<div style='font: 14pt "Sans Serif"; text-align: justify; padding: 0% 15% 0% 15%; '>
1) Why did the Ents originally say no, they won't help out in the war? I didn't see any benefit to that and in the book they do decide to go to war after their meeting.
From what little I remember from the books (which I read LOOONG ago) and saw in the movie, the Ents were very divorced from the day to day happening on Middle Earth. Wars happen all the time, but 99.999% of the time they are of no concern to the Ents. (In fact, hardly anybody even knows Ents exist. To most they are just fairy tales.) Well, this happened to be in the .0001% of the time where a Middle Earth war did concern them.
2 & 3) Helms Deep: Why were the Elves brought into this? They didn't intervene in the book At All, so have them help in the book? Sure it was a nice emotional part, the Elves giving up their chance to leave MiddleEarth to instead help men. And also the reinforcements-- in the book Helms Deep was saved by the angry trees that hated orcs with a passion. They moved in, swallowed up the army, and departed. I liked the scene with the reinforcements charging in to save them, but it was still quite a change.
I had no problem with this as (to me) it's a minor detail. It kept with the spirit of the story of the battle while adding some dramatic flair.
5) Shelob: Wtf is shelob? Gollum talks of her at the very end which means she won't appear till the 3rd movie which is a damned shame cause Shelob's Lair was a big thing in the 2nd book.
I love this decision. I remember much of the business with Shelob as being pretty boring until they finally meet Shelob herself. The rest was just them running through the mountains. I don't think Jackson will have a problem with condensing this and moving it to the 3rd movie.
Like I said-- nit picking. 1-4 I don't really understand why they changed it at all. Everything else was just awesome though: Gollum vs Smeagol, the Dead Swamp, the liberation of the King of Rohan's mind, all grand.
Yep. Another very good movie. Will post a couple thoughts on it later.</div>