Thanks for the replies! You seriously did a great job. Bout to make my wife watch it to get ready for Season 2!

Again, some of these were very nitpicking… so altogether very well done

A few concluding thoughts.

Galadriels dream
Yes. I loved the tree scene as well. I think perhaps fading more gently from the moon into the dream would suffice, using only that scene before Galadriel awakes.
The cow
Yeah I get it. The goo is weird. But I genuinely had to go back to the originals to investigate if there was any other reasoning he had to be paranoid. Having not watched them recently, the logical flow presents a normal, but sick cow causes frantic music to match arrondirs panic. And it just sorta doesn’t make sense. Obviously Your call, but I think it’s worth it.
Theo /creepy guy/ stranger / nori
Yeah. After re-watching a few times, I feel like theos conversation with what’s his face is dispensable. I can barely understand what the dude says anyway.
Fake Hilt
I don’t think it would be a problem to utilize the fake hilt. We’ve already been ‘prepped’ that something sinister is brewing by Adars conversation with Galadriel. So I think the watcher would connect the dots and say “oh he hoodwinked them”. And then you can go from that scene into the sword moment, extend your cut to include the twisting and locking of the sword… allowing the music to die so you can more readily transition to Isildur and the horse.