Brego wrote: Having said that I was also struck by how faithful to the book is the destruction of Mordor, Towers, Buildings and Volcano after Gollum carries the ring to its doom. 

 Except for the destruction of the Ring, which Jackson alters

Back to the passage now raised in the thread: this scene was perfectly suited to the visual medium of film in my opinion, even as a subjective vision from Frodo's perspective and intuition. But one can't sillify Sauron the terrible, that's destructive to my mind (Jackson's handling of Gimli, or other characters, aside for the moment here). And so, why take the chance? No one on the Jackson team thought 'searchlight Sauron' was possibly going to be taken as silly looking?

Brego you stated in an earlier thread: 'I thought it looked a little cartoonish' and plenty of people seem to agree, but I would not agree with a 'little'. And in the earlier thread you also wrote...

Brego wrote: If you were to portray this image, how would you make it threatening and powerful? An actual eye looking out a window on top of Barad Dur, or looking into a Palantir, or an invisible power? All of these things would weaken Sauron on film, not portray him as a true threat to the free peoples... 

... and I would say sillification of Sauron weakens him on film; and again, especially coupled with Peter Jackson's injection (nobody forced him to state this in the films) that Sauron is bodiless.