Fordim, you do have a knack. I wish you had been my teacher.
I should also say that my comments are all rooted in the Extended Editions of the movies as I never saw the need to buy the theatrical versions. They're more ripe with character development anyway, as Peter Jackson said.
The first thing that comes to mind is a very brief scene, a couple of shots, really.
Sam says, "Look, Frodo! It's Mister Bilbo's trolls!"
I know in the book, this scene takes place in the daylight, and is a humorous lull from the painful trek from Weathertop, and it doesn't really recall the scene from The Fellowship, but it does bring back what Tolkien called "Bilbo's first serious adventure." The stone trolls seem more frightening in the film than they do when the four hobbits encounter them, but they are every bit as scary as they are when Bilbo encounters them. It's important that Sam is the one who says it. It was HIS troll song, after all.
Isn't it funny how little details like this escape you when you are re-reading, and come back to you when seen through new eyes? There is the image of Frodo and Sam in orc armor approaching the plains of Gorgorath that I thought was captured perfectly, without a word really, that had lost it's humor (or perhaps whimsy would be a better word) for me many years ago. The scene of Merry and Pippin smoking Saruman's pipeweed and getting a little drunk on his wine had become (for me) a structural necessity and a source of exposition, and had long since lost (some, not all of) its fun. For me, it had become a brief moment of joy at the reunion of this much of the Fellowship. Merry and Pippin were finally SAFE. The comedy of their display had departed.
I've noticed that there seems to be a theme to what I felt when I watched the movies compared to when I read the books. It has to do with the moments of humor. I think the movies very much brought back to me Tolkien's humor. He uses humor a lot to difuse the tension momentarily, for a few pages, then gets back to the action. When you're aware of the pending action, and you've heard the jokes before, I think I (at least) tend to simply accept the 'funny' as what it is, and then move on to the more "serious" parts of the book. P.J. and company gave me back much of what I had been missing.
Just as a side note, I must say, I agree with you about Frodo's smile on the Last Ship. When you mentioned it, I immediately looked it up. What I noticed is that Tolkien capitalizes the word 'West.'
Quote:
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And the ship went out into the High Seas and passed on into the West, until at last on a night of rain, Frodo smelled a sweet fragrance on the air and heard the sound of singing that came over the water. And then it seemed to him that as in his dream in the house of Bombadil, the grey rain-curtain turned all to silver glass and was rolled back, and he beheld white shores and beyond them a a far green country under a swift sunrise.
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It's kinda all there in that smile, isn't it?