Why could they not just make two movies as originally intended?

Rating: 5/10 (23 December 2013)

The problem with the LotR trilogy was the sheer size of the opus. There was so much material that a lot would have to be left out in order to streamline the movie and make it work. Usually it tends to work and it did in that context. Here, however, the book is considerably shorter and one would think it would be easier to adapt to a movie.
The original plan was to make two movies, correspondingly to the structure of the book. Now with the second movie the bad story telling decisions made early at the scripting phase are beginning to snowball out of control. There's just so much bloat and unnecessary alterations without which a much more compact and to-the-point end result could have been achieved. Not much is left to expect from the third movie anymore. Maybe somebody could do a fan edit after the third movie is released.
The brilliance of Tolkien's work is in the fact that he wrote what he wanted the way he wanted to. The error here is trying to force the story to a mold it originally refused to fit into. It makes not sense. The original story captivated millions of people. Why could a true to the original adaptation not do it?