Good call with the Boromir scene in The Two Towers, seeing him and his brother together really did add something. I’d happily have had that in the theatrical cut instead of the fkn Legolas skateboard bit at Helm’s Deep. And yeah we didn’t need that oliphaunt bit, for some reason they just insisted on making Legolas like mega ‘cool’ ugh.

Is every blockbuster built in it, or built upon it? Pick one. You don't need 2 prepositions, just one, and generally one does not build things in pillars.

"The pillar upon which every modern studio blockbuster is built."

or

"The pillar every modern studio blockbuster is built upon."

You need an editor.

You're absolutely right about the theatrical versions being paced better, but most moviegoers these days don't seem to care about that. They want easter eggs and to applaud when they see something familiar that they recognize. They want more, more, more – or at least they seem to think they do. Good luck convincing your average mush-brained comicon-going genre fan that a movie isn't necessarily made better by shoehorning in an extra 45 minutes of footage. They won't even understand the concept.

That said, there are two things the extended editions have that I wish could have been fit into the theatricals. First, the flashback in TTT with Boromir provides context for Faramir that changes a viewer's perception of his actions. I feel like they could have cut a couple of minutes of Helm's Deep to make room for a version of it. Second, the death of Saruman scene provides an ending to his arc that the theatrical version doesn't bother to give, and it also provides additional context to Theoden's arc in the film and really makes his final words to Eowyn hit harder. I'd have cut Legolas taking down the oliphaunt and trimmed down a bunch of other fighting to get some of that in.

Aside from those, while I enjoy seeing the additional bits just because I love the world, none of the other extended scenes make the movies work better. They're just more content.

Am I the only fkr on the planet who prefers the theatrical cuts to the extended Jackson trilogy? I did love the Return of the King extended, but the first two extended cuts just crippled the flow for me, so much is simply unnecessary too. We don’t need Bilbo narrating what Hobbits are all about at the start of Fellowship, the nature of Hobbits is perfectly shown in the Shire part of the film. Elves being seen by Sam and Frodo on their way to Bree? The elves have a far more significant impact with us first meeting them later. “Rivendell… We’re going to see the Elves!” like yo dude you already saw elves ffs you aren’t landing on the moon.

I could go on but my point is basically god damn am I glad someone decided to trim the fat and make the theatrical cuts what they are