
They got bears in WoW, and look how successful that is! It must be cause and effect! We want bears because... well... bears are awesome. Medeval weapons are also awesome. Put the two together, and voila! Pure awesome.
And as far as accuracy in LoTR... first isn't to bad, third is WAY off. Although oddly enough, the thing that annoys me most is the seige of Gondor chapter, in which they put trebuchets on the walls and catapults on the ground... anyone who read the books knows it was the other way around. Trebuchets have high firing arcs as the orc seige weapons were described, had a range out of bowshot, which is the entire purpose of trebuchets, and the catapults on the walls of Minas Tirith were unable to hurl far enough to stop the orcish trebuchets, meaning it was the other way around... Not to mention, trebuchet counterweights are heavy enough and swing around enough to litterally shred whatever wall or tower they are put on. [/end rambling]