the lord of the rings has been a great experience for a lot of people, some people didn't enjoy the movies. that's okay i can live with that. but for those of us who love Tolkien, nothing will ever come close to the whole experience of seeing these films. and of sharing time with our friends who also love them, some of my greatest memories are of seeing tRotK the day it opened with 2 of my good friends. so the ending was a little long... everything about these movies is huge, you can't spend ten hours watching them and have a ten minute ending. that wouldn't be fair to the storyteller.