There I was, sitting in the movie theatre, and Legolas the Elf shot out the support holding up that ladder full of orcs besieging Helm’s Deep. And, slowly -- like the first uncertain steps of a toddling baby -- the ladder began to fall backwards.

Beneath it was a sea of orcs, millions of orcs, filling the movie screen with teeth and spears. There musta been 30-50 orcs on the ladder and thousands more below, jammed shoulder-to-shoulder. Sure, they were all computer generated orcs, but that didn’t matter. The fact is, I looked at what was happening, and I said to myself, “There’s no way they’re going to show that ladder fulla orcs crashing down into that army fulla orcs.”

Then, as the ladder began to tumble, I thought to myself: “You know what, Fred-o? There’s no reason they couldn’t show a ladder full of orcs falling hundreds of feet down into an army full of orcs.”

And then, as the ladder tipped past the point of no return and began hurtling down into both the sea of orcs and infamy, I realized: We, as an audience, EXPECT to see that ladder full of orcs crash into the army full of orcs. Nay, we DEMAND it! We will accept NOTHING SHORT!

Hell, I dressed up in a Hobbit costume and stood in line for two hours in the sleet just to see this thing on an IMAX screen. They best be showin’ the orc-smooshin’, and they best be showin’ it NOW!

And with a terrifying, thunderous clamour, the ladder and its inhabitants smashed itself upon the army as a wave would break on a rocky shore, a 30-foot-tall spectacle of orcish decimation on the big screen played out before my eyes. I was on my feet with tears of joy streaming down my face.

It made me happy.