ROTK Question *SPOILER!*

Dunno if it has been posted before or not but why the hell did they remove Saruman from Return of the King?????

Last edited by Shadwell on 11/17/03 - 15:33; edited 1 time in total

Can you change the topic to "RotK question: *Spoiler*"

Thanks

f*****g wonderful, you just ruined it for me.

Seriously STFU man you should know better....

You want the truth???

PJ wanted a happy ending. Destruction of the Shire.... well, that just wouldn't be happy.

Yeah. Ok. Right. Sorry.

Hush or I'll go back to punting you

Gambit

oh f**k, they took that shit out?

oh well, if it was in, it'd probably be a 4 hour movie.

I had a feeling the ending, in the Shire, with Saruman and Wormtongue was going to get ganked. Too much content to fit into a movie. At one point they were considering splitting RoTK into two movies. Wouldn't that have been a mess

The way the books are written:

The Fellowship is 1.5 - 2 movies (Imagine the added content if Bombadil was there like we wanted)
TTT is 1 solid movie
RoTK is two movies easy

This way they can add it to the extended version. Same reason they took all theextra stuff out in the other movies. Its the SEE the NEver Before Footage on the extend version...

I think they cut about an hour of footage because as good as the movies are, there are few people that will sit through a 4 hour movie (e.g. Apocalypse Now Redux).

they cut a ton of shit out of TTT too and pushed it to ROTK.. helms deep ends in the first half of that book but in the movie its up til the end. They had to push Cirith Ungol, the palantir scenes, the voice of sarumon parts, and the shelob part to ROTK.. sarumon will be in ROTK just not at the end.. there will be some closer with him prolly early on when pippin gets the palantir from them and then aragorn uses it to challenge sauron.

The scouring of the shire was kinda a happy ending, them going home and rebuilding and the characters being important in peace time.. it just was to f****n long for a movie. I think they could have pushed lotr into 6 movies if they had really wanted. But PJ is more interested in making a good movie than a quick buck off a pos thats long and boring (hi george lucas!)

I thought that in the book TTT, helms deep was in the middle of the book, and the fall of isenguard(sp?) was the ending. I also thought that the fall of isenguard was the big battle, and helms deep wasnt that big of a deal.

But, I cannot remember what part saruman plays after the fall of isenguard. Can someone refresh for me whats in the books?

lotek wrote:

But, I cannot remember what part saruman plays after the fall of isenguard. Can someone refresh for me whats in the books?

just the f*****g up of the Shire

-Nah-

Last edited by Nahualli on 11/18/03 - 13:58; edited 1 time in total

It was purely a cut to make the movie, a better movie. He felt that the movie would have opened oddly by having essentially the ending of the second movie, as the beginning of the third.

Some good news though, they are going to keep the scene on the extended dvd, so we just have to wait a few months. No big deal though, the scene is only 7 minutes long.

ROTK is supposed to be like 4 hours and 15 minutes unedited.

First cut of ROTK was 6 hours

The Scouring of the Shire was never going to be in ROTK, I don’t think they even filmed it. So really, after the fall of Isengard all you have left with Saruman is the scenes from the chapter “The Voice of Saruman”

That chapter really serves 3 main purposes.

1) Gandalf and the rest of the crew from the Helms deep battle goto Isengard and find that Merry and Pippin are still alive. Pointless, because in the 2nd movie Gandalf already told everyone they where safe.

2) We find Saruman is still alive, trapped in his tower by the ents. Again pointless, if there is not going to be a Scouring of the Shire I think it would just be better to let the audience think Saruman died in the fall of Isengard instead of wondering what became of him.

3) The good guys get Saruman's Palantir. Grima throws it out the window of the tower at Gandalf. This is sorta important. Later in the story Aragorn uses the Palantir to revil himself and sorta challenge Sauron, taking his attention off the ring alittle to give Frodo and Sam a chance.

So really, If you're looking to cut time, I can see why PJ cut out that chapter and Saruman's scenes. Only question is how they are going to address the Palantir, or if they even will at all.