Hardly chop suey...Jackson did a masterful job of bring LOTR to the big screen...
Yes, a lot of books were left out. It would have taken three more movies to tell the whole trilogy...a lot of which would have been boring...
I was disappointed with him leaving out the very important end of the book when they come back to the shire...
That ending would have depressed left the audience disappointed.
Alas, poor Tom Bombadil...