Wow. You don’t truly appreciate a movie’s editing until you’re assigned to watch a scene at 1/4 speed, painstakingly counting the number of cuts. Craziness. I’m glad the scene I chose was only a minute long. Well, the Rankin/Bass scene was 2 minutes and four seconds, but that was easy to count.

In case anyone cares, editing speed for Eowyn’s confrontation with the Witch King (or in the Rankin/Bass version, Malibu Barbie vs. The Knights of Ni):

Rankin/Bass: 1 cut/3.1 sec (40 cuts in 124 seconds)

Jackson, 1st half: 1 cut/1.05 sec (36 cuts in 38 seconds)

Jackson, 2nd half: 1 cut/1.8 sec (15 cuts in 27 seconds)

Jackson, overall: 1 cut/1.27 sec (51 cuts in 65 seconds)

Mmm, break time!