After reading the books, I felt like the movies were rushed (yes, even the extended editions). You just didn’t get a sense for how long and arduous their journey was. It took Sam and Frodo a month just to get to Rivendell alone, and you truly felt like you were out hiking and camping with the hobbits for all that time.
In the movies, they just bump into friends and allies, spend a night at Bree (plus a couple nights out camping in the wild), run from the Nazgul, then they’re magically there at Rivendell. Doesn’t seem like it took more than a few days tops.
The whole journey to Mordor and back took a whole year. Imagine spending a whole year walking and camping across America and you might get a sense for how long it took them.
Honestly, The Lord of the Rings should’ve been a miniseries to properly flesh out the long journey. Even the extended editions cut lots of story and rushed the pacing to keep the story moving forward.
Yes! The Two Towers novel ended with Frodo supposedly dead from Shelob, and Sam picking up the ring to finish the journey. It was almost halfway into Return of the King that we find out Frodo is still alive and Sam needs to rescue him!
That was such a great plot twist. I was kind of sad they didn’t follow that chain of events in the movies. The whole Shelob thing was resolved really quickly, about halfway into Return of the King.