Adaptation by Vague Recollection

[Zigûr]

Originally Posted by Faramir Jones

My opinion is that many of the 'changes' were perhaps due to decisions on how to fill the gap resulting from the decision to have a third film...

The additions certainly are. Supposedly the ludicrous and utterly pointless chase sequence around the interior of the Mountain at the end of the second film was invented purely to pad the running time once the "trilogy" decision had been made.

This of course completely and openly contradicts the reasons Peter Jackson and his team expressed when the trilogy announcement was first made. At that time they claimed the change to a trilogy was to accommodate the presentation of material they had already filmed and were loath to lose.

I suppose they could hardly come out and say "We've been forced to cut it as a trilogy so that it will make more money for greedy, shameless studio executives in Hollywood" but it almost seems crass to effectively admit that the excuses they originally gave were fiction.