Yes.

Let’s suppose that 80% of an audience has an expectation that a jet, or an explosion, or whatever, will sound a certain way because the reference for that 80% of the audience is what they have heard on feature film and television, even if that reference and/or expectation is inaccurate. Most of the time the production team will give an audience something within the realm of what the audience expects to hear in order to enhance the moment, rather than provoking, by the use of actual/authentic/accurate sound, a distracting conscious or unconscious question in the mind of the audience regarding the sound just heard.

While I applaud those that attempt to give us a more real reality in our fantasies (did I just say that?), going against the grain of the expectations of the masses is perilous.

One outstanding example of it would be during the pod race in Star Wars - Phantom Menace. From the looks of it, Anakin’s pod is pulled by turbine (jet) engines and yet for the most part of race, the sound is that of an internal combustion engine recorded from auto race track (DVD disc #2 explains it). Even though this is a science fiction / fantasy, that portion was too far-fetched.

Now this opens up a whole new can of worms. In Star Wars and other movies containing scenes in the space, you hear the sound of explosion, propulsion engine whizzing by and … etc. How could that be? The space is a vacuum. There’s no air to transfer vibration (sound). In the movie 2001 Space Odyssey, they made it true to the reality when they show space scene. The public’s reaction was somewhat less than what the movie maker wanted based on what I’ve heard. When movies and TV shows started to add sound even if the activity supposedly takes place out in the space, people got excited (or entertained) more. Why is this the case one may ask? Like I’ve mentioned already, it is an entertainment. I’ve also mentioned earlier in this thread that if the movie is based on actual event like Black Hawk Down or U571, the sound should be closer to reality which would fit better with the rest of the movie, IMO. I believe the general public is sophisticated enough to know where to draw a line. If they see something so far-fetched in a fictional movie, they may laugh or roll their eyes like I did to the sound of Anakin’s pod engine. On the other hand, if a school teacher starts to feed far-fetched information to kids, that would be much more perilous.

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Just a couple of points:

1) The 2 LOTR movies so far are among my favorite demo/testing disk. The both have great sound, and they are wonderful movies that can be watched over and over again (at least I can watch them over and over). And I can't wait for Return of the King on DVD!

2) I don't think the Helm's Deep explosion is inferior or necessarily superior to any other explosion in a movie. I think it it exactly what the engineers wanted. As Wayne pointed out, the Helm's Deep explosion is in a stone wall. They show the Urik Hia running in the culvert with the bombs. How thick was that wall? 10 feet? More? That is some serious stone work. This explosion basically happens under ground. My feeling is that it is very realistic and very dramatic. The guys who put that together knew what they were doing. You may disagree with their choice, but it was a choice, not an oversight or mistake. And, personally, I am not "underwhelmed" by it at all.

Just my opinion and my 2 cents . . . and worth as much, I'm sure