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The Hard Truths of Editing RETURN OF THE KING info from Peter Jackson Himself!!!
SPOILER ALERT !!
Hey folks, Harry here... Sometimes working on an epic ain't easy. Specially when you have so much passion involved, not only by the filmmakers, but the fans themselves. About two weeks ago I heard that the Saruman/Grima work had been edited out of RETURN OF THE KING. My immediate reaction was... "OUCH!" I mean, Christopher Lee has owned in each of the 2 Lord of the Rings movies we've seen thus far, but also... His presence has been iconic and classy in a way that defies description. I figured that this news would best be left to Peter to address in interviews once the film began screening, as I was sure it was a decision he did not relish making.
Then, this week... the story began to leak further. No longer just to me, but Moriarty caught wind of it, and as Moriarty often does... He became profoundly upset. Afterall... Moriarty is EVIL - his favorite characters are EVIL. He decided to continue poking around and he found a very direct source that told him that the cut was made due to pressures from New Line & that Peter was extremely upset about this and was fighting New Line left and right.
Apparently this was what Moriarty was talking about in chat recently and at 2am in the morning two days ago, I got a call from Quint going, "What are going to do about Goddamn NEW LINE and this FUCKING debacle?" I was like... "What debacle?" Then Quint filled me in on what Moriarty had learned.
My reaction was... BULLSHIT. For the last 3 weeks, Peter Jackson and I have been trading emails regarding some collectibles that pretty much rule the world. I can't buy them, because I know he exists, and so all I can do is watch as he buys them and wish to god I had more money than Peter Jackson. (A primary reason for me becoming a Producer - there's Geek shit I need to be able to outbid Pete on!) Through these conversations, Peter has let slip how things are going, steps he's made through the process, and how at long last it is coming to an end and he's been delighted with the final film.
In addition to Pete, I've been in AOL IM's, e-mail exchanges, AOL Voice IM's and even those groovy camera thingees with folks in New Zealand that have seen ROTK and talk about being in tears for an hour of the film and how everyone feels it's the very best of the series by a very large factor.
HOWEVER, I was concerned with Moriarty in Open-Chats... and the mere charge of New Line issues upon RETURN OF THE KING to write Peter and directly ask about all of this, and Peter... knowing very well that this was volatile news... Not in any other sense than there will be a certain level of fan disappointment at the loss of Christopher Lee's scenes in RETURN OF THE KING, but he didn't want to see the record wrong on how all of this came to be. Here's what Peter wrote me....
Saruman thing you describe is a muddle of half-truths.
We have decided to save the Saruman sequence for the DVD. It's a great
little scene. 7 mins long. Chris is wonderful, as usual. Brad is in
about
6
shots. It was a film maker decision - nothing to do with the studio.
The problem is that the sequence was originally shot for The Two
Towers,
as
it is in the book. Since The Two Towers couldn't sustain a 7 min
"wrap" after Helm's Deep, we thought it would be a good idea to save
it for the beginning of the Return of the King. The trouble is, when
we viewed
various
ROTK cuts over the last few weeks, it feels like the first scenes are
wrapping last year's movie, instead of starting the new one. We felt
it
got
ROTK off to an uncertain beginning, since Saruman plays no role in the
events
of ROTK (we don't have the Scouring later, as the book does), yet we
dwell in Isengard for quite a long time before our new story kicks
off.
We reluctantly made the decision to save this sequence for the DVD.
The choice was made on the basis that most people will assume that
Saruman was vanquished by the Helm's Deep events, and Ent attack. We
can now crack straight into setting up the narrative tension of ROTK,
which features Sauron as the villian.
It was a very similar situation to last year when we decided to take a
nice
Boromir/Denethor flashback out of The Two Towers, and put it in the
DVD.
It
was causing us pacing problems in the theatrical version, but with the
Extended Cut just coming out now, fans can see this great little
scene. Thank God for DVD, since it does mean that a version of the
movie, which has different pacing requirements, can be released later. The
Saruman sequence will definately be a highlight of the Extended ROTK
DVD.
We have a lot of great DVD material this time around. As we crafted
the movie, we reduced it from an over 4 hour running time, down to
3.12
(without
credits - about 8 mins long). This was done by us. There were no
studio cutting notes. We now have a movie with a pace that fells ok
for it's theatrical release. One more week to go. We are nearly there.
Will we
still
be standing? It's going to be a close run thing.
Cheers,
Peter J
A week to go? The news about New Line making the cuts themselves had instantly struck me wrong, because I knew that New Line wasn't supposed to take possession of the film till November 1st. However, I had found out that 11 days before that time, Peter had added, I believe it was 12 visual effects shots for the Minas Tirith battles, and I had heard it was going to put them past their deadline a bit... Well, now it'll be 2 weeks past that date, which means that Next Friday... New Line will finally take over possession of the print, then about a 2 months of work will be squeezed into a month - as prints are created for world consumption. Wonder how wet these things will be by the time they hit theaters?
Anyway, that's the truth about Saruman and his scenes in RETURN OF THE KING, straight from Derek's mouth! A hard decision, one of many in the making of an epic.
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+ Expand All
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People that have been watching since the first one are probably dying to see the old boy get his comeuppance, but ah well....
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Nov 07, 2003 3:37:54 PM CST
Lee should gnaw Jackson's legs off at the knees after Douriff pu
by fred
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Isn't that kind of a major plot device? I'm sure the movie will be cool, but this strikes me as a serious departure from the book.
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That is a huge assumption to make considering you never see anything happen to Orthanc in the theatrical version. It is still standing. Also, does that mean that the Palantir that Saruman owns is never ends up in Gandalf's hands? Because the dialogue I have heard in various previews implies that it does.
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ah yeah
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I just got done sitting in nerd spooo while seeing Revolutions, and Now I will sit and listn to the whining abot ROTK. God help us all.
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would be an anti climax. After seeing the kick ass battle at the end of this movie we are supposed to watch another 15 minutes of Merry Pippin and Sam slugging it out in the Shire. Jackson was right to cut this out of the book and the Sauramon edit sounds like it makes sense too. I'll see it on DVD.
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I'll admit that the sacking of the Shire provides an interesting ending to the books, but it would be extremely out of place in the movies. You have to remember that while the movies are intended to be viewed as a whole, you're still only sitting down and watching 3 hours and some change of film in this one sitting, and the movie therefore has to stand on its own. The novels were strutctured as a series, and as such an entire chapter of that series could be devoted to the epilogue, but for a movie trilogy, the sacking of the shire would just seem out of place and clunky.
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Damn!!! No slitting Saruman's throat... No four hobbits returning, hardened by battle, and kicking ass back in their home towns... I was looking forward to that... I loved the fact that there are really two climatic points in Return of The King... I was curious to see how Peter Jackson handled those. Hey, but I don't blame the guy, I'm sure if it were up to him we'd have a "Shogun" saga to see, rather than a 3 hour film. I've enjoyed the films so far and think he has done a kick ass job. I'm sure this will be no different.
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Because Aragorn uses Saruman's palintir to reveal himself to Sauron, and this palintir is the same one Pippin peeks into that gets ol Saurie all fired up and sends his armies to Minas Tirith. What, will there be voice over?
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What the heck did the MPAA view to give it it's PG-13 rating, then, if they haven't seen the final print. How do they know PJ won't slip in a few extra beheadings, eh?
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For both the EV TTT and ROTK!
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For both the EV TTT and ROTK!
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Saruman was incredibly cool and menacing. Actually, I wouldn't have "assumed" the Ents kicked his sack. I would have been going "Where's Chris?"
I'm glad I read this posting. -
Nov 07, 2003 4:08:35 PM CST
Christopher Lee is Gunno be mighty pissed for sure - He was on t
by darth_billy
Christopher Lee was on the Simon Mayo show today (on radio 5 live, a UK station). He was talking about how he really doesn't enjoy watching his own roles in movies. He did, however, say that he is REALLY looking forward to seeing ROTK, as he has not seen it, and his character has a critical role in the film. That the film plot hinges on this scene that is going to be in ROTK. The thing is, he sounded really nice, and very enthusiastic about it. I knida feel sorry for him, and I hope to god somebody let's him know that his scene eas cut, so that he doesn't end up feeling like David Prowse after watching TESB for the first time at the cinema. Anyhows, Christopher Lee was saying that he really admires and respects PJ, so I am sure that he will uunderstand that it is for the good of the film, but still, you gotta feel for the man.
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I don't know what the stats are, but how many people who watch these movies have already read the books? In terms of pacing, yeah, the Scouring would be an awkward ending to the movie (they'll opt for the pastoral, everyone-standing-around-cheering-at-Lothlorien-ending-a-la-Star-Wars-movies ending instead.) However, like someone already said, the Scouring is ulimately the point of the whole book. Cutting it won't trivialize the whole trilogy, but it won't give it the same kind of closure. Or maybe I'm just tired. Out.
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Pissed that its happening & relieved I don't have to find out in the theater; I will be prepared for it. I feel like Lee already got the shaft in TTT. We barely saw him. Now we won't see him at all in ROTK??? What a let down. As for leaving out the Palantir, this is possible because of the story shift at the end of the TTT film. In the book, Sauron knew their were Hobbits in Minis Tirith because of Pippin & the Palantir. In the films he knows because of the Nazgul seeing Frodo in Minis Tirith. I still hate that they took him there. Because of this they don't need to have Pippin look into the Palantir.
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How can they not show the death of one of the main villians in the story? I'm no purist but even I can see that not showing it is something that is going to make everyone say "WTF?". Not showing what happens him would be like not showing how emperor palpatine dies in Return of the jedi. We, the audience, could just assume Luke takes care of him after he defeats Vader but that is no way to tell a story. Not to mention that fact that Gandalf and company have to go to Isengard anyways to pick up Merry, Pippin, and the palantir. Good god, it looks like Peter Jackson is well on his way to do the impossible and fuck up ROTK into Matrix Revolution proportions.
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...Frodo went to Osgiliath, not Minas-Tirith. So I imagine the Palantir is still going to be a part of the movies.
Still pissed about the cutting of this scene, though, are they going to throw in a voiceover or something, because I doubt most people would assume the Ents killed him or something, HE'S A FRIGGIN WIZARD -
So the last thing we see of Saruman is what, him full of fear from the Ents? Big deal. After all that talk of Gandalf being "what Saruman should have been" they need to confront each other. Hell, it'd be nice to see that Saruman's powers extend beyond his Thunder-Punch He-Man telekinesis (his Voice). And the Scouring is needed, to, for plot. Merry and Pippin find Shire pipe-weed at Orthanc...THAT NEEDS TO BE EXPLAINED! You see, no one else in the world knows or cares about hobbits. (That's why Gandalf loves them so much. They're still pure.). Saruman, at the beginning, looks down on smoking. Why is he smoking now, and what does that mean for the Shire? That's plot screw ups. If PJ wasn't going to do the Scouring, he shouldn't have spent 45 minutes in the Shire in Fellowship setting up the tragedy. And to leave out the Scouring also screws up the biggest themes in the movie/book - that you have to grow up, that you have to make tough decisions, that you have to fight to keep things beautiful in the world, that you have to make your own future, that you have to see the world in order to grow. That you have to stand up for right. That you have to live. And what about the Grey Havens? Are they in, or is PJ gonna leave that out, too? Still, to have the Haven's without the Scouring. It isn't right. It just isn't right, PJ. The tragedy of the Scouring would be enough to keep us there for 20 minutes after the Houses of Healing.
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... I have been a staunch supporter of PJ's adaptations, but this, man I just don't understand aome of the decisions that were made for T2T at all in light of this development. You could have easily fit this sequence into T2T in lieu of some of the invented stuff and a few shots of terrified Rohirrim women and children. How in blue blazes does Gandalf get the Palantir without the confrontation at Orthanc for god's sake?! More invented crap off screen? Could this be a hoax? If this is true, I am VERY dissapointed; me who has been one of the faithful, chanting: "Trust PJ". I think ROTK will still be a very good if not great film regardless, but this really leaves a bad taste in the mouth.
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Harry - How about showing us the whole letter?
It either wasn't addressed to you, or you've been had by some jackass fan posing as PJ. You're friends with him?
Right...
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Nov 07, 2003 6:12:57 PM CST
We're saving it for the DVD. Ugh, As much as I love the extended
by xavier masterson
And heres an idea...If the seven minutes of footage of Saruman and Grima wasn't suited for the beginning of ROTK as Peter says then why not put it in the Two Towers extended edition?****I think this just goes to show how important it was to wrap up the Saruman storyline in Two Towers instead of moving the last third of TT the book to the beginning of ROTK. Sure Peter could have left Shelob for ROTK but he really shot himself in the foot by waiting to show Gandalf and Saruman's final confrontation for the third chapter. Bad,bad judgment. So I guess we won't see the true end of this epic story until around Nov 2005 when the extended edition of ROTK comes out.***** I really hate to bitch about Jacksons handling of this as I think he's done a wonderful job of adapting the books and just making all of us happy by creating a truly emotional set of films instead of mindless actioners out of this. Oh well, Nov. 2005 it is. -
Puh-leez. If PJ was going to wreck LOTR, he would have done it 2 films ago. Oh ye of little faith! It's going to wind up on the DVD set that you're going to wait in line at midnight to buy, so just chill. Sheesh.
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This does blow, i understand the pacing problems it presents. but i wonder why it is going to the extended cut of ROTK instead of TTT. it belongs in TTT anyway. I love hearing that people have been crying for an hour of the picture, that's exactly what i want the movie to do for audiences when it arrives in theaters.
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Nov 07, 2003 6:16:24 PM CST
The more I hear of RoTK, the more I think its going to suck. Her
by effigy2002
I'd known way back since Fellowship that the Scouring wasnt gouing to be in this film, and I'd come to terms with it. As cool and as pivotal a scene as it was, I cant help but agree with Jackson that it was sort of an anti climax to the books main story, and that the majority of vacuous film goers out there won't 'get' it. HOWEVER... taking out Sauraman, and the pivotal scene where Gandalf break his wand and expels him from Isengaurd is just *the* most f**ked up decision, ever. Well, then again, I've also heard that Aaragorn has a sword fight with a re-embodied Sauron at the end of the film, which if true is *actually* the most f**ked up decision ever. Peter Jackson, if you're reading this, and the Sauron thing is true, I implore you to cut that instead, and leave Sauraman's scenes in, if only so we can see more of Christopher Lee's brilliant acting. If its not true that Sauron and Aaragorn have a sword fight (thank gawd), I'd suggest cutting some of the crap that didnt happen in the book, of which I'm sure you have plenty of in RoTK. As a good starting point, I might suggest anything that has to do with Aaragorn and Arwens love story. Oh, and please make sure that the Witch King rides into Gondor, rather than flies in, cause that scene as played in the book is way cool. As a final thought, and speaking as a fan of the book (a purist if you will), I have to say that what I'm hearing of RoTK does not fill me with hope. Then again, ever since the travesty that was Two Towers, I didnt have much hope left anyway.
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It was a mistake not to include Voice of Saruman in TTT. And now they are going to remove it totally?? How can they discard such a dramatic moment? How can they they believe audience will buy that the major villain of TTT just simply be "vanquished"? So disappointing.
If it is true, I am going to skin that giant Panda!
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Here we go again. I'm not going to make a judgement about (just about) any movie without seeing it first, but I have chip in my opinion:
I, like so many others here, felt that the changes made to FOTR were good and necessary, and kept not only the spirit of the books, but the continuity of the story. However, many of the changes made to TTT, while cool in some spots (and necessary at times too), contradicted the novel too blatantly. People on this site, like raw_bean have done a very good job of explaining to me how the adjustments PJ made here don't necessarily jeopardize the continuity of the story, but still, a lot of Tolkien seems to be missing and in place is a lot of PJ, most notably the WARG sequence, while a nifty little action sequence in it's own right, saps time from other things that WERE in the book that he could have spent more time on. Not only that, it sets up another FAKE DEATH SEQUENCE which I think some people will tire of (this characters dead, cue the slow-mo and a close up of someone with one tear running down their cheek and get those vienna boys singing, oh wait, no, HE'S ALIVE, SURPRISE!! What's that? You're not surprised?), especially since Tolkien already threw in enough of those to choke a horse on without PJ adding in more. You can say what you like about this and you're entitled to disagree, but I think it was a mistake. Anyway, now that he's wasted a bunch of time in TTT, he has a lot to make up for in ROTK. When I heard that the scouring was being cut, it didn't bug me one bit. Why? Like Tom Bombadil, it was a necessary cut. It's like a mini-climax after the real climax, and that really doesn't translate well filmically (sp?). And I realize, yea, even as I type this, that this means they would have to alter the death sequence of Saruman, and again, I was fine with that. NECESSARY. Key word. But if they cut the death of Saruman, it will accomplish a couple of things:
1-The majority of people I know who are more casual fans of the movie (and who haven't read the books) really look forward to seeing Saruman's demise. PJ beefed up his role so much that some people forget and think he's the main villain. They're going to be totally bewildered when they see this. They will NOT assume that the ents did him in. I promise.
2-Another "My brother Boromir's dead" inconsistancy could be created (absent a voice over or another unforeseen adjustment) and again, people who don't know the story already, even if they're paying attention will be confused.
Anyways, I know that in posting this I may come across as a "purist" or a hater, but in truth I'm neither. I just worry about these films, who have so much potential, going downhill due to the strain of deadlines and some poor decision making. PJ did a fantastic job with the first and a good, but imperfect job with the second, so lets hope it all comes out in the wash. -
There are already tons of plot holes in this series...one more won't make a big difference.
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All you babies bitching about PJ's decision should really quit your crying and chill out.
PJ has delivered 2 great movies so far and the buzz is strong that ROTK will be the best of the three. He has certianly proved that he knows what he is doing, so why not give him a chance?
If you want to bitch, fine, but at least wait until you've seen the movie and you know how the thing actually plays out. -
Nov 07, 2003 6:29:36 PM CST
Man, I love these movies so much more than The Matrix movies...
by hardcorerocker
...yet strangely, I kind of had a guilty-pleasure good time at Matrix Revolutions. My review for my website took me a million years to write, cuz it wasn't a great movie, yet I had fun. I'm still torn. Siiiigh. All I know is Hugo Weaving = God. www.rockithardcore.com
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Nov 07, 2003 6:29:39 PM CST
Basically what Jackson is saying is that he screwed up.
by xavier masterson
Hmmm, so the scenes with Saruman and Grima when Gandalf and company arrive at Isengard after the Ent attack didn't belong after the attack of Helm's deep but they also don't belong at the beginning of ROTK. So where do they belong? They belong exactly where thay should have been in the first place...THE TWO TOWERS. These are the scenes that should be put in the Two Towers extended edition and now that I think that Jackson realizes it... it's too late. The TT EE is too close to it's release date to recall them and add the scenes to them.
You also have to question why Jackson thinks these scenes won't work in the theatrical cut of ROTK as he feels it seems more like a wrap up than a beginning to the new film yet he thinks they will work on the extended cut. Either they work or they don't.**** I don't know if I want to believe that this was Jackson's decision but do you really think he would cut Christopher Lee's scenes? I think Peter is just trying to spin it and this really was New line's decision. Jackson is too smart to make these sort of story decisions that forces the audience to fill in such a huge gap as to the fate of Saruman and Grima. -
I never read ANY of the books - so I NEVER would've assumed Saruman gets whacked by the Ents/whatever. You DEFINATELY need resolution to his storyline; hell, I'm not a purist and even I agree it's necessary. Otherwise those of us who haven't read the books are thinking "what happened to Saruman? Did he abandon the town and jet to the Long White Beards Resort or something?" Seriously - especially after Gandalf gets his ass handed to him by Saruman in FOTR - you NEED to have these two square off and settle things, once and for all, for resolution of the storyline.
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You people crack me up. Does it really matter? No, it doesn't. Peter Jackson has made 2 monumental films, and you're worried about him leaving out a 7 minute scene that was altered from the book anyways? Get over it! Like PJ said in all the interviews and commentaries: The plot of the movie is to get Frodo to Mount Doom and destroy the Ring. ROTK is going to ge great, so just get over all the rumors and just enjoy the freakin movie. And onother thing: Don't complain about a movie that you nor anyone else has seen yet. And don't complain if you can't even spell the character's names correctly. The Scouring of the Shire was NOT the 'main point' of the whole story. Frodo sacrificing everything to save Middle Earth is the 'main point', morons.
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Nov 07, 2003 6:37:20 PM CST
I trust Peter enough to reserve judgement until after i've seen
by 007-11
He treats a fan right, unlike the Wachowskis's, DON'T SEE REVOLTUIONS!
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Nov 07, 2003 6:38:02 PM CST
At the end of TTT Saruman's backyard is flooded and he's freakin
by jaguart
And the Ents are rampaging. Its sounds plausible that they did him in. What I can't understand is what is so important between him and Grima that takes 7 minutes of screen time? That's pretty long. After watching the film many times, I feel the film "wraps" a bit too quickly, esp right after Gandalf and Eomer show up and save the day. It looks like 1,000's of Orcs just disappear. They could have easily tacked on 3 minutes of the Saruman/Grima scene.
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.... is when morons who havent read the book (or infact, anyone for that matter) says that Peter Jacksons made "two great films" when infact he has only made one great film... and it now seems he just got lucky with Fellowship. He completely fucked up TTT, and after the editing choices he made in that shambolic disaster of a film, I wont trust him with anything ever again. A 7 minute scene it may only be, but its also an important, and downright cool one. I want RoTK to be a 'Return of the Greatness' we saw in Fellowship, but I doubt very much, from what I've heard and todays news, that it will be.
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...I'm saying things people have said already but...This is poo. Stinky poo. I can understand the loss of The Scouring-- but this? There's a faint hope in my head that this choice will change at the last minute. I love Mr. Jackson for ideals and all of his films -- but cutting out the death scene of Lee's Saruman (after Lee was already a bit shafted in The Two Towers) sounds very disappointing. Even if Saruman's role was originally *largened* for the films. And NO, the general audience WILL NOT assume or understand that Saruman was "vanquished" (what are we, on Buffy here?!) by the Ents at the end of TTT. Though ironically I'm actually glad I know this sad fact now, as otherwise I would have spent half the running time of my first viewing of ROTK wondering where the hell Saruman was, and what Lee himself must be thinking right now. In fact I'm REALLY interested to see what Lee will think of Jackson now (*especially* after that apparent UK radio interview where he waxed joyfully about Jackson, the new film and his scenes). Sad, sad, sad. JM signing off...
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Nov 07, 2003 6:48:24 PM CST
Cut PJ some slack and have a little faith! He's poured his heart
by niphredil bloom
I understand that these scenes are crucial to the books, but many of you forget that cinema is a totally different form of story-telling, and when you take into account the limits of theatrical running time, adjustments will have to be made and scenes cut - even the crucial ones. Surely you understand how hard PJ's worked on these films, and how much passion he's poured into them? Ultimately he's got to make some hard decisions that are going to disappoint people, but do you honestly think he
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So I guess this by necessity means Aragorn looking into the palantir will be cut also, after all, if they don't go to Isengard to see Saruman they shouldn't have the palantir either ehhh? No biggie, after seeing The Two Towers theatrical I assumed Return of The King would be messed up in similar fashion.
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You cut out a 7 minute scene showing us the fate of Saruman. An important character to the whole trilogy who NEEDS closure. Yet, in TTT we get a completely uninteresting 7 minute scene of Galadriel that was so not needed. Let's see! Boring and worthless recap of the story sofar VS the great Christopher Lee. Petey, you fucked up big.
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Let the outcry commence. I think this has become an annual event. Exactly 2 years ago people were having angina over the lack of Bombadil or the cut of Galadriel's gift giving scene, both of which would have killed the pace of the movie. Exactly 1 year ago people were actually being admitted to cardiac ICUs for MIs over the lack of Shelob. Now I'm sensing alot of geeks knocking off myocytes over this one. PJ has had to do this with each movie, kicking great material to the DVD in order to bring in a theatrical release running about 3 hours with a good, evenly building narrative drive to it. What I've liked from the get go is his up front and rational decisions regarding the choices he makes. He's probably right - as much as we'd like to see Sharkey's End, the movie will probably have a better flow without it.
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Ack.
Just thought on the matter further, that'll affect a good few scenes, such as one of the hobbits looking into the Palantir & getting a nasty sight (& I know I recall reading of that being in the film).
Well, like I said, after seeing The Two Towers I can't say something like this was too unexpected. It's just a pity the Extended Editions never get any cinema screenings (Over here in Ireland anyway) so I can see a proper version of the film.
Best Director Oscar for Peter Jackson my ass. -
You know, I'm just as sad that this scene had to go as anyone. I'm sure this scene had some real beautiful moments in it that will be missed (PJ said as much). But since we know that this wasn't a studio thing, but Peter's choice, I breath a little eaiser. Peter has been good to this story and we at least need to give him credit enough to SEE what he has put in RoTK before we start screaming Lucas at him. Even with Christopher Lee missing, this movie is going to knock people over.
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The hobbits are primarily trying to save the shire. For the hobbits, and for Prof Tolkien himself, and for anybody who has Tolkien's spirit, the whole point of the epic is really to save the Shire.
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This post by harry was merely a way to show what good friends he is with "Pete" Jackson and to show all of his other connections. There was very little actual substance in his post. WE GET IT HARRY, YOU HAVE TONS AND TONS OF CONNECTIONS IN THE MOVIE INDUSTRY!! Are you that insecure that you have to keep brining it up? Do something yourself instead of swinging on the tip of everyone in hollywood. it makes me sick.
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Damn, and I really wanted to see him and Yoda battle it out.
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Nov 07, 2003 7:05:04 PM CST
I can't believe that Peter Jackson spelled it "definately"
by han ol' buddy
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Many audience members who will not have read the books will wonder what the hell happened to Saruman by the time the movie ends. When Alien 3 started with the death of Newt and Hicks, I was shocked and pissed off because I was hoping for a continuation of their story arc. I felt that was a huge cop-out. In the case of ROTK, who cares if this Saruman scene overlaps from part of TTT? As so many people have become invested in these films, they will want to know what the hell happens to Saruman. We are looking at these films as part of one complete story. I didnt mind that Saruman was going to be killed off early in the film, because I read the book and knew he dies anyway - but to excise it completely from the theatrical release? I think that both PJ and New Line underestimate the fans who have supported these films. I hope that they are not doing this just to entice people to buy another extended DVD. Or, God forbid, that we find Saruman at the Black Gates and have HIM fight Gandalf and Aragorn. I still have faith that this will be a great film, however. PJ, please put this scene back in the theatrical release!
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Nov 07, 2003 7:06:32 PM CST
I think PJ makes some good points there, actually.... and I agre
by talimon
If you think about it, it would actually be really rediculous to start RotK with Saruman. It would just be the most horrible beginning to the film. I don't even see how it will work on the RotK EE, to be honest. Unless you see all the films as one long movie, it doesn't really make sense to even have that scene in RotK at all. It doesn't establish anything except the Palantir. NOTHING else is established by that scene that comes home later.
I really think this should have been put into the TTT EE. I can see how PJ, who edited the TTT EE way back in the beginning of the year, probably didn't realize this in time. But I think if he could have had things his way Saruman's thread would have been finished that way, rather than stuck in the beginning of RotK. I have nothing against it going into the RotK EE per se, but I actually think it should be kept in the vaults until some future "ultimate edition" with the 4-hour versions of the films is released. Then it should be transfered to TTT. With some good editing, I actually think PJ could have stuck to the Helm's Deep thread much longer, and gone with it all the way to Isengard. Then he could have returned to Frodo, and made the whole scene in Osgiliath the films "final" climax. I think that would have addressed the films weakest element (the jerky editing between threads during Helms Deep), while at the same time offering a more emotional climax.
By the way, we have to remember that Gandalf and co. will still be visiting Isengard in RotK. Unless PJ wants to create a plot-hole of monumental proportions, he'll have to pick up Merry and Pippin. And I think it will be impossible to have them picked up from Isengard without at least a reference to Saruman. And how can PJ reference to Saruman without discussing his death? I don't know. It seems to me like PJ may be relying on the EE-format too much this time around. He'll be creating a precedent for the EE's in terms of how much he changes the plot. Having a charachter die in one version of the film is quite different from having him just "disappear."
I think once we're 20 minutes into RotK, however, we really won't give a shit. Like PJ says, this plot line doesn't ring again throughout the film. So once we get over that skipped beat, the film should roll on just fine. And assuming PJ edits it well (please tell me the editor for RotK is better than the TTT one...), we might not even notice it to begin with. I guess if I had to say one thing to PJ it would be to cut out Saruman whole, and not even mention his demise. The worst possible thing would be to mention his death in the movie in passing (a la Faramir mentioning Boromir's death in TTT. That was horrid). -
PJ said "theatrical pacing." That means "We had to cut the time down so that people wouldn't be scared by the length so we could sell more tickets so that this can make more money for New Line, who passes that money on to Warner, who has lost a bundle because of AOL."
Fuck you, New Line and Warner. Greedy, soulless bastards. -
To all who think PJ fucked up with TTT, please watch the Extended Edition and then see if that changes your mind. BTW, if you think ROTK is gonna suck just don't go and see it. It's that simple. Always remember that these movies are ADAPTATIONS of the novel by Tolkein and not a exact reproduction. So long as the spirit and the main elements of the story are there does it matter that PJ changes little bits here and there? If you don't like what he does just don't watch the movies and go back and read the books. It really is that simple.
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Dammit, dont you Peter Jackson apologists get it? He dosent make great editing choices! Look at The Two Towers, for how *cough* 'great' his editing choices are. he threw in a whole tonne of stuff that had no right to be in there, and now hes paying for it in RotK with the possible demise of a scene that fans (both those who have read the book and those who havent) will demand to see. "Poochie Died on the way back to his Planet" indeed! So here's what Peter Jackson MUST do. He *must* show this scene, in the theatrical release no less, and cut out *anything* that wasnt in the book. This will make sure we see Sauraman get his, it will provide the closure we need on his story (since we're not getting the Scouring) and most importantly, it will be a closer adaptation to the book than TTT could ever hope to be. If Jackson follows this advice, he'll have his 3.12 hour film, and we'll all be happy.
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Nov 07, 2003 7:17:17 PM CST
Just one more example of how Jackson is ill equiped to take on s
by son of stik
Notch em up. If Jackson would simply cut down on unecessary story insertions ala Aragorns faux death scene and those overlong, oversentimental 'emotional' scenes he'd actually have room FOR THE FUCKING STORY. What a mess. Still the dumb masses will lap it up.
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The things you are obsessing about are BOOKS.PJ is a MOVIE maker.Can you not understand these have different paces? If everything in the books were in these movies,what would they run,maybe 5 hours each? I've seen very few movies that I thought were 100% faithful to the book they were based on.It's hard enough on short books,much less very detailed books such as these.I love the books & have read them many times & will do so again.Some of you act like someone's going to come into your house and take the books away because a few of your favorite book sequences aren't included.Please.Are these important book events?Yes.Movies?Not really.Yeah,it's a bitch to wait,but at least these will see the light of day on the extended dvds,unlike "lost" scenes from movies in the past.What all of us LOR fans should be grateful for is that New Line used a director with a genuine passion for these books & a great f/x production company.If you don't like these,imagine what a shit-fest these would be if a hack like Paul Anderson had done them on a typical Hollywood budget & none of the resources filming in New Zealand provided.Now that would be something to get upset about.
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My respect for the losers who filmed LOTR goes up exponentially every day. First, they have the brilliant insight that Tolkien is an 'amateur' writer (I suppose they're the 'professionals' - Ha!) Then, they cannot except that a character (such as Faramir) might be NOBLE, so they fuck up every good character that Tolkien ever created. Then, if a character is taking too much of their precious time (they can't be concerned about ours, since they KNOW we are willing to sit through more than 12 hours of LOTR), they just drop the story line and leave it hanging. Then, they have fun fucking with the storyline just for kicks. For example, Hmm, let's have the Elves at Helm's Deep, let's have an Aragorn near death scene, let's have Frodo and Sam take an Osgiliath detour, let's have Arwen become an elf warrior, let's have Saruman - well, Saruman is causing too much trouble, so let's just get rid of him and let the audience speculate about where he went. Note: I have read the stories. Twelve times to be precise. And yet, I still will be WONDERING this because I have no idea where Saruman is supposed to be in PJ's FUCKED UP VERSION of Tolkien's Middle Earth.
Last year, on December 18, I returned from TTT and had this to say:
For a long time, I have regretted that Tolkien is dead, especially that he died before he could finish the Silmarillion and perhaps, a sequel to LOTR describing the Fourth Age and the time of Men. Tonight, I am glad he is dead, and that he couldn't see what was done to the epic to which he devoted most of his free time over seventeen years of his life. Tonight, Christopher Tolkien is Saruman, and Peter Jackson is Sauron -
Nov 07, 2003 7:27:57 PM CST
Dear Peter J, please put back in the deleted Tom Bombadil scene!
by jaguart
They, the Hobbits, Frodo, Merry, Sam and Pippin stepped out of the Old Forest and found a wide sweep of grass welling up before them. The river, now small and swift, was leaping merrily down to meet them, glinting here and there in the light of the stars, which were already shinning the sky. The grass under their feet was smooth and short, as if it has been mown or shaven. The eaves of the Forest behind were clipped, and trim as a hedge. The path was now plain before them, well tended and bordered with stone. It wound up on top of a grassy knoll, now grey under the pale starry night; and there, still high above them on a further slope they saw the twinkling lights of a house. Down again the path went, and then up again, up a long smooth hillside of turf, towards the light. Suddenly a wide yellow beam flowed out brightly from a door that was open. There was Tom Bombadil's house before them, up, down, under hill. The hobbits stood and gazed when suddenly Frodo cried "The House of Tom Bombadil!" Merry and Pippin chimed in "Tom Bombadil's!" and Sam added wryly "Its only a model".....There was a moment of silence when Frodo announced "On second thought, let's not go to Tom Bombadil's. Tis' a silly place."
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First of all, I don't think that this is necessarily a bad thing. Why? I'll get to that in a minute. ***Here is something I just read in the October, 2003 issue of 'Empire Magazine' from a report that was written as filming was drawing to a close in July, 2003: 'Hobbit extra Peter Eastwood (no relation to Clint), a naturally diminutive tax inspector from Auckland blessed with startingly large eyes, stubs out a cigarette and grins from ear to pointy ear. "I was going to be Sean Astin's stand-in," he announces to anyone in the vicinity whom he suspects to be a member of the press, "but I've been a Hobbit, another Hobbit and a Dwarf at the Council of Elrond, and now I'm that first Hobbit again." During lunch, waiting to be rustled back to finish a secret 'Shire party scene' for the end of the movie, the Hobbits tend to stick together. ...' ***A SECRET SHIRE PARTY SCENE????????? Do you know what this could mean? I don't, but it sure raises the possibility that some sort of Scouring "could" be added to the SEV DVD. ***As for Saruman not meeting his demise as expected, as I said, this is not necessarily a bad thing. If he meets his demise at the hands of Grima in the Shire, even if it's just in the SEV DVD and not in the theatrical version, then I'll have no problem with that because I find that much more preferable than the impaled Wizard on the wheel or even just Grima slashing Saruman's throat at Isengard.
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DAMN!! TOUGH DECISION, PJ!!
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So now all hate people here hate Peter Jackson. And there are long winded speeches (tribe), how he has desecrated Tolkiens book.
I can't take this people for serious. They would hate every movie-version of the Lord of the Rings. Peter Jackson did a wonderful work, he, Philippa Boyens and Fran Walsh demonstrated a detailed knowledge of the books, but for god's sake they did a movie adaptation, they had to change some things!
Even if they have a manifestation of Sauron fighting Aragorn, I will accept it. Let us agree then, Tolkien would hate the movies, they are (sometimes) not true to the book, but they are great touching movies, far superior to the recent Star Wars-Episodes or Matrix Revolutions. They are great on their own. Sure, all Tolkien-purists will start a crusade against Jackson for giving Sauron corporeal form, leaving out the scouring of the shire, giving Aragorn and Faramir more depth, adding a superficial warg battle. Nevertheless, the good outweighs the bad. I will enjoy the movies more than any other in a long time! -
OK folks, I hate to tell you - The Lord of the Rings is NOT A TRILOGY. Not the books, nor the films. A trilogy consists of 3 parts, separate but related. The "books" are actually a single book, split into 3 parts (6 if you want to get technical), for binding/sales purposes. There is one beginning, 1 end. The films are 1 movie split into 3, for the same reasons. No part of them stands alone. We do not have 3 cohesive wholes, here. We have 1 very long epic. So I don't give a crap WHERE the Saruman/Gandalf scene goes - it fits in at either point: the end of movie 2 or the beginning of movie 3. All I know is it belongs. It ends Saruman's story, it ends Gandalf's growth from lowly Grey Wizard to the Strongest Wizard on the World. It shows that he has a chance at finally completed his mission on Middle-Earth and vanquishing Sauron. To me, That's important to establish before the 3rd movie. The greatest Wizard (they're angels, really) in the word is going against the greatest demon (Sauron). You NEED that.
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Let's see the movie first before we start calling it a piece of shit. Geez...
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it's fucking bad FILMAKING. What do you apologists not understand about that???? He's suddenly made a villain of two movies *disappear* - geddit?! Zero payoff. And for the record it IS a fucking terrible adaptation so far, old Petey poo's got himself in a right knot especially with this decision. Gotta love the wide birth a lot of folk are giving PJ here, especially Harry who would nail anyone else for this disasterous call. I put it down to battered wife syndrome.
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Nov 07, 2003 7:50:47 PM CST
"The main point is that Frodo loses everything to destroy the ri
by miserableraingod
Someone in the talkback said that the Scouring is not the most important thing - it's that Frodo has to sacrifice everything to destroy the ring. That's true - Frodo has to lose EVERYTHING, including his home. His home, the Shire, which was the light at the end of the tunnel for our 4 miniature friends. So if he doesn't lose the Shire, he really still has something left. The only REAL tragedy in Tolkien's story is, in my opinion, Saruman's enslavement of the Shire. (Well, OK...that and the loss of elves from the world.)
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Hi, I
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great call on the 'first'. by my count you were actually 8th. that's gotta be a record for the biggest face plant in aicn history. bitch.
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Wasn't i saying a year ago that PJ had royally fucked up in TTT by not advancing the storyline far enough, and thus, would have to cut important pieces of ROTK? why yes, I was. Add the lack of a Saruman resolution to PJs ever increasing list of asinine changes. And remember kids, this all could have been avoided if he'd flushed that useless middle hour of TTT down the toilet and stuck to his fucking source material. this is what happens when you let a director known for b-movie shlock, his wife, and their friend, adapt a classic literary work for the screen.
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Somehow I don't think Tolkein is spinning in his grave over these movies. If there is an afterlife, Tolkein's walking through Gondolin at the height of the city's greatness and snickering at the flicks and all the anxiety going on over which scene is cut and which is invented. These movies aren't going to kill or ruin the books. Sure, plenty of people will never read the books and think the movies are what Tolkein wrote. Of course, without the movies they wouldn't have read the books anyway. The books are what you make of them, and the movies are one man's vision. You may think it's a horrible, twisted vision, that's your opinion. Go get a bankroll and make your own movie. Whatever. You've read the books 12 times? Good for you. You probably shouldn't tell the cute blonde at the party about that, but good for you anyway. I, myself, have read these books more times than my wife finds remotely rational, and it's still not something I mention when she's wearing her skimpy black panties and telling me she's in the mood. My vision is not PJ's. If I were scripting the movie, I'd do some things differently. But I'm not scripting the movie, and god knows I'm not directing it either. All in all I'm pretty damned arrogant. I KNOW I'm a fucking good doctor. I KNOW I can put in a central line or do a lumbar puncture or run a code as well as anybody in the hospital. I KNOW my job is profoundly more important than anything Jackson and the rest of the overpaid imbecils in the movie industry will ever do, and they couldn't in a million years do my job as well as I do it. And I also KNOW that if I tried to turn LOTR into a movie trilogy, it would be NOWHERE as good as what Jackson has put togethter. You and the rest of the self-righteous morons crying about how this guy has usurped YOUR story and fucked it up need to get some perspective and realize that this is NOT your story and these certainly are NOT your movies.
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It was Prof. Tolkien himself and NOT his son Christopher who sold the film rights to LOTR, and Tolkien tried writing a Fourth Age sequel to LOTR, (see the History of Middle Earth compiled by Christopher Tolien, volume 12 I think,) but quickly realised it was a soulless and pointless project, that could never come to anything good. --- To those worried about the Palantir, it's definately in, (as is the Grey Havens,) but I'm not sure how they'll explain it.
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Nov 07, 2003 8:23:46 PM CST
Thanks, sniff, sniff, anyway, Harry. And to Dov: The Scouring wa
by elanor
Unfortunately, although I agree with you about the importance of the Scouring to the story, I also see the point about leaving it out of the film, even though I am sure you and I would not be the only ones happy to sit through it, no matter how anti-climactic it might feel. But, what's done is done, or in this case, what's not been done cannot be done now.***To the doubters, Harry does indeed know PJ and does indeed talk to him via e-mail. This report sounds true to me, unwelcome news though it may be. I also mourn the loss of the Voice of Saruman scene and wonder how Gandalf will come into possession of the palantir. I think we have seen too many referrences to it for it to be cut so I have to believe PJ has a plan. I hope PJ had the decency to call Christopher Lee himself and tell him the bad news. It would suck if he found out from a news report. But really, folks, this was not a "trim it for time" decision. He is trying to make a cut or ROTK that will play as well as it can given what has come before and where this one is going. I do think this is part of the fallout from the hugeness of the project - the "laying the tracks while the train is moving" phenomenon. In hindsight, another six months of pre-production to work out the middle movie would have probably resulted in the inclusion of both the Boromir-Faramir flashback, the huorns and the Voice of Saruman sequence. Once upon a time they were going to end T2T with Saruman on a spiky wheel. I don't know how that would have played. PJ thought he could begin ROTK where T2T leaves off. He cut it that way, looked at it and now has changed his mind. I won't be able to judge until I experience the cut he made. One of these days we'll watch the three films as one story and then it will be great because VOS will be in it's proper place. I do see a silver lining in this sad news: this is the first conclusive proof that there WILL be an extended ROTK version which I was worried might be abandoned in lieu of the need to start up on King Kong. So we again have something to look forward to after the film's release!***I also think, having just seen the extended T2T, that it will be the extended versions that will be played in festivals and retrospectives in the years to come.***to the TETBers: elanor is boo-hooing, and sniff-sniffing. No offense to the mighty wit of Ingold but I thought it was ME who named
"Marilyn MonRohan".***Special for Moaters, Bean, Pallando and MorG: Moaters, you ninnyhammer! bean was joking - he even put a smiley face at the end of his faux diatribe (you even included it when you quoted him!) Now go stand red-faced in the corner and repeat after me: "I will always look for smiley faces before I TATOW". Clearly the halfling's leaf has dulled your mind. 8~)Still love ya, though.***Miami! What a great tidbit you unearthed! That gives me hope indeed, and gives the lie to my subject line! -
Its people like you who say "oh, its great despite the plot holes, inconsitencies and the changes from the book" who allow 2 bit hacks like Peter Jackson to think that they can get away with the wholesale destruction of things as great as the LotR trilogy. Now, admit he fucked up big time, (as evidenced by the problems of TTT and now, the removal of Sauraman's scenes in RotK as a consequnce) and I'll forgive you.
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Although I think it is a mistake to cut the Saruman scene, I still look forward to the movie and don't think it will change my opinion of the movie overall. I have read the books and enjoyed them immensely; but one thing I am tired of are all these Tolkien geeks whining and crying about the changes the movies have made. These are movies people, and changes have to be made in adapting the books. Although, I have not agreed with all the changes PJ has made, I find that some of them have worked. For example, the Elves at Helms Deep worked; the Faramir character, bland as wet bread in the books, actually had more dimension in the film ( I know a lot of you Tolkienites are shaking your fist in anger right now);and the Scouring of the Shire IS ANTCLIMATIC IN THE BOOK and would have been even more so in the movie. So, go ahead and consult with "Tolkien's Spirit" or be thankful that he is not here to see the alleged travesty of the movies, as one of you moronically said. Better yet, grow up and quit sniveling.
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even when the Scouring of the Shire is over, and the Shire is being healed, it is still lost to Frodo. The Shire is not lost to Frodo because it has changed, but because HE has changed. The Shire can be peaceful and wonderful, either because the Scouring never happened OR because Samwise Gamgee is mayor and is busy healing its hurts, Frodo STILL cannot be happy there because he still feels the hurt of the wounds he's taken, the sacrifices he's made, and the torment he's gone through carrying the Ring. Either way, he's lost his home and his innocence and he can only go into the West to try and heal his heart.
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I understand how the Saruman scene could affect the pacing, and why PJ would cut it, because the focus of ROTK should be Sauron afterall, but this is a massive shame because it means we get no Gandalf breaking Saruman's staff, no palantir and no psychological warfare between Aragorn and Sauron through the palantir (one of my favourite parts in the book). Like someone said they have to go to Orthanc to get Merry and Pippin as well. ROTK just gonna start with Gandalf and Pippin arriving at Gondor? Bit of a big hole there. Guess we should have seen this coming, how could he possibly have crammed all this stuff into ROTK, he's got a big enough job as is. He should have ended TTT with this Saruman scene. He really should have. As much as I love PJ for the love and effort him and his team have put into these movies, I'll always be pissed off about how badly Aragorn, Merry and Pippin were introduced in FOTR and I'll probably always be pissed off about this as well. I just hope the Smeagol to Gollum scenes are in there though. Those are scenes I'm really looking forward to.
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If he wasn't so obsessed with wringing every possible variation on Middle Earth through CGI, he would've had to take into consideration that by stuffing these flicks chock full OF NEEDLESS FUCKING CARTOONS HE WAS CUTTING IMPORTANT SHIT FROM THE STORY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
"TTT" was horrible and you can say it's a movie, not the book all you want, you CAN'T FUCKING MAKE A MOVIE OUT OF A BOOK LIKE THIS WITHOUT TELLING THE FUCKING STORY THAT WAS IN THE GODDAMN BOOK!!!!!!!!!! Fuck Peter Jackson , fuck his z-grade movie sensibilities, fuck his stupid wife, but most of all fuck him. Fuck Peter Jackson. I knew he'd FUCK IT UP!!!!!!!! Christ, another crappy LOTR movie and a shit worthless Matrix flick in the same season. The only decent flick I've seen since "X-2" was "Kill Bill", I'm not even sure why anyone makes fucking movies anymore. -
Nov 07, 2003 8:34:25 PM CST
b-rock, I realise its sad to see the Scouring of the Shire go,
by raw_bean
but a lot of what you listed as the right way to end LOTR IS still in, ie. the Grey Havens and Frodo sailing into the West. You say: "the joy felt at the defeat of Sauron is replaced with the sad realization that it
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Goddamn, your site is slow as shit, Harry, SLOW AS SHIT!
Anyway, what I was going to say is, FUCK THE SCOURING OF THE SHIRE! IT IS ANTI-CLIMATIC!!!!! Who cares anyway? That's where I always stopped reading in the book, it was like Tolkein got to the end and just couldn't stop writing.
But, to reiterate my original point, FUCK PETER JACKSON! FUCK HIM IN HIS FAT FUCKING ASS!!!!!! Hope the fucker eats one chimichanga too many at the premiere and chokes on his own vomit. Maybe by some miracle, George Lucas will be there and will drown in the massive explosion of regurgitation coming from Fat Pete's oversized piehole and 2005 will be looking UP! -
Although, it has to be said, I was only half joking. The tone I used was very school ma'am-ish, but the actual opint of the post was genuine. :) --- Dragonfire, the Palantir is in (see TTT DVD Agragorn:"He has gone unchallenged long enough.", and also images from the ROTK visual companion, showing Aragorn with Palantir, and Pippin steaing it from Mithrandir), as is Merry and Pippin being rescued and then separated (see all the trailers so far and their "We shall see the Shire again."; Pippin and Merry splitting up as Pippin heads for Minas Tirith), although I can't see how PJ will resolve this, fears in the past (XenArwen at Helm's Deep, and such) have been proved unfounded, and I have faith that PJ will deliver the best Rings film yet, despite this editing decision here.
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What people don't understand, even when pointed out several times, is we aren't complaining that ROTK is 100% faithful to the book. Infact, Saruman's death scene has been changed. It's the fact that PJ isn't resolving the Saruman storyline. Leaving it for the dvd is pure fucking bullshit. How do build up a major villian decide to not show what happens to him?
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lotr movies lick balls they arent intersting at all playa p jackson can suck on my junk and you best belie dat dere
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Nov 07, 2003 8:52:15 PM CST
If Saruman hadn't kicked Gandalf's booty all over FOTR it wouldn
by terry_1978
But now that he's Gandalf the White, people in the theatre who have been watching since the first one are gonna want to see him use his new powers on the one that tore him up so badly in the first flick. I know my father hasn't read the books but has seen the first two and told me the other day, "man, when this third one comes out, saruman better watch himself!"LOL, sadly that's gonna be the mindset of a lot of the mainstream audience.
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that's enough stamping fires of worried Ring fans for tonight. Its 1:50am here in the UK and I'm still drunk, so I'll leave you all to it, I'll just part with: If you've liked the LOTR films so far, try not to worry, PJ has managed (on the whole) not to screw this up, despite many changes that on paper made us all howl in indignation. If you've NOT liked the films so far, then you wouldn't like the final film either way, and so it's kind of pointless posting your diatribe here (specifically aimed at the trolling idiots who just post to get a rise out of others, not just anyone who doesn't like LOTR films). :) 'Night all.
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I am personally sorry that movie-going audiences won't get to see the Sauraman / Gandalf scene from TTT - it is one of my favorites from the book. IF, that is, IF indeed this news is true and doesn't change.
And I do believe the scene would fit better into TTT, after the battle of Helm's Deep, and if I was editing the films both Helm's Deep and the Frodo / Sam conversation regarding heroes at the end would have been shortened to fit S vs G in.
But that said:
Does my (or your) disagreement with PJ's decision make him a horrible filmmaker? A hack? No, the films are (to me at least) highly enjoyable, some of the best coming out in today's cinema. In one of the DVD documentaries, Jackson says something to the effect that if you filmed the entire novel and all of the characters / events, LOTR would become unfilmable. He's right too - and that is borne out by the lack of previous attempts to make these into movies. And it's not just the advent of CGI that made these adaptations possible - it was an adaptation built on the key story elements, removing some of the smaller components / characters from the books.
And I am surprised that 4 years later people are still in denial about the necessity of these changes... it is just...well ...REALITY. You just simply couldn't fit all of LOTR into 12 hours of films and have everything work - and on top of that, you wouldn't like the end result anyway because books don't carry the same weight on the screen (and vice versa). Aside from the story changes, I do believe that these movies are highly faithful adaptations of a 50+ year old book, and where not faithful to the plot they are faithful to the spirit of the story.
And to those that think some of us are "apologists", that is a simplification. I would argue the reverse - some of you are getting lost in the details, expecting everything to be included in the movie. That is not realistic. Us "apologists" just recognize that when Hollywood makes a film of a book, there are going to be significant changes.
And when you compare this literary adaption with the many horrible Hollywood adaptions of literary works, Peter Jackson's films hold up incredibly well. In fact, I do believe that FOTR was one of the best films of 2001, and if ROTK is almost as good (or better, let's hope) then I am hopeful it will take home the Best Picture Oscar.
I also find it funny that people would suggest that dropping the S vs. G confrontation will eliminate any chances of a Best Director / Best Film Oscar for ROTK. Why? Is that because every single Oscar voter is an anal-retentive literary fan that doesn't understand how film editing works? They're actually going to hold the disapearance of this scene against Peter Jackson for his direction or for the overall quality of the film? The only place where these sorts of changes affect awards is related to adapted screenplays. Fanboy frothing aside, ROTK will win or lose the other awards on its own filmic merits, not on what was included / not included from the book.
Oh, and some fairly-reliable ROTK movie spoilers from the main fan site, to answer a few questions posted above.
Check out www.lordoftherings.net for more info - it's all there:
*Scouring the Shire was never filmed, according to every public statement by anyone associated with the film.
Also, Jackson said during the FOTR EE commentary that he included footage of it during the Mirror of Galadriel scene as an homage to a chapter that would not make it into the film for the sake of pacing.
*ROTK does indeed end the same way as the book - with the Grey Havens scene. From what's been revealed so far, it is at least 10 minutes long and most of the people that have seen it have said it is amazing (Peter Jackson has said recently in interviews that it is his favorite scene from all three pictures).
*Apparently, in the original ROTK script Sauraman was indeed killed by Grima, possibly at Isengard, and Grima is shot down by an arrow from Legolas.
*While no one is sure, the most recent rumors suggest that Sauron in fact does NOT take physical form in ROTK, and that Aragorn dukes it out instead with the Mouth Of Sauron.
While I agree that this latest development is disappointing news, it is not the end of the world. ROTK should still be a good film. How good? I predict it will be the best of the three, although we will all find out soon enough. -
Nov 07, 2003 9:01:09 PM CST
So let me get this straight, PJ thought it would be better to cu
by theginger twit
This is the great and unstoppable Peter Jackson you fanboys always cream over??
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The thing about the film V the book is that in the book Saurman plays a fairly minor role, by minor I mean he doesn't appear too much, in Fellowship & The Two Towers a good deal was added to his role, e.g. we get to see *him* creating his "bomb" & sending off the army, or he's the one creating the bad weather on Carahadras in Fellowship. That ain't in the books.
It's a significant oversight on Peter Jacksons part (& the other writers I guess) to build up a bad guy like that & then have no real resolution to the character in Return of the King. -
Nov 07, 2003 9:27:33 PM CST
I just don't get it, PJ will release (of each film) a 3+ hour ci
by theginger twit
I'm going slightly maaaaad
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I don't consider PJ's point about the beginning of ROTK resolving the end of TTT to be valid. So what? Let us recall that TTT itself begins by revisiting a scene that occurs about halfway into FOTR, showing some of the same footage, and then carrying that storyline forward. I fail to see how that differs from resolving Saruman in the beginning of ROTK.
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So the last time we see Saruman, he's in his tower getting attacked by Ents. His armies, factories, everything is destroyed and overthrown. Why do we need to see him die? He's not applicable to the story anymore. Who cares what happens to him when the threat he poses is gone. And the 'scouring of the shire' is a little stupid anyway. "It's the theme of the whole book, these hobbits can defend their own homeland without help from anyone." They just saved Middle Earth! Destroyed the one ring, fought in the war, etc. Why do we need to see them chase a crazy old man out of the Shire to prove their independence and strength. To me the scene just demonstrates that they passed the strong qualities they had gained on their quest to the rest of the hobbit community, cool and all, but necessary? No. Peter Jackson is trying to make the best possible movie he can, and he's not making it just for the people who check this site all day.
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first time post here. listening to the rants and raves, im starting to picture that scene in 'jay and silent bob strike back' where they read the poop shoot and get all pissed off. ha! well, here's how i look at it (as if anyone cares). the scouring of the shire was quite a kool payoff literary-wise and i would've assumed it'd be in the flick instead of the grey havens scene. the voice of Sauruman part is definitely an essential plot point and will be seen in one way or another. i guess Jackson worked so hard on making the battles in the third one so kick ass (i mean have you seen that shot of Legolas climbing up the side of the war oiliphant? or the fell beast swooping down on the Rohirrim?) that he did some major re-arranging. i mean shit, i didnt think he'd even bother with the paths of the dead, but there it is in the trailer. (the video game preview showed a cool part with some ghosts flying around while they stand over an abyss - ill have to see that to believe its in the movie though). I guess it makes up for not having the hobbits buried alive in the first book. Sauruman's plot line won't be dropped. I assure you. the first flick got me reading the other two books, then back to the first one. then the hobbit. now i just can't get enough. as long as we get both the assault on pelinnor fields AND the taking of the battle to the black gates, i'll be happy, Jackson has us right where he wants us. Waiting, drooling with anticipation....
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I have said it a gazillion times... a movie is a different art form than a book. You get different things from it.
I am grateful for Peter Jackson's vision. What he has given this story in movie form has been so much fun, and very inspiring for me. Even if you don't you agree with his editing decisions, I think most people can see that the end result is a fantastic movie that stands on its own in its own medium.
Sitting in the heart of fandom for the movies and the books, I read everything I can get a look at...and sometimes it seems that those who love the book think they are temporarily loaning it to Peter Jackson to make these movies and that he owes them their emotional investment and plus interest. If you want an exact replica of the book, it is still there, just read it and let your imagination do it's work.
The things I love most about the book is how these little guys put love of their home and kin and loyalty to one another to work in the bigger world and come out the real heros. Then one of the little guys takes up an incredible burden and, against all odds, gets farther than anyone could expect or hope....a thing no other could do, regardless of wisdom, strength , magic or power. The very themes l love about the book are mirrored in the efforts of those folks in NZ. Bless 'em all! I love these movies and I admire and respect the entire cast and crew for the effort.
I have no doubts that RotK is gonna be great. -
I think Peter Jackson might be telling a little white lie. I think he did remove Saruman's death from the beginning of the ROTK because in recent pickups he filmed another version of Saruman's death. In other words I think Pete filmed "The Scouring Of The Shire" very recently, albeit probably an extremely abbreviated version of it, and this will be what we'll see in the ROTK Theatrical version. We'll still see Saruman die at Orthanc on the ROTK EE DVD, but it will only be in the supplements, so Peter wasn't lying outright. Just a theory.
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Sorry but people who doesn't read the book are not going to understand what the hell happend with saruman.
It will be a great mistake to omit Saruman's destiny.
Also there will be many senseless things in the whole movie immediately after this omission.
They can put elfs, dwarfs and dead men in pelennor, but Saruman is indispensable in this movie. the last movie. Forget the DVD please!!!!!!!! -
Purists amaze me. If you think PJ screwed the trilogy into the ground, then just don't go see the damn flick. I'm sure the 4 guys that decide to stay home and play Dungeons and Dragons in protest will absolutely destroy the boxoffice results. Truth is, the pseudo-intelligencia that obsesses about LOTR doesn't elevate these books above mere works of fiction. Great books, admittedly. Just realize, you guys frustrate talkbackers in the same way Muslims and Christians frustrate everybody else. ...wow, that was offensive. Sorry.
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we Already knew that this part it would not be in the movie and I understand it.
But to omit Saruman is another thing. Then there is no meeting with Saruman and Gandalf, and neither the palantir exists.
Where it is supposed that they find the palantir? In the way? Do they find it in the pantries? This does not make sense, though they change the place and the moment and the way in that Saruman dies, he has to appear in the movie -
Nov 07, 2003 10:28:44 PM CST
You whining purists are the biggest fucking babies on planet ear
by king_midas
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Where is all the Fanboy wrath against Peter Jackson! If George Lucas did something like this, everybody would be throwing the usual insults at him. Hipocrites! After the hard work and respect Christopher Lee has given Peter Jackson he gets cut out of the THEATRICAL REALEASE! At least Lucas won't cut Christopher Lee's (Count Dooku) scene out of Episode III! Peter Jackson should be called out on this, what crap!
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raw_bean: Apologize for my ignorance. I am ashamed to admit I am only on the first book of HoME, so I didn't know about the Fourth Age thing. As to Christopher Tolkien - completely my fault, sorry about that!
devil0509:
I am sorry that I came across as a "self-righteous moron"; that was not my intention. I also realize that the story has Tolkien's name and the movie has Jackson's name; neither has my name. I am what you would call a purist; in some senses, I classify myself among the so-called "uber-purists". I love reading anything Tolkien - I am just now reading the HoME in detail, reading the letters of Tolkien, and reading several biographies of his to get a better feel for whom this man was, and this has sparked my outrage as to what Jackson has done further. Let me briefly explain, in the hope of partially vindicating myself ;)
Yes, Tolkien's not literally spinning in his grave (that was written at around 3 AM 12/19 after seeing TTT, and before I had any chance to calm down). Yes, the books aren't going to kill or ruin the movies. Yes, some people might have misconceptions about what Tolkien wrote, but oh well. If they don't care enough to read the books, I have a feeling JRRT wouldn't have been too worried about their beliefs and neither am I. My problem is this and only this: There will almost certainly never be another LOTR movie made, certainly not on this scale. PJ and colleagues had this one chance to communicate to the world the grandeur of Tolkien's vision; the depth of the characters, etc. He had this one chance to make it accessible to the world, and he blew it. This is not my vision that he blew, or yours. It's Tolkien's vision. Sure, you say, anyone can go and read the books, and I agree with you. Yet, it's the sheer arrogance of the filmmakers that gets to me. "Tolkien was essentially an 'amateur'", apparently PB states on the LOTR:TTT EE DVD. They appear to me to be so convinced that they know what is right that they can't conceive of the fact that Tolkien might have gotten it right. Particular gripes here are Faramir (the not so noble), Eowyn (way too infatuated with Aragorn), Arwen (ZenArwen, as she has been called), Aragorn (I don't want that power - I have never wanted it. Huh?)
One final gripe - On one hand, I'm an uber-purist; on the other, I was born on Earth and have some trace of realism. I understand that the 1180 page book can't be reproduced verbatim on screen, if you will, unless we're willing to sit through as many hours of film. Here, what annoys me is the unnecessary changes. For example, if Pippin realizes the answer to the "mellon" Moria riddle, why have Frodo say it in the film? Honestly, did EW need to have that one line? Does Theoden really have to say Aragorn's "Where is the horse and the rider..." poem? Etc. These sort of changes are trivial, but had they not made them, their argument that they tried to stay true to the story, only making changes that are absolutely necessary, would have been more plausible.
Look - I know we're not going to agree on this, because your outlook is too radically different from mine. I have a feeling you will read most of the above and say "So what?", so I'm not going to hash out the arguments in greater detail, although I have made more convincing ones in the past. This is very much an agree to disagree situation, which is fine. Just wanted to clarify, since you seemed to take offense primarily to the part of my post reproduced from the post LOTR:TTT journal entry.
Just in closing, I wanted to say that the movies are in and of themselves marvels, although (I think) a near desecration of much the books stood for. I have been able to watch and appreciate them many times once I was able to distance myself from the fact that they were supposed to be interpretations of the books. Also, my main objections were with TTT; I was able to swallow most of the FOTR changes the first time, even Tom Bombadil.
Have a nice night!
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sometimes im just so happy that i havent read the books. now i wont have to sit through the whole movie going "ok, and they left that out, and that, how could they leave that out?! but he was such a blah blah character and blah blahliurhfleuge..." i can watch the movies untainted.
but i do plan to read the books after i see rotk. -
Go on, call for help. No one's going to help you now! You PJ apologists, you've never adequately apologized for the really bad Nazgul voice in the first movie. I won't list anything else that bothers me. Just this one. Please defend it, rationalize it, explain why they couldn't get a voice synthesizer or just someone talking in a normal whisper. If you don't, I promise to embarrass the geekiverse by harassing PJ at a con with this issue at some unspecified time in the future.
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I'm all for extended edition DVDs and extra footage, but this... THIS is a mistake. PJ botched Two Towers (theatrical) by adding in bits that really didn't belong (Aragorn falling in the river, elves at Helms Deep) and left out the more important stuff (Ents at Helms Deep, the end of Saruman's reign). I like how much of this material is going back into the extended DVD for TTT, but there will STILL be no summary of the Saruman events until the RotK Ext DVD? That's shoddy work, in my opinion. Especially considering how damn important the Saruman bit at Isengard is to the rest of RotK's storyline!
The scouring I can live without. As many have said, it is TACKED ON to the end of RotK. It works in the book because you can effectively do anything you want in a book, no constraints. In a movie, there are more constraints and the audience wants ONE climax. The Scouring was important to rounding out the hobbit characters, but not the story of man's triumph over the dark forces. Saruman's scenes at Isengard directly effect the main storyline and should NOT be deleted or shifted around. :/ -
PJ said 'We felt it got ROTK off to an uncertain beginning, since Saruman plays no role in the events of ROTK (we don't have the Scouring later, as the book does), yet we dwell in Isengard for quite a long time before our new story kicks off.' my question is could this mean the voice of saruman is in, but what had to go was the death of Saruman and grima, since there is no scouring of the shire in the ROTK movie?
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if PJ pimps his bad-acting kids in RotK, I'm gonna hurl my Junior Mints all over the theater and start belting out "Where There's a Whip, There's a Way".
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We have a fundamental difference in views. You seem to regard the films as a missed opportunity - given the budget and freedom necessary to make a film version of LOTR, Jackson has made mistakes that you view to be critical. He has failed in a rare and golden opportunity to truly capture the spirit of the books. If that's your feeling, in a way I agree with you. There are moments in the movie that I find grating, one (Galadriel's bizarre freaky-chick moment) which is almost embarrassing, and changes which may be ill advised, or certainly aren't really necessary. Like I wrote earlier, if I were scripting it, I would do things differently. All that being said, I still take exception to the outcries of this man somehow destroying Tolkein, ruining his work, desecrating his vision. My diatribe earlier wasn't designed to advertise what I do for a living. My point was to state that, as a person who has no lack of self-confidence, and who does a hard job, I appreciate when someone else does something better than I think I could do it. Give me 300 million dollars, or whatever the budget for this was. Give me 4 years. I still could not adapt this book to movies as well as Jackson has done. As lovers of Tolkein's books, I think we should be appreciative of the fact that another person out there has the talent and the love for the story to take his best shot at it. Jackson may or may not have referred to Tolkein as an amateur author. I do know he's referred to Tolkein's "amazing vision" and described Tolkein's work as something he loves passionately. I really don't think the changes he's made to adapt the story to film are about his own ego or his disrespect for Tolkein. I think they're changes he feels (rightly or wrongly) are necessary to make the movie as good as possible. In the end, I feel like I've won on all counts. When I want to lose myself in Tolkein's world, I just pick up his book. When I want to enjoy Jackson's, I just pop in the DVD. Sadly enough, I rarely have enough free time to do either. (you all wondering how I can say that and spend as much time on this talkback as I have today - I am having a VERY easy night in the ICU, but I knock on wood even as I type that)
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And another thing... when did a Special Edition DVD become a safety net for bad editing? Yes, I said bad editing. For a long time now, SE DVDs have largely included 'additional footage' that was almost wholly unnecessary to the overall movie. Additional character moments, special effects, or outtakes. Entire IMPORTANT scenes should not just be dumped to the DVD. Fellowship's SE DVD added nice bits and pieces here and there, mostly additional but not required character development, but everything important was already in the flick. TTT... not so lucky. Because somebody goofed, many of the 'book moments' got shoved onto the SE DVD. Now, it is apparent that the same route is being taken with RotK. God help me, if there is ANY scene in RotK that was not in the book, I'll spit nails. If something completely new and non-Tolkien can get into the movie, and yet Saruman's final moments at Isengard will get cut and shoved back another year, I'll have someone's head.
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It seems like such a short time ago when everyone was worried that Saruman would die impaled on some spikes, a total non-canon scene. I'm withholding my judgment until the Extended Version of "Return of the King" comes out in a year or so. When that happens, me and about a billion other geeks are going to haul all three extended versions down and not be seen outdoors for two days as we watch the REAL Jackson vision--a 12 hour movie.
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We do have a fundamental difference in views, but I don't think they're as different as they originally seemed.
Yes, I do regard the films as a missed opportunity, and I think you summarized my view nicely in your first few sentences. I can understand how you, particularly in the medical field, could field as you do about others with no conception of what is involved second-guessing your work, or PJ's. (This is particularly true since I am in law school and we just did a unit in my civil procedure class on settlement, focusing on medical malpractice - I was thinking just what you said about people with no conception judging others in a large number of cases. Oh, and don't hate me for being in law school, please ;)
But I digress. You are right that Tolkien's world and Jackson's world suit different moods of ours, and that they can both be enjoyed, perhaps when we are in different moods. You are also right that in many senses, it is good that someone had the vision and direction to adapt such a large and epic book to screen, and that we have a lot there to be thankful for. Finally, that most if not all of us could not even have done the job that Jackson has done in adapting. All true.
But - and you knew there was a but here - I still have that lingering sense of missed opportunity every time I watch those DVDs. I still wish that someone who could really get inside the characters as TOLKIEN wrote them, rather than focusing on exploiting battle scenes that aren't the focus of the books to the utmost (not that they shouldn't be there, but they should not be the be all and end all), had made the movie rather than PJ. If only we had had this hypothetical director with the resources that PJ had, can you imagine?
I respect PJ's efforts and applaud his dedication, but every time I see those movies, I will wonder "What if?" It's just the purist in me, I guess.
Hope your night at the ICU continues to be uneventful - much better to be on AICN than dealing with catastrophes!
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Just take those medical malpractice lectures and go into the noble work of defending the poor, unappreciated, underpaid, and overworked doctors from the vicious spectre of frivolous and malicious litigation, and I'll be happy ; ) (please note the hint of sarcasm in the above; but if anyone wants to skewer me for calling doctors underpaid, just know I'm currently earning about $40,000 per year and work 30 hour stretches every 4 days. Welcome to the joys of residency) Right now I'm just looking forward to getting off work tomorrow afternoon and leaning back next to my son and watching another great movie that is DEFINITELY NOT a desecration of a great literary work...Finding Nemo. Cheers and good night.
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You flatter me - I'm a first year law school student, not a lawyer. My doctors still view me with alarm already - the moment I say that I'm in LS, they stiffen! I'm not interested in med malpractice at all - I want to do IP law/Internet related issues, perhaps mixed with some entertainment.
Ahh, residency - those are rotten hours. That's one reason I chosen law over medicine, even though I was premed as an undergrad. I didn't want those insanely long stretches of work, particularly where someone's life could be in my hands but I could be too exhausted to think. In Biglaw, you might have the long hours, but the worst that happens is that you bill your client for a few less than productive hours because of exhaustion --> a much better outcome ;)
Oh well, see you around on this board, maybe. Have a good night -I'm going to get off the Net and hopefully be productive. Contracts and Property reading await. -
Nov 08, 2003 12:17:57 AM CST
Re: As someone from another movie once said. "I've got a bad fee
by indiana clones
I love that movie.
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...everyone can get along. How heartwarming to see the doctor/lawyer battle resolved in a friendly fashion. That makes this unemployed bum feel that there could be hope for the world. Of course, I sort of lost track of the cogent arguments when the doctor started talking about his wife's black panties.
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I don't know what everyboy's losing their cool over
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Stop freaking out. Peter didn't say Saruman's death scene was out, he said his scene with grima was out. BIG DIFFERENCE. Yes, he says people will have to assume he got vanquished. But note that he used the word vanquished, not killed. Hence Return of the King might start with his death scene, whatever that will be. And we'll have to assume he's killing himself himself, or is in the hands of his ennemy because he was vanquished at Helm's Deep and by the Ents at isengard. Wait until you see the film.
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Peter Jackson just shot himself in the foot.
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I have seen about ROTK was good. Now... (it seems somewhat different.) To have one of the major bad guys from the first two movies not even die on screen, but just sort of be overlooked for the last movie is downright stupid. Irregardless of tolkien and his story, imagine if Star Wars in ROTJ decided to "overlook" Darth Vader's demise and decided to concentrate on Luke vs the Emperor. It would change (and unbalance) the entire story. I'm a purist through and through, but this is ridiculous. I hope this is a 'test' by PJ because if this goes ahead in this form, it could 'wreck' the entire movie, for me at least anyhoo. Cheers.
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Hey, I'm not a LOTR geek, I almost didnt bother to watch these films, but I did, and I liked them. But I am now concerned that key Plot points will be left out, so we can see more of Liv Tyler, etc. FUCK THAT!!!! Get it Right, PJ, and all you fanboys who worship at the altar of Geekdom, get a life! Don't tell me to have faith in the man, when what we are facing is a grave mistake! I once trusted Lucas, too, and now my asshole is still bleeding!!!
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I'm sick of hearing you people whine and complain about PJ and what's going on with ROTK.
Especially those of you who are bad-mouthing PJ... calling him a bastard and such, you just remember that if it weren't for him these movies probably would never have been made and you wouldn't have a THING to bitch complain about! He's as big a fan of the books as we are (probably even moreso to even consider making them into movies), and he wouldn't make changes unless he and the whole production team thought it was best!
Can you think of anyone else who would be willing to take on a project of this magnitude? And if YOU had to deal with things like time constraints and trying to make the book fans happy, how much better would all of you do?
Honestly. Get over yourselves! *Oh Wah! I hate PJ, he took this out and that out and wah wah wah!This movie is gonna suck!* Well, dammit, if you think the movie is gonna suck so badly, then just shut the hell up and don't see it!
And another thing, the movies are BASED on the books. That does not mean that the movies must follow the books exactly. -
until november fucking 2004 to see my favorite scene in all of LOTR (meaning the Reckoning with Saruman of course)
if they dont issue the extended DVD until then like they have with the rest of these movies, i will EXPLODE -
Nov 08, 2003 2:39:02 AM CST
The screenplays have been the "DOWNFALL" of the first two films.
by matto
...and I suspect this will be the case with the third as well.///Let's re-cap. PJ says that the VoS sequence couldn't be shown after the Helm's Deep victory, at the end of TTT, due to "pacing" problems. (Let's try to forget the cheesy phantom sequence under the Dead Marshes, Aragorn's cliff diving, river floating and time-consuming "lone rider" return routine, Arwen's constant inclusions, the needless introduction to the Rohirrim THAT RUINED OUR SENSE OF DISCOVERY, etc.) NOW PJ says VoS can't be shown at the beginning of RoTK, again for "pacing" problems. What's the bottom line? The fromage-a-trois screenwriting committee of PJ, Fran and Chunky COULDN'T WRITE AN ADAPTATION THAT INCLUDED ONE OF THE BEST SCENES FROM THE NOVEL.
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And why has he decided to cut the VoS sequence from RoTK?///Who is this ASS-Monkey?!?
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You shouldn't diss Chris Lee like that!!!
Meyer, your staff is broken!!!
Barry Meyer///
Chairman and CEO, Warner Bros.///
4000 Warner Boulevard///
Burbank CA 91522///
Email: Barry.meyer@warnerbros.com///
Phone: 818-954-1464/// Fax: 818-954-6794 -
Well, the only good thing about this is that it lowers my expectations about the film.
1) The Witch kings entrance into Minas Thirit on his "dragon" instead of on horse back - just misses the high drama in the book.
2) That Sarumans demise was not in TTT. That would not have been anti climatic, I think. I think PJ is trying too much. Is getting too concerned with the results and is thus losing his intuition. Come on, PJ, it -
Everyone I talk to does not assume his reign is over..
WE NEED CLOSURE! -
ahh...what a wonderful world we live in when a resident doctor and an undergrad lawyer can duke it out like the best of us for what they feel is the right direction this magnificent story should take! i mean, jesus....what a great time it is we live in, where something so ingrained and secure (mainly a fifty-year old fairy tale) can evoke such passions in people who's jobs it is to carry on our normal, modern way of life....ahhhh....i love it. this is the stuff that really gets to the heart of literary/movie geekdom. ROTK is going to be fucking great, any way you slice it. PJ is going to focus on the crazy shit. the stuff that you could only imagine in the book. the stuff that wasn't specified, but alluded to. "a company of hill trolls breaking out of the gates and onto the forces of the west..." do you kats realize that we're going to get one of the largest land battles ever to be portrayed onscreen in December for our popcorn-popping enjoyment? we get to see all the good shit. just imagine....the mines of moria sequence/Balin's tomb on a HUGE scale! trolls and nazgul fucking it up royally! how can you not be excited, no matter what the rumors are?
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Nov 08, 2003 3:32:02 AM CST
Listen you fanboy biatches, this is CHRISTOPHER LEE here! Why is
by spacesheik
I don't understand this. Gandalf gets his ass kicked all over the place in LOTR by Saruman and he doesn't even get a final chance to teach Christopher Lee a lesson?!! This is bullshit. I'll take them over drab CGI tedious Gollum scenes any day.
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appy-polly-logies for the arrogant-sounding post. i reckon i just get passionate about this stuff, given that i'm a motion picture set tech. yeah, that's right...i'm a grip and an electrician. not to mention rabid moviegoer. i've tried to get roger ebert's job, only to get turned down because the Richmond, VA newspaper sux ass and the resident film critic is a LOTR HATER and really has nothing good to say about most movies whatsoever. he really needs to die. whoops, did i say that? just kidding...hehehe....
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Nov 08, 2003 3:47:35 AM CST
Geeze talk about thowing the AICN Trolls and Haters red meat!
by tallscott
Harry and Moriarty just threw a batch of red meat to the trolls of ACIN..I can see them bitching about a friggin 7 minute cut for years now..It will be on the ROTK: EE dummys its not like its in the cutting room garbage can..The film will be fine!.although i do kinda feel bad for the great Cris Lee he really did a great job in the last 2
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"An assumed offscreen death for both just will NOT work. I'm more worried about the non-fans who know nothing about the story. How are they going to feel when this "heavy" is suddenly absent from the story with no explanation? Unless they've shot Treebeard saying "Yes, we've dealt with Saruman..." I don't see how the non-fans are going to understand what happened. Does noone suspect they are going to cry out "What the hell happened to that evil wizard?" or if they hear Treebeard say "We took care of them" won't they reply "HOW?! We wanna #@$%ing see it!" Either way, I just think its bad bad bad. If its only 7 minutes long-- so what? There must be a way you can make it work. I just can't believe a character this important to the films, the mastermind behind the events of Helms Deep, is going to quietly disappear offscreen. Its so depressing. I can't imagine how Peter feels having to cut it....so then I ask....just do us all a favor and keep it in!" YOU ARE ABSOLUTELY RIGHT. THE FILMGOERS DEMAND AN EXPLANATION. A COP OUT LIKE THIS FOR SARUMAN AND WORMTONGUE IS UNNACCEPTEABLE. To save time and pacing?!!! What pacing?!! Endless CGI Gollum Jeckyll and Hyde scenes?!!!
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oh come on!!!! maybe it should ahve been at the end of the TTT but it wasnt. So KEEP IT IN ROTK...
i dont care if its not the best way to start the movie.. but guess what.. its 7 mins.... and everyone that says they dont need it is as full of crap as i am about how starwars has ended up.. you love for these flicks cannot forgive the fact that we have a huge badguy with no ending...PUT it in the theatrical release.... no reason such a scene isnt in the movie.... its like making a godzilla movie..... gozilla vs mothra and rodan.... we see godilla fight with mothra at the end of the movie... and are told oh yah that rodan character thats in the movie... he died when he ate some bad eggplant... it just doesnt work... put the scene back in -
I appreciate someone with a more realistic perspective. When I watched the Special Features on the Extendend Edition of Fellowship, I got the impression, that PJ, Philippa Boyens and Fran Walsh know Tolkien extremly well.
Soemtimes I even welcomed the changes (like Aragorn hesitating to take on his role at heir of Isildur).
When I heard first about the Huorns being back in the extended Edition of Two Towers, I thought it was a fanboy rumor, but what do I see in the preview: The marching wood is in TT!!
PJ did so much changes to squeeze the main plot in three 3-hour-movies. Sure he made a mistake with Two Towers, I agree on that. With all the material, he could do a final cut, which makes more sense and integrated the death of Saruman. But with this mammoth project, I grant him the right of making mistakes.
And Tribe2003, I cringed at your first speech, but your later entries made me understand, how you feel. The difference between you and me is the ability to see the movies on their own. In the book there are so much layers like love, fogiveness, temptation. PJ knew that and tried to work this in, but couldn't always resist the "wouldn't it be cool"-factor (warg battle). So I cabn understand, that it is sometimes painful for you. But even Tolkien did things, which look silly translated to screen (Gimli and Legolas counting killed orcs)
I will enjoy this movie more than any other in the last years!
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I loved TTT (and am looking forward to the extended DVD which is why I did not rush out and buy the TTT standard disc) nevertheless it was an inferior film to LOTR, and I don't only mean this in the entertainment factor aspect but also in a visual sense. Apart from the "Helm Deep" scenes much of TTT was not as elegant as LOTR. The brief Saruman scenes were a nice contrast to all the drab gteen and gray aspects of TTT. Too much Gollum and too much
Ents, the pacing was way off. When the Helms Deep battle was cut away from to go back to the Ents the whole theatre was like 'oh give me a fucking break with these trees!!."And I think Lee got shafted in TTT. Either show his outcome in TTT (which wont happen) or the theatrical ROTK but to do neither is ridiculous. You can add his scenes in an extended edition in ROTK a year from now, but guess what? Most audiences won't buy or see that, only fanboys like ourselves will go buy it. In other words, most of the mainstream audience now and in the future will not know of his outcome and that is crazy. Audiences are going to shell their 10 bucks or whatever now to see ROTK, give them the bets movie that you can, do not rely on future editions or what have you. Creatively to procrastinate or eliminate something until a later date Edition of the film on DVD is cowardly and the easy way out. People used to shell good money in the 60s to watch Roadshow movies like CLEOPATRA (over 4 hours or more with intermission), FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE, PAINT YOUR WAGON, ITS A MAD MAD MAD WORLD etc etc etc. Why cant they just release a 4 hour version of ROTK now. At worst 3.5 and include the SAruman scenes. I really do not understand it. -
This sucks, blows, and bites. It is shameful. As so many others have pointed out, the pacing in TTT was lousy anyway, most notably in the invented scenes involving (especially, but not only) Arwen. The Arwen scenes in TTT were just dreadful. Boring. Stupid. Pointless. But oooooooo if the crap were cut, then whoever insisted on all that guff in the first place might get annoyed with PJ. So PJ decides once again that he will sacrifice *important* storyline detail (or accuracy), either because he doesn't really care enough for the storyline, or because he has run out of the energy required to fight.
Bad bad bad bad bad bad bad bad PJ.
We need a petition. Fast.
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taking into account that pj's films might be the only adaptations made 4 some time, but i was wondering if tolkien's books would be better suited to tv series form. arguments have been made 4 watchmen 2 b done in this manner, why not do it with something more voluminous as the middle earth sagas? then u could probably have more faithful renderings of the hobbit, lotr, ooh, & perhaps the silmarillion, whateva. DISCUSS! or not...
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is if we could just see these movies extended in the cinema, since they are peter jacksons prefferred cuts arent they....
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i am among the few who read the books after watching the 1st LOtR movie; and i ws astounded to see how dexterously PJ has moulded the voluminous 300 page+ book into a 3 hr breezer without missing out on Tolkien's metaphorical references.. !
-- for instance tht scene when Peregrin'Fool Of a'Took fingers around with a decomposed dwarf sending it tumbling in the well__ THE POINT IS__ that single scene includes seven pages of the book without missing out on Durins tomb, the well or Peregrin's fuckup.
WhAT MORE CAN YOU ASK OF THE MAN?
And look at the brighter side of Christopher Lee being chucked out _ SAURON IN PHYSICAL FORM__ dammnit! compromises have to be made.. or du still prefer to see tht ragged beaten Saruman over the DARK LORD of mordor?!
STOP BITCHINGG...
;)
PS:- I am glad the matrix TB's have been removed -
http://www.empireonline.co.uk/news/news.asp?story=5151
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Nov 08, 2003 5:30:08 AM CST
for those who dont want to go to link its STARWARS DVD SEPTEMBER
by jimdin2001
marketting for ep3 january 2005
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I'm just writing this in the hope that PJ will see it: For god's sake put the scene back in! I've turned it over and over in my mind and I just can't see how cutting it out can improve the plot or timing in any possible way. Please PJ: I've trusted you till now... Don't make me lose the faith!
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Well done Peter for cutting out the "Scouring"; we will be drowning in hobbit emotion by the end of the Cracks Of Doom scene, so we don't need another half hour of miserable hobbits tacked on to the end of the movie. I believe the sailing into the west ending is perfect. I am not sure how that will be done though, whether Sam, Frodo, Bilbo and crew will jump into a boat and sail into the sunset, or whether there wil be a time lapse sequence with a voiceover by Galadriel.
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Nov 08, 2003 6:31:32 AM CST
BY THIS LOGIC, PJ WOULD CUT THE OPENING OF TTT BECAUSE IT HAS A
by theginger twit
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Anyone found any eastereggs on TTT EE? Where?
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you are totally wrong!!!!
People is going to ask what the hell had hapened to saruman.
I won't like a movie with no end to saruman, sorry.
Sure all my friends are going to ask me what hapened with him in the book, cause they're not going to believe this end. -
Oh God damn it, I've been waiting for ages to see The Voice Of Saruman on the big screen, and now it won't happen! DAMN!! It's my favourite part of the book, just brilliant dialogue between Gandalf and Saruman, priceless. So I'm gonna have to wait a year until the special edition DVD comes out, F**K!!!! I do love the first two films and I'm sure I'll love the third even more, but it's such a shame when stand out moments in the book fail to make it to the cinema. Boo hoo for me.
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you are a twat. I've read the book but many haven't, dumb ass.
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Not by PJ, but by you. I can't believe some of you "people". I thought the nadir of fanboy whining had been reached long ago, but you constantly sink below yourselves and plumb the true depths of your dedication to miserable wheedling. What we're witnessing here, folks, is (believe it or not) a DVD backlash. It is by far the most exciting time ever to be a movie fan, with an embarrassing wealth of special editions choked to the gills with extra footage, documentaries, commentaries and tons of other things including -- for the older films, at least -- legendary outtakes and items that have only been rumored to exist. And in this truly Golden Age of film collecting you miserable cretins find the energy to complain about missing scenes that you have been more or less guaranteed will be on the EE DVD? You make me sick. The most heinous aspect of some of the whiners is the philanthropist posturing expressed in their "concern" for how the average moviegoer "won't have closure" with Saruman's fate. As if any one of you self-centered mouth-breathers care in the slightest about Joe and Jane Average
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Nov 08, 2003 8:26:47 AM CST
ebonic, I think you meant Paraguay; also Marilyn MonRohan, Moxy,
by miami mofo
ebonic, I think you're confused because I'm sure I saw Saruman in Ascuncion just last month. :~) ***If memory serves, it was Ingold who first asked who the hot chick in the glittering cave was. Then elanor dubbed her Marilyn MonRohan. ***Moxy, we have the same theory. See my 'There are endings, and there are ENDINGS!!!!!!!!!' post above for info on a "Secret Shire Party scene" that was filmed this past July. I'm hoping that P.J. made this change for the reason that bjarki56 stated -- fan pressure. ***bjarki56! Welcome back! Long time no see. Hope all is well. I'm not sure if fan pressure pushed the running time to 3:30, but I'm sure hoping it changed how Saruman dies. PLEASE let it happen in The Shire. And if it has to be on a spikey wheel, let that wheel be at Ted Sandyman's new mill. [I will NEVER stop hoping for some form of Scouring, even if its only for the SEV DVD.] ***Speaking of SEVs, I must confess that when LotR:FotR received all those Academy Award nominations, I was of the opinion that the Academy would not reward what was basically the first third of a very long movie, but would wait until LotR:RotK came out to bestow the big ones, i.e. picture and director. My thoughts on this are beginning to change because of these SEVs. How can something be a best picture when it's not even the best version of the film? ***XYZAN, if you're reading but not posting, I sent you an e-mail to an address Runelord provided. Please respond to either that mail or just send me one to the addy my name links to so I can reply. Thanks.
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Helicopter shot after helicopter shot, terrible dialogue, badly directed action scenes, no exploration of secondary characters, stupid comedy, retarded gollum. The books were good, but TTT was terrible. FOTR is a decent movie but the others, with this news...just feels me with dread.
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Considering that she was played by Elijah Wood's Sister, I'm sure glad that I did NOT include her in my version of Frodo's Bath Song. The implications make me shudder. Then again, considering that a lot of Hobbits are both Cousins AND Aunts or Uncles/Nieces or Nephews, I suppose that some of that stuff did happen. Lets face it, Hobbits are horny. ***We have a request, so here it is! One last time for the guy at the end of the bar: "Sing hey! for the bath at close of day; that washes the weary mud away. A loon is he that will not sing: O! Water Hot is a noble thing. / Now Goldberry would have bathed with me; That lovely young wife of old Tommy B. But time constraints and PG-13 made sure this was something that would never be seen. / And Galadriel -- she's so far away; I'll take a bath with her another day. So Arwen won't you be a dear; Just slip in this bath and wash my rear. / Yes! Wash my back and I'll wash yours; And pretty soon we'll be on all fours. Who cares if Aragorn will one day be King? For Water Hot is a noble thing."
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It's the MTV movie award Gollum acceptance speach. 1st disc, below chapter 30 if anybody cares...
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Some of us can't afford to buy a hundred different versions of the same fucking movie. As other people have said, PJ seems to be using the dvd as a crutch for bad editting choices in his theatrical version. Tell the story once and be done with it. Why must the theatrical version be the inferior one? The thing that I'm affraid of most is that this is going to start a trend in hollywood, because there are more than enough dipshits willing to shell out the money for a hundred versions of the same movie. I say no thank you, I'd rather download them illegally off the internet.
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So you'll download them off the net. Again, you get to see your precious scenes, so why the bitching? Last time I checked, there were only two versions of each film, well announced ahead of time. There are plenty of collectors edition DVD sets that I can't afford to buy now either, but the difference between you and me is that I don't take it personally. Why should I only endorse movies I can afford to buy myself? That's beyond stupid and reeks of sour grapes.
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I don't see anywhere where it says the breaking of the staff and the voice of saruman is out. I think we'll still see Saurman fall onto the big spikes and everything, we just wont see the conversation with Grima beforehand.
Right?
RIGHT?
fuck we'd better. -
Quick clarification:
Yes, my first post was an angry rant; the later ones do reflect more accurately how I feel. But, I can appreciate the movies as standalones, and with each of the first two, I have been able to appreciate them after watching them several times and forcing myself to forget that they are supposed to be interpretations of the LOTR books. As movies, they are works of genius; as interpretations of the book, I feel that they fall extrememly, extremely short. So yeah, that's where I'm coming from.
I'm also amused that so many people picked up on my exchange with devil0509 last night because it was between a doctor and a lawyer - or soon-to-be. LOL -
Um, ok...now that I have your attention. ;) As a giant fan of the books and the movies, I would gladly sit through a 5 hour movie if it meant getting in everything important and making the very best film possible. When the audience becomes emotionally invested in the characters, they WANT to see more of them, they WANT to know what happens to them. So when the issue is a 7-minute sequence, my reaction is "big deal, bring it on baby!" In the case of Saruman, he's been a fantastic villian for the first two films - really he's been the *only* major villian in the films. Sure, we've seen bits and pieces of Sauron, in the FOTR prologue and the Eye, but mostly he's been talked about and alluded to, not seen or directly interacted with. I think it will be an unfortunate cheat to the audience to not give them (and me) the satisfaction of seeing Saruman's comeuppance and demise. You can't just give the audience such a superior villian for two films and then simply allude to his fate offscreen. That would be like Luke returning to Endor in the shuttle and telling everyone "oh yeah, Vader died in my arms, sorry you couldn't be there to see it." Some of you are saying that the casual viewer either won't care, or that they will care and will not assume he's been killed by the Ents. I can see the logic of the latter. At the end of TTT, all we see is a terrified Saruman retreating back inside Orthanc. For all the casual viewer knows, he's still in there, alive and plotting an escape. If I use my parents as an example, they've never read the books, and they often get Saruman and Sauron confused - it would only add to their confusion for Saruman to disappear from the story without some kind of appropriate explanation. Anyway, despite this bit of disappointing news, I still have every hope that ROTK will be a fantastic experience. All the trolls and haters and naysayers slinging mud here can fuck off. The LOTR films kick the ass of the Matrix and Wars films every day of the week, and twice on Sunday. As a fan, I will pay to see this movie 5-6 times no matter what, so please New Line and Peter Jackson, give me that extra 7 minutes.
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I have not read the books. I have no idea what happens to Saruman. At the end of the Two Towers, I actually did NOT assume that he had be "vanquished", nor will I when ROTK comes out. I'm going to one of legions who would ask "What happened to Christopher Lee's character?" I think it's a stunningly bad decision and one that'll keep him from winning the Oscar, as that is what everyone is going to walk away thinking. I'm sure it will be a wonderful movie, but that crack in the wall is a doosy and don't think that won't be a thing that people will harp on after seeing it. Also, I agree with one of these other posts about the fact that some people can't afford to buy the big expensive extended cuts just to find out what happened. It does seem a bit like Peter Jackson took the Kevin Smith approach to editing on this which is "when in doubt, cut it and put it on the DVD and it's no big deal." ___It's always a big deal. He damn near ruined Dogma with it. Oh wait, he did.
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Nov 08, 2003 10:30:19 AM CST
DON'T BE AFRAID... PETER WILL GIVE YOU THE RIDE OF A LIFETIME.
by workshed
ON THAT YOU CAN REST ASSURED. SLEEP WELL!
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Because movies are meant to be seen on the big screen. You just don't leave things unresolved and say "don't worry it'll be in asuper special ultra edition coming out next year." It's just lousy story-telling. For many people the theatrical version is the only one they're going to see. They'll all be left scratching their heads wondering what became of Saruman.
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Quick question. Are they going to have Aragorn coming up the Anduin in the ships he took from the Corsairs? I mean, whenever I read the ROTK and get to that part, wow, you can close your eyes and just see that moment. You have Eomer looking at the ships, resigned he will dies, and bam, there is the standard blowing in the wind. Is this going to be in the movie?
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I disagree. Increasingly, film watching is a much better experience on DVD. Besides, long after we're gone the definitive version of ROTK will with all certainty be the EE. I do, however, think that they are two different experiences. In a theater, pacing is a much more relevant factor than on DVD. If PJ feels that removing certain scenes increases the flow of the cinema version of ROTK, then I'm not one to argue. If, however, I had been told that all these scenes had been cut and that I'd never get to see them, I would be screaming bloody murder. As we are now living in the Golden Age of movie collecting, I'm perfectly content to wait until the EE. I suspect most of the TBers are too, even if many of them prefer to argue the opposite.
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Yeah, man, my ability to focus and put together coherent thoughts tend to go out the window at the sight of my hottie in those panties. Long night of call, not a single cute nurse in this ICU...kind of makes me like a sailor when I get home. No, not crab infested. Just horny.
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Nov 08, 2003 11:27:12 AM CST
Oh Shut Up and Tell it to Someone Who Cares you Pathetic Geeks
by fyi-2003
Barry Meyer
Chairman and CEO, Warner Bros.
4000 Warner Boulevard
Burbank CA 91522
Email: Barry.meyer@warnerbros.com
Phone: 818-954-1464; Fax: 818-954-6794 -
Some of you really need to CHILL-THE-FUCK-OUT!!! Damn, we all want the payoff, it seems only natural Saruman's storyline would have a resolution. But, really, it's not the end of the world. Hey, it's not my job to defend these movies, but I'm pretty damn sure it won't affect the overall quality of the film. I swear, some of you were just waiting by your computers, talons extended, for some piece of info to leap upon and object to. And several of you need to be ashamed of yourselves. As far as most people with enough sense to piss in a ditch are concerned, the director has already proven himself more than capable! You losers save all that shit you talked about Lckson for this special occasion? You maggots are nauseatingly pathetic. Sorry, folks. This shit is too deep for me in here. Later.
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Hard stare at monitor
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...THEIR version. M-u-s-t p-r-o-o-f better... Wher'd that spare y come from? Curse you moaters!
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IT'S REALLY SAD AND TERRIBLE THIS NOTICE ABOUT SARUMAN'S DEATH.I WAS EXPECTING THAT "ROTK" WERE BEST FILM AF ALL.NOW I SEE CLEARLY THAT IT WON'T BE.IT'S A BAD THING THAT MONEY RULES THE INDUSTRY OF FILMMAKING INSTEAD OF LOVE FOR CINEMA.PETER JACKSON:I'M SO DISSAPPOINTED WITH YOU!!!!
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I how the Nazgul have been handled. They were terrible in Fellowship. Not terrifying, but annoying, and worse, impotent. They repeatedly looked incompetent and weak. At least we could kind of rationalize it by thinking, "well, they're only beginning to grow in power, they're far from Mordor, they don't yet have their Fell Beasts." But than in TT, it gets even worse with the scene where Frodo becomes Zombie Frodo in Osgiliath. That easily the most terrible scene in all of the LotR movies, because 1) It reinforces the incompetence of the Nazgul 2) It betrays the character of Frodo by making him *attack* Sam 3)It ruins the logic of the entire novel by letting the Enemy *know* where the Ringbearer is. /end rant I agree with Peter's logic about how dealing with Saruman at the beginning of RotK would ruin the pacing, but I also agree with the posters who've said that that just shows how he fucked up TT by not dealing with it there (and substituting the invented shit - and it was shit).
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Nov 08, 2003 12:09:40 PM CST
This makes me sick and is a perversion of Tolkien's work
by skywaymoaters
I don't understand how some of you blinkered fanboys can defend PJ's actions here. These movies are now completely ruined for me. I have been PJ's greatest fan and defender on all the changes he's put into these movies. Hell, I've even liked some of the changes - like the scene where Aragorn touches the connects with the little boy and holds his sword. The overt eroticism in this scene is something which touches my heart deeply, as I feel there's nothing more beautiful than the affection between a grown man and a young boy. But I'm getting off the point. What I mean to say is that PJ has made a drastic and unnecessary change to the story which will make absolutely no sense. What's next? Is he going to cut the part where Gandalf and Pippin sleep in the same room together? Or the part where Frodo and Sam hold each others hands?
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Christopher Lee has repeatedly said that the anticipation of seeing those three films is basically why he wants to live on - which makes this even more tragic. I really hope P.J. changes his mind on this and includes at least SOME of Saruman's scene in the theatrical cut. Pacing, shmacing. The last two hours of RotK are going to be a non-stop ride anyway, so why not have a slow beginning that wraps up the previous film?
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Of the talkbackers that populated the LOTR discussions of 5 years ago, I recognize only greenleaf and morGoth today. I raise my hat to you both -- your dedication is impressive.
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I can understand losing the scoruing because we do, in fact, get some resolution for the Hobbits at the end.
But, no Saruman?
You cannot just have his character arc end in TTT.
This is like Lucas NOT SHOWING the demise of Dooku or Vader, etc.
Huh, what happened?
Bad choice PJ. Bad choice. -
darth_billy
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GOD what moaners we have on here! (not all by the way!)....Gee, we have two of the BEST f*****g films EVER to be made and you are moaning about something which WILL be included in the dvd. YOU try editing such a monumental piece of work!.....I have nothing but PRAISE for a director who was determined to bring such an amazing story to life on screen. If you don't like what he does why watch?..stick to the books!Many of us though CAN seperate between what we read and what we see on screen (since cinema works in a different way than a book doea and changes need to be made). PJ IS the best director in my opinion at the moment and i hope he gets an amazing award at the end of these films for the sheer damn excellant effort by him and all involved!!!!!Role on KING KONG!!!!!!!!!!!
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Wow...great to see you again dood. Vanyar is still around too but he doesn't post much anymore. greenleaf only popped in for a bit a while back just to piss everybody off (imagine that?:). Hey, remeber the "Don't get wrapped around the axle about Merry's Blade of Westernesse!" debates. Heh, looks like you won out. ope you stick around a bit as things are coming to their climax.
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I don't know what you think you're doing, but your comment is just sick - whether you think its funny or not. There is no "eroticism" in the scene beetween Aragorn and that kid. YOU are the only one who sees it, and what you're saying is disgusting because that kid is a minor. The idea that you find it "touching" that a grown man can be involved with a young boy is just disgusting.
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It's an old AICN trolling trick to try and hijack anothers posting handle by registering under the same name but with a slightly different spelling )adding an underscore between names is also done). I personally know Skyway Moaters and I know he would never post anything like that. He has made more than a few enemies at AICN so somebody trying a cheap (an I'd think, obvious) trick like this is not surprising. Personally, I wouldn't piss him off like that but I guess this troll knows his/her business best.
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Matt Shuster has created a "Put the Saruman scene back into the Return of the King" petition at PetitionOnline.com, the free online petition service.
The URL is http://www.PetitionOnline.com/smanrotk/
Please take a look, and consider
signing yourself. Whether this is a tactical play by PJ to muster fanbase support, or is just the awful truth, the petition is a good place to register your protest.
Thanks for reading. -
By the sound of things, Jackson is going to further distance the movie and the source material with RotK. FotR was a solid film, and Jackson did a nice job of editing the source material while not changing it dramatically. With TTT he made an inexcusable error (in my opinion) by cheapening the character of Faramir. Where does the blood of Numenor still reside, if not in the body of noble Faramir? The Aragorn over the cliff plot line pissed me off as well. I knew of the Scouring of the Shire's omission from the onset, and had prepared myself for disappointment (and a Return of the Jedi-style ending with fireworks, a saccharine-sweet Aragorn/Arwen kiss, and singing and dancing Wild Men, led by a wacky Ghan-buri-Ghan). You knew that PJ was going to have to bring the Saruman plot line to some conclusion, and I was hoping it would be better than the "impaled wizard" photos I've seen. After reading this, though, I would have much preferred Saruman being impaled than having Saruman removed from the film entirely. I've enjoyed the special editions, but their pacing stinks, and they've not been as good as the theatrical releases. Forgive me for my rant, but the theatrical release of a movie is what a filmmaker is remembered for, not for any subsequent releases of the film (case in point, Episode IV, V, and VI. The exception to the rule is The Abyss Special Edition). I'm done...this is the worst news I've heard all day. POO!
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Nov 08, 2003 2:20:39 PM CST
DOC PAZUZU thinks we're all whining biatches cause we wanna see
by spacesheik
PAZUZU says "Who the hell cares if a few scenes are missing from the film
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Hello all. I'm an avid fan of both the written words of Tolkien, and the wonderful images of Mr. Jackson, and I just had to weigh in for a second here. First of all, Mr. Bjiarki, I do remember that particular piece of information from TORN, and it was Grima who got the shaft, as it were, from Legolas. I assumed it would happen after Grima gave Saruman a little shovy-shovy onto a spiky spiky, but now, who knows. Imagine how wonderful it would be to NOT know everything about this movie, to be sitting there in the theater watching Gandalf walking through Isengard and suddenly hearing Lee's voice from above. Wouldn't it give you shivers if you had resigned yourself to not having the scene, and it was in? I personally trust PJ when he said that this one follows the book more closely than even Fellowship, and he KNOWS how much Lee put into this, and I don't believe that he would rip him off like this. At no point in 'his' e-mail, and I say his because I don't think that he would misspell definitely 'definately,' being an accomplished writer and all, does he say that every one of Lee's scenes is cut. Perhaps he's referring to one between Grima and Saruman that we never see. We don't know. It could be a ploy of his to get some more running time, because he could easily show excerpts from this TB to all the execs who won't give it to him, or it could even be a bit of misdirection to set us up for the joy I described above. We won't know for sure until December 17th, will we. On a personal note, hello Morgoth! I've enjoyed your take on the films and books immensely during my very short posting time here. Do keep them coming!
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I signed the aforementioned petition "www.PetitionOnline.com/smanrotk" Do the same folks.
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so wait, you mean to tell me that some people ALREADY HAVE advance copies of TTT EE? is it out yet? i remember seeing the TT visual companion a while ago and i recall an art rendition of the Balrog all wet and slimy and skelletal-like. i thought wow! too bad that wasnt in the movie. but there was also a picture of the valley in front of helm's deep, a before and after drawing of it with and w/o the hurons. since i know the trees are in the EE, what about ol' Gandy fighting with the beast after they hit the underground lake? eh? any takers or am i just being a dork? (which reminds me i need to check out the ROTK visual companion if it's out) HA!
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Lord, that was fast. So what am I signing now? Are there not enough black people on Peter Jackson's running crew? Does George Lucas need to usurp Jackson's editing duties and finish the film himself? I guess I can see how Grima's character got no real resolution, but people that don't want to see it will be able to accept it. People that do will be able to buy the Extended Edition. It makes the movie flow better. This is not petition-worthy. I have a feeling some of you people have to be passionate about everything just so that you don't throw yourselves on a knife.
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THIS IS FROM THE PETITION. YOU WANT CHRIS LEE IN ROTK THEN SIGN IT.
"To: Fans of the Lord of the Rings trilogy
First off, let me state that I am a huge fan of the Lord of the Rings trilogy of films (the two that are out now, and almost assuredly the final installment). However, a troubling piece of news has been confirmed that the resolution of what becomes of the fallen wizard Saruman has been CUT from Return of the King. While I understand the need for the cut to progress the plot of the third movie and not make the start of the final film seem like a "wrapping up" of The Two Towers, let me state my case why I feel this is a bad decision that needlessly alienates the hardcore fans of the series and puts a blemish on an otherwise superb film:
1) This is an MEMORABLE scene. Not only does it resolve an important narrative thread, but it also provides a means of progressing the plot of the film concerning the palantir and how the Fellowship comes to possess it.
2) The scene is apparently only 7 MINS long. This means that the scene will not make the film go much over the 3 hour projected running time.
3) The scene is being saved for the extended DVD. That's all well and good, but if the extended DVD audience can handle the pacing of this version of the film WITH the Saruman scene included, I'm sure 98% of the audience at this point can handle it in the theatrical version. Keep in mind that the tickets for the Trilogy Tuesday showings of BOTH extended editions released so far have sold out in less than a week, and even less than a DAY in some places. Therefore, the audience for longer cuts of these films with more wonderful scenes included is huge. I don't mean to be disrespectful, but I feel that Peter Jackson is relying too much on the extended editions of the films to finish each film that he started in the theatrical version. This will be the most obvious for the Saruman scene when it is reintegrated into the finished film, making the theatrical version feel very unfinished in retrospect.
4) People will MISS this scene. You heard me correct, even casual fans that are not the biggest fans of the books have told me that they were upset that the fate of Saruman was left in the air with no resolution at the end of the second film. I assured them that his end would be resolved in ROTK. Now that this is not the case, I know for a fact that certain people will be upset that it will not be seen for a year on DVD and in theaters for even longer.
5) If the Smeagol/Gollum transformation can be inserted into the film as a flashback, why can't this scene be treated the same way? I've read that Andy Serkis is very protective of this scene and very much wants it to be in the final film for the THEATRICAL version, so the most people can see it. If this is the case, shouldn't the Saruman scene, a scene that contains important plot information and resolution (not to mention top-notch acting from Christopher Lee) be included in the final film as well, or at the very least as another flashback?
That concludes my rant. I apologize for the length of this petition, but I felt I needed to approach this touchy subject from every angle possible. I know it may not seem like it now, but I believe this cut will hurt the Return of the King. Please Peter Jackson, at least consider putting this scene back into the theatrical version, and give us Saruman fans/haters some much needed closure.
Sincerely,
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Hey guys, PJ and Co. are already behind on their deadline. They have just a little over a month to make all the prints for distribution. The scene with Christopher Lee will not be added in the theatrical version-it's not gonna happen. So quit your bitchin' and relax. You haven't seen even seen the movie yet.
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Nov 08, 2003 2:59:35 PM CST
In other news PETER JACKSON's film credit is changed to BIG FAT
by tall_boy
friggin jackass doubledipping film splicing motherfucker.
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A petition already? I wonder if this one will go farther than the one on that very site asking for a 'decent widescreen Christmas Story' DVD. I mean, the very wording of that petition is pathetic! "A blemish on an otherwise wonderful film?' How would you know? How do we know how awful it will be, or if every bit of Lee is cut out. Nobody has seen this movie yet. The alleged PJ is talking about a sequence. There could be more.
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But I will say the size of this TB is reaching epic proportions, so to all Ringers(morG, Devil'sOwn, etc.): I'm heading back to the AICNDownunder TB we just left (?id=16376), much quieter there.
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By no means am I comparing myself to Peter Jackson or anyone associated with LOTR. I'm just thinking that it could have worked with that scene tacked onto the end of The Two Towers. As long as the scene started with a shot tracking out from behind something... a grouping of pillars, a table, etc. and in the previous scene you have a musical crescendo(Helm's Deep) followed by a slowing down and dramatizing of the music... then you dissolve to the aforementioned tracking shot slowly revealing the last expository scene with Saruman... during this scene, the music could do all the work of letting you know that this is the end of one book setting up the beginning of another... and then you simply cut back into the Frodo/Gollum/Samwise sequence... then cut to the end credits. To me, it sounds like this scene was cut more cause of marketplace concerns in The Two Towers(running time, fidgety audience, etc.) and then cut again cause of pacing concerns in ROTK. My problem is that I could totally imagine it more as ending the Two Towers dvd than setting up the extended ROTK dvd. I think that's much more difficult to work out. Once you're way into a movie, you can hand an audience almost anything you want and you can make it work through music, shot selection, and editing. I get the feeling that it was a big mistake to not put it on the end of the the Two Towers extended dvd. Then, all of this shit wouldn't be happening, and we'd all get to see the scene in two weeks, rather than speculate for another whole year. Even if it was, for some reason, awkward being placed after Helm's Deep, the audience would be much more forgiving being that it is after such an amazing sequence and we realize that the movie HAS to end soon. The ending of Attack of the Clones is similar to what I've suggested and it flows pretty well. It has many beats to hit before it can actually come to an end. Despite that films problems, I do feel that it was pieced together rather well.
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Especially those of you who claim to know/love the book. Why do you suppose Saruman's death doesn't work at the end of T2T nor at the beginning of ROTK? Why do you think PJ has come to this understanding? Could it be because Saruman doesn't die there in the book? I am not saying this because I am so much a purist that I want things unchanged. What I mean is that perhaps, after trying it a half-dozen ways, PJ has recognized that the way Tolkien structured that event was the best. Tolkien has Saruman disappear from the action, so much so that his re-appearance as a beggar in the wilderness was a delicious surprise when I read it first, 35 years ago. It cracks me up that so many "purists" are tanning PJ's hide for removing something that was such a departure in the first place!
One poster was up in arms about this news, claiming that people need to know what happens to him.
He said people will not assume he has "vanquished" by the Ents, rather he says his parents (who have not read the books) figure Saruman "is stuck in Isengard, alive and plotting his escape".
Well, in the book, that is EXACTLY Saruman's fate. Perhaps what PJ means is, that without a scene explicitly stating that Saruman died, perhaps people will assume what those parents' did. Which would be oh so delicious when he turns up in a certain green and good place.*** Miami and bjarki oh I hope hope hope you are right. I keep re-reading the e-mail and see nothing in it that would contradict what you guys are suggesting. Forgive me. I was wrong to despair. There is always hope! -
Isn't it amazing how much can be conferred from person to person without insults? I think that your suggestion would work, as long as we knew that the Scouring was in. However, Jackson has said himself that it's not. (I'm not just talking about the sketchy e-mail, either. He actually said that on the FOTR EE DVD.) People will be expecting some sort of resolution with Saruman in the theater. Without showing that he's lost his power, rookies will be expecting, oh I don't know, another snowstorm or something.
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...They're actually working...
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If Warner Bros. gave each of you five years at film school and $500 million, not one of you would turn out something as heartfelt, coherent and entertaining as what PJ has done.
The only 'flaws' you can point out in the movies are deviations from Tolkien's text.
You don't like the editing at Helm's Deep? I guess you prefer Tolkien's 'editing' where he just totally separates the two stories. Yeah - that would have made for a great movie! An hour and a half ending at Helm's Deep followed by FINALLY meeting the hero of the story and following Sam for 40 minutes while he listens to Orcs arguing on the other side of a closed door.
ROTK is gonna rock - you're all gonna see it, you're all gonna buy the EE DVDs (and the 2-DVD version too, you loser fanboys!!) so stop making such a big deal.
Lordy - you are all so far gone you make the talkbackers in Jay & Silent Bob Strike Back seem like mature, restrained, MENSA members.
You are the ones who are the ball-lickers!
Vroomfundle -
As a fan I was confused with the ending of the two towers, it does seem that they are playing up the CGI character/effects and forsaking important elements from the original storyline. I hope that somewhere in the beginning of rotk we'll see a glimpe a flash or a full featured shot of the confrontation at Isenguard. At least show gandalf stripping sauroman from the order and breaking his staff... then show sauroman(hereafter known as sharky) hobble off with grimer. Grimer does backstab sauroman at a later time but that is not necessary to show in the film at all. In terms of character development/importance Sauroman is much more important than even sauron in these films/ he's had more exposure, and sauron does NOT have phisical form. (he would if he regained the ring). As for the palantir, I'm upset that if it doesn't make it but it could be worked around and the film could still be salvaged without it.
In all... I love the movies, but I love the books more. If people see these movies hopefully they will read the books, or at least listen to the unabridged versions of the Audio Book.
Please let the sauroman scene be in the theatrical release! -
Wait. You did say that you were a fan of the material, right?
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Seriously, AOL is a fucking waste of space and no matter what they do, it will continue to lose money and be looked at by the internet community as a shit service that has useless updates every two weeks and is doing nothing but slowing the steady trend towards the widespread use of broadband. The funniest thing is how big, bad, 'profitable' AOL came in and cleaned house at Warners because it was supposedly 'losing money' due to giving too many directors free reign. I know for a fact that before coming in they looked down upon the way that David O. Russel was allowed to do whatever he damn well pleased in making Three Kings. Same with Kubrick and Eyes Wide Shut. Same with Eastwood and his films. Same with producers/directors in general... why the hell else did Calley and Semel leave? Now it's been reduced to the Toys R' Us of film studios and is STILL being blamed for money loss when it is really AOL losing customers by the thousands every single day. Let's face it, AOL bought Time/Warner so that it could suck the life out of it like a leach, and then, when AOL is defunct, it can survive as a lesion on the nearly dead body of Time/Warner.
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It's a terrible terrible editing choice. Saruman is still running around, with staff no less? The only people who are going to assume Saruman just hung around Orthanc (with his Palantir) and moped are people who didn't see the first two films or didn't pay attention. It's not about accuracy with the books anymore, obviously. It's about plot. It's about a 9 hour saga and still the resolution of two characters (one very major) waiting for the f'ing DVD. Yes yes yes PJ did a great job. Until now. I loved the books and the films. I hate this. I know I didn't see the movie yet. I don't hate the movie yet. I hate the decision because it doesn't make sense. How much time was wasted with "Aragorn's tumble off the cliff" in T2T to "spare us" the bad pacing of Saruman's comeuppance??????????????????????????????????
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Anyone with half a brain knows that at some point in the film our heroes have to go to Isengard, that's where they pick up Merry and Pippin and where Gerima tosses them the Palantiri in effort to either harm them or Saruman which fucking leads into the whole plot of Sauron being tricked into thinking that Pippin has the ring, so it makes no fucking sense what-so-ever to cut Lee and Dourif from the film.
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I just made a shit sandwich with your name on it. Bon apetite, fuckface! ***elanor, I hope this is all much ado about nuthin'. It sure has gotten a lot of people excited though.
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I am a fan of the books. There were two things I was looking forward to in the trilogy above any other: the huorns and Frodo, Bilbo, Gandalf and others leaving for the Grey Havens. Now it looks like my wishes will not happen (though aren't the huorns in TTT:EE?). But I am willing to go with the story Peter Jackson is writing.
I can't say it's completely Tolkien's work anymore. Don't get me wrong, I do think that PJ thinks he's adhering to the spirit of Tolkien's books. I don't think I agree with that anymore. He's taken license in many important areas that encompass Tolkien's feelings. These scenes focus us on Tolkien's worldview in much the same way that we see his worldview when Gandalf is talking to Frodo in FOTR about "pity." So while I understand a director's intent, and that the books are a roadmap of sorts to the movies, I can't agree that this is lifting Tolkien's masterwork up.
As for an alleged Sauron/Aragorn sword battle, I think the only way it's do-able is if it's done after the ring is cast down. Sauron's strength is gone, he's desperate, so he musters all he can to keep his power....even himself. It is do-able, but it's gotta come across like that.
Anyway, I'm willing to take the movie as it's worth, and I think it'll be really good. It's just not what I expected. And that'll be OK. -
Nov 08, 2003 5:12:31 PM CST
How is this different from the whole "Lucas raped my childhood"
by ribbons
Umm, isn't this exactly the same thing? PJ (and Co.) wrote the scene where Saruman gets it, they cast Chris Lee, and they shot it. They decided it hindered the movie as a stand-alone piece, so they lopped it off. But because you all want to make this movie yours, you say PJ is an idiot for taking a trilogy that he constructed and eliminating a part of it? Oh, and there will be no Scouring of the Shire. Get used to it.
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Nov 08, 2003 5:18:05 PM CST
can't believe people are still pissed off about Tom Bombadil and
by dragonfire
I can understand disappointment over the Gandalf vs Saruman scene being cut because that's an important part of the plot. I myself was really looking forward to that scene. But Tom Bombadil and the scouring of the shire could not and should not be in the movies. Why don't you stop and think for a moment about how a skipping, singing character who makes absolutely no sense whatsoever and has little significance to the fate of Frodo and the ring could fit into FOTR which was already 3 hours long as it was. As for the scouring, there're far more important things happening in ROTK for PJ to have to cram in the scouring which, though great in the book, would not work in the movie. The climax of the movie will be the mount doom scene, the ultimate confrontation which everything leads up to, and it would not work in a movie to have another half an hour or so of events occurring after the climax, events which, like Tom Bombadil, do not affect the fate of the ringbearer and the ring, the focus of the trilogy. It may add more depth to their characters ie. shows that the hobbits have grown, but we'll get to see that through the war in Gondor and Frodo and Sam's journey in Mordor. We knew they had grown already in the books without the scouring of the shire having to show us that. What is important though, is the Grey havens which, occurring to what I've heard, is going to be in the movie. So if you feel like whining about Tom Bombadil and the scouring stop and think for a moment about other, far more important things that could have been cut. The movies and the books have to be different in some ways else there's no point in making the movies. Certain things will be in the movies that weren't in the books and certain things must stay in the books that aren't in the movies, especially something like Tom Bombadil which should definitely stay in the imagination. As for the Saruman vs Gandalf scene that's been cut, well, that's a real shame. What difference would an extra 7 minutes have made? Bugger.
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Great to see you back, even if I don't wade into this fray.... Naturally, it all stirs up former disgruntled thoughts about unnecessary cliff dives and warg battles, if they are so crimped for time. And I do think Tolkien knew a thing or two about narrative and everything (give or take Bombadil) being integral to the whole. I lost my "trust PJ" mantra after TTT, but still hope for frequent magnificence (mixed with disappointments) from ROTK. And how about joining us on the Tailender talkback (#16376)?
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It's totally different, lucas came out 20 years later and made a bunch of prequels that some people didn't like. We're free to criticize movies, by the way, it doesn't mean we want to make them or they should never be made without our input. It's called talking about stuff. Saruman's disappearance from the third film is not easily explained like PJ supposes in that email. It's a bad idea.
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Nov 08, 2003 5:44:22 PM CST
In other other news BIG FAT WANKER IDIOT takes prints of LOTR an
by tall_boy
Film at eleven.
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It is a little tense in here! I'm going to hang around 16376 instead, w/ raw_bean.
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At 1.55pm this afternoon (Sat 8th Nov)I was shaking hands with the master, Christopher Lee, after he had signed a copy of his autobiography 'Lord Of Misrule' for me. If I had known then what I know now I would have asked him what the story behind Sarumans fate really was...hoping P.J had informed C.L of the descision. Sadly, this was not to be, but if my words can help make a difference please let us see Saruman make his exit at the beginning of the theatrical release of ROTK. If only to honour Mr Lee's continued enthusiam and promotion of this spectacular film trilogy. He has always said that he hoped to live to see the final film, even though we know he has a good few years and films left in him. On another note, I did ask if he would be working with director Robin Hardy again? I read some time ago that they planned to reteam for another film, The Wicker Man being their first collaboration....Chris Lee's favorite film I believe. Mr Lee said that he hoped they would be working together again and that the title of the film would be Mayday. Lets hope this movie see's the light of day, where as the rumoured Wicker Man remake starring Nicolas Cage never gets going!
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It's amazing that he can find ways to cram liv tyler in to all the films and bore the hell out of us, but is sure that a few minutes of christopher lee would slow the pace. It's a shame. He really blew it. I'll pass on this film. Remember most star wars fans were pretty confident before the release of return of the jedi and look how that turned out!
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When did I ever say you weren't allowed to discuss films? It's just inappropriate to refer to this excision as a travesty. A travesty of what, exactly? And, for the record, I'm talking about the wankers who are trying to get that scene back in the movie through force of will and namecalling, not those people that are "discussing" movies. God, everybody uses that stupid "discussing movies" line whenever I walk in here like I just told them they're not allowed to do it. I just don't find myself in agreement with you zealots, that's all.
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Saying Lucas's movies raped one's childhood isn't a discussion of movies? Maybe you wouldn't use the words "rape" and "childhood" in the same sentence at a "pub," but surely it's motivated by the same interest in the fine cinema.
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HERE IS A PETITION TO KEEP SARUMAN'S FATE IN ROTK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
http://www.petitiononline.com/smanrotk/petition.html -
One talkbacker suggested that Peter secretly filmed the scouring of the shire...that would thrill my heart. But I accept Peter's vision, talent and decisions because he has already given far more than could be expected and I won't complain and I haven't a doubt about enjoying this last film.
It seemed most people in the talkback hate the cutting of Vo Saruman but had adjusted to cutting the Scouring of the Shire. I feel the opposite, and although I understand the reasons for cutting the scouring from the film, in faith to the book, it not only resolves what happens to Saruman and Grima, but gives a segue between the War of the Ring within the world of men and the gray havens. It makes the partings the more poignant and becomes the gage of the growth of the hobbits and the way the world for them had changed, never to go back. (especially with Frodo calling out that no hobbit has ever killed another person in the shire).
Although the scene in Isengard where Saruman's voice bewitches the Rohirrim is the perfect showcase for Christopher Lee and proves why he is perfect in the role of Saruman. That scene, like the Council of Elrond is an exposition.To communicate as much as it needs to, it may simply be too long for a theatrical release. The pivotal purpose of that scene in the book is to prove once and for all that the White Council has removed Saruman from it's leadership and Gandalf is now at the head, which I think is easily assumed by the demeanor and dress of Gandalf in the film which is not as easily portrayed in a book. The White Council and it's leadership are not even really an issue in the movie, as they are in the book. The part of that scene that propels the story forward is the tossing of the Palantir by Grima...(and btw what do the book book fans believe motivates Grima to do this?) I am re-reading the RotK and I know that at one point Pippin laments to Gandalf "why have you brought me here?" in reference to being in Minas Tirith. Gandalf replies "you know perfectly well why...it was your own doing and to keep you from mischief." in reference to Pippin's picking up the palantir and coveting it. Later we find that if Pippin hadn't done that, Sauron would not be quite so confused as to the location of the ring, which was part of Gandalf's wisdom to take Pippin there. So the palantir, to me is the central dramatic reason for the confrontation at orthanc.
And the trivial pursuit question that was revealed on TORN was "who kills Grima?" and the answer was Legolas. Now that doesn't happen in the book, so I asked the Torn poster to please clarify that the New LOTR Trivial Pursuit game refers to the movie which he did right away.
That said I have great faith that this movie will be the best of the three. The last I heard, running time was at 3hrs and 37? minutes for theatrical. Once again...I love the books & I love the movies. They are not the same, but for me, each has ways of supporting the other with the richness of their own mediums. PJ et al are wonderful. Can't wait... counting the minutes!
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ROTK-- has already been scored. In fact-- you can catch a review of the ROTK score at theonering.net. They are not going to go back and re-edit the movie and rescore the sequence so that we can see the fate of Saruman in the theatrical version. Don't waste your time on a petition. The movie will still be better than the first two come December! Don't worry about it and relax everyone.
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And for those of you wondering if the Grey Havens sequence will be in ROTK. There is a track on the ROTK score tittled "Grey Havens". I think it's track number 10-- so I'm going to assume it's in the movie.
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Nov 08, 2003 7:32:51 PM CST
Here;s the reason we're mad about Scouring, crystal clear
by miserableraingod
Hey gang. I don't know if anyone's still reading this thread, but I have to say my peace anyway. Those of us who are pissed about Scouring are obviously diehard fans of the books. Here's a fact about Tolkien's books that non-readers may not understand from the movies: LOTR is about the hobbits. The Ring, Aragorn, Gandalf, Elves, Balrogs, Orcs...all of that is secondary. LOTR was written as a sequel to The Hobbit, because so many people wrote to Tolkien asking for more hobbit info and adventures. The hobbits and their story is the focus of the books, absolutely. Not the Ring. Now, in the narrative, the hobbits' story doesn't end when the war in Gondor is over. They make it home, singing all the way, and when they get there they find the Shire has been industrialized by Saruman. The remaining hobbits are slaves of invading "big men." Gandalf's worst fears have come true: the war came to the Shire, and the purity and beauty of that land is lost. Only Gandlaf isn't there to save them. This is powerful stuff, and it's absolutely necessary to the story that Tolkien wanted to tell - a story about 4 hobbits, about ALL hobbits in the Shire. Now, Peter Jackson said to all of us fans of the book that he was making a faithful adaptation, that he respected and understood everything that Professor Tolkien had done with LOTR, and that he wasn't going to destroy any of that. In the first film, Jackson takes 30-45 minutes showing the beauty of the Shire, and having Gandalf talk about how glad he is that the outside world hasn't corrupted the Shire, and he hopes it never will. All of that sets us up for the Scouring. But PJ doesn't have a Scouring. Even though he said he'd keep true to Tolkien's spirit, to his themes and his message, he is missing out on the most important thing - This Story Is About Hobbits. That's a pretty big error for him to make. So he promised us a faithful adaptation, but has not delivered. The movies are absolutely wonderful, but they are not what PJ promised to the true fans of the original story. Therefore, we are pissed and disappointed. Without the Scouring of the Shire, there is no end to the Hobbits story. And Professor Tolkien would not have wanted that. Therefore, we don't want that. RainGod out.
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"Dude give me a fucking break, if you think our wives, girlfriends, friends, colleagues, etc etc are not going to go to the movies with us then you are out of your fucking mind." ........ If you aren't going to watch the ROTK EE DVD with the same people, then you are out of YOUR fucking mind.
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Nov 08, 2003 8:34:53 PM CST
That would be fine Elanor and would please this purist no end.
by conan_the_humble
However, there has been no suggestion (to my, admittedly limited knowledge at least) that PJ has ever considered this, let alone filmed it in this matter. It would be a pleasant surprise indeed to have Saruman's demise included in this matter and if there is not going to be even an abridged version of the Scouring of the Shire, than this would be a most fitting end to the War of the Ring. In saying that, unfortunately I, like many others have lost the 'trust PJ' mantra that I firly believed in after FOTR. I still can't wait for ROTK though, I believe it will STILL be the best movie this year. Cheers.
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From what I saw in the trailer ROTK will be the cinematic highlight of this winter. So I don't care too much about all the news here. I mean, it's sad to know there is anything left out or changed. I don't know, it might be because it's 2:30 in the morning and I need sleep. I simply don't care that much. Or it's because I tend to accept any fate I can't change myself. *** You can see a total eclipse of the moon here over Germany. It's beautiful. Everything else seems to be so irrlevant.
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Nov 08, 2003 9:30:33 PM CST
It's true, I'm not a reader of the books, and I had been expecti
by theginger twit
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Remember when Aragorn finally decapitates Lurtz at the end of FOTR? The audience cheered when I saw it in the theater because 1) he had been built up as the "leader" of the uruks and 2) he killed Boromir and him getting killed was the payoff for the audience. PJ and Co. have been building up Saruman to be a major player and to not show his staff breaking and his death cheats the audience 1) By not having him "get his" in the end, as Lurtz did in FOTR 2) Most of the audience will be wondering "what happened to Saruman" since his ending wasn't sufficiently dealth with in TTT 3) The significance of Gandalf coming back as "the white" is greatly diminished, if not completely unnecessary. In retrospect, that scene would have been better off put at the end of TTT (since Saruman is pretty much finished without The Scouring of the Shire). But leaving out this scene from ROTK would be a HUGE mistake.
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The Scouring of the Shire would be a nice inclusion but with The Ring destroyed, Elessar being coronated, and the departure from Middle Earth, there is more than enough to conclude the movie. The Scouring of the Shire, while important in its own way, would be nothing more than a sub-plot to movie audiences. The Scouring is not necessary for the movie...Saurman's demise is VERY necessary.
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"There were two things I was looking forward to in the trilogy above any other: the huorns and Frodo, Bilbo, Gandalf and others leaving for the Grey Havens." Well fella, may I be the one to tell you, the Huorns are indeed in the TTT:EE DVD, and Frodo and Bilbo leaving from the Grey Havens IS IN ROTK. PJ has said all along that the Grey Havens sequence was his favourite, and the scene he filmed that always brought him to tears.
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The story is still 'All About The Hobbits' without the Scouring, that just reinforced it. The film's ending will be all about the Hobbits, just told in a more succinct way than the Scouring. Personally, the Grey Havens was always more important to me as I read it, and made it even more focused; the story is 'All About The Hobbits Bilbo, Frodo And Sam', and also the fading of the elves and the passing of the greater part of Middle Earth's beauty and light. This is to be the film's denouement, and I'm very happy about it, I'll happily leave the Shire for future book readings. ---- As for Saruman, it's a shame, but I still have faith this is going to be an absolutely beautiful film. Trust PJ.
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I guess PJ had a choice.
He could keep his originally filmed scene -- with Saruman impaling himself on a stake -- or, choose to cut the whole thing.
Do you agree with PJ's decision now? -
This should have been added as the last wrapup of the storyline at the end of the TTT:EE. That is the place where it makes the most sense and would have been the most satisfying. After all, that is where he added the "Flotsam and Jetsam" chapter and that occurs just prior to the showdown with Saruman. My guess is that PJ didn't realize it wouldn't work at the beginning of ROTK until too late and he couldn't add it to TTT:EE. After all, they just finished shooting pickup scenes with principal characters not too long ago. This is very disappointing because it is such a powerful scene and a lot of people who haven't read the books are going to be saying "What the hell???"
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They don't give Academy awards for the extended DVD versions of movies NEW LINE!! Let PJ do it right the first time!
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Hey, just read a message saying we won't see any finger-ripping, breathtaking RotR ending... if there's no fight between Gollum and Frodo in the crack of Mount Doom, then, how the heck will the ring be destroyed?!?!!?
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Huge Spoiler....The Ring will be destroyed ala Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade and the last bit where the three leads are all involved in trying to recover the dropped grail before it falls into the abyss...you heard it hear first.
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Erm, at least the part about linking him, MM and me! ** Hmmm
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I realize my effors are basically fruitless and that I'm alienating people left and right. But, the fact that so many people are talking about this cut and that the TORN posters themselves are calling this "sad news" makes this decision a little harder to swallow for me. If a scene is good enough for the Extended Edition, and doesn't run the movie over by very much, in my opinion it should be in the theatratical version. You're welcome to disagree, but PJ telling us ahead of time of this cut almost makes it seem like he's bracing us for a cut that he KNOWS is unpopular just to give the movie better pacing. Is this better? We'll find out on opening day!
Am I naive enougth to believe my petition will make Peter Jackson re-edit his film two weeks or so before it is in the can? No. But I think it is worthwhile to see how many people believe this scene is too good to not be seen in its initial theatrical run. And just to prove that their comments aren't all gushing fan dribble, here is one comment that particularly affected me by James Thorn:
"Quote from Christopher Lee (on BBC Radio 4 (http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/factual/rams/midweek.ram (At around 15, then 19 minutes in)): "I haven't seen...Return of the King, but I do have a sequence in it, which is one of the most important scenes in the entire Trilogy. It's a wonderful and brilliant scene, and vital to the story, absolutley crucial, confrontation, you know, with the Fellowship...And there is this magnificent scene, which is pure Tolkien, it's almost all his words, which is crucial, VITAL to the story, which comes out, at the beginning of the third film." He sounded SO very proud and happy at mentioning this scene. This may be the last film he makes. And you've eliminated, SHUNNED, what sounds like his favourite scene. How dare you, how COULD you? I don't know what makes me sadder - the destruction of the film's plot, or of Lee's innocent hopes."
If the words of Christopher Lee can't convince you that this scene should remain in the theatrical version, I don't think anything can. -
Nov 09, 2003 5:29:59 AM CST
Where are the comments from Peter Jacksson and New Line to this
by the swede
I think it
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"If you aren't going to watch the ROTK EE DVD with the same people, then you are out of YOUR fucking mind." Doc, have you ever tried talking a lady friend into seeing the same geeky movie twice even if its an extended version?! It's fruitless. There is a segment of the movie population of there that simply does not see movies twice. The Shire scenes are not integral, they would have been moving and a nice bookend, but not integral. The fate of Saruman IS integral. Frankly, any scene that give me MORE of Gandalf (my favorite Character) and Saruman is ncessary in my book. Like I said, watching through TTT, I need to fast forward through the Ent and Gollum scenes, they are terribly slow and unnapealing. More Gandalf and Saruman I say! More Wizards of Light and Magic!
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Dont usually post, but like rest of you I felt I had to chip in my 2 cents; this rationalising by Jackson that he doesn't want to drag endings from the previous chapter into this film is all wrong, since isn't that what he did with Fellowship, with Merry & Pippin. Also, I thought the whole point of the book The Two Towers was that Frodo & Sam were making their way towards one tower (Sauron's) whilst Gandalf etc eventually confront Saruman in the 2nd tower (Isengard). If a confrontation isn't going to happen (which to be fair we are only speculating) then Jackson might as well change the name of his second film to The One Tower!
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The Extended Version is the difinitive version for me anyway. Hopefully we wont have to wait till next November to see it. It is out earlier isn't it? I read that somewhere. Purely for bragging purposes only, I'm in Thailand, my TTT dvd will be waiting for me when I get home. YEEHAW
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Lets see, in the room we've got morGoth, his wife and two daughters; me and my daughter, and now Pud! as well. Pud!, is there anyone else you're planning to bring to the room that Johnny Suede is providing for us? We can always upgrade to a suite. ***RowanM, I'm not sure about the RotK SEV being released before November, but TORn did report this week that the theatrical RotK DVD will be out in May (the 24th, I believe) rather than August.
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Nov 09, 2003 9:55:31 AM CST
"Purely for bragging purposes only, I'm in Thailand, my TTT dvd
by spacesheik
If you're in Thailand you probably will get to see ROTK DVD in your mailbox when you get back.
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Nov 09, 2003 10:32:58 AM CST
Skyway Moaters: "affection between a man and a young boy"
by mr. ranger
I don't particularly care who this individual is or says he is, his opinions are vile and actually criminal. If there is any way this website can track Skyway Moaters' address they should hand it over to the relevant authorities.
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One of the few I call a hero, but he's among an elite crew. John Carpenter, Sam Raimi, Robert Rodriguez, Richard Linklater.. and of course Chubby lil Jackson. All of these guys are my heros.. Can't wait to see ROTK.. you rock Peter. I knew the second I saw this guy blow up a sheep with a rocket launcher, he was something special. I look forward to seeing what you do with Kong.
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You people bitch and moan about so called "plot holes" in a movie THAT YOU HAVEN'T SEEN. You people bitch and moan about how taking out the confrontation between Saruman and Gandalf scene differs from the book, and removing it is unforgivable. Need I remind you that, in the books, Saruman doesn't even make an appearance until ROTK? In TTT all you hear is a voice from Orthanc.
You're all going to see this movie within the first 3 days of it's release....and then you'll buy the dvds.....You are all hypocrites. -
Nov 09, 2003 12:42:14 PM CST
Anyone who still thinks PJ is a genius after this debacle is not
by atticus finch
There will be no resolution between TTT and RotK to the whole Saruman subplot built and layered so beautifully in FotR and TTT. The audience will "assume". What a cop-out! And Harry making excuses about "editing an epic" is pathetic. Say what you really think, Harry! As a fan of the books, you have to be pissed! Or are your lips to busy kising PJ's ass? I guess the time for not being biased has long since passed for you.
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Who made you a moral authority on this subject? You're a poster-boy for the whole moral panic that future generations will laugh at. The love between a man and boy is a natural and beautiful thing and there's nothing wrong with it. And one day the world will understand this - the way it has finally started to accept homosexuality today. Why, I have many photographs of men and children in affectionate poses and those kids all look happy, believe me. So keep your repressive, Dark Ages morality to yourself and stay out of my business.
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Did you read my post above? Now you're spelling the hijackers name "Skyway Moaters." You're either one of the biggest dumb-asses to come to this site or you and skywaymoaters are one and the same. Wow, I guess "two-headed troller" t-shirts ARE becoming a hot commodity.
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And people like Atticus Finch are the perfect example he points out
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Ok, people, listen to me. Go read my previous post (it's called You people read things that were not written). Why should you scroll back up so far? Because it points out a thing all of you seemed to have missed. You don't seem to give a shit about it since no one replied nor mentioned my post, but you should mind it. The scene where Saruman talks to Grima is not the death scene!!!
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Christopher Lee's Official site is saying that there will be NO Saruman scenes in ROTK.
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One question... does this mean that the ROTK DVD is going to be around 4hrs long? Drooling at the prospect. And do you think they should have out-takes? I have heard of the whole Viggo, Hugo Weaving/Matrix scene... sounds funny
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I'm sure the ROTK Extended Edition will be around 4 hours, now there's one DVD I will prize. Hopefully it'll be out a few months sooner November seeing as they don't have a fourth film to do FX work for. The bloopers might be included as part of a boxset, if they decide it won't spoil the image of the films.
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Nov 09, 2003 4:52:46 PM CST
Halls of Mandos should be closed forever to spirit of Mr. Jacks
by snaga-ape
When Snaga-ape first have words of blasphemy go before his eyes on screen of web site, most of both stomach come up to screen also. Eyes hurt so bad that hand grabs scab-snaga to wipe eyes then screen instead of usual scrotum rag. Scab-snaga only make it worse from squealing and sending plenty snaga-ka-ka over all things and screen and face. He plate of scab-pies end up in make water bucket! Master come and burn many snaga but most hide. None should worry because all this get cleared up when Snaga-ape snap fingers and say baronk pushdug three time. Ha! Ha! Just like how Merry and Pippin will get to Edoras when magic Ent fairy lay pixy dust trail so they move all that much faster and faster. Mr. Jackson must place bet on all surface-monkeys falling for that one. Snaga-ape have best part to tell. Ent Fairy followed by spirit of Saruman and he give palantir to Gandalf after saying sorry to old Maia smoking pal. Blessed Tolkien could not have written better. Lo! Mr. Peter Jackson know story better than author of own self! All, this just stupid make up of Snaga-ape but it sound better than what we hear at surface-monkey Harry Knowle web site. Curse Mr. Peter Jackson for taking most of thunder from greatest of Saruman actor surface-monkey
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Tenenbaum, no need to make an effort being "funny". Nature already took care of that for you, didn't it? New Line only sees numbers, bucko. What's your point? You have only the slightest passing interest in this film, so naturally, you post here. Makes sense. And thanks ever so much for blessing us with your objective point of view. I know you're as remedial as shit, so let me help you out here: Using the term "you people"? Always a big mistake! Nah, this ain't about the whole editing issue- it's about your country ass coming here talkin' like you know some shit!! Really appreciate it if you'd refrain from makin' generalizations like that. People like you are exactly what is wrong with this whole setup. Just say what's on your tiny, little mind, champ, give your opinion or recite some facts. That's it, you've exercised your free-speech for the day. Don't make blanket statements about people you don't know! Some of us might take offense, clarify what you're sayin'. Make no mistake, yer a funny guy. Stop me if you heard this one: There's this crazy mofo who really dislikes smartasses with no manners, and he's going to come to your house and shit in your pillowcase, eat your last fuckin' slice of pizza, and put dirty pictures of ya moms all over the place. He has internet access. Oh, you know it too, right?
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Arguing with you clueless people is not worth the effort. You are complaining about a 'rumored' scene that was going to be different than it is in the book anyways. Does that make any sense? NO, it doesn't. Half of you are bitching about JAckson's work not being 'true to the book'. Well, no shit! Has there EVER been a movie that followed a book step by step? NOt that I know of, and if there was, than it must have been one fucked up boring-ass movie. Get over it!For all you wankers running your yaps saying shit like, 'I won't even go see the movie now'. Whatever... Don't go see it, please! At least then I won't have to sit behind you in the theater and stare at the back of your fucking head.
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Just out of curiosity:
I'm a purist, I'm pissed at the changes, and yet I will be seeing ROTK on Trilogy Tuesday. Not only that, odds are I will end up with both the TE and the EE on DVD. How many of the rest of you are doing the same, WHO WOULD CLASSIFY THEMSELVES AS PURISTS? No revisionists or PJ apologists, please!
I just want to see how many of us are furious, or disappointed, yet can't make ourselves stay away. Your responses please! -
Gandalf breaking saruman's staff at orthanc was poetry...It fully illustrated Gandalf's rebirth and his transcendence over Saruman and his claiming of the Order of Wizards. It is such an incredibly important scene for so many reasons that I cannot fathom PJ cutting it out...and I'm not sure if I can until I see it with my own eyes. I was upset when it didn't appear at the end of TTT where it belonged...but to not have it until the DVD...nothing short of blasphemous. I don't understand how PJ can do so much justice to these books and oversee this crucial plot point. I really hope this isn't academy award motivated. It makes me sick to my stomach.
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Nov 09, 2003 6:46:14 PM CST
The Voice of Saruman chapter is where Gandalf emerges as the mor
by ralph cifaretto
He "pardons" Saruman, offers him a kind of fogiveness, and doesn't let the others inflict the kind of final punishment Saruman has surely earned. This is Gandalf's finsest moment in the novel. Too bad PJ was so incompetent in his planning these films out. This whole debalce began when he pushed the spider fight to the 3rd film. DIDN"T HE HAVE A PLAN TO COMPENSATE FOR THIS MAJOR REWORKING OF THE STORY?!
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Harry's busy impressing us with his little IM messages, but won't take the time to post information about the LotR online petition to New Line to put the full Trilogy out in more theaters so more fans can see it. Check out the petition here: http://www.petitiononline.com/116379qm/petition.html
Sign it and let New Line know that you should have the right to see it!!! -
"True to the book" ... no, very few films have been entirely true to the books they were based on. That's not what we're looking for. We are, however, looking for PJ to be true to the STORY. The Voice of Saruman scene is very, VERY important to the entire RotK plotline, and the overall Lord of the Rings story. Without the Voice of Saruman scene, we do not fully realize just how delusional Saruman is, how corrupted he has become. We do not see Gandalf breaking Saruman's staff, and with it his power, while also sparing his life. Without this scene, the Palantir would not fall into Aragorn's possession, and therefore he would not be able to face Sauron (in the Palantir) to draw his attention away from Sam and Frodo (who are right in Sauron's backyard). And, considering PJ is removing the Scouring of the Shire (a more justified cut in the eyes of fans, to avoid a double-climax), Saruman's death would have been pushed to the Voice of Saruman scene. With THAT scene now removed, how is PJ going to explain the sudden absence of one major villain and his conspiring henchman, Grima? Will Gimli suddenly realize they never 'dealt with' Saruman, and Gandalf will turn to the camera, wink, and say "I think he's on the cutting room floor!"? Come on. Edits like this set the entire movie up for additional problems. :(
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Nov 10, 2003 3:19:21 AM CST
The word on the street is that the world needs to blace the blam
by darksydeavenger
I read through about half of the user comments here and signed up for this talk back thing. I read through about half of the user comments and about 95% of them were negative. Thus, I am assuming this talk back session about ROTK is mostly negative. Kudos to the defenders, "apologists" they be.
I've hated that label from the outset. I'd like to say I can explain why PJ has made the changes he did. I'll admit (and its not a light admission either so pay attention...) that the Two Towers had some WTF moments. I wish I could say that Aragorn's death was a device to reveal that 10's of thousands of orcs were nearing Helm's Deep, taking into account that no one in Rohan had a definite number. I also wish I could sooth every wound that these films have made into the "purists", yet another term that I hate.
By saying that someone is a "purist" it is implied that they are bitches. I don't want to be labeled that. Nor do I want to be labeled an "apologist", which is a synonym for puss.
I'd say that considering no one here has seen the ROTK, that they have no real right to say anything. Those who do are acting in useless rage that will wear off. Hearing the news about Saruman wasn't very disappointing to me.
I am just curious if anyone is willing to accept the fact that being a filmmaker sucks. I would know..I am entering the business. Personally, I could point out flaws, but I could never match what PJ has done so far. I could not do better, even if i had the budget of the wachowskie(spelling) brothers.
Personally, I can't wait for the ROTK. I will get in line with the rest of them and watch as another saga comes to a close. Come the Academy Awards, I will sit anxiously and wait for PJ to get the awards he deserves. Not because I am an "apologist", and definitely not because I am a "purist". Instead I will do so because PJ did it better than any of us could. No other director could have done it better.
Still, where would we be if we didn't have the dissent. Coming from a filmmaking standpoint, I do tend to wonder about a lot of things in FOTR as well as TTT. After all, you can't escape the fact that they are joined together and unsepperable(spelling). FOTR was slow and lacking in excitement. TTT had some weird editing that disrupted flow. ROTK won't be perfect either.
I kind like that. Has anyone noticed the color change from FOTR to the end of TTT? Has anyone noticed the themes in these movies up to this point? I see all this negativism and I wonder why we couldn't be excited for how ROTK will connect and how it will be stylistically. We've been taken on a journey of innocence destroyed, and we will end that journey with a sense of loss. Tolkien's life sucked, from what I've seen and read. To be able to make a movie close enough to the books to feel a man's pain at the changing world is something I wish I could do.
To those who hate the changes...don't stop. I would ask that you take what the other side has to say and consider it. Give PJ a chance. Give the defense a chance, so to speak. I will not defend nor argue for the movies until I have seen them back to back to back. But god do I love the story.
I'm so glad that the books were suggested to me... -
... announce it in the trailers..
or reference it early on.
A few people will be surprised that he couldn't have 'magic-ed' his way to safety. A trailer announcing his death would probably help a lot of people answering a question that is pretty significant and might spoil the film. -
Didn't he go back and film extra scenes because of his popularity among the elf-loving demographic? Bloom's the one Christopher Lee should be whomping, not Jackson!
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As a fans of film we have every right to discuss tibits about movies that are coming out soon. This has always happened, even prior to the Internet being devised. If the article about PJ being 'forced' to omit Saruman's demise from the theatrical edition, is true than it down right sucks, and everyone should be negative about. How else are studio's, film makers etc gonna realise these sort of things are wrong? The bit about 'saving' it for the DVD, is a sham. What are most (excluding low budget shockers...) movies made for? Theatrical production. DVD's are great and I own a swag full, but as I've stated, movies are primarily designed to be viewed in a cinema. The death of a major character in the first 2 movies of a 3 movie series (see Pontsing not a hint of the "T" word...) being explained away as occuring off screen is ridiculous. THAT is what's creating the negativity. People invest emotionally in films. Go and check out a Star Wars tb if you don't believe that!!! Thus they are disappointed when otherwise great films don't meet (or exceed) their expectations. To have something like this occur is a disgrace. Now I'm not saying this WILL occur, Elanor's point about Saruman's death being moved to it's rightful place is extremely plausible, if it doesn't happen, then I think a lot of people will be disappointed to say the least. What was the point of making such a big deal about him then, in the first two movies? If he is unimportant that he doesn't even get on on screen death (unlike Lurtz) then surely PJ et al fucked up in making him SEEM so important in the first 2/3'rds of this saga? If the non-read audience doesn't see the bad guy die, then I'm betting they will be extremely confused by it all. Anyway enough of my rant, I just hope that PJ et al find a reasonable way to wrap up all the loose ends in this movie. Can't get much more positive than that no can we? Cheers.
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if the only thing you twats are thinking about is the editing you might want to report the theft of you soul to the nearest police station.
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Loved the Fellowship, having read the LOTR about 5 times now, I knew that PJ would have to make some changes and do things differently. Saw the film and thought that he'd done damn fine job.
Saw TTT and was v.disappointed. The film stood up on it's own as a great movie, but there was so much "made up" stuff in it that it was ruined. I think the phrase "very loosely based on" would of been a suitable strap line for it.
So now on to ROTK and I have to agree with what most people have said here. What was the point of building up Saruman's role if the film doesn't show him being defeted? It's alright for PJ to say that it'll be in the DVD, but that will be 11 months away and the general public aren't going to be interested in that.
I just hope the film isn't as disappointing as TTT was and sticks closer to the book. PJ has proved it can be done with Fellowship, so here's hoping.
Oh, just one thing to add. Just because PJ took the time to make these 3 films, it doesn't mean his vision is always correct. -
Hi folks
I have been counting down the days/hours/minutes/seconds with my ROTK clockdown on my desktop so any major surprise at this stage is going to have an adverse affect on my health. I was just as shocked as everyone else when I heard that PJ is cutting the voice of Saruman sequence. But after a full days moaning on my part I believe I have come up with the answer to the riddle [THE OSCARS] Seems like PJ has both eyes firmly fixed on the holy grail of awards - OSCAR for Best Picture. The Facts - Peter Jackson is saying about this scene feeling like a wrap for last years movie -
Here we go again. First however, (some of us DO play by the rules): Major kudos to Howard Shore once again. If FOTR & T2T are any indication, the ROTK score will be brilliant and worthy of inclusion in any discerning collection. *** Now for the disclaimer: Some coward bustard has 'hijacked' the Skyway Moaters handle and has used it to spew pedophilic garbage in an apparent attempt to discredit and slander yours truly. I'm sure this is obvious to those with whom I have held discourse over the past 4 or so years as said post(s) are completely out of character. For those of you who don't know Skyway from Ugluk: TRUBBA NOT. It is not I posting perverse, despicable, effluent. Notice the difference between the IDs: mine: "Skyway Moaters", and theirs: "skywaymoaters". My associated e-mail address: "skywaymoaters@yahoo.com", and theirs: skywaymoater@yahoo.com. *** Not very clevver there, you cowardly stinking cow flop. HELLO: context sensitivity? One of the hallmarks of software literality? Inject this into your fetid mind you neolithic dipshit: The Web is not nearly as anonymous as you apparently think it is...
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Hey, I disagreed with some of the material insertion and editing for TTT, and definitely don't think the wargs/Aragorn's fall bits deserved their place... However, the filmmakers have decided to build the Aragorn/Arwen story as an equal part of the story to the other storylines. At least they left Arwen out of Helm's Deep.
Anyway, Saruman's death in the beginning of ROTK would be an odd choice rhytmically. But just because they leave it out, doesn't need to mean that they ignore... we may simply get a short glimpse of Saruman and Grima impaled side by side on spikey wheelie-dealies, and that's it. Gandalf pops into Orthanc, grabs the eightball from its pedestal and off we go to new adventures. In the EE, we'll get to see the whole story. Both ways, I can see it working.
As for people still whining about the Scouring... I bet that the first time someone with an understanding in dramatisation read LOTR and thought about a movie being made of it, he probably said to himself 'The Scouring's probably got to go'.
There's no way of putting that much largely unrelated side plot into a movie and keep it cohesive. -
That's a pretty important scene from the Two Towers...and really belongs there...what a great book! I can't wait to see the deleted scene on the DVD.
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No i havent read any of the books but I am still a fan of the movies. In fact, the movies have made me want to read the books. I am sure that the ROTK movie will be great, just like the first two. Why cant you people just wait until you see the movie before you start complaining about what was left out or ended up on the cutting room floor. i think the director did a great job with this epic, which is much more than i can say about other movies that have been made based on the books (Doesnt anyone remember Queen of the Damned- that movie ruined the entire story!?
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No one will ever read this - it's too far down. but this is the worst news I have ever EVER heard. There is NO excuse for leaving out the Saruman vanquishing from the theatrical release. I guess I'll be waiting for the DVD so I can actually watch Lord of the Rings. This absolutely blows.
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Chill out. There have been numerous stills released of Pippin, Aragorn and Gandalf with the Palantir.
Also, in TTT DVD, there is a sequence in the RoTK preview in which Merry says to Pippin, "He thinks you have the Ring!"
How could Sauron know that if there's no Palantir scequence?
Damn, you peaple need to get a grip. -
"This change screws up the theme of the book", "That change takes out the whole point of the book", "I'm so pissed off that PJ changed/left out a part of whichever book". We are not discussing a BOOK, we are discussing a MOVIE (and a brilliant trilogy of them) BASED on a book. Yes there are differences - as there are differences in every single movie based on a book - that will upset such book's fans to some degree, but PJ is making a movie both for the fans, and the other 80+% of humanity that has never read the books or just used the Cliff Notes version to write that paper in high school. Take a moment to reflect on what he has gotten *right* rather than bemoaning every little cut and edit. Also - don't forget that PJ's movies have created untold numbers of new fans of the books that would never have cracked open novels otherwise, which I assume true fans of the books would find a GOOD thing. PJ has made two very entertaining movies and I have little doubt the climax will be as good or better. If you cannot appreciate them as simple abbreviated adaptations of a book you hold near and dear rather than line for line readings, then I suggest you stay away from the cinema on Dec. 17th. Otherwise, realize that watching the film(s) in no way diminishes your personal experience with LotR, but rather presents one man
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In his response to Harry, PJ only mentioned 1, count em 1, sequence that was cut and being saved for the DVD. He didn't say anything about ALL the Saruman stuff. Nor did he say that the scene being cut was Saruman's death scene. Just wait and see before passing judgement. You could easily have Saruman buy it later in the film, like say, they come up on he and Grima on the road somewhere, like in the book. The Scouring of the Shire isn't required for Saruman to get his throat slit, or whatever manner of roadside death could be inflicted upon him.
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this place gets worse... The film is not the book. Live with it. The end.
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Mr. Jackson would not have to be making these sorts of decisions, if he had not chosen to so mess over the continuity of "The Two Towers" and add so much of his own extraneous storytelling matter. That's why ROTK is running so long, because of everything that had to be shoved out of the second film in the first place. Given that, it makes sense to not put the Saruman/Wormtongue scene at the beginning of ROTK.
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To those who have not read the book, and don't understand the upset (or to those who lecture in the "a film is not a book" line): 1) Most of us have been movie-goers as long as anybody (decades in some cases) and have as sophisticated an idea of "what is cinematic" as those who see no problems in anything Jackson has done, 2) We do understand that in adapting a book to the screen, scenes have to be dropped, characters eliminated and pacing attended to; however, 3) I would submit that LOTR is not just "a" book, or even a wildly popular book, but a book that has grown in popularity and (in at least some circles) critical respect in the decades since its publication, to where it has emerged on poll after poll - popular or literary - as the most beloved book of the 20th century, and in some cases, of the entire history of the English novel. We are not talking about Anne Rice here. We are talking about a masterwork, with some flaws, but which in most analyses (and there are many books out there on the subject) has shown itself to be about as deep and rich as a book ever gets - with plot, characters and themes that are intricately intertwined. Why we CARE - why we get upset at radical changes - is because Jackson has done so much right that we would indeed have loved to see his vision (and these particular actors) giving life to the scenes we love so well, and we lose that literally once-in-a-lifetime opportunity when he makes such radical changes that he is no longer filming LOTR, but a LOTR-inspired movie. There isn't going to BE another. We - and Jackson - don't get a second chance. Obviously, someone who hasn't read the book - or has read it but not loved it - is not going to see what the fuss is about. The movies are wonderful. But when they stray from Tolkien's own amazing vision to an increasing degree, they make us suspect that Jackson's understanding of the story is not on a level with his ability to create stunning images. So we're greedy - we want both. We want the images, and we want them wedded to the story we and millions love. To say we are whining or not sufficiently appreciative is to miss the point. We wouldn't be as disappointed as we are if we weren't as thrilled as we are by what Jackson has gotten right.
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Nov 10, 2003 1:28:10 PM CST
Summary of this update for those who can't bear the whole thing
by arcadian del sol
First half summary:
"Hi Folks. Harry here. I'm a Producer. Also, I have Steve Jackson on Instant Messenger. We talk about how despite appearances, neither one of us is the Comic Shop Guy."
Second Half SUmmary:
"Moriarty, the source of all news around here, was first with this story, but I'm posting as if I discovered it myself. Also, Moriarty doesn't have Peter Jackson on AIM. He has Alan Jackson and Tito Jackson, but not my beloved Peter King Kong. -
I'm very disappointed to read this. It's been the readers of this series that have been the greatest proponents, time and again dismissing our feelings about storyline alterations. We made these films a trillion dollar industry, we accepted, to some degree, the altered and expanded story lines whether they were necessary or not, in the name of artisitic interpretation, the semantics of film vs. text and so on. The Warg rider attack scene in TTT for instance. (Terrible effects and all) That scene added several minutes of storyline. Minutes that could better have been used with
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...I do believe Elanor (I was trying to 'give it back to bean', not sound like an ass; thus the Mellancamp song(?)) and bjarki was it(?), might be right, that PJ and Harry are kind of "having us on" here, being deliberately vaugue and ambiguous. They talk about a 7 minute scene BETWEEN Saruman and Grima yes? IE: No death of Saruman at his point. The fact of the matter is that PJ has to get the Palantir, (too many changes to pull off this late in the game otherwise) into the hands of Gandalf/ Pippin/Aragorn, SOMEHOW. AND he HAS to pick up Merry and Pippin SOMEHOW, and they were in Isengard at the end of T2T. So what we end up with is actually CLOSER to the book than Curunir biting the big one in Isengard, IE: locked up in Orthanc with the Ents as his jailers! This gives me some hope that some form of TSOTS, however truncated, might show up in the SEV! Ah me, ain't specualtion grand?
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We've been waiting 3 years for an answer and now we wait one more?
Gosh this is a crappy day! -
Much as I appreciate what PJ has done so far with the trilogy, certain scenes that were cut from FOTR, also for 'pacing' reasons, turned out to be some of the best scenes in the movie and were essential for character development. Yes, pacing is important in films, but less important than character. This Saruman scene is apparently only 7 minutes, and is essential. Without it, all the scenes with wormtounge and all the scenes between Gandalf and Saruman will become absolutely pointless because there will be no conclusion to them. Without a conclusion to them there's no meaning to them. That means a bulk of the trilogy will become pointless. I'm sure there has got to be some unnecessary action scenes somewhere that can be cut to take away 7 minutes rather than cutting a scene so vital to the characters and story. I could think of a few scenes from FOTR that could have been cut to make space for some of those great scenes from the FOTR extended edition. It's scenes like the confrontation between Saruman and Gandalf that are going to be the best parts of ROTK. The scenes between Saruman and Gandalf, the scenes between Gandalf and Denethor, the Gollum transformation scenes, these are the scenes we're all waiting to see. Forget about pacing for once. What's an extra 7 minutes going to do?
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Nov 10, 2003 2:51:50 PM CST
Reposted from Christopher Lee's site: I THINK HE'S IN ON ...
by skyway moaters
... "the joke/hoax"!!! What's said here is just as ambiguous as PJ & Harry's exchange IMO!: "The news reported by Aintitcool.com, is true. Not all of it, but we are not here to discuss or pick o
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I'd like to add this: Some of the decisions PJ is making are just plain bad for his film. Leave the book comparisons out of it, and the loose ends STILL weaken the entire 3-part tale told on film. I'm talking about problems PJ created for himself. To have no confrontation between Gandalf and Saruman is just plain bad storytelling. Lets examine: in the first part, Gandalf trusts Saruman and is clearly subordinate to him. Then, he is betrayed and defeated by his master. At that point, his only hope is to ESCAPE. After fleeing, Gandalf goes on a messiah-like quest, dying and then returning to life as more than he was before. And he also claims to be "more" than Saruman. Now, if there is no confrontation between him and Saruman, then his sacrifice of death, the importance/reason for his return to life, is not complete in the story, nor clear to the average moviegoer. Saruman's character is also sleighted, because antagonists are supposed be defeated by their protagonist, not a bunch of ents (out of character for ents, anyway). Gandalf HAS to defeat him before the end. It completes Gandalf's story arc. And I think Gandalf's story arc deserves to be completed not just on the EE DVD, but in theatres as well. PJ painted himself into a corner on this one. On one hand, he has a pacing problem early in the 6th hour of his 9-hour movie. On the other, he has a fairly huge plothole/loose end. Another example, though to a much lesser degree (and more easily leave-out-able) is the absence of the Scouring. The Scouring was foreshadowed early in LOTR, and therefore whether you want it to be there or not the film will suffer without it. In the first one, we get 30-45 minutes of the perfect Shire, and Gandalf's fears of what would happen if the outside world ever closed in. That's the foreshadowing, because later on, the outside world DOES close in, in the form of Saruman. At the beginning of the film, when Gandalf visits Orthanc, we learn that Saruman doesn't care for hobbits, and really looks down on pipe-weed smoking. BUT, in the third movie Merry and Pippin will find a fresh store of Shire pipe-weed in Isengard. Fresh pipeweed says that Saruman's attitudes have changed. He had business in the Shire. Had the foreshadowing in part 1 not been BLATANT, no one would care; but we have to ask how the outside world (Saruman) would influence things there. If PJ doesn't show us how, it's another loose end. So the Scouring, or something like it, is necessary in the world that PJ created. These are problems that PJ gave himself by filming a strict adaptation of the book early on, but then drifting away as he got deeper and deeper in. When you drop stuff late in a movie, you have to remember to get rid of the stuff which will now create a loose end. PJ didn't do this because of his poor planning - storyboards, final scripts, etc were never finalized. He did things on the fly. So now he has loose ends, and they're problems. Worship him all you want, but I'm not turning a blind eye to them. Neither should the Academy. And these problems have nothing to do with the book - they are problems within PJ's universe of the movie. RainGod out.
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... now that we put that behynt us I contrack your nemminy my nemminy and Itwll be sharna a pax and get the poal for any one what programs they cud snuck the 2 of us togevver! Namarie Mellon as the Elves wud say...
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Malan, Cato, bjarki, I think you might be on to something...agadoin, read the Chris Lee announcement _very carefully_...here's what it says:
"...Saruman will not have a single scene in the theatrical version of The Return of the King."
This is true...apparently there is indeed _a single scene_ involving Saruman which will not appear in the film...a very long one, from the looks of it, so no doubt Mr. Lee will be disappointed, and that disappointment is reflected in the announcement. But the careful wording of both the announcement and Jackson's statement make me suspect there is some directorial playfulness going on. Although he has been willing to state what we will *not* see in his films, Jackson has been very coy over the last couple of years about what we *will* see. I think this is just more of the same. And if you look up the film on imdb, Chris Lee is still listed in the cast.
I myself wondered what Jackson would do w/ the confrontation @ Isengard. I would have been surprised if Grima were in it at all--so let's say we're left with a brief scene of a defeated Saruman tossing out a palantir. That's enough for me, and all I really expected. I'm excited that we will eventually see the Voice on the DVD, and maybe a neat staff-breaking, but I bet there will at least be a _little_ bit of Saruman in the theatrical version. It wouldn't be a total disaster if there weren't, but it would be a bit disappointing, I agree. We should still be grateful for what we've gotten out of Hollywood. I'm giving Jackson the benefit of the doubt either way, as he is not the world's most faithful adapter according to the letter (and that's an understatement), but does at least know how to translate the literary excitement of Tolkien's work into the kind of excitement that most filmgoers can understand, and is by any stretch a very talented filmmaker. He's certainly left a lot in, down to individual lines, that other directors and writers would have simply dispensed with altogether. Let's wait and see. -
Okay, I found it a bit odd that Saurman wouldn't be in the third film as well, but come on people, the scene will be included in the extended version when it hits DVD. We will eventually see the footage! It's not like the footage is lost forever. It just won't be in the third film.
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DISCLAIMER: I have not read the books and am basing this opinion solely on the movie content. Also, I do not share the opinion of many on here that TTT was a huge step backward for the franchise. I have enjoyed the trilogy immensely up to this point, but...
I don't see how Saruman's demise can be omitted. An essential subplot is the conflict between Gandalf and Saruman. It's good vs. evil at its simplest and most compelling. To gloss over it so hamhandedly would be a disservice to everyone who loves the movies (and clearly, the books, as well, as indicated by so many other posts).
I agree with many of you that opinions should be withheld until the movie's been viewed, so just consider this an opinion on a hypothetical. -
Juanrico i hope you're right about that but to my way of understanding this still means Saruman will not appear at all in the theatrical version. I can live with the ommission as I'm sure the rest of the film will amaze. Christopher Lee has made a point of stating how crucial he believes his scene is in his recent interviews so I'm sure he had an idea this might happen. As long as the palantir is still in the film, however PJ manages to do it, I'll be content. Maybe we'll hear Saruman and not see him? That's a possibilty I suppose but then I'm sure Chris Lee's official site also said he wouldn't even appear in the credits. Oh well, it's fun to speculate.
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You buncha whiny fucktards...I hope PJ puts a fucking talking moronic sidekick in the flick just to really get some Nerd Rage boiling...like the rest of you whiny bitches, I'll be in line for the first showing of Return Of The King and I'm sure I'll enjoy it and still be happy I haven't read the fucking books...
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I really wish that PJ would reconsider this move. I want to see what happens to Saruman at the movies, not in a DVD sequence. It's BS, we all know Saruman and Grima didn't perish yet, we haven't seen it yet! This is a HUGE mistake and really spoils the movie that I was looking forward to. I don't think it will be as big of a screw-up as M-Revolutions but this really is a let down. Please PJ, put it in for the fans, I don't care if it's an extra 7 minutes long, thats one of the reasons I want to see ROTK is to see what happens to Saruman and Grima. Don't screw up, please!
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No one can beat Oberon for Tolkien purism. But I gave the movies up for a lost cause in that regard long ago; I enjoy them on their own terms, for they are far, far better than I ever dreamed they could be, and none of the alterations really do fundamental violence to the basic story (though the Faramir changes come close). Pacing and plot development must be the critical considerations in movie editing, and I can very easily see how Saruman's scene could kill the movie in its tracks before it ever gets going. The only difficulty is that of the palantir, which PJ has gone to such lengths to introduce; if he is going to get the thing to Aragorn he must explain how that happens, even if only briefly. If you want to see what a movie that launches with way too much meandering exposition of tangential importance looks like, just watch MATRIX RELOADED again.
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you gotta admit that this is a really , really good hoax. It shows us how P.J. really loves us all to get us all riled up like this only to surprise and delight us with the scene in tbe film at the proper place as it should be. Classic stuff!
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Dammit dammit dammit! >< Why, PJ? Why!? Why in the WORLD is he cutting out the Saruman death scene???? Forget this "pacing" bullshit! Forget the "random viewers who can't keep their asses in a seat for more than three hours"! This movie is made for the fans by the fans. Who cares what the rest of the people think!? You'll have enough damn viewers with just the book fanbase itself. You'll make more than enough money off of the book fans. So why kill the entire movie? I've tolerated a lot of crap over these past two years. The cutting of Bombadil, the extended role of Arwen, the removal of the scouring of the Shire...but this is just too much! Killing the Saruman death scene...man...Well, I guess we'll just have to wait and see how it goes. Everyone, join me in crossing your fingers and PRAYING DESPERATELY that this movie turns out good. PJ, you've done a pretty good job so far. DON'T SCREW THIS UP!
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Nov 10, 2003 8:18:01 PM CST
Who could have predicted that hundreds of LOTR fans would be cas
by ar42
hehehehe
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...opinions seem to be about evenly divided...except for the conspiracy/hoax folks. I don't really see this as people going hyperbolic so much as a lot of concern by people who really care about how it turns out. Read, un-read, it's just great to see such heartfelt reactions. morGoth is happy, happy...
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Nov 10, 2003 8:52:57 PM CST
Hey, a bad day of editing ROTK is like a day of editing that nev
by a 30+ user
i sincerely hope its over reaction, but i bet its just being considered, and besides, could anyone imagine ending such a beautifull trigology, talk about a gun to a editiors head, he must have 40 or so well done scenes and angles that have to been trimed for time.
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Much like George Lucas' tinkering with his Star Wars saga, and the Wachowski Bros. labyrinthine Matrix stories, this has been a polarizing issue. Me? To employ a little geekspeak here, my alignment is chaotic neutral. On one hand, it irks me to see people come here and deprecate the achievements of these films because of alterations, either neccessary or unneccessary. On the other hand, I certainly do share their concerns. I want the payoff, I want closure, I want the whole enchilada. So ofcourse it worries me to think how this may affect my moviegoing experience. It does do one's heart good though, to see fans who are still passionate about something! Not just complaining about an established franchise to seem like a maverick. It's definately a refreshing occurrence at this site.
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Hey, we all know we were severely disappointed with AICG.com.
Well, I found a beta test site for video game rumors that's going to kick some major ass!!!!! It allows you to register and post video game rumors, while earning ratings based on how your rumors are received (like ebay)
Check it out. I wouldn't post anything, if I were you, until it launches. Like I said it's beta and not opened to the public yet (November 15 it says on the main URL)
It's going to kick AICG's ass. They have a live forum at the r00t url.
http://www.gamedreamz.com/webolution/ -
There's enough hot air in this talkback to float a few dozen whiny bitches.
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1) you guys thinking this is a hoax better forget that quick, or you'll be even more dissappointed in the theatre in December.
2) this omission doesn't make it "closer to the books hahaha." in the books Gandalf breaks Saruman's staff and Saruman is killed, resolving this rivalry. the movie in December has none of that.
3) at least Lucas will be {spoiler}}}}}}}}}}}}}}} killing off Chris Lee in the first part of his part 3. It's ironically a very similar situation - similar in that both characters have suffered a defeat but need definite resolution
4) why would the saruman sequence "kill the movie's pacing"?? someone needs to explain this.
5) in case {{{{spoiler}}} you didn't know, apparently saruman and grima's final confrontation is not going to be on that little balcony, it's going to be on the pinnacle where Gandalf had been prisoner.
6) i tend to agree that this decision has to do with making ROTK work as a standalone film for better Oscar chances.
Regrettably. -
It has been long known (or, at least, well suspected) that Peter Jackson's TLOTR-chunky-stew of Tolkien story-bits would not include "The Scouring Of The Shire". Given the framework of epic storytelling on the big screen, this is only an understandable disappointment. But the Scouring does play a significant roll in The Lord Of The Rings saga. After all the great battles and heroics and lucky coincidences and fulfilled destinies, Tolkien had to put it all into perspective. The Scouring does just that.
To make a long post short, I'll just recommend the book "A Tolkien Compass", edited by Jared Lobdell. In it, Robert Plank offers his take (and it's a good one) on "The Scouring Of The Shire: Tolkien's View Of Fascism". Here's a key sample:
"The outstanding characteristic of 'The Scouring Of The Shire' is that miracles do not happen, the laws of nature are in full effect and undisputed force, the actors in the drama are all human .... You will notice that even though Saruman has been a powerful magician, he does not use magic at any point in that episode: whatever headway he makes, he makes as a politician rather than as a sorcerer."
"The Shire is almost unrecognizable ... The political changes were not essentially constitutional changes. The laws have been perverted more than amended. The traditional offices have not been abolished, but new power is wielded by a new ruling group. The essential political innovation is the rise of an unprecedented police force, headed by the Chief Shirriff."
The main point of this section of TLOTR is that while the great evil of Middle Earth has been defeated at a great and violent cost, seeds of evil remain in the nature of living creatures, who grow incrementally towards evil, even those as "harmless" as Hobbits. The returning warrior Hobbits could not strike out at their fellow, though perverted, Hobbits without harming the good that was still in them. The resolution was a type of revival to goodness, a shaking to one's senses, rather than the decisive strike of elven swords.
Like the Tom Bombadil episode, the Scouring is a moment of sitting back, leisurely smoking pipe-weed, and poundering the nature and events of the story. This luxury of book storytelling simply couldn't abide the rousing end of a movie epic. Mores the pity. -
My personal complaint with PJ's TLOTR was that it missed greatness. Funny, but PJ himself admitted it. In one of those interviews (was it an online video clip?), he said that whenever they were having plot-problems, they would just go back to the Tolkien books and it would all work out. That should've raised the red flags that he was mucking about. Add to that another statement that he wanted TFOTR to start with action, "like a James Bond movie". So, trouble was a brewin' even from the start.
Tolkien's TLOTR should have been a "Lawrence of Arabia". Instead, Middle Earth just came to life (in the technical sense, and that is good, too). It all just means that the definitive TLOTR is yet to be made. C'est la vie. Enjoy this one in the meantime. Perhaps someone will make a re-edited internet edition, a la Star War's "The Phantom Edit"? :)
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Many of the posts have made very good points about why the Scouring is necessary. Maybe PJ will opt to show The Shire in ruins when the hobbits return, but not show all of the events of The Scouring. This would touch upon some of the themes of The Scouring without introducing a full subplot.
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First, GREAT NAME!!!!!!!!! :~) Second, I have to disagree with one of Robert Plank's points, specifically, "You will notice that even though Saruman has been a powerful magician, he does not use magic at any point in that episode; whatever headway he makes, he makes as a politician rather than a sorcerer." Whoa - hold on there, Bob. My counterpoint is from Scouring: "The hobbits recoiled. But Frodo said: 'Do not believe him! He has lost all power, save his voice that can still daunt you and deceive you, if you let it.'" THERE IS STILL POWER IN SARUMAN'S VOICE! I have believed, ever since I first read the book all those decades ago, that the Hobbits, reknown for their plain thinking and common sense, would never have fallen under Sharkey's sway had it not been for the power that remined in his voice. That's not politics, that's magic (which is a word I'm not entirely comfortable with, but it's the word Robert Plank chose to use). ***Finally to repost my Saruman's fate petition originally posted on the Soundtrack TB: SARUMAN LIVES! -- Sharkey Dies. :~)
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Don't see it. Very simple. If you're so sure we're not going to get ANY resolution with Saruman (unlikely) then stay home. Read the book. Tolkien's story remains therein, untouched and unfettered and ready for you to enjoy time and time again. Better yet, scrape together some money, buy a DV camera, and shoot your own version of LOTR which I'm sure will be 100% faithful to the books in addition to being 20 hours long. Look, I'm dissapointed in some of the changes too, but nothing that PJ is doing changes ONE LINE of the books. These movies have been great fantasy epics - even with the changes - I see no indication that ROTK will not follow suit.
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Nov 11, 2003 10:05:06 AM CST
I'd just like to say that anyone who doesn't agree that Peter Ja
by mr. high
...should have all their children and future killed violated with sharp sticks until they are dead. That's all. Wait, wait......yeah that's it.
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Yeah, I'm just becoming more and more convinced that PJ isn't foolish enough to cut Saruman out of the film altogether...all of the non-reader fans I've talked to agree that it would be confusing if Saruman were left out of the final film altogether--so even they want some resolution there. It would be a big mistake not to give it to them, and I suspect PJ knows this. And even if Jackson doesn't want a lot of footage for Saruman, there are lots of ways to present it; he could open with a few "flash shots" of Saruman getting his comeuppance, or we could see similar flash shots after someone asks Gandalf what happened to Saruman...PJ's a pretty creative guy, and so I'm sure he could come up with *something* or other...it's probably all a tempest in a teapot. But I agree, it's fun to speculate.
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I don't completely buy the hoax theory, but it's possible...don't forget Jackson was one of the creators of what is considered the greatest television hoax ever in New Zealand--look it up sometime.
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I'm standing by my theory due to the fact that not only is Chris Lee still listed in the imdb credits, but Brad Dourif is not...which suggests that it's some Grima/Saruman scenes that Jackson is talking about cutting...but not necessarily *all* of Chris Lee's...besides, you don't just go willy-nilly cutting Christopher Lee out of your film...you just don't! Especially when he's one of the greatest veterans of the sort of film that got your career started...not to mention one of the great film veterans living, period. I think that when Jackson speaks of assuming that Saruman gets "vanquished" by the Ents, it probably indicates that the cut scenes more explicitly lay out Saruman's loss of power, which in the theatrical version will simply be taken for granted. But hey, I admit I could be wrong. Disastrously, disastrously wrong.
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Had PJ had more time/more of a vision for TTT this hadn't happened. It's like this: they have a month to finish TTT and PJ goes: "OK, what scenes can we finish in a month?". Since they have been proceeding more or less chronologically, the additional, useless, meandering crap in the middle that's ready stays in, and they just decide that since they have trouble getting the last scenes together, and the movie is long enough as it is, they might as well end it to a point which is ready (and leave out Huorns, voice of Saruman etc.). Everybody breathes a sigh of relief, convinces each other that the ROTK will take care of Saruman (and the EE DVD the rest) and New Line is happy. Fucking fuck.
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There's several major reasons this needs to make the film. One) How is anyone going to believe a wizard, as powerful and as evil as Saruman can be left to his own fate? He built this army of Uruks, why can't he build another? Two) There has to be the final confrontation between Saruman and Gandalf. Else, how are people going to understand that Gandalf is the stronger of the two now? Gandalf is who really breaks Saruman in the books. Three) Where the hell are we going to find the Palantir? On the side of the road? Sauron needs to see the hobbit in Gondor. Aragorn needs to confront Sauron and reveal himself. Four) How is anyone supposed to know of the struggle between Saruman and Grima? Are we just to assume that both Saruman and Wormtongue are out there trapsing about the countryside creating havoc as they go? If you have to scrap the Scouring, fine... But you can't just drop Isengard. That's a huge plot hole there. The power of Isengard is Saruman not orcs. Please reconsider, PJ. Think. Think of a way to fit it back in.
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You guys are right, there's something fishy going on here...and Chris Lee appears to be in on it...yes, it's right there in the announcement on his website: "...you can no longer be sure of anything..." Uh-huh...and also: "He will be keeping his word, even if that means nothing in film industry." Like, for example, a director's word that he's cut a certain scene?
"Use your imagination o -
Yep, on a sat dish movie preview, it
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That line pops up in the RotK trailer and the response is a sweet smile of hope.
Peter Jackson and his team have taken this story and rendered it as beautifully as wonderfully as anyone could... in fact, beyond my own imagination and hope for a movie version of this story.
After reading so many of these talkbacks I feel compelled to say that my loyalty and admiration lies with Peter Jackson.
I trust him to do the best he can & deliver the best product ...
I have never seen a director work so hard and especially on behalf of the fans. If I stood in his shoes (when he wears them!) Even if I had his talent, I probably couldn't accomplish a 10th of what he has and would probably keel over of exhaustion from one day at his job.
Edits and additions, hoaxes, Vof Saruman or not, secret scourings or not... who cares?
This guy owes me or my opinions nothing. I know he loves this story as much or more than most of us. I know he is a huge fan of Christopher Lee. I know he has untold pressures from studio execs, actors, fans and time itself, but has handled everything with grace, generosity and professionalism that is way beyond the average Hollywood standard.
I know this movie is gonna be great. That's what my heart tells me.
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Man, you can't just LEAVE one of the main villian sub-plots unresolved. Everyone will be wondering wtf happened to Saruman, they'll be waiting the whole movie to see what happens to him and they won't be able to concentrate on what's happening in the movie because they'll be wondering wtf happened to one of the main villians. Find something else to cut to make up 7 minutes of time (7 minutes FFS). Don't leave a massive, festering plot hole.
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Nov 11, 2003 1:53:58 PM CST
A couple of possibilities (Now that the wailing and gnashing of
by renonevada2000
First of all on Christopher Lee's website are words to the effect that he "does not have a SINGLE scene" in RotK. Could he be implying that he has more than one scene still in the movie? Maybe. Also, the cutting of the seven minute scene (which hasn't been fully described beyond an exchange between Sauraman and Grima) doesn't necessarily mean that audiences are left to conclude he just perished in the Ent attack. Remember there's still some other stuff that will go on around the ruins of Orthanc and it would be easy to have a scene where they stumble across Sauraman's body partly crushed by falling debris or with a tree-branch through his chest, plopped on the spikey wheel or something. Not a great solution, but it would tie up that thread quickly so we could move onto the meat of the final movie. I suppose there could even be a nice scene for Sir Ian as Gandalf mourns for the loss of the one who once was his friend.
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Nov 11, 2003 2:54:31 PM CST
I loved the first 2 LOTR movies, but FOR THIS MISTAKE Peter Jack
by stiffer
I know my subject heading sounds harsh, and I KNOW that the cut scenes will appear, but NEXT FUCKING YEAR!!! For cryin'out loud that's another year essentially to see Return of the King, because the one coming out this December isn't the Return of the King I want to see. I WANT TO SEE what happens to Sauruman, us fans deserve it! Peter Jackson is making a HUGE mistake! FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCCCCCCCCCCCCKKKKKKKKKKK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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Nov 11, 2003 2:55:35 PM CST
It's fun to speculate on possibilities for closure, but remember
by miserableraingod
...he needs to have already filmed the footage. If PJ's original plan was to have Wormtongue throw out the Palantir, or to have Saruman fall off Orthanc while reaching for the shards of his broken staff, why would he have filmed anything else? For example, why would he film a scene of the Fellowship breaking into Orthanc to steal the Palantir if his plan was to have Saruman or Grima toss it at Gandalf? If he doesn't have the footage, it can't be in the movie. Yes, he could probably do wonders by simply editing the footage he DOES have, but CG work and re-shoots take TIME, therefore any of our radical speculations can't be done. Brad D. is no longer listed in the credits; Chris Lee says he isn't in the movie. So what footage does Peter have left to work with to tell the story of the end of Saruman, the finding of the Palantir, or anything else? Hence our worry that whatever PJ decides to do to tie off those loose ends or close up plot holes will be inadequate, if he decides to do anything at all. He just doesn't have the time. It sounds like theatrical-version viewers are getting jipped here, big time. I'm not buying into any hoax theory, either; pissing off your fanbase is not the same as a practical joke, and an Oscar hopeful is not gonna create a global-scale practical joke anyway. People, you are NOT being punked here. PJ is cutting, Chris Lee is pissed about it, and the average moviegoer is gonna be confused. RainGod out.
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Look until Pete went from studio to studio with his idea for a LOTR movie series noone had thought of doing it live action. Thankfully Pete and New Line have gotten together and did it. the only problem is that movies are too different from books. Books you can end with a scene like the scouring you can't leave movie audiences like that. especially since due to marketing i think mostly on New Line's side this movie is quite literally going to the kids. Look at the video games which are terrible hack and slash and are only selling based on their name and mostly to a younger audience. New Line and Pete both knew that many parents would take their children to see this movie and as such having a scene like the scouring at the end of your movie will kill your movie especially from the family side. The only truly bad thing that i've seen so far from this series has not been what i've seen in FOTR or TTT but rather the cutting of sauraman's demise. I think much like those terrible spoiler plants that we got for Revolutions this is all the news that Harry got. Unless he does in fact know PJ. If you want to know what's killing these movies it's the studio's and there desire not to make a great film but a film that will make a lot of money. plus the parents who would bitch and moan about how there kids had to see the scouring, much like what happened with scooby doo (spoiler) when it turned out to be scrappy. I'm not joking I went to see it and a mother told me that it was wrong for me to enjoy Scrappy as the villain since so many kids loved him and looked up to him. blame parents for being too uptight about what their kids watch or rather giving in to their little shit monsters demands to see a movie that they shouldn't really be seeing in the first place. I'm sick of going to see good horror films with an R rating and having to listen to little kids sing the alphabet everytime a scary thing happens or listening to them cry. does anyone know a place in baltimore that does not allow anyone under the age of 16 to sit in their theatre i want to know I hate kids so much. Give PJ a chance he's done a good job with what he had to do which was turn an epic book into three movies. not something i think many of us could say we can do.
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Nov 11, 2003 3:10:02 PM CST
Online Petion ::::SIGN IT:::::::http://www.petitiononline.com/sm
by stiffer
http://www.petitiononline.com/smanrotk/petition.html I don't know if this will do anything BUT SIGN IT ANYWAYS PEOPLE WHO WANT TO SEE SARUMAN IN THE ROTK!!!
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Where
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I only offered my speculations only because nobody else has actually offered any constructive thoughts along those lines. Please recall the differences in the editing of several scenes from FELLOWSHIP between the theatreical and extended cuts. (I'm thinking of the Fellowship's encounter with the elves right after escaping Moria.) It seems that some scenes were filmed with some slight differences, allowing PJ the wiggle room he needs in editing. Barring any further word from the man though, it's all just speculation and a lot of negative energy that might be being generated for nothing. Let's all agree to relax, have a drink (make mine a chocolate martini), chill out and wait for December 17th. We can all get our panties in a twist on December 18th if we need to...
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One good way to boycott the film is to buy a ticket to something else and then sneek in to see "return of the king". This way Peter (more liv tyler, less christopher lee) Jackson won't get any of your money. I can't believe New Line and Barrie Osborne are going to let Peter Jackson drop the ball just as he was going to score a touchdown.
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Seems a few people have been upset by Peter Jackson's comments about Tolkein being an amateur. I suspect there's a cultural misunderstanding here. PJ (like me) is a New Zealander, I suspect most of the people who've taken umbrage with his comments are Americans. I remember some years back talking to an American about rugby, the NZ national obsession. He was explaining how in the US you had pro football, pro basketball, pro baseball, but only amateur rugby. He didn't seem to be able to get his head around the idea that rugby was (at that time) an amateur game everywhere it was played, that this was enforced by a strict amateur code, that all our national sporting heroes had day jobs on farms or in offices. Above all, he obviously had trouble with the idea that amateur could mean anything other than second-rate. That's not how a New Zealander sees amateurism.
Literally, an amateur is doing something for the love of it. And Tolkien definitely was an amateur. He had a day job at the university, and didn't rely on his fictional efforts for an income. Like New Zealand, Britain has a strong amateur tradition, though based more on class distinctions than in NZ (where it has more to do with the fact that this is a country with a small population which has had to pull itself up from almost nothing in just 200 years, and the only way to get things done was if you accepted you weren't going to get paid for some things you thought were important). eg there used to be a distinction in the English cricket team between "gentlemen" (who were amateurs of independent means)and "players", who were professionals, paid for their efforts and definitely lower on the social scale. I'm sure Tolkien wouldn't have minded being referred to as an amateur. -
Without the Scouring of the Shire, a "non-resolution" of Saruman is actually not a bad thing. In the books he is simply turned over to Treebeard, to be watched, trapped in Isengard with Wormtongue. Saruman eventually talks his way out, using the magic of his voice.
Leaving him in limbo is almost preferable to the Saruman-k-bob; but I guess we'll get to see both!
Sarumans Palantir: Merry and Pippin could have found it floating around the ruins or something. Also, SPOILER WARNING
remember Denethor has one too, which warped his mind and became unusable when held by Denethor on his pyre, but may meet a different fate in the movie. I hope not - what a powerful scene! -
...you people. I wish there were a way to round up all you cinema franchise zealots, "purists", anally retentive "experts" and other assorted geektards and deposit you in a giant arena armed with your choice of melee weapons. I'd pay to watch that action. Trekkies used to cling to the lowest rung on the geek ladder, but while you Tolkienites, Jedi Lites and Matrixheads have been going at it like Indy and Mola Ram on said ladder, the trekkies have clambered past you all to a position approaching respectability. Astounding.
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Nov 11, 2003 5:05:36 PM CST
"Rocky And His Fiend" ... Hey, That's Supposed To Be "Friends"
by arumanbakshi
In case my handle is a little too esoteric for most (and what good is a joke that most don't get?), it refers to the 1978 cartoon version of "The Lord Of The Rings" by Ralph Bakshi. Early on, Gandalf refers to chief wizard of his order as "Aruman". Later he properly calls him "Saruman". The speculation is that the filmmakers didn't want to "confuse" their audience by having two villains with names that began with "S" and sounded similar -- Saruman and Sauron. So they dropped the "S" and made Saruman "Aruman". But it wasn't carried on throughout the film. So "Aruman" reverted to "Saruman" later on. There lays the problem of that director's vision. I am ARUMAN BAKSHI of Many Versions!
*****
This handle, now, is pithy comment on Peter Jackson's chunky-stew of Tolkien story-bits in his TLOTR movies. To be sure, we all owe PJ a debt of gratitute for bringing TLOTR to the big screen in such a big way! We must remember that this is HIS TLOTR as much as the former was Bakshi's TLOTR. We can be thankful that all of PJ's kibbles and stirrings of plot and dialogue are somewhere in the TLOTR books and/or reference works and/or otherwise implied (for they [PJ and common-law wife and Tolkien-addict friend] have done their homework).
*****
I had read TLOTR many years before the release of PJ's first movie (TFOTR) and the details of the story were thankfully fuzzy. That allowed me a fresh view of the movie. However, I found myself not quite thrilled while sitting in the movie theatre. Things seemd rushed. The tension didn't build from the story-telling. The characters didn't really come to life. Of course, we later found out that many "cuts" (either in the scripting or filming or editing) made for the theatrical release were "restored" in the "extended edition" DVD. This helped many of the movie's story-presentation weaknesses. It is as Jackson once said ... Tolkien's TLOTR is a difficult story to translate to film. Still, it works the best when the translator imposes the least.
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So I say to PJ a hardy "cheers!" About "Tom Bombadil" and "The Scouring" I say "no worries!" Just remember that it's SARUMAN, not ARUMAN ... and then you'll be OK!
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Nov 11, 2003 5:31:36 PM CST
Argue all you want about the Saruman item - I'll wait and see if
by fluffyunbound
You know why the Witch King rides a horse into Minas Tirith in the book? Because Tolkien made a mistake. There, I said it. It's that simple. Let's see: I've got something that I can ride that flies over walls and lets me go wherever I want. I know: I'll LAND that thing, mount a HORSE, and ride through a gate I could have flown OVER effortlessly. Once I ride through the gate, I will turn back, ride back THROUGH the gate, ride back to wherever I left my flying beast, mount it, and fly BACK to the gate, just in time for some chick to cut its head off like a big old stupid black fly in New England in the winter! Whatever. Tolkien fucked up. Accept it. Jackson has made lots of mistakes, but even he could not make his fat little fingers type the "adapted screenplay" pages recapitulating that entire sequence. Is it cool in the book? Yes. It was cool the first time I read it. But once the obvious loopiness of it is pointed out to you it's hard to will yourself to not see it. It's not quite as cool when you see how silly it is.
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Having already read this rather rational line of thinking from Tribe2003, I can accept a certain amount of disappointment from those who think of these movies as a rare opportunity that was missed. I am bothered, however, by your very strong implication that those who are not as disappointed as you are not lovers of the books. You say that those who have not read the books, or who have read them and don't love them, won't understand your level of despair. Well, I've read the books, and I love them. I think they are a masterpiece. I think Tolkien has created a world that is mysterious, wonderful, deep, and rich, and written a story about that world that is one of the greatest tales ever told. And I still don't understand the anguish and anger I see directed at every change the man has made in adapting the story to a movie. Ultimately the argument is pointless. It's been about fifty years since the books were published, a little over 20 years since the last attempt to make them into a movie, and, chances are, within 20 or 30 years someone will take another crack at them. Maybe it'll be a purist financed by someone crazy enough to think the Bombadil and Scouring parts will make make good film. At any rate, please don't presume that those who love the books all feel the same way you do. I think the movies are great for what they are - a theatrical adaptation of the story. If someone makes a more literal adaptation, that'd be cool. You know, maybe if all the purists pooled their financial resources, rather than just spewing vitriole at the crew making this film, they could make their OWN version. You all should discuss.
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That's right folks. I was on the can at home when the cordless rang. A brief transcription. "Hello?" "Dave?" "Yo, PJ, what's up?" "Listen, I was looking at your postings on Talkbacks, you know on H-dog's site." "Yeah, sorry, PJ, just had to put my two cent..." "Yeah yeah, stop, okay. Jeez, a five year old could defend me more coherently." "Sorry." "All right, it's cool. But that's not why I called. It looks like the whole cutting Saruman thing stirred up a hornet's nest." "Yeah, Pete, that seems kinda like you fucked up." "You think so?" "Yeah. You still going ahead with the other changes?" "I think so. I really like the scene where Gandalf cuts off Sauron's head and it bounces into the Crack of Doom and knocks Gollum and the ring in with it." "Yeah, but I think..." "And the other scene we did, where Aragorn saves Eowyn from the Witchking. That one rocks." "Uh, Pete..." "Dude, and you should see the move Legolas does...he somersaults, jumps off an Oliphaunt's head, and shoots an arrow into the Witchking's beast critter all in midair. Great CGI!" "Seriously, Pete, I dunno..." "You think anyone's gonna miss Shelob when we replace her with a big three headed cave troll, to tie in the cave troll scene in LOTR?" "Yeah, I think that might be a bad..." "But the CGI rocks on that one, too, and then the three heads of the troll do a little riff on the scene from Holy Grail." "Funny idea, Pete. Hold on, gotta flush." "You're taking a shit?" "Yeah." "I've got a great shit joke in the battle of Pelennor Fields, when an oliphaunt drops one on Merry. Keenan Ivory loved that." "Listen, Pete..." "Yo, Dave, gotta run. Barry Osborne's here with a few more orders from the top. Trying to bring this one in under 2 hours to get more screenings, you know. Almight dollar, and whatnot. Check ya later." "Bye, Pete."
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I read the books once when I was a wee little pratt 20 years ago, so I don't remember them terribly well, but I have been loving the movies. Still, TTT came off as missing an ending, much the same way Empire Strikes Back did. If the book had the death of Saruman at the end, surely the movie could have "sustained" such a climax.
Seems strange to not have it in the movies at all until the special edition of ROTK comes out. -
The book TTT had a great cliff-hanger ending. (keep in mind all three LOTR "books" were one book until Tolkien's editors cut them up). However, the ending of TTT in the book didn't involve the death of Saruman. The movies have been struggling with the placement of the death of Saruman because the place where it normally occurs has been omitted (in my opinion, wisely) from the movies. Now the debate you see before you in this unholy-long talkback is about whether or not it is critical that PJ cut Saruman's death from the story entirely (as opposed to just moving the time, place and nature of it's occurence) and, if he had included it, which version of ROTK or TTT it should have been included in.
My personal opinion is that is should've been addressed (I'm not sure how, probably by cutting Aragorn's fall and subsequent lonesome ride back to helm's deep) at the end of TTT theatrical version sometime. -
I didn't say Gandalf killed Saruman, I said two separate things, 1) Gandalf breaks staff and 2) Saruman gets killed, and that the conclusion of the Saruman story ends the rivalry with Gandalf. Leaving this all out does not bring the film closer to the books than the Extended Edition will, in which these things will thankfully happen. Personally, again I don't care about bringing them closer to the books, even though I love the books and the Voice of Saruman is one of the greatest chapters. It's a much bigger plothole than gifts from Galadriel. The EE will clear this up, but the theater is where it should be seen.
I still feel the pacing issue is irrelevant. The average movie-goer (if not every one of us) needs multiple viewings to take these films in. The bottom line is its obvious PJ had to cut things for the theater, and I don't think this was as expendable as the other cuts. -
OK, Where's Saruman, I'm sorry if I misquoted or misunderstood you. Once we see the film we'll know how important his lack of presence is or isn't. As for pacing, you may think it is irrelevent and you may be right but PJ clearly has a thing for it and very strong ideas about it. I have seen enough of his choices so far to believe it will turn out right in the end. I agree that multiple viewings of these films provide additional information and additional delights but PJ is also making these films for the one-time-only viewer.
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Devil - well said - both those recent posts I mean.***Fluffy! I always enjoy your posts. I understand what you're saying and please don't think I am just reacting to your pointing out a "mistake", but I think I have a different take on the fell-steed switch. I figure that since Tolkien had The WK riding out from Minas Morgul on a horse that he should stick with that for his entrance into MT (and what a cool section that still is to read). I find something more arrogant, I think, about his riding in that way, as if he is showing how ballsy he is.
Then, when Gandalf stands his ground and the rooster crows he has to resort to his more comfortable win-through-fear
style. The "mistake" comes for me when I start to wonder where that winged beast was hiding/waiting/resting all the time.***Number8: thank you for addressing the "amateur" issue. I kept meaning to but you did it better than I. A bit of "Lost in Translation", eh?***Aruman: too bad you had to explain your handle. It's good and very funny.***Some thoughts on the oft-maligned Aragorn cliff dive.
I have been lucky enough to see the T2T SEV already and have listened to the commentaries.
One of the things the filmmakers make clear is that they believe strongly in their choice to depart from the book in this regard by showing Aragorn -
Real easy to make- Simply shake equal parts vodka (I prefer either Smirnoff or Chopin) and creame de coccoa (the clear type) over ice. Recommend listening either Esqueval or Dean Martin. Enjoy.
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I'll let you know how it turns out.
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Reno, just double checking: it's definitely to be shaken and not stirred? :~) ***Aruman, there was no need to explain your name to me. I saw Bakshi's LotR the day it came out at the Ziegfield Theatre in Manhattan back in '78. I immediately got your joke, as did my fellow AARP card carrying associates, morGoth and elanor.
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Sorry for the misspell, Senor Nevada.
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Just saw chris lee on a UK chat show...the disappointment and sadness were there on his face for all to see. He said he did not know why he was cut but could not say anything due toa confidentiality agreement with new line. When asked if he was going to the premiere of King he said no, what was the point? After all the enthusiaam , love and hard work he has put into Rings what a real two fingers up from Jackson and new line. Do you really think the film is going to lose money because its 7 minutes longer? It might lose money now though after all the fans learn about this...way to go guys.
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I have just seen Chris Lee live on tv just now, on a british show. He is NOT pleased with his scenes being cut out, and is also is pissed on behalf of Brad Dourif. So much so that he is NOT going to the premiere. Asked if he was going to any of the premeiers, his response was "What would be the point?" which he repeated. Exclusive for AICN!
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Harry (you cocktouch) how about putting a link to New Line so we can swamp them with offensive fanboy trash mail?? Only joking but if anyone DOES have an address to forward complaints then can they kindly email me like all those kindly geeks did when I told them I hadnt read any Lovecraft....by the way the only reason I wanna complain is coz I JUST watched a live interview with Christopher Lee and he looked fucking mortified that his role had been sliced from ROTK. I dont think anyone's even told him about the plans for the extended ROTK DVD....
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I too saw Mr Lee on a uk tv show, and I agree he looked very cut up about it. If this reasonable man doesn't understand the reason he was cut out of the theatrical version, I don't even begin to understand why we could possibly understand. There is a link from his official site, Christopherleeweb, to sign a petition. It may be fruitless but it makes you feel marginally better, heh, trust me.
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Nov 12, 2003 7:32:39 AM CST
Chis Lee sounded as though New Line / PJ hasn't contacted him di
by pj(the original)
In the live interview, what Chris Lee stated, hinted that PJ, or New line had NOT contacted him directly. His quote "they have not givern me any reason" which suggests he has had no information from them, apart from what has appeared on the internet. Indeed he could only confirm his scenes were deleted, cos that has appeared on the net. So, he most likely does not know his scenes will make an appearence on the ROTK EE DVD. But its still galling to lust after a film part for FIFTY YEARS!!! Know the author by first name terms, get cast in the film, spend 4 years filming on and off, and at the 11 th hour get cut out the climatic film... Imagine how that must feel, especially as the director has not bothered to tell him directly?? No wonder he is not bothering to go to the film premiere
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Yep, it looks like the real deal...bummer. So now the question is, was this truly initiated by the director, or is PJ fronting for New Line and possibly their Oscar- and money-lust? Probably we'll never know. I wonder if Lee wasn't contacted b/c Jackson still held out hope that he could get it in...still shocking that he felt it appropriate to spill the news to HARRY KNOWLES before he told anyone who was ACTUALLY INVOLVED. Bad form, Mr. Jackson. Just for future reference. But you probably already know that.
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Everything was going so well until this happened. I just read about Chirs Lee's reaction on theonering.net. This just keeps getting worse and worse. I mean, Chris Lee basically was us on the set of LOTR. He was the true LOTR fan, the one who'd read the book repeatedly, cared deeply about it and actually met the man J.R.R Tolkien himself, and he's been relentlessly promoting these films from the beginning. Now his scene's been cut from the final, most important film and judging from his reaction they didn't even tell him they were going to do this or explain why. Now the biggest LOTR fan in the cast won't even be going to the premiere. I just hope PJ sees the light, realizes that a minor blip in the pacing in the film is far less worse then leaving an entire story thread unfinished and pissing off one of his best actors, and corrects this before it's too late. I wondered how bad Viggo Mortenson, Sean Bean and a few of the other actors must have felt when FOTR came out and they saw that some of their scenes had been cut, scenes that turned out in the FOTR extended edition to be vital and brilliant scenes that could have easily been squeezed into FOTR if certain other pointless scenes had been cut (I can think of quite a few). It must feel bad for any actor to see some of their scenes cut, but here the actor's character has been taken completely from the film without his story being concluded. Ridiculous. I loved FOTR and TTT. PJ obviously cares about the story and the characters and portraying them well on film but after seeing the FOTR EE and hearing of some of the stuff to be included in the TTT EE (ie. Faramir's flashback scene) I've felt a lot of his decisions on which scenes to cut and which scenes not to have been more in favour of action and forced tension and humour rather than story and character. Why couldn't he have put the Faramir flashback in TTT and cut all those stupid Gimli Jar Jar Binks scenes. Why not cut that scene in FOTR where the Nazgul enter the room in Bree and stab the beds only to find feathers. What purpose did that scene have other than a cheap and cliched B movie thrill (oooh, we really thought the hobbits had been stabbed for a second there). The movies have been great so far, ROTK will probably be great, but the DVD Extended editions are more reminders of how much better the theatrical editions could have been. Just leaving the scene for the ROTK EE is no consolation. It's the theatrical edition that counts.
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Yeah, I keep having to remind myself that there's only one person who's seen all the footage, and who truly knows what he's doing...and that's Peter Jackson. So in spite of my puny and vicarious sense of betrayal, I just have to assume that he's made the right decision...the reader-fans aren't his only audience, after all! But like I say, almost everyone I know wants the Saruman plot thread resolved...of course I assume he's resolving it somehow, and I'll just have to be patient and see how he does it...I've enjoyed(mostly) the other alterations he's made, and the fims appear to be wildly popular among those who haven't read the books, so the changes appear to have been well-chosen...I can only hope that this one will be the same. I do feel very bad for Christopher Lee, however. Man, I really hope this one is good...
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I won't be able to understand what led to this decisoin until I see the finished film (hopefully I will then) but I can think of no excuse for Peter not calling Christopher Lee and letting him know before the world found out. Please tell me Peter called him. Osborne, Ordesky, Fran, they all should have called him! And New Line
should have begged him to still come to Wellington for the premiere (I understand why he would choose not to). How terribly disappointing for him.
He has been such a passionate cheerleader for the films and for Peter; I am just stunned to hear this seeming confirmation of the worst. I am so sorry for him.***So much for the hoax idea, too. What a shame. Mr.
Lee, I will treasure the DVD EE version of ROTK all the more. I don't need to see it to know you will be wonderful in it.*** I wonder if the supression of Quints reports is at all related to this? Lee was down there when he was. -
I read LOTR when I was 14. Got stuck at the TTT, was confused by the the 2 "S" villains (so Bakshi wasn't so far off for some not-so-bright teens like me, Aruman!) and I couldn't follow all the battles (probably because Helm's Deep was called by at least 3 different names). I couldn't understand a lot of points Tolkien was making as I had trouble keeping the characters & plot dev. straight.
PJ has made everything so clear for me, and I have re-read LOTR 3 times since the FotR was released and gotten more out of it each time. As I said before these two mediums support each other for me.
One thing that bothered me about the thought of neither a resolve for Saruman at Isengard nor a Scouring, is the emphasis Tolkien puts on compassion. The villains seem to have a current of great sadness that makes them pathetic. Saruman turns into a wounded animal who cannot even bring himself to admit he was wrong and continues on his sorry path without power or dignity. His robes are dirty, he has no staff, and attempts to redeem the little he imagines he still has. Gollum also perfectly illustrated this concept. Like Sam, I never got why Frodo trusted him, until I saw the creature in PJ movie. Then I understood why Gandalf emphasized compassion in the case of Gollum and why Frodo gave it to him (the look on Gollum's face at the forbidden pool is heart-rending). Likewise many of the heroic types... Boromir & Denethor, Isildur, all exhibit the same weaknesses that the villains have thrived in. There is a tension between good and evil within most of the charactesr in the book. I keep thinking it would be important to show how pathetic Saruman becomes...to understand the themes of power, corruption, and inner struggle. Last year, when I heard about the Spikey wheel thing, I lost sleep over it.
I was so relieved when it didn't happen at the end of the last movie. I read so much speculation in this TB. I just cannot bring myself to believe that Saruman will not be dealt with adequately in the theatrical version...just because PJ had to cut one really cool scene (it almost seems that what he might have cut is some behind the scenes bickering between Saruman & Grima at Orthanc), doesn't mean he cut out critical information or plot development.
I am literally moved to tears everytime I see the trailer for RotK...not only from the emotion-packed moments, but for how beautiful and powerful the movie appears to be (and the use of color is awesome!).
I didn't post again to make the points I have already made about how I trust PJ and know the movie will be great. I wanted to add my thoughts about how Tolkien inspires compassion for villains. I also wanted a chance to say how wonderful Christopher Lee is in the movies (and the commentaries on the DVDs !) before this TB buckles under the magnitude of opinions and speculation. -
Skulking round, Gollum-like, I found myself at the VectorPrime ezBoard and stubbed my toe on this post [ http://pub24.ezboard.com/fvectorprime43880frm28.showMessage?topicID=107.topic ]. The key is this -- in the theatrical version (at least), the disputed cut will be more in keeping with Tolkien's tale than not. Here's the significant quote: "Jackson's decision seems to have upset many Tolkien enthusiasts. Fansite
TheOneRing.net calls it 'sad news' in its headline. However, since those scenes run counter to Tolkien's original story, this writer says 'good riddance' to Saruman's departure by impalement." So, there's the long and short of it. -
That's still one of my all-time favorite movie lines, and I sure wish that it wasn't necessary to use in this instance, but apparently it is. Poor Chris and Brad. ***Aruman, as I wrote several years ago when the Wizard on the spikey wheel pic first surfaced, I really wouldn't have minded THAT change as much had that wheel been a part of Ted Sandyman's new mill that Sharkey ordered built. Granted, I would have prefered that Grima do the dirty deed, but it was more important to me where Saruman would meet his fate than how. So I repeat my first post on this subject, "This change is not necessarily a bad thing." But could they have handled it any worse? I think not. As for The Palantir, if that scene is not done properly -- I can live with an unseen hand throwing it from Orthanc, but it damned well had better be in the film or else I could be throwing a hissy fit in the middle of a crowded movie theatre come December 17th. ***Oh and to "Harry the Producer", please be advised that I will NOT be attending the opening of your first film, 'THE PAGE CANNOT BE DISPLAYED!' I've seen it too many time already.
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Well done, Jackson, just when we were all proclaiming you a genius suddenly you go and do a stupid, unnecessary and plain evil thing like this.
The inevitable failure of King Kong is going to be a humiliation you richly deserve. -
Nov 13, 2003 6:30:25 AM CST
To those who wish to complain about the absence of Saruman,
by conan_the_humble
The official site has a 'send us feedback' option at the lower left side of the screen. Here's the URL: http://www.lordoftherings.net/. I don't know if this will get to Newlien or PJ but at least you can vent your frustrations at someone a bit closer to the decisions than Harry. I have done so (for all the good it'll probably do...) Anyhoo, I guess we'll have to wait and see. Cheers.
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It actually got to me how this affected Christopher Lee. A few days ago he was talking about this with such passion. Now he just seemed so sad.
I think that by the third film people are who have watched the first ones are goint to watch it whatever... an extra 7 minutes isn't going to put anyone off. Hell, do it as a FOTR introductory voice over by one of the hobbits as he dozes on the back of gandalf's horse or something.
Or alternatively (and it is unfortunately probably too late for this) how about releasing this whole scene as a 7 minute teaser/trailer/prologue for ROTK. Especially after the success of releasing those 10 minute trailers for TTT and ROTK with the previous films. Im pretty sure most people here would flock to see almost any film (maybe even matrix revolutions) that has a 7 minute ROTK prologue playing before it.
THEN put it on the extended DVD. Don't use the extended DVD as a crutch, it has already screwed up the Phail of galadriel as a plot device... -
I'd like to take back my kind of peevish comment about PJ's failure to contact Christopher Lee first...it's still a bummer, but it looks like Lee may have been contacted before the news was made public...it appears someone else was spilling the beans who shouldn't have been, and Jackson had to clear things up. It's not completely clear what the sequence of events was, but then it's not really for us to know, either. Mea culpa.
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Since there are scenes in FOTR that show images of how the shire would look if scoured, and since Merry describes in TT the inevitability of their homeland, the viewers will get the message. Even though it won't be shown, people'll realize that is where the Shire will end up. I mean, the scouring IS the main theme of the whole series, but it doesn't HAVE to be shown, just implied. Besides, it's a lot less brutal to leave the viewer in a more or less happy ending. I too, was upset that the Shire won't be shown, but it'll turn out a classic all the same. I have confidence in Pete Jackson. These movies are beyond the books now- they're an entity of their own. The scouring will always remain in the hearts of the fans and in the books, anyway, so no biggie. LOTR Rules!
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That's not about what 'Scouring' (Tolkien's, anyway) is about! 'Scouring' is NOT about the destruction of the Shire (which is what P.J.'s 'Fellowship' chose to show), it's about the cleansing (please look up the word scouring in the dictionary) of that destruction, starting with the removal of those who caused it. I have always felt that P.J. was fooling himself when he maintained that they did show 'Scouring' in that scene.
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Now that i've heard about it, i can cope with the scourging of the shire being cut. I loved it in the book, but i understand the anti-climactic element. I hope they at least filmed it, to add it to the extended edition.
But the Saruman scene really would have been good at the end of TT, where it should have been. The only criticism i ever heard of TT from general movie goers was that the end was a bit flat.And i heard PJ didnt put in Shelob because of Aragog in Chamber of Secrets. It would have been the BEST cliffhanger to end the second movie with Frodo bitten.
But i will REALLY be disappointed if they dont show the ringbearers going to the Grey Havens...it is so poignant, and it is a fitting end. If its not there, the movie and the series will be worse off for it. -
Read: theonering.net/perl/newsview/2/1068607918 for more on the ending.
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Dang...
When I heard this particular bit of news on TORN I was shocked. Heving been a rabid fan of LOTR for several years now, I decided this just could not be. I checked the link to this article, and discovered it was true. I was completely horrified.
Then I stopped and thought. "He changed a little in Fellowship... and I trusted him. He changed a lot more in The Two Towers... and I still trusted him.
This is not the book, and it can't be treated like the book. Anyone who sees only the theatrical cut of ROTK will simply think that Saruman is stuck in Orthanc, waiting for the floodwaters to subside. After all, he can't fly, right? :)
For those of us who know better... well... we're the ones who will watch the Extended Edition, right? :)
For what it's worth, I trust PJ to deliver a satisfying film, because he's never let me down before...
Long live PJ! -
Way way back when Peter first started talking about Lord of the Rings, he stated that if the plot didn't deal with ring, it was going to be cut because there was no time for it. Thus the scouring of the Shire was obviously going to be cut if you people had paid attention years ago and watched his interviews on the EE of FotR.
As for the Saruman issue, first of all I was never really expecting a "big battle scene" between him and Gandalf. It never happened in the book, and thus I wasn't expecting it in the movie. All I expected from Saruman was the Palantir scene. Christopher Lee was a great actor in the first too, and he must feel really bad getting cut from the theatrical release, but he'll be in the EE, and that's that. No really big disappointments here, since he was only supposed to have a token role in RotK in the first place. -
The fall of Saruman's armies in the Two Towers was only part of his defeat. It should be shown that he has also lost his powers to be the White Wizard and that Gandalf is now the more powerful of the two. If Jackson does not show this, why should it matter if Gandalf was the gray wizard at the first of the trilogy and Saruman was the white? Why bother to bring Gandalf back from the dead? Why should Saruman also lead the Uruk-hai? Sauron could assume that job from Mordor. Just let Sauron be the only bad guy. No need for Saruman at all if he doesn't get finished off.
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I'm kind of happy there's not going to be any more Christopher Lee. Not to be rude to Mr. Lee or anything. It really wasn't his fault. It's just every time Saruman was on the screen, his voice-over was going, and it got to where I felt like I was reading Saruman's diary after the fact. Example from FOTR: "... the day is blahblahblah and Gandalf the Grey rides to Isengard, seeking my counsel..."... ? Thank you for clarifying that, Saruman.
And personally, looking at it from a totally objective opinion, I think the Warg scene would've sucked no matter what. I mean, even if it were in the book (However, thank God it's not.) The animation was crappy. It has nothing to do with me being a purist or not, it just sucks. Two Towers as a whole kind of sucked... I just can't force myself to give a damn about Arwen if the only thing she knows how to say is "There is still hope". -
I first read the books 12 years ago, and since then I have read them numerous times.
I have always felt that although Tolkien was a master storyteller when it came to plot and landscapes, his character development and the emotional element weren't always told as well as they could have been...To me this is primarily because The Lord of the Rings is meant to be a "history" or a recording of the events that ended the third age. To make a dramatic, emotional and above all climatactic movie Peter Jackson had to include some extra scenes, and leave out some of the parts in the story, otherwise the movies would not be nearly as emotionally involving or as satisfying as they currently stand...For instance the battle of Helms Deep is skimmed over in the book in one chapter, and is written very "matter-of fact", to me PJ is only addressing missed opportunitys for emotional and dramatic impact.
This brings me on to the deletion of the "Scouring of the Shire". I am VERY pleased indeed that this has been omitted from the movie, its a wholly uneccessary part of the book, and I also feel the way sauron was defeated in the book is also very unsatisfying.
Tolkien skims over some of the parts in the plot that would allow greater character developemnt and emotional impact, but goes into great detail on trivial things. The whole second half of the return of the king book is a huge dissapointment and I'm very pleased that PJ will rectify this in his movies.
I do however wish that the Grima and Sauraman scenes could be at the end of TTT, this is where they belong, and would have been a much more satisfying end to that movie. -
Ok, so we can't have Saruman dying in the beginning of the new movie. Why didn't Jackson tell the story in flashback? PJ's told flashback well before -- in Fellowship, Gandalf tells how he escaped from Isengard, and also tells how he escaped the Balrog. So, too, can Gandalf tell how he dispatched of Saruman. Hell, Gandalf's a master of flashback. I agree with the comments above. How can you possibly not show the death of Saruman? It seems PJ made a critical and serious mistake by not having it in the TTT, and it seems even more of a mistake not to put it in the Return. As for the Scouring, when I read the book, I thought it was anti-climatic. I think this is a good decision on PJ's part and I still look forward to the final installment regardless.
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It all seems a little fishy to me.... So Saruman's demise/conclusion is cut from ROTK. OK, seems like a bad decision on the surface, but I'll reserve judgement until I see it for myself.........BUT..I can't see how it CAN be cut without causing major plot problems. If Saruman's scenes are cut then they must have also cut Gandalf's return to Isengard (as it would be a pointless journey without confronting Saruman). So if they don't go to Isenguard how do they get the palantir? (they could drop the palantir completely I suppose, without too much damage)...but more importantly, how do they regroup with Merry and Pippin? I can't see how the hobbits reintroduction into the main story can be done without going to Isenguard.... Something doesn't add up! Maybe PJ is playin' with us, and there IS a (maybe shorter) showdown with Saruman in ROTK.
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The problem with Peter's reasoning about cutting Saruman from the Return of the King is that the audience (remember us- the faithful patrons who have made this pricey venture a success)and not Jackson are left to pay for his sins(literally- something in the neighborhood of $30 for a copy of the extended cut after waiting yet another year, since we expected to see "the Voice Of Saruman" in the second film).
Nor is seeing outtakes in an extended DVD the same as seeing them in the film on the big screen. The extended versions divide the movie into two discs disrupting the perception of the story as a whole, as does the memory of theatre cut of the film.
The extended versions of LOTR are a great idea but not as a crutch for Peter Jackson's lapses in storytelling decisions. This is a dissevice to fans and to Mr. Lee as well.
Mr. Jackson says that Saruman has no part in the third part of the story anyway without the Scouring of the Shire. Does this mean that he has abandoned the whole storyline of the palantir. This gets worse the more I contemplate it.
Mr. Jackson has every right as a filmmaker to take license with the story but this is not a matter of Peter's vision or interpretation. It's a question of poor decision making. Pacing is only one decision making element in making movies it is not the mother of all editing decisions. I think the audience could handle a slow start to get information they've already waited a year to see.
But that's pure selfishness, I'm sure. Ultimately it is more important that Pete be a contender at the oscars, right?
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I understand Jackson has cut out the verbal duel between Saruman and Gandalf. This is inexcuseable.
It will loose all hope of an Oscar. Perhaps Jackson does not understand peotry. This section in the book is no less than Shakespearean. The duel of minds, the last hope that the wile of Saruman will win the hearts of the little group of people. So much towering beauty could have been made of these moments in which Tolkein's mastery of language reaches a special height. Cut that out and you are left with blood and gore, the stuff of hype films of which there are so many. Does Jackson not see anything other than battle and entrails in the story? Is he oblivious to Tolkein's electrifying use of language and only able to see the flash of sword and the bleeding head on a spear?
I am afraid that unless he re-instaes this magic, his film will just be another epic and he will have let down the cast of actors and so many supporters who laboured so hard to bring this wonderful story to the screen. Their labours will be lost and the Oscar will be lost. There are many bang bang your dead films. Remove this treasure and that is what you are left with. A sad blindness to wit obliterated by adultion of violence.
Michael
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It pisses me off to no end all of the folks saying "Oh well, at least we have the extended DVD" Screw that rhinoceros shit! I don't want to see a crap down-converted, compressed MPEG 2 version on a junk little TV or low contrast projector after the fact. I want to see Saruman's demise for the first time on big beautiful 35mm, 1,000,000:1 contrast ratio, blown up on a huge screen. Not this nancy DVD shit. DVD quality sucks! I think I'm going to New Zealand to give Pete an unprecedented beating, a quarter inch steal pipe should do the trick. The problem is he has it all there but leaves out the wrong things. I bet there will be plenty of shit-eating Gimly humor that wasn't even in the book.
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This came as a terrible shock to me when I first heard that Saruman had been excised from Return of the King. Were we just supposed to forget that he ever existed? What would happen with Pippin and the Palantir... blah blah blah... Anyway, as I am a LOTR freak, I frequently check on TheOneRing.net for news, and I read a review in which the person said that, despite the fact that Saruman was cut, they do have some closure (although not much). It's a scene close to Isengard, where Treebeard asks Gandalf if they have anything to worry about regards to Saruman, to which Gandalf replies that Saruman isn't a threat anymore. The reviewer said that, even though it didn't seem like much, it was easy to believe Gandalf that Saruman wasn't going to hassle anyone anymore (and in the Extended Edition we'll get to find out that he's not a threat because he'd dead!). The reviewer also expained that the palantir thing works out fine, but didn't explain how, so I guess we'll have to leave it to our imaginations until the 17th...
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For you information I thought fellowship wa the most disloyal of all the movies
You cast elijah wood way tooooo young and bad actor
you did not give any other characters
besides stupid frodo any screen time worthy of anything
you deminshed what were many amazing and wonderful characters
to give stuppiiid movies studios the one hero they wanted
With TTT you redeamed yourself
you were more character loyal becasue i did not expect you to be story loyal
you gave aragorn arwen and sam the rights and screen time they deserved
screw legolas enoguh with the damn orlando shot geez
TH EE of TTT was the best LOTR movie
it had all the charcter and humor and almso tthe same depth at the book
eowyn can die
aragorn did not love her you fucked that one up big time
but you cast liv tyler great job
NOW you FUCKEd up ROTK
no scorhcing
no love with faramir and eoywn what shit
and no
telling people what happened to saurman
BSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS
i think having him die at the end of TTT would have been a great ciff hanger climax against frodo and sam's climax
the books had the real cliff hangers though
stop being obsessed with people dying
the worst thing is LOTR is when frodo
is supposedly dying from the cave toll
one of the worst things i have ever seen on film
and elijah cant act
you EE are much better but you still need more
i cant beleived you changed faramir
faramir resisted the ring becasue he understood what it was doing to frodo
he was like sam
fuck frodo
spend the time on a great character liek faramir
and get woyen away from aragorn and eomer really awoke her
that is were she starts to give aragorn up
Faramir is not one dimensionaal in book he is conflicted about his father
and doesnt think he is good enough
but he is pure liek same
PJ fuck you
for destroying some of the best stuff in LOTR
TTT EE was the best moive
and the best thing you did was aragon and arwen
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