Smell this, I think it's expired...

[Lalwendë]

Originally Posted by alatar

Not that I'd ever defend PJ (though I'm eternally thankful that he did what he did), but was the editing of FOTR more carefully done, as afterwards he then had to cut the FOTR EE version (and start a trend/revenue cash cow there) along with editing/enhancing TTT? Was this the reason that ROTK was somewhat better as his workload decreased somewhat as most of the machinery was already in place?

Perhaps, if you do prefer FotR that is, it was a benefit that PJ had less time to work on his editing? Often, the best work is produced while under pressure; maybe PJ had less time to procrastinate and hence to fiddle about with what was already good in the case of FotR? That would depend on which film you think is the best though.

Originally Posted by SpM

Except that all three films had largely been written and filmed by the time that FotR was released. You could have a point on the editing, though, I suppose.

I'd say editing is just as important in film making as directing or scriptwriting - the documentary which came with the recent Star Wars box set showed how Lucas at first had edited Star Wars really badly and needed to have a rethink. It is basically as important to a film maker as structure is to a writer. And in FotR this was well done - as several people have said already, FotR had good pacing:

Originally Posted by the phantom

I believe that Fellowship did a much better job sustaining suspense and tension throughout the movie, where as the other two movies had more fights but less substance between.