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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Kai Lord" data-source="post: 1323337" data-attributes="member: 3570">Without question.  For me, that quality was indeed maintained.  For whatever its worth, I saw ROTK without having read the book.  It didn't seem odd at all that the Witch King didn't face Gandalf.  His trash talking before the fight was cool, but the flow of the battle just didn't seem to bring them together.Since I had avoided watching trailers before seeing the film, I went to <a href="http://www.lordoftherings.net" target="_blank">www.lordoftherings.net</a> and watched the full trailer after seeing the movie.  When I saw the WK land in front of Gandalf and Pippen I thought "Whoa!  That wasn't in the movie!  Sweet!"  Then when I saw the movie again at the Arclight, the WK's line about breaking Gandalf stood out a little more.But the story as a cinematic entity apart from the book, cartoon, or even EE worked very well without the confrontation (for me).  I do see how it might be missed if you were expecting it ahead of time, but, speaking as someone who saw it cold, it worked.But PJ did show why the WK was denied.  A little encounter with a girl named Eowyn.  <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" />Remember that a film takes on a whole new life in the editing room.  Obviously PJ went scene by scene to determine what would stay in the battle of Gondor, and what would be cut.  When he got to the WK/Gandalf confrontation, he would have watched the entire battle with and without it, and obviously came to the realization that either it flowed better without the scene regardless of time, or he didn't have time for it and every other scene he included was superior, either on its own or in representing the drama that the confrontation would have brought to the table.Also as a filmmaker PJ would have had to consider that this would have meant the WK faced down five principle characters over three separate encounters in that one battle.  Gandalf, Pippen.  Then Theoden.  Then Eowyn and Merry.  When watching it in succession in the editing room it might simply have been too much of a good thing.Those are a few reasons to leave it in, as well as the possible removal of Eowyn's script immunity mentioned above.  "Well obviously the WK is going to fight Gandalf, oh no, what is Eowyn doing in the way!"  Not that I expected that, after playing up the "No man may kill him" I figured she (or Merry) would take him out when he landed in front of her.But I think your criticisms are fair (even if I disagree) considering PJ releases the theatrical editions as what he considers to be the best versions of the films.  I think the original theatrical FOTR is significantly better than its EE, though I do prefer the extended TTT.  Will be interesting to see how the longer ROTK compares.One of the few things I remembered from the cartoon was Frodo and Sam getting mistaken for orcs in Mordor, and falling in line with a group of them.  That seemed like something that would be really silly to see in live action, and wasn't disappointed that it didn't make the movie.Even though Saruman's finale will obviously be the signature addition of the EE, I'm actually looking most forward to the Mouth of Sauron.  Did you see the concept art drawing of that guy?  He looked completely wicked!</blockquote>

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