I loved FOTR and I think TTT was even better, in the sense that it had all of the qualities of the first film, plus the extraordinary, never seen before Helm's Deep sequence that made ATTACK OF THE CLONES look like it was shot in a barn with hand puppets.

Some of the characters stuff is, IMHO, better and more credible that the way it was presented in the novel)(sort of like Spider-Man's origins). Theoden, Grima Wormtongue and Eowyn come across better and more believable, with more depth to then. The Aragorn and Arwen bit works fine for me, and Bill the Pony is back! Yay! Gollum also has a lot more depth. Great characterization all the way.

The film breaks off naturally, before the Stairs of Cirith Ungol, and more surprisingly befire the reckoning with Saruman, but I suppose it's long enough as it is... The only thing "missing" (ie: from the book), which I hope will find its way in the DVD, is some of the stuff that happened between Merry, Pippin and Treebeard. No entdraught... I don't blame the film-makers 'cause that would have taken us away from the main action for too long, but still.

Some nice touches: mentions of the Valar, Valinor, and yes even a mention of Morgoth...