I loved most of the changes in Fellowship; but that was always the least cohesive and most tangled of the stories, not quite sure what it wanted to be.

I particularly loved the small touches; Boromir teaching the hobbits to use their swords, for example, helped make him a much more sympathetic and tragic figure than Tolkien did.

From Two Towers on the changes became considerably less good though; throwing out much of the plot incolving Saruman in favour of an invented-out-of-whole-cloth side quest for Aragorn was a terrible decision and, as you say, the changes to Faramir were appalling.

One positive, though, was emphasising the point that Frodo failed and the ring was destroyed by chance? That was good, because it was a key moral point Tolkien wished to make.

I never read it as "destroyed by chance". Rather, it was "the pity of Bilbo" (mentioned way back in FoTR, I believe), who did not kill Gollum when he had the chance, that finally catalyzed the destruction of the One Ring.

The Scouring of the Shire would've turned the theatrical cut into a 4 hour movie, and the extended cut into a 5 hour movie.

Perhaps it would've made ROTK the first dual-part series finale movie (like The Hobbit, Harry Potter, Twilight, The Hunger Games, Avengers) of its kind.

Scouring was key for one of the things that concerned Tolkien the most: that even after the most virtuous war, there are losses and hurts that can't be mended.

And also, that the oppressed can come together and cast off their oppressors. I've always thought that was a secondary reason _Scouring_ was left out of the movie.

I remember being quite shocked when reading that part.

LotR is a book about hobbits. They start off protected by the rangers, grow and learn throughout the book, and finally use their experiences to liberate their homeland from Saruman.

So, one of the main points (the main point?) is missed, as well as Saruman's proper death.

You're not wrong, but ROTK has already been criticized for having multiple endings in the sense that the post-Battle of the Morannon parts drag on forever, and audiences were satisfied with the hobbits getting a happy ending without having to add an extended coda about Saruman calling himself "Sharkey" and the threat of sovietization coming to the Shire. It wouldn't have flowed well as a movie.

If ROTK had been made into a two-parter finale it could have worked, perhaps. Or maybe a separate spin-off film for the Scouring.

When you have that many layers, it takes a while to pop everything off the stack.

We went to see ROTK 12 hours before my wife was heading to the hospital to give birth. Her poor bladder almost didn't survive the numerous "is it over now?" endings.

Of all those movies LOTR was the only one with a reason to have a dual part finale.

Which is weird given that Return of the King is the shortest book (not counting the appendices).

Forget Faramir, their treatment of Elrond was the most egregious.

Some people are also mourning the absence of Tom Bombadil. Maybe Jackson was saving him up for a separate movie.

If Jackson could turn The Hobbit into a trilogy, surely he could turn three chapters of Tom Bombadil into a miniseries or a rock opera or something.

I think he's said in interviews he just had no idea what to do with Tom Bombadil.

He is a bit of an odd character, especially with no context of the Silmarillion.

That's the charm of it. The ring has not effect on him because he doesn't covet anything, only see things for what they are.

Part of his point. :-) (Bombadil's, that is.)