In reply to:
they should end at the part where the men and the king bow at the hobbits
no, No, NO! The whole point of the movie was that Sam and Frodo were doing what they did to save The Shire. It had to go full circle...you had to see the intact Shire.
It's a good thing they didn't follow the book or there would have been another hour of "The Cleansing of the Shire"
20 minutes of epilogue for a 12 hour epic isn't such a lot. If LOTR:ROTK does not have a Ben-Hur like showing at the Oscars, then the Academy is just a joke.
Mark
