voice-over has a way of distancing the viewer from the story, but that later on in the movie, a voice-over would have definitely had no place in the movies. Once you establish a narrator in a movie or a book or any story, you are more or less forced to be consistent and have the narrator make regular appearances throughout the story. Now, I can personally think of very few and perhaps no other points in the three movies where a narrator would have added something to the story. PJ made the right choice by only occasionally let one of the characters narrate something.
About the short scene with the Wood Elves... this has rapidly become one of my favorite moments in the book, which is enough to ensure that I was quite disappointed with the adaptation of that particular scene. I must say that - though this is probably personal - I had never pictured the Elves to be so solemn, but I suppose it's impossible to really capture my image of the Elves on screen.
