[William Cloud Hicklin]

To chime in in support of Davem's last: Tolkien felt very strongly that Frodo's journey was far more important than the War; and that the most important part of the journey was the Passion of Frodo Baggins, the crossing of Mordor: which PJ chops down to an impossibly short bit of screentime (and, especially in the theatrical cut, the impression is conveyed that Aragorn's march to the Morannon took the same length of time as it took Frodo and Sam to climb down a hill). From Cirith Ungol to Orodruin was ten long, nightmarish days- the sort of "eternal week" paratroopers in Normandy described.

Both Helm's Deep and the Pelennor are lengthy and exciting enough as written- but PJ elected to drag them out (especially the former), and use up even more screen time on fripperies like Tony Legohawk and Eowyn's duel with Mr Potato-head, not to mention the Osgiliation and the Warg attack and other invented action-adventure nonsense, when he could and should have focused on Frodo (and, perhaps, treated Treebeard with the respect Tolkien had for him instead of reducing him to rather dull comic relief).

Compare, since it's been brought up, Lawrence of Arabia- which in its very long running time contains a total of three battle scenes, all of them quite brief; yet it's considered an exciting movie.