Haydn brings up a good point. I've watched the extra features on all the extended versions of Lord of the Rings. If I remember right, all three have a segment on sound design which is fairly in depth, and thoroughly fascinating. The way these guys came up with their sound effects is amazing.

I remember in Return of the King, the huge pieces of stone being flung from Minas Tirith have some real 'oomph' when they hit the ground. You see how the sound engineers got the sound, too. They go to a junkyard, where they get someone to lift a concrete block weighing several tons about a hundred feet in the air, then drop it straight down. They've got their microphones all around the landing area, with a few buried in the ground to pick up the bass. Amazing stuff. They drop it on bare ground, piles of garbage, wood palletes, all sorts of things just to get an arsenal of brutal smashing sounds to work with later in the studio. If only us little guys had the resources to do stuff like that!

Brian