[Neurion]

I loved the Lord of the Rings trilogy for the most part, but RotK was a bit of a disapointment for me. I was looking forward to seeing Gondor more than anything else, but Tolkien's highly evocative writings about the realm were not really done justice by Jackson IMHO.

In the book, the Gondorians command the allegiance of numerous princes and lords who bring their troops to Minas Tirith to aid them against Mordor, the most important being Imrahil and his knights from Dol Amroth, but there are many other provinces and principalities besides: Lossarnach, Ringlo Vale, Morthrond, Anfalas, Lamedon, the Ethir and Pinnath Gelin, all send soldiers to the embattled capital city, none even find mention in the film. While "The muster of Rohan" makes it clear that Rohan is a large kingdom, its army drawing men from many far=flung regions, Gondor is depicted as little more than a city-state, with even the little farms and homesteads on the Pellenor fields kept from view.

Then there are the characters. The book Minas Tirith has many engaging named characters besides Faramir and Denethor, and Beregond, Bergil, Ioreth, Mablung, Damrod, the Steward of the Houses of Healing and Imrahil are all vital, engaging personalities.

In the film, these are reduced to Faramir, Denethor, Madril and Iorlas, none of whom play much of a part in the proceedings after the second disk of the EE. Madril dies about half-way through the first disk, Iorlas disapears at the beginning of the Seige, Denethor commits suicide at the beginning of the second disk, and Faramir is left with very little to do after being wounded. Gondor is essentially reduced to a city full of very pale people who don't often speak, and soldiers who have better armor than anyone short of Sauron but can't even seem to handle small orcs one-on-one.

In case you think that the writers were somehow constrained to reduce the characters, consider the filmic Rohan's compliment: Theoden, Theodred (might as well count him), Eomer, Eowyn, Hamma, Gamling, Grima, heck, they even invented characters who weren't even in the books to further flesh out Rohan on screen, Morwen, Eothain, Freyda, (just so we can empathize with the peasants of the Westfold), Haleth, Aldor (the old guy who shoot the first Uruk at Helm's Deep), etc.
By contrast, Gondor almost seems tacked on as an afterthought.

I hope some day a new edit of the films will address this, but that's probably just wishful thinking.