For me, it’s gotta be Fellowship of the Ring. TTT was kind-of a downer, and RotK took far more liberties with the source material than I’m comfortable with.
And Gandalf facing down the Balrog = probably the best ten minutes of cinema in the history of English-language filmmaking.
The Two Towers. It is the tightest story of the three movies.
Fellowship. Truest to the books, fewest :smack: moments.
I chose The Two Towers but it just wins by a hair. I love them all!
They are all equally, freakishly awesome.
All of them are awesome, but somehow I always get the most enjoyment out of Fellowship. It seems to have that Tolkien whimsical, magical, otherworldly feel to it more than the others. The intro in the Extended Edition (“concerning hobbits”) gets me every time…
All are equally awesome.
Gandalf & the Balrog is pretty cool, but the end of FoTR where Aragorn is fighting The Boss Uruk is absolute gold.
TTT is well-told and not really dominated by any one scene–although the death of Haldir (Elves in Helm’s Deep argument aside) really accentuates the horrible wrongness of killing an elf, especially at the paws of a evily twisted mutant elf.
RoTK is long, and has a lot of endings, but EVERYBODY cries at the line, “My friends, you bow to no one!” That line isn’t powerful all by itself, it wraps up the last 11 hours of film and is a total sucker-punch. Win.
You are correct, Inigo. I always tear up at that line. The last time I cried at a movie was when Spock died.
Two Towers
However, I’m referring to the extended cut, though, not the theatrical.
Ooooh, definitely. Especially when the Uruk pulls the knife out of his leg and licks it! One of my favorite scenes of all time.
Ha, and the “you bow to no one” line was predictable and trite and awkward to me.
That being said, I love the Fellowship. Most of the changes i don’t mind, however, and barring 1 or 2 (namely, Frodo’s turning on Sam even for a second) I approve of.
I’ve been meaning to say this for a long time and only just recently figured out how to say it right. People get so upset because the movies aren’t exactly like the books. Same with the Sherlock Holmes movie, and a thousand others.
I like these movies - LOTR and Sherlock Holmes - not because they were similar or different than the books. I like them because it’s clear that the director loved the works and is making them with respect, as are all the actors. There are no phoned-in performances. Everyone has heart. It is clear to me Jackson loved LOTR and made a movie version with respect in his heart…so I can excuse the discrepancies.
Besides, I never liked Tom Bombadil, anyway. Blasphemer, I know. 
And then he throws it at Aragorn, who bats it away like The Babe swinging for the left field bleachers!
Oh I totally agree it was positively oozing with 6 types of cheese. And yet …
For me, Fellowship is the movie that works best. Boromir’s death scene is so excellent. And, I’m going to be truthful here, I felt it deviated from the books in the least egregious way.
I have a strange metric for what I forgive and what I don’t forgive in terms of changes. I have an easy time forgiving changes where I can see why they were made, and if they make good cinema. I have a much harder time when I -can’t- divine the reason for the changes, or if the resulting plot makes LESS sense.
Tom Bombadil’s disappearance is easy to understand. Even Elves at Helm’s Deep is easy to grasp. I have more trouble with Faramir - because they are always claiming they wanted him to have a ‘character arc’ but then they fail to follow through. His actions cease to make any real sense after he hauls Frodo off to Osgiliath, and it creates the need for the ridiculous “tunnel under the river” and that whole “I’ll just wave the ring at the Nazgul” scene.
Similarly, I don’t understand why they changed the content of the confrontation between Gandalf and Saruman in the beginning of theatrical RotK - the idea of a chance for redemption was a very powerful one, but instead they create this ridiculous “we don’t know where Sauron is going to strike next!” plotline as if Gandalf and everyone are TOO STUPID to realize that Minas Tirith is the last great stronghold of Men and is like TWELVE FEET from Mordor. Gee, I -wonder- where he’s going to attack. They also bafflingly throw away the idea that Sauron is ‘rushing’, and indeed, a great deal of the subtleties behind the War of the Ring.
Similarly, the Ents and their decision -not- to fight Saruman. Okay, we’re trying to make Merry and Pippin seem more like movers and shakers here. Fine. But you -seriously- expect me to believe that the ents just DIDN’T NOTICE the destruction of hundreds of acres of forest? AND that when they DO notice, they’re all like 10 seconds away from the forest’s edge ready to answer a call to arms? What’s up with that? Keep the gist like like it was in the book. Have Merry and Pippin give a stirring speech that overcomes the Ents native reluctance and unwillingness to get involved. The Hobbits still drive the decision, but the ents don’t look like complete idiots.
It’s a bunch of “little” stuff like that that adds up to bother me about TTT and RotK. That and the Paths of the Dead sequence in RotK EE was TERRIBLE and there is no excuse for PJ putting it on the DVD. Holy bad.
Best part of that is that Viggo apparently did that in one take!
I voted TTT, but it’s pretty much a tie between it and the first movie.
RotK suffers greatly in comparison to its immediate predecessor. The siege of Minas Tirith is too similar to the Siege of Helm’s Dee, and the latter is better done…
Fellowship. We get to see both Rivendell and Lothlorien. And Gandalf fighting the balrog. Unfortunately, we didn’t get to see Legolas scream like a little girl at it - the book was great for that. 
Rohan is just so amazing, particularly Edoras. Everything about it; the music, the location, the sets, the costumes, the characters. Everyone on the movie seems to have understood Rohan, and went to endless lengths to portray it well, beautifully and meaningfully.
So I am torn between The Two Towers and The Return of the King. The former has more of Edoras, but the latter has the charge of the Rohirrim at Pellenor Field. And the lighting of the beacon fires. Then again, Fellowship has the Hobbiton, Rivendell, Dwarrowdelf and Lothlorien.
So many people worked so long and so hard, with a sense of a near-sacred trust in their hearts, to produce these movies. I don’t agree with several of the choices Jackson et al made to the story, but what they did was a wonder and a joy to this forty year Tolkien fan, who had never had any desire to see a film version of LotR. I have rarely enjoyed the movies of books I have loved (although I can often go from movie to book with great pleasure), but these movies were a marvelous exception.
Skald, when are you going to start another Tolkien thread? I’ve missed them.
Boromir’s death scene is the most powerful sequence in the entire trilogy. It is, IMO, one of the great all-time death scenes in film. So FOTR will always be my favorite.
But I love the other two films, as well. The only change from the book that bothered me was Aragorn riding the Warg off the cliff, but that was because it was (a) a stupid, poorly conceived scene, and (b) yet another “OMG DID HE DIE OH WAIT HE’S ALIVE” scene in a trilogy that already had far too many. Nothing to do with deviation from the source material.
TTT (extended cut). The only revisionist flaw was the trite “OMG Aragorn fell over the cliff!” I loved the portrayal of Rohan and the extra time spent to the characters there (it gave Eowyn far more humanity as a character than the books did). And the extended Balrog battle, though done for pure spectacle, was a welcome addition; the books only alluded to Gandalf’s badassery, and I loved seeing the battle portrayed.