I finally got around to watching this after someone generously purchased it for me. It really is a tremendous improvement of the movie version. The problem with the movie version was that too many cuts had taken out most of the character development of the fellowship and also destroyed the proper pacing and sense of time in the movie. After about the first third, it was reduced to "battle - move - battle - move" without anything else. The Special Edition puts all this stuff back in and really creates a much more complete movie. So, go rent it or buy it here.
