I just felt like the extendeds often include scenes that rightly belong in “deleted scenes” because they are either momentum killers, background info, or straight-up bad--like they just wanted to have the most complete version for archivists.

What convinced me off extended Two Towers was a very cringe scene between that wild, tramelled thing and the mere ranger (I'm terrrble with names) on the trail to helm's deep.

Two Towers is a pretty cut-and-dry action story, for the most part. Most of the character development beats happen in 1 and 3.

For Return, I think they just chickened out on the run timev-there's a few necessary scenes cut from theatrical, but also some cruft--like the romance with Faramir.

Testing out my new normie girlfriend soon, so I'll be doing the merciful thing and going theatrical for all three. Let's see what I feel is missing.