Dumbing it down

[Sophia the Thunder Mistress]

So, why would they put up with twenty minutes of prologue, when it was not present in Tolkien's book?

I always saw the prologue of FOTR as an attempt to portray some of the history given in the chapter "The Shadow of the Past" without resorting to the lengthy conversation occuring between Frodo and Gandalf that's been known to turn some readers off as well, by its length and depth. A little more of that history comes in during the prologue of ROTK, showing the history of Gollum.

Now perhaps I'm not as much of a purist as I always thought, but I see no problems in taking a conversationally described history and showing it from a different viewpoint. It's when the history is changed substantially that I begin to get irked. For instance, I would have preferred to see Gil-galad and Elendil slay Sauron and Isildur come in later. It negates the heroism of Elendil and Gil-galad to have Sauron kill them first and then have Isildur come in later and clean up. However, it's a minor point as far as plotline of the larger films is concerned, and that's probably why you haven't heard much complaining about it.

Sophia