>> Dec 17 - The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
>>
>> Yeah, like you need me to tell you about this.
>
> I'm worried about this one. I hear an awful
>lot of material is missing that is more or less
>essential to the book - like the scouring of
>the Shire, for example. I'm not sure what's
>going to happen to the film sans denoument, but
>I hope it's not a sweeping helicopter shot and
>a voice-over giving us a rundown of the ending
>and a cheery "happily ever after." Remains to
>be seen.

Eh, I always felt the whole scouring of the Shire bit felt tacked on anyway and made for a very overlong ending. The *story* ends with the destruction of the One Ring and the defeat of Sauron, all the scouring of the Shire adds is character fulfillment for Merry and Pippin. And since Merry and Pippin were pretty much used only as comic relief in the movies anyway, I don't see how it'll be a big loss to leave it out.

My guess is that the movie will end with the marriage of Aragorn and Arwen. I do hope that the scouring of the Shire bit was at least filmed and will be on the extended DVD cut, but as with the exclusion of Tom Bombadil from Fellowship, it won't hurt me too much if it isn't.

-- Dave