Ron, throwing Aragorn off the cliff, in my opinion, did not make sense for the MOVIE (which was in fact what I was talking about). His vision of Arwen is a dream that he has while lying in the gully. It could just as easily have been a dream he had while sleeping at Helm's Deep, or a daydream he had while on his horse. It's not like she was actually there at the bottom of the cliff! So his falling off the cliff does not get her into the movie. Essentially, he falls off this cliff, has a dream, rides his horse, and still gets to Helm's Deep in time for the battle. The whole incident changes nothing and advances the plot and the character not at all. Furthermore, in my opinion it is just too much like what has already happened to Gandalf to be taken seriously. Will they have Frodo fall off a cliff and miraculously survive in the next film?

I'm reminded of the original film The Shining, in which we see poor Scatman Crothers hear the boy's psychic call, go to the airport in Florida, laboriously make his way from Florida to Denver, then get on a snowcat to plow his way, inch by inch, out to this isolated hotel, and the second he opens the door Jack Nicholson kills him with an axe. Why even bother to show all that? That always bothered me, even when I hadn't read the novel. Then I did read it. In the novel, of course, the character helps the boy and his mother, and survives....which explains why those other scenes were originally written.

I'm actually a little concerned about The Two Towers ending so far in advance of where the novel ended; ie with the Shelob incident untouched and the destruction of Isengard still to be concluded. Not because it was bad for this movie; this movie was fine ending where it did. But I think there's a lot of plot to get through in the next movie, and I wonder how Jackson will do it! I guess not all of Frodo and Sam's experiences with Orcs, etc, are all that necessary, so they may find easy cuts there.

I agree, BTW, with hagbardr. The film still rocked, but the plot changes were not necessary; or, at least, some were not. Like I said, I liked the Elves being at Helm's Deep :-)