ChainsawAsh said:

... "Super 35," which is 35mm film, shot full aperture, and then cropped to conform to whatever aspect ratio the director/cinematographer wanted. ... This also meant that fullscreen versions have more information on top and bottom, but less on the sides. (See Terminator 2 and the Harry Potter flicks - at least the first two - for other examples of films shot on Super 35.)

This is sometimes true. Have you looked closely at LotR to see if it was true? Generally speaking, the more post processing on any given shot, the less likely it is that the P&S version will have more visual info top & bottom. Given the heavy post on LotR, I would hazzard that there are not many scenes with additional data available in the P&S versions.