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Saruman Completely Cut from 'Return of the King'
Dolemite_the_Wiz writes "Multiple News Sources report that Christopher Lee's Character Saruman will not appear in the LOTR: ROTK at all. From what I've been reading, the scenes total seven minutes and is a vital component of the whole storyline that the 'masses' should see in the theatrical cut of ROTK. Of course these scenes will be included in the DVD 'Special Edition' of ROTK. I've got tremendous faith in Peter Jackson's talents as a filmmaker. I've been a fan since his first movie but haven't read the LOTR trilogy books...yet. (I'm waiting for ROTK to hit the theaters) Given the fact that I haven't read the books but am a huge movie snob, how can you not have any sort of resolution of a character that has played a key component in the three movies? Articles on this story can be found at BBC, Christopher Lee Web, and theonering.net."
Given the fact that I haven't read the books but am a huge movie snob,
Well, I am a reading snob who can't fathom how someone who doesn't like to read can qualify as a snob of any sort. The books have been out for 50 years, fucktard! How 'bout I whap you upside the head with a clue-by-four just like you deserve?
How the hell can they cut out Saurumon? (sp)
Even if I say something insightfull or inteligent, it doens't matter cause I'm an ass.
FOTR was awesome. :(
TTT was a letdown. What's worse, it made flaws in FOTR obvious.
No expectations for ROTK. Sorry
how can you not have any sort of resolution of a character that has played a key component in the three movies?
:)
I'd say he was only been a key compnent in two movies, now
Endless arguments over trivial contradictions in books written by ignorant savages to explain thunder in the dark.
..or does it almost sound as a setup so the fans "must have" the Special Edition? I got the SE of the first, was hidiously expensive, but well... I had to have it. Stayed away from the 2nd SE, we'll see about the third when I've seen the (cut) movie...
Kjella
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Umm, it's been known since practicaly the beginning the The Burning of the Shire would not appear in the movies.
Your hair look like poop, Bob! - Wanker.
Book 6 (Second half of ROTK) would be difficult for the movie, as it's after the climax. I will be very happy to see that part covered a bit more in the extended edition DVD.
Everyone that disagrees with me is a paid shill
That you haven't read Lord of the Rings, I demand you get off Slashdot now. Next you'll be saying "Star Trek? What's that?"
If you want Lee's character back, SIGN THE PETITION!
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Actually, the entire "Scouring of the Shire" part was never going to be in the movie from the get-go. What they're talking about here is the aftermath of the Battle of Isengard, where Saruman and Wormtongue are thrown out of Orthanc, and Wormtongue throws the palantir at the Fellowship.
Sadley Yes, this was said ages ago (I think perhaps somewhere on the 1st Special Eddition DVD)
The fact that he now appears to belive his own bullshit regarding The lord of the Rings means that he has lost the Tao and gained some hubris.
Remeber that he made a movie about not beliving your own bullshit called "Heavenly Creatures" which makes it not the least bit ironic.
. . . SCO threatened to sue New Line Cinema over unlicensed depictions of their proprietary method of using evil to dominate the world.
And it's Peter Jackson's film, not yours.
He has every right to edit the film as he sees fit. He didn't think the sequences worked in the context of ROTK, so he cut them.
They'll wind up on the extended DVD. BTW, everyone seems to ignore the fact that Brad Dourif's scenes as Wormtongue were also cut.
that'd be like cutting Eomer or whatever that Rohan chick's name is! a "minor" character that is totally important. Saruman only is half way responsible for the war, and invades the shire! let me guess? they'll leave out how Frodo &c have to liberate the shire from "sharkey" and his goons like Bill Farney? God damned Hollywood sucks.
As long as they don't change the story completely by putting in ewoks instead of wookies.... oops wrong movie..
I think this stinks, too, but I can see where it might make sense to drop Saruman for this movie if the only other choice was to drop something else. After all, once his army is defeated at Helm's Deep and his factories are trashed by the Ents, he's pretty much out of the picture as a major player in the war. Resolution (as Tolkien wrote it) would be nice, but I can't say this is an especially heinous cut.
When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a skull.
Now this is a clever marketing ploy. Sure, you can go see the third episode of your (##th?) favorite trilogy, but its missing an important part... But you can buy the DVD with the parts re-added for only $19.99!
This way, they capitalize off the plebs who hear that the lord of the rings is a good story and capitilize even more off the geeks who love the story already and want despratley to see a film version. Pity the Beatles version never panned out...
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Jackson has said that Lee's parts were cut from the 3rd film because they should really be part of the 2nd, but he didn't want to start off with wrapping up the 2nd movie. They wanted to start off fresh. See: http://www.darkhorizons.com/news03/031110.htm
I've been a fan since his first movie but haven't read the LOTR trilogy books...yet.
:-).
:-) right now.
Slashdot must be excepting atricles from 8 year olds
I have to say 8, because my neighbor's 9 year old has been trudging through the books this summer. She's finishing the third (well, 5 & 6
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Wrong. Its J.R.R. Tolken's ideas made into a movie by Peter Jackson.
Movies that seem to get shittier and shittier with each ass rape of the plot, story line, and concept.
I'm just waiting for the triple-plus-good DVD set with the holographic trading cards, graphic novel of the Similarion, a lock of Elijiah's hair and the Hobbit Digi-Pet keychain.
So empty inside.
Here's Peter Jackson's take on it
What does Saurman even do in the 5th and 6th books? It has been about 4 years since I read the books, so I cannot remember every detail. I remember him in the burning of the shire (already said not to be in this movie), but what else did he do? The end of the story has more to do with Sauron and the ring, and nothing to do with Sauron's tool Saurman.
The article links are already
Since the scouring was never going to be in the movie, there's not much point to kicking Saruman out... what's he going to do? Where's he going to go? They'd have to use more screen time to explain it. I'm vaguely interested in those seven minutes (of course I'll be viewing the DVD anyhow), but it doesn't completely rewrite the story; Saruman wasn't a major player in the final volume to start with.
There is just one thing... I wonder how they're going to get the palantir out of Isengard? (spoiler) That plays a major role in drawing Sauron out too early. Maybe they just skip the palantir and IM him instead.
You cannot apply a technological solution to a sociological problem. (Edwards' Law)
Well, it won't be for time reasons. They've proven that already!
It won't be for budget reasons - they've already made it!
I can't believe it's for artistic/plot reasons, it is in the book...
So, it's because then we'll all buy the SE DVD, and they'll make more money.
Oh. That's a surprise.
Sheesh.
Simon.
Physicists get Hadrons!
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
As he describes it, it definately sounds like just One of Those Things that happens when you're adapting books to film.
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contrary to the beeb article, lee will not be boycotting the premier. check lee's website, which is now /.'d.
can anyone say:
The Lord of the Rings: Revolutions.
?
It was like how they cut Tom Bombadil out of the first one, or the Weirding Modules out of Dune. This is crucial stuff, people!
If guns kill people, then CmdrTaco's keyboard misspells words.
on the BBC (radio 4, Midweek, 5 Nov 2003, I think) in which he told the interviewer he had an absolutely crucial scene in the final episode - he seemed to believe it was going to be in the film, I'm sure !
It's all very well in practice, but it will never work in theory.
I think the movies are perhaps an interesting story, but they are *not* The Lord of the Rings.
The mistake they made was not making 6 movies (one for each book), and doing every single line of dialog exactly like the book, and shooting each shot exactly the way the book describes it, and fleshing out the images the way we imagined it. So what if most people don't like it -- it would rock.
Maybe Bravo or some independent director can do it properly in a few years when killer CGI is cheap.
. . . Not me.
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One director to ruin it all, one director to.....
Ack I can't think of a good finish. I just wanted to get this joke out of the way early. In typical Slashdot fashion, I anticipate 10 more like it in 5..4..3.....
"To lead the people, you must walk behind them"
to refer to this as Sharky's end
Actually, they cut Saruman out of the Rankin-Bass animated version of the RotK and unless you'd have read the story and knew what to expect, I don't think you'd have noticed it. Saruman was also marginalized in the Ralph Bakshi version of the LotR which really only went through the Two Towers, quickly summarizing the RotK.
There are only 6,863,795,529 types of people in the world.
In a pouring rain, surrounded by hundreds of Elrond clones:
Elrond: Welcome back, Mister Saruman. We missed you.
It seems like cutting 7 minutes from what, a two and a half hour movie is diminishing returns. I'd rather see what happens to Saruman...
Then again mabye its a conspiricy to get everyone to buy the extended version DVD. Based on the first extended version DVD (Fellowship of the Ring) I thought all the cut stuff should have been left in the movie also. I like getting my moneys worth from a movie ticket, bring on the 3 hour movies.
They showed that weird, hybrid movie/game trailer at the Matrix the other night. I turned to my friend and said, "If that mother fucker cuts the Scouring of the Shire he's going to have to answer to me."
You hear me Peter! YOU HEAR ME!
I was willing to let the fact that you cut Tom Bombadil slide. Yeah, I wanted to see Bill Murray as Bomadil. My little fantasy shot. But it was okay because you were doing an good job over all.
But if Sharky doesn't buy it in front of you-know-where and the hand of you-know-who I'm going to be ROYALLY PISSED!
-Peter
Peter Jackson has to put somthing in. But the movies are never as good as the books LOTR is no exption. They have a lot of ground to cover in three hours. Even if he isn't in the theatucal release that dosnt mean he won't be in Extended Edtion. I'm relly loking fowad to ROTK. It wold be ashame if he messed up not.
To this viewer, the resolution was implied in The Two Towers: The Ents came smashing in, destroying everything around him, and during that battle, he met a squishy end. I didn't need to see it to understand what was going on; it was very fitting that he was destroyed by the Ents, when he had destroyed so much of the forest.
Therefore, I was quite surprised when I first heard that Saruman was going to be in the third movie--that meant somehow he had escaped the poetic fate that seemed so obvious. And now that he's gone again, I don't see a problem with the removal of those scenes.
davidh
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Come out! -Gandalf said....
And then, blah blah blah blah.....then gandalf said...
Saruman, Your staff is broken! (all your staff is belong to us)....
You get the point. Its a tremendously important culmination of the first part of the war.
NO SIG
To everyone currently bitching on /. :
/. was up in arms because Arwen replaced Glorfindel, prior to the release of the first movie (Myself included).
Everyone on
Many had fits with a "last alliance of men and elves" at Helm's Deep.
However, the movies have not dissapointed many, other than the die-hard fans.
I will admit that I did not like FOTR after my first watch. Sections of TTT, such as the Warg attack bugged me, however, for those who have not read the books 16x like myself, I found my friends loved the movies.
This is important because Jackson has captured the essence of the books, and the essence of what LOTR is about. Granted, he could have followed the books perfectly - but then only die-hard fans would enjoy it.
Think about it - do you believe more or fewer people are reading the books now that the first 2 films are out?
Try to hack my 31337 firewall!
the movie's out in a month, not enough time to reverse any cuts. plus this is RUMOUR, not fact. unless this person can show me the theatrical release of rotk tomorrow, I won't believe it until I see the movie on Dec 16th. i know certain scenes have been cut, and several of them have a lot to do with Saruman's character, but I've also heard of Saruman being in ROTK in only one scene. frankly this is very reactionary and very late. They don't have time to edit the film, especially when its probabally already gone for duplication.
By the way, your sister Jolene is a damn fine woman!
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Gilgald was an Elven King,
Oh him the harpers sadly sing,
the last whose relm was fair and free
between the mountains and the sea
His sword was long and this lance was keen
his shining helm afar was seen
the countless stars of heaven's field
were mirrored in his silver shield
But where he deweleth non can say
for long ago he went away
into darkness fell his star
in the land of mordor where the shadows are.
That gives me the fucking goose bumps, not Liv Tyler, not making Faramir "more exciting" not cutting characters, FUCKING POETRY!.
FUCK YOU ILLERTERATE ASSWIPES!
The return of Frodo, Sam, Merry, and Pippin to the Shire is a slow, but necessary part of the end of the trilogy. Despite the attempts by people to find analogies in it ("it symbolizes the spread of socialism in Europe after World War II"), it shows the aftermath of a large conflict and how the hobbits must fight to reclaim their homes.
I doubted that Peter Jackson would include much, if any, of Book Six. Without showing the final destruction of Saruman and Wormtongue, it leaves a few loose storylines in the movie.
bummer
Having just finished reading Return of the King, this is plausible. I think I can see how the can make a perfectly fine story of the ending without Saruman. The assumption could be that he was left to rot in his tower. There are still plenty of Heroes to smite plenty of Villains.
In a way, taking Saruman out of the ending gives for a happier ending. He's a piece of the old evil. Making it seem as if that was thoroughly crushed at an earlier point makes the final victory more of a mopping up action than a continuation of the epic Good vs. Evil fight of the trilogy.
Eh. I'm just rationalizing. Having listened to the commentary tracks on the extended versions, and how much they moan about what they have to cut, every minute of those long movies is hard won and not without scrutiny. Give'm a break. Sit back, and enjoy the show.
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But this is a crucial plot element. Wormtounge throws the eye out of the tower, where it is recovered and then Frodo looks into it and the eye consumes him... how will we see this showdown now? And anyway since Saruman is the son of Faramir I think that Faramir's dissapointment won't be as telling.
When I first read the headline, my dislexia kicked in and I thought they said that Sauron had been cut from the third movie. My first thought was that he was being replaced by a little white rabbit with very sharp teeth.
It's good to use your head, but not as a battering ram.
Just wait for the DVD to come out. I'm so damned sick of these edits totally undermining the story for NO apparent reason.
Let's be blunt. The masses would be MORE than happy to go see a movie that was 20 minutes longer. Why do Peter Jackson and the assorted minds behind this thing INSIST on cutting CORE material from the movie? Because the longer film won't allow them to have three shows in a night at a theater, and they would rather have more shows than a movie that stays true to the book.
So if this kind of crap pisses you off just do what I do and don't go see it in the theater. Vote with your checkbook and just wait for the full release on DVD.
-rt
Nonsense, you need Saruman. In my opinion, Saruman's importance is emphasized far more in the movie than in the book, but still, to keep the "masses" in line, you need to remind them of Saruman.
At least now is the good part: Saruman's already been defeated, you can give some closure by showing Gandalf attempting to give Saruman his freedom, etc. And if you cut Saruman, how are they going to do the final scenes where the Shire is completely decimated (you can see a sneak peek of those when Frodo looks into the water with Galadriel; you can see Frodo, Sam, Merry, and the other hobbit chained up together and forced into a small cottage. Where else would that scene occur than the Shire? And they show Frodo's house, the hill, completely burned away). You need Saruman for those scenes as well. What are they going to do, have some Orcs handle it all by themselves? I don't care what race of Orcs they dream up - no Orc is cunning enough to take over the Shire. Are they going to completely erase the Shire portion? That would be madness indeed.
I guess they're going to "feminize" the movie... After all, Return of the King does feature two marriages (Faramir - Eowyn, Arwen - Aragorn), three if you count Sam and that female hobbit - forgot her name, but you can look it up. All the females are going to love the movie if a quarter of it is just feasting and marriage, etc.
Completely OT, I know, but in my opinion, Eowyn is much prettier than Arwen. Arwen really _flaunts_ it, if you know what I mean, but Eowyn has that "hidden power" stored up inside her - there's much more depth and power to her than Arwen, IMHO
... but Saruman is hardly in the books at all. Of course he is the driving force behind all the antagonists in the story, but he never strides out and speaks, except in the backstory of how the ring was lost. So not having him seen in the movie seems to be very minor. It even may be a Good Thing, keeping the character more as a "Force in the World", and less of a "Guy who just needs his ass whipped by our plucky band of Heroes".
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In an email to Knowles, Peter Jackson specified that this was his call. He didn't want to start the third film by cleaning up after the second. He also reasoned that most filmgoers already assumed he died after the ent invasion.
I understand and respect his choice, and I no doubt will still love watching Return of the King in the theater. However, I can't help think that perhaps he should have seen this comming and resolved Saruman's involvment at the end of the Two Towers. Oh well.
Link to the Knowles Email
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Saruman gets perhaps less than seven minutes of "screentime" in the book itself. Saruman is dealt with in a nearly self-contained story after the resolution of the war with Sauron. Nearly, because you can't understand the motives of some characters or the rather un-hobbity behavior of some particular hobbits without Lord of the Rings.
I wouldn't be surprised if the entire story were cut out for time, and the flow of the movie. It was hinted at in Fellowship, but also dismissed, possibly as a test of desire. (Sam's vision in Galadriel's Mirror)
I'm as mimsy as the next borogove but your mome raths are completely outgrabe.
If you don't understand the importance of Saruman the White and Grima Wormtongue in Return of the King, then you need to read the book.
Both characters continue to wreck havoc after they are defeated. To leave out the Saruman / Wormtongue & Hobbits meeting in the Shire is simply wrong.
Well, at least they aren't putting Tom Bombadil back in his place.
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ehh, Saurumon has two small parts in ROTK. I can see why they'd cut him. You could tell the story without him. And easily drop him into the Special edition.
ROTK has a lot of stuff that will needs to go if that movie is going to stand on it's own. (ie: we can't have everyone saying 'goodbye' for an hour and a half).
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He is more of a literary device than an important piece of the epic. In the books, having this kind of completion makes the story seem more real, but in a movie, it is awkward and out of place. We have seen his reign broken in TTT, so it would be little more than the tossing of a bone to the book readers to see anything more of him onscreen. The real enemy is far greater and more interesting, and the journey ends perfectly well without him.
Dang, I'll just have to go read the books again to get the full story. I really haven't kept up with LOTR film news at all; for some reason, I just don't care about movie news.
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I fear the only way to resolve Sarauman's character properly in the context of a long-ass movie would be to rewrite it so he dies in the midst of one of the battles.
There is no way an audience is going to sit through the burning of the shire after 3 hours of ROTK. I mean, that's one long portion of the book, at least 20-30 minutes more movie.
Unfortunatly I have to agree with Jackson on this. The last of the Book ROTK, really was an Eplilogue, I would rather see that on the DVD then sit through it in the movie.
I mean, not only do we have the whole ROTK to get through in one movie, but we havn't even finished the Two Towers book.
I actually like the fact it will be released on DVD rather then just scrapping the footage or not shooting it at all to begin with.
How can you take him out? Easy. Because for the first two films, you really didn't *see* much of Saruman. All they really show in the films is that he's an old guy that bred some orcs, hates the good guys, and has a funky bowling ball.
Now, cutting him out of the realstory (the books) just wouldn't work. But his character has so little time in the movie that as it probably wouldn't be hard to do without him at all in the third.
steve
Oh, you're not stuck, you're just unable to let go of the onion rings.
I also heard that Gandalf dies in the second movie!! What the hell's going on??
They must be getting rid of the entire ending in the shire then. That's a shame because the question of what happens to Sauraman was burning in my head as I was reading the last book, and it really isn't addressed until after the big battle (which looks to be the ending). However, this is most likely for time concerns. Hopefully it will be in the DVD.
Up to this point, I could excuse Peter Jackson for his little foulups of the story. I sighed when they screwed up Faramir's character in The Two Towers, and I was also saddened by the lack of Ent scenes. But this is too much! I just finished reading the trilogy a month or so ago, and I was honestly looking so forward to the end of The Return of the King. The very end has a lot to do with Saruman, and is the highlight of the whole trilogy, IMHO. This is a severe disappointment. Peter Jackson is really starting to anger and confuse me as a LOTR fan!
Now, I say cutting Saruman is ridiculous, and would even demand he meet the same fate he does in the book (trying not to provide spoilers), but what do you expect with Bombadil? He's cool, and the Barrow Downs are scary, but they aren't "crucial," and the film is already 3 (and a half, for the SE) hours long! You can't translate from one medium to the next without sacrificing something.
I hope Saruman makes it into the theatrical release, because he's played a big enough role that the average viewer deserves to see the resoultion, but you can't expect movies to remain completely true to the books.
It's nothing but crumpled porno and Ayn Rand.
Interestingly Christopher Lee was on the radio the other day. He repeatedly made the point that his scene was one of the most pivotal in the whole film. At the time I got the feeling he was sore, but I put it down to the interviewer not taking his lead. Now I'm starting to wonder...
Pity, Saruman is a great character and Christopher Lee plays him wonderfully. Although (IMHO) one of his best contributions to the first LotR DVD is the bits of the commentary he did.
Do you mind, your karma has just run over my dogma.
At Isengard (in the books) we only hear his voice yelling at Wormtongue from within the tower -- his presence is implied but not explicit.
The business with Saruman as Sharkey at the end has always felt a bit ham-handed to me in the books. While it's nice to see that Frodo has some compassion, the main point of the sequence is that the forces of evil have overrun the Shire while the halflings have been away. The hackneyed inclusion of Saruman as petty mastermind is both belittling to him and a jarring shift in his characterization. (I've been told that sequence was actually not JRR's work, but Christopher's -- I'm sure someone will step in and comment!)
In short, despite my emjoyment of Christopher Lee's portrayal, I'm prepared to give Peter the benefit of the doubt. I believe it's possible to cut him out in a way that improves the flow and closure of the main storylines.
I knew it wasn't going to be included (the scouring) simply because they have to make these movies for all the hollywood consuming pleebs who wouldn't like a "sad" ending. Can't end the book with the Shire all burnt. So long as Jackson doesn't end the movies with Frodo whipping out a machine gun and filling Golem full of holes, driving him back into the fires, I'll be OK. I knew they had to dumb down this book from the beginning. Too many Brittney-loving simplebrains were not going to get it otherwise.
"Curiosity killed the cat, but for a while I was a suspect."- Steven Wright
I dunno, but the Wachowski brothers sure do!
Actually, I recall them announcing that the Scouring of the Shire was to be cut before the first movie even came out. That's why I never had very high expectations for the plot of the movies.
GL
Granted, not everything can make it into the film, but these were, for me, very memorable parts of the book. If they're being cut just to extend the battles or add new ones (ala Warg Riders in TT) I'll be disappointed.
Oh well. At least it won't be as bad as Matrix Revolutions. To quote Jon Stewart, that movie blows. ;)
"To confine our attention to terrestrial matters would be to limit the human spirit." -Stephen Hawking
The decision was made by PJ himself. And since we didn't explicitly see Saruman's demise in TTT, this won't affect the storyline for the average movie-goer. More here.
Christopher Lee is the purist's purist when it comes to Lord of the Rings.
It makes sense that he didn't want to start the third movie with Saruman and finish a major plot in the first 7 minutes of the movie. It's somewhat unfortunate, however, that he didn't think of it last year and put it at the end of the second movie, and have Saruman done with at that point.
He'd already moved the beginning of the second book to the end of the first movie to avoid having a character die in the first scene of the second movie, so it's not unprecedented.
What I'd actually like to see is the whole series done as a single movie, without the changes made to make the breaks work. (One thing that hard about making a book into a movie is that people read books in chapters, and put the book down in between, but watch movies in theaters all together. On a DVD, however, you can watch a few scenes and then go do something else)
if you want "No More Hiroshimas" then I say "You First. No More Pearl Harbors."
Frodo and Sam at Mount Doom, the defeat of Sauron, etc., occurs in Book 6. Book 5 deals with Sauron's forces attempting to invade Gondor, and doesn't get to Frodo or Sam at all. So I expect we'll be seeing something from Book 6; were I to hazard a guess, I'd say we'd go straight from the marriage of Arwen and Aragorn to the ships leaving for the Havens, and nothing in between.
I'm a huge fan of the books, and have been very impressed by the fact that the movies have, while necessarily stripping out a lot of detail, been more or less faithful to the spirit of the books, if not to their letter.
One let-down, however, has been the films' treatment of the character of Saruman. Christopher Lee thoroughly impressed, but the script does not allow for the subtlety of distinction between the two Towers -- Barad-dur and Isengard. Saruman (in the books) has plans to take the Ring for himself, and double-cross Sauron. In the films, the script suggests that he is a mere stooge of the Enemy, which is a shame, since it removes some of the subtlety of Middle-Earth politics.
[ UNSIGNED NOT NULL ]
Oh well, I'm going to be a little pleb and buy the Super-Hyper-Extended-Platinum-Zero-Limited Edition LOTR 15 Disc Box Set when it comes out and pay whatever they want me to pay. Sure, you could buy all the other versions and little parts of the whole, but I think it's best if you just wait and get everything in one massive, matching box set that injures your mailman.
0- Eamonman Proud member of DNRC
keep in mind that this is Peter Jackson's translation of the Lord of the Rings to film. some things ket cut. some things have to get the axe. and some things don't translate well. poetry and written discription gets lost in a visual medium. he has done a very good job imho.
I'm not too worried about Saruman being cut, it's the addition of this character that scares me.
Offtopic, Inflammatory, Inappropriate, Illegal, or Offensive comments might be moderated up.
Before posting silly articles. Saruman was a key in the first two films and therefore must be an important figure in the third?
Read the books and find out exactly how peripheral Saruman always was to the story.
Government of the people, by corporate executives, for corporate profits.
"Saruman wasn't a major player in the final volume to start with."
I have to disagree with you there. In my opinion, the Scouring of the Shire is the most important part of the entire trilogy. The rest is pretty much just a standard action/adventure story - it's the end that makes it special. The final desperation that leaves you gasping for air - the story was over, the ending happy, and all of a sudden the greatest trajedy of all (for the hobbits) is revealed.
GL
http://www.christopherleeweb.com/ has been attacked today from a vicious horde of slashdotters. Rumours say that web servers casted on the deep dungeons of Mordor have been severely damaged through a heavy load of http requests from LOTR fans. :-p
Roses are red, violets are blue, most poems rhyme, but this one doesn't...
the thought of sitting through the FOTR Extended Edition then the TTT Extended Edition and then the finale - the ROTK squeeze me into a tolerable amount of time for most people Edition, sounds very annoying. why the heck would anyone want to sit through two Extended Editions and one regular finale?
talk about a let down. after i see the ROTK the first thing i'll be speculating about will be what scenes were missing that will be on the ROTK Extended Edition DVD.
watching all three Extended Editions back-to-back is the only way such a masochistic activity makes sense.
I'm not sure what the big deal really is.
Like most long-time LOTR fans, I'd love to see the resolution of Saruman. But the fact is, like most long-time LOTR fans, I'm going to buy the DVD special edition when it comes out. In my eyes, the extended versions of FOTR and TTT are the real cuts of the films, not the theatrical cuts. But for most who haven't read the books, the theatrical cuts will be just great!
So this is only an issue to complain about in principal, not in practice. Those of us who actually CARE about the scene will get to see it as it was intended anyway.
So relax. The movie will be good. What we should really be talking about is what Christopher Lee said on TV about the premier of ROTK, and whether he would attend given that he is cut out of the film: "No. What would be the point?" link. THAT is kind of sad, if you ask me.
The first one was closest (although cutting Tom Bombadil annoyed me), but the second one really took quite the shortcut by developing Aragorn's character by having him fall off a cliff and have a flashback sequence. Taking scenes out is one thing, but fabricating new ones to cheaply develop characters ia something else.
In any case, even if you are a "movie snob", just read the damn books if you want to get the real, full experience. Don't get me wrong, Peter Jackson has done a hell of a job and the LOTR movies are truly some of the best book-based movies I've ever seen. But still, the key element is book-based. I hold to a general rule of not watching a movie based on a book without reading the book first, as while the movie can still be entertaining it simply isn't the same medium and as such just can't capture the same experience as the book.
And in any case, Tolkien's writing, while sometimes overly grandiose (really it's largely his fault that all modern fantasy writers write that way), is pretty easy to digest, and the books aren't that long. So just slog through them, you'll probably get through it pretty quick even if you are more of a movie person.
And here I thought this latest movie-making attempt had hit rock bottom with the second movie. Next thing you know they'll make Faramir turn evil...oh, wait...
Daniel
Hurry up and jump on the individualist bandwagon!
Sorry, I was thinking more of in-movie-mode. The book definitely depends on the scouring to really drive everything home.
You cannot apply a technological solution to a sociological problem. (Edwards' Law)
I have been saying since the Two Towers had it's reprehensible release a year ago: Jackson screwed up ROYALLY.
While you geeks were busy masturbating over the Two Towers, the rest of us Tolkien fans were wincing in pain over the travesty that was th Two Towers. What the hell was Jackson thinking? Did he think he could do Tolkien better than the master himself?
Anduril still hasn't made an appearance. The re-forging of the "Last Alliance" at Helm's Deep was an atrocity. Even ARWEN was supposed to have been there (and thankfully this was cut). Jackson didn't just deviate from the script, he urinated all over it. I won't even mention the rape of the noble Faramir--there is no way Jackson can redeem that. Frodo and Sam abducted by the horrible bastard Faramir to Osgiliath? GIVE ME A FUCKING BREAK.
The One Ring was so powerful in the book that it could NOT be mentioned safely around Men lest it tempt their weak hearts. Faramir knew this and said so in the book--he refused to even name the Ring. He kept it hidden even from his own scouts. And yet, in the movie in the completely bullshit Osgiliath sub-plot, we have a loud open argument over the One Ring with a couple dozen Men in attendance! Oh brilliant Jackson, really fucking brilliant.
After TTT, I had little faith that RoTK would be worth the $8. How can you fall so far from perfection (Fellowship) to this?!
What are the bets that when Anduril finally appears, it will be glowing like a light sabre? Eh, it'll probably only happen in the "special edition"...Anduril is probably "too complicated" for the general audiences out there.
Look at art for what it is, not what it isn't.
I want them to do The Hobbit too. I can't see them passing up the opportunity! It's a ringer!
And yes, I agree, Lee is a great Saruman.
Codifex Maximus ~ In search of... a shorter sig.
...then you'd know the reason to not have Saruman in ROTK is because the character does nothing after the Ents attack.
There is a portion at the very end of ROTK that deals with Saruman/Sharky which I want to see how/if Peter Jackson will include it but I feel he'd be right not to bother and leave that part to the extended version.
What's next: "ROTK to feature the Lone Gunmen, fortunately they're not trapped in a Matrix within a Matrix."
Christ!
And don't forget that they also moved the death of Boromir from the beginning of the book Two Towers (where it was related as a flashback) to the end of Fellowship the movie. That really worked, so I for one trust that PJ knows what he's doing here.
I don't want to know. Slashdot is one site I do not expect to spoil things for me, at least not apart from comments, but this is bad.
Aeternum vale!
Lets not just the gun here and lets let the director decide whats important and makes the movie coherent and what doesn't. Sure the Sauraman scene might've been important in the books but these are not the books. Lots of things have changed from the books to the movies and people have to realize that this is a different medium and that usually, content that was presented one way in one medium does not translate to another medium without changes. Anyway, this won't stop anybody from going to see this movie so its pretty much a moot point.
--D3X
The One site you'll ever need for XXX...
Call me weird ("You're weird!") but one of the things I was most looking forward to was the confrontation between Gandalf and Saruman at Isengard/Orthanc. It's here where Saruman is shown just how badly he underestimated Gandalf. Gandalf reveals himself to now be Gandalf The White, shatters Saruman's staff, and sends him away. A subdued but fitting retribution for Saruman's misdeeds. I thought it was a great scene in the book.
Also, this is the scene where Merry/Pippin get hold of the Palantir (Wormtongue throws it at them). If that's not going to happen, then there's a whole bunch of resulting stuff that's going to get dropped.
Drat...
Schwab
Editor, A1-AAA AmeriCaptions
Peter Jackson = evil incarnate
Further how can you be such a big movie buff and never have read Tolkien? First there were drawings in the sand, then cave paintings, then theatre, then writing. yet you skip thse books? You are summarily disqualified from knowing anything about thematics, Plot, Myths, ethos, or anything else that collectively makes up the pursuit and analysis of Stories. You are most likely a fanboi moron. /2cents
If no meeting on the steps of Orthanc appears in the film, it would be pretty hard to explain the sudden appearance of the Palantir. So, I am guessing that the Palantir of Orthanc plays no role in the last movie (Although I'm guessing that Denthenor has one and uses it, as in the book).
It's a pretty major plot element, since Pippin's inadvertent meeting with the Dark Lord (through the Stone) is the event that sends him off to Minas Tirith with Gandalf. Pippin's actions indirectly keep Gandalf from attempting to test the Stone to determine its origins. And Aragorn reveals himself to the Dark Lord using the Stone, and to gather intelligence.
I hope I'm wrong. Maybe it'll be an ooh, we found this stone in the wreckage of orthanc moment when the Dunedain show up. If they show up.
I'm not complaining really though. I like the movies and view them as an excellent and faithful *re-telling* of the original story.
Actually, the movie is going to end at the Grey Havens with Frodo's departure from Middle Earth. This from Phillipa Boyans. Also very strong hints from other sources that Elanor is going to be included.
Don't blame me, I didn't vote for either of them!
Without those chapters on the Return, the King would never be known in the Shire. Knowledge of him was brought forwards because Barlyman was a nervous wreck, the Shire was in need, and there were two Hobbits armed to the teeth, tired, frustrated at not getting any beer, and seriously narked at all the rules.
However, it's probably worse. Return Of The King undoubtably (based on this) will miss out the entire chapter in early editions of the Trilogy which covered the death of King Aragorn, and how Aragorn met his bride-to-be (along with how Bilbo's song was written).
It will likely also miss out the Summons which led to the last of the Elves leaving Middle Earth. It will probably miss Sam's own voyage to the Uttermost West, along with all the stuff on him being mayor for a very long time of the Shire.
These are critical parts of the story, because they explain why certain key things happen in the earlier parts. Without them, the earlier parts are just random events. Tolkein never wrote a random event in his life. If it was in the book, it was there for a reason. If you miss out the reason, you might as well not bother with the book.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
They cut out the scouring, do they cut out how Gandalf et al leave for the west? That's the part of the book that almost made me weep (and not for joy that it was finally done).
Slashdot: Failed Car Analogies. Amateur Lawyering. Anecdote Battles.
if we don't get to see Merry and Pippen go back to the Shire and kick Sauruman's butt. That was the icing on the cake of a wonderful tale.
[FromTheMorning]
That way I'll get the best seat...and I won't have to wait in line!
-h-
There's also the fact that there can be words in songs-- I can think of a few Led Zep candidates; Cream summarized Homer in "Tales of Brave Ulysses."
For paintings, think less about the last couple hundred years' worth; go back to time of frescoed murals and such. Michelangelo painted the story of Genesis on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. Huge tapestries have been woven depicting entire wars; the same for paintings.
I understand the spirit of your post, though, and you're right, up to a point. But I think people cheat themselves when they look at an art form expecting to see something else-- you're setting yourself up for disappointment.
The first movie was a fine and elegant translation of the first book. Some parts were sadly cut (Tom Bombadil leaps to mind), but there's really no way around that in such a long story. It was clear to me that the movie was about as good and failthful as possible.
The second movie has moved from a faithful translation to 'loosely based on a novel by...' Rewriting Faramir as a carbon copy of his brother was downright awful, and Helms deep was well, trivial. All in all, it was a pretty damned good movie, but it wasn't NEARLY as good as the book; and the deviations from the book weren't done of necessity, but rather for gimmickry. (Dwarf tossing? Come ON!)
I am fully expecting the third movie to be an epic which bears little resemblance to the book, has way too many cheap gimmicks, falls far short of what it should have been, and still manages to be one of the best movies of the last few years. The only real problem is that it could have been immortally good, but instead will be viewed as 'decent, but not good enough' in ten years.
Pity. Too many producers/directors try to 'improve' on great books, and end up screwing up.
"People who do stupid things with hazardous materials often die." -- Jim Davidson on alt.folklore.urban
Soooooo...what you're saying is that you can't wait for the extended version of RotK to come out on DVD so that you can watch all three of them together? Now there's an idea!
They cut the biggest key component of them all--the END OF THE BOOK--from the film "Return of the King" and did it at the script stage.
The Scouring of the Shire, which comprises the last several chapters of the book, is being left out entirely, and I have to ask WHY?! This was not only an excellent end to the books but also carried the books final thematic message--about how war changes us all, and how dangerous and easy it is to fall into a need for security and begin adapting the same oppressive methods while keeping yourself safe that your enemy employed.
The book obviously was commentary on WWII, but the message is just as important today, and they edited it out entirely. Bastards.
Having Arwen meet up with Aragorn and the hobbits instead of Glorfindel and having Gandalf be hesitant about going through Moria instead of Aragorn annoyed me.
Making Theoden into a coward who wanted to hide in the hills, having Aragorn go for a swim and dream of Arwen, having Eomer not fight at Helm's deep, and making Faramir covet the ring pissed me off.
If he cuts out the "Parley with Sauruman" chapter, I'll go on a shooting spree!
How would Gandalf get the Palantir? Why else would Gandalf take Pippin to Minas Tirith? How would Aragorn reveal himself to Sauron? The end of the war pretty much depends on those events, which depend on the Parley.
And even worse, why would the Dunlanders go to the Shire without Sharky?
At this rate, why is he even bothering to put "Based on the Novel by JRR Tolkein" in the credits?
I am dissapointed about this, as it was my favorite scene from the LOTR.
I enjoyed how it shows Gandalf's new level of power. He really asserts himself with such authority.
The way he calls, and Saruman is compelled to comply, is a goosebump moment that moviegoers are going to miss.
"Sig free in '03!"
Longer running time can reduce revenue per screen, and potentially reduces the number of screens showing the movie as theaters decide to show shorter films after the initial opening popularity wanes.
People generally aren't willing to pay higher ticket prices for longer films, in spite of it making a lot of sense.
Then read the frickin' thing already, for cryin' out loud!
(Just helping your wife and brother in their efforts.)
Christopher Lee is such an awesome actor, and he was so amazing in the first two LOTR. He was probably my favorite character and had a crucial role in the movies. Its a damn shame, kind of like Morpheus' role reduction in Revolutions, as he was my favorite character in the first 2 Matrixes (or would it be Matri?).
Just doesn't sound right if we don't get to voyage back to The Shire and deal with good old Sharkey (in the theater). Will definitely not resolve Sam's "Master Gardener" visions. There is a lot to cover in The Return of the King, so I'm sure the movie will still be great, but for the purists (I got as far as book 7 of 12 in the History of Middle-Earth) this is a disappointment.
Maybe Trotter the Hobbit will come and save the day.
What about the Star Wars kid... did he make the cut?
This is like throwing meat into a den of starving lions!
\me ducks!
I guess we won't be seeing any more of Brad Dourif (Wormtongue) as well. Pity. And the whole shire razing thing won't be around either, that's a given.
They already made a big deal of the palantir in FotR and TTT, so I think they can give the audience some credit and let them assume that our heroes already dispensed of Sauraman and looted his tower between the two films.
Also, a lot of people have been complaining that Sam foresaw the scouring of the Shire in his mirror...well, I think it was strongly implied in the movie that the Mirror was showing him the future if they failed in their quest. IIRC, Galadriel says something like "the future is not yet set." There was nothing to imply in the movie that they were foreseeing the Scouring, therefore, no audience member (excluding die-hards) will feel as if something is missing at the end.
Additionally, I am going to take the controversial position that the Scouring would make for an anti-climactic ending and is best left out the movie altogether.
Why?
Spoiler
A movie epilogue (of the non-"avant guarde" genre) should last 5-10 minutes. To do the Scouring justice would take 10-20 minutes of screen time. That means less 10-20 minutes less of Battle of Minas Tirith, Mt. Doom, Black Gate, etc.(if they want to keep it under 3 hours).
The Real Story that these movies have portrayed to the audience is the destruction of the Ring...so once that plotline is resolved, said audience is going to get fidgety. Introducing a whole new mini-plotline (Scouring of Shire) right after the resolution of the Trilogy would really make the movie "drag" for the vast majority. Better to wrap things up as quickly as possible and leave a tear in the audiences' collective eye if possible.
I just hope they end it with Frodo and Bilbo going West and Sam returning to his family - "Well, I'm back." If they end abruptly after the destruction of the Ring, it's going to suck.
I know this is Slashdot but the conspiracy theories about selling more DVDs are bullshit. Peter Jackson has nothing to gain from crippling his movie so that MAYBE more DVDs are sold. I doubt he sees any additional income based on DVD sales. As a professional editor I find his explanation of the way the Saruman scenes impact the narrative and structure of the 3rd film to make complete sense. As he says - Sauron is now the villain, not Saruman. Films of books are often worse than the books because they are different mediums with different requirments. In order for ROTK to be a great film - and probably the best 3rd in a series ever (no ewoks) - it's only reasonable that the Director makes sacrifices in terms of the original books to ensure the film is as good as it can be. Peter Jackson is not crippling his film in order to sell DVDs. He has nothing to gain and everything to lose. He is simply demonstrating his understanding of the feature film medium by adapting the original narrative for the screen. HonkyLips.
Putting syrup in coffee is some form of blasphemy.
I didn't like what Peter was doing with him anyway. Instead of exploring how a force for good was turned to the dark side (sorry, but it's an apropos, if tired, metaphor), Peter simply uses Saruman as a human face for the big red eye. The movie just doesn't give a good feel for the tragedy (in the Greek play sense) that is the fall of Saruman.
It seems to me (drunk at the mo') that the emperor has no clothes on. What's the betting that Jackson has cut seven minutes of plot with Saruman, just to add seven minutes of fight scenes that weren't in the book. I wouldn't be at all suprised, judging by the first two movies.
I think that Jackson has been seriously overrated as a director. Every time he's had to decide between explaining the plot and developing the characters, or directing fight sequences, he seems to have cried, 'cue the orcs!'. To be fair, some parts of the films have been brilliant, but I really think that he's sacrificing story for fights and sfx. Not that there aren't enought fight sequences and cliff-hangers in the book anyway.
OK, drunken rant over, feel free to mod down.
HH
--
Professor Tolkien, Jackson's long time collaborator on the ongoing trilogy, has reportedly walked off the project, citing "creative differences."
Or something.
-Peter
You saved me from doing it.
First, I'll apologize. I haven't read the rest of the comments, so this may well be redundant. Second, this is late in the commenting process for this and so I doubt anyone will read it. I'm writing for myself. I need to purge my sorrow.
I don't follow LOTR news and so while it may have been common knowledge to most that the scourging of the shire was not part of the movie, I had no idea. I think it is an egregious error on the part of Peter Jackson to leave that key section of the book out. I realize that the movies are long and choices have to be made, but I think that it is the journey home and the scourging that helps the books transcend the greatest other fantasy novels. Needless to say, it is my favorite part of the books.
I don't know how PJ will end the movies, and I am happy with the job he has done so far, but I just don't see how he can communicate the profound change that has come over the characters without the pivotal ending of the book. For those of you who have read the books, the denoumouet (forgive the spelling) is not short - it is a long and drawn out. I guess that is kind of irrelevant, I just think it shows that even Tolkien saw it is a key part of the series.
Seeing how the hobbits, especially Frodo but also contrasting Merry and Pippin (Samwise seems fairly static), have changed...
I can't put it into words. I can only say again that I am heart-broken. I'll see the movie, and I hope that PJ does not end it on a triumphant note. I doubt he will, but I don't think that any other ending could possibly communicate the bittersweet, broadening experience that the quest has been for all the hobbits - and in different ways for each. I'll just have to trust my idol and "wait and hope".
14 digits of Pi are all we need.
Excuse me, but it would be GREATLY appreciated if news of this nature was not revealed in the headlines. Some prefer to be blissfully ignorant of these things.
"The hackneyed inclusion of Saruman as petty mastermind is both belittling to him and a jarring shift in his characterization."
Saruman went mad with his desire for power over others, and after the possibility of being Sauron's powerful sidekick was crushed, he took his few remaining followers, and went to take over a place he knew he could conquer - The Shire, full of poorly-armed Hobbits. Not to mention, he was taking the opportunity to despoil the homeland of some of his most hated foes, while they were away "protecting" it, and after they had shown him mercy. Oh the irony. Seems pretty in-character to me.
Freedom: "I won't!"
I am still trying to figure out what was going on his Jackson's head when he had Faramir drag the hobbits all the way to Osgilliath...and then pops a Ringwraith out to nearly snatch Frodo...
... but that just means the door is left open for someone 10-20 years down the road to try and do it again.
He might be "pulling it off"
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
It would be GREATLY appreciate that such news not be reveal in the headline of an article. Some readers may wish to remain oblivious of this information.
Please be more considerate in the future.
That would be monstrously stupid. As we all know, almost all movies derive the lion's share of their revenue from the theater. Granted, the fraction of DVD sales will be higher for a movie with a cultlike fanbase like LOTR (I include myself there, no flame obviously intended). However, there still seems to be no reason to release a crappy, chopped-up version of the movie with the ending removed! I'd think even non-purists might not be so thrilled with that.
It's possible your right, but damn that would be dumb. (Or is it damb, that would be dumn?)
-Looking for a job as a materials chemist or multivariat
Or he would have figured out ages ago, that there's not age limit here.
Hell, read some of the comments to stories, and you'd *know* that it's kids that are skipping recess to wax eloquent here.
"Politicians are interested in people. Not that this is always a virtue. Fleas are interested in dogs." P.J. O'Rourke
In Donie Darko, the subtle hints about the rabbit's identitiy "in the real world" would have had me actually thinking the movie made sense, without having to pretend the plot was cohesive. Integrating the missing scenes in my mind, it was. And had I seen the conversation between Donnie and his dad in the original context, I would have felt a great bit more for the characters.
Scarey Movie2: OMG, WTF! This weird butchered montage of half backed scenes was awful. And it felt worse that not only good jokes, but the introductions of most of the characters were on the DVD. It was like the movie was a really bad trailer for a movie-kit I could re-assemble on my computer at my leasure. The return of a dead character? The new chick that just appears at the house, randomly? And the handicapped guy's entrance was not only vital, but really funny. But it wasn't in the movie, along with a few other scenes that managed events and helped one understand the already simple story more gracefully.
Scooby-Doo. They start out alright, dropping an animated sequence that never fit the movie, nor was a pleasant homage to the cartoon. God. Then they dropped the flashback scens from the group's airport reuniion. Since the point of those was to show what loseres the characters were on thier own, it was largely redundant. Then they cut the scene where the main characters are introduced to supporting characters, stumble across clues needed to direct them intitially, and give the audiaence a feel for the fun of the stting in its "normal mode". Then they cut the scariest thing in the film, and it's priceless reflection on Shaggy's psyche. Then they cut out another scene which precipitates the climax of the movie, instead allowing it to "just happen". Weak.
Altogether, the needed scenes would have added about 15 minutes total to the veiwing of all 3 movies together. But in an interest of keeping things short, I feel like directers pressure the editors into wasting 5 hours of my time with poorly polished product.
Looks good for your age..
The reason is as someone mentioned in another post...to show that the war affected everyone.
Tolkien wrote that the whole Lord of the Rings series was an attempt to further tell the story of Hobbits and the surprising affect they had on Middle Earth. It wasn't meant to be focused on Aragorn's journey to being king (despite the fact that the movies are focusing on that). That was just part of the story...Frodo and Sam were much more important, hence why they get just as much time as 6 other characters do at once (Gandalf, Aragorn, Legolas, Gimli, Pippin, and Merry).
The whole return to the Shire shows how the Hobbits, whom everyone considered hermits from the world, ended up being affected anyway and how they are saved by who? That's right, the four hobbits that went out, explored, and changed the world while gathering experience that no other hobbits had. Remember, Bilbo is looked down upon for his adventure...yet these four come back and save the hobbits, something that would not have happened had they left. Had the world gone on without those four hobbits going on their journey, it is fairly safe to say it would've been years until Gandalf would've been back to rescue the Shire.
You are very right to say Tolkien knew much more about literature. He actually was capable to take a story that, to a point, went off track and bring it back to its point of focusing on Hobbits in the end!
... like let's say someone posted and it was obvious that the hadn't read the article? How many posts to RTFA?
... and at time of writing not one RTFB.
And if someone asks a question like how do you set up the (whatever) Firewall? How many posts to RTFM?
So someone posts about a movie interpretation of a book they haven't read
The fantasy crowd is a kind one.
"Consensus" in science is _always_ a political construct.
GO YOU GOOD THING!
I stand corrected and apoligize. I had forgotten that each book was two books. (I love the english language). And for the record yes, I've read them, although apparently not as recently as I should have. Guess I'll re-read them again soon. Again, my sincerest apologies for my insinuations.
Little Brother, watching the watchers
Because he met the family. Meeting the family was an important point because it reitterated that the machines/programs aren't "evil" per se and that while The Matrix is a prison for some it is a haven for others so simply destroying the Matrix isn't a particularly good solution.
Neo had to be taken outside the main plotlines to have the time to engage in that conversation. I agree he could have got out in a way that didn't necessitate the club scene or involving Merv. The fight scene getting into the club was good though. Without that there would have been very few "matrix style" fight scenes and some people would have been disappointed by that.
Boffoonery - downloadable Comedy Benefit for Bletchley Park
I nominate "Bleak House" by Charles Dickens as being wordy and a difficult read.
LOTR is a walk in the park because at least its exciting.
Reason why there is hope for the future generation #364:
"I wish my grass was emo so it could cut itself."
>New Line forced a 3 hour limit on him
No, no. My ass forced that 3 hour limit on him. I swear there should some discounted massages and physical therapy after being plugged into a typical movie seat for 180 minutes. What ever happened to the intermission? Or the 98 min movie?
I can do three hours in an IMAX seat, but anything below that quality - no thanks. Not to mention editing itself is an art and arguably if you truly need four or five hours you should revisit your script and storyboards to cut the fat without being told by executives that a 3+ hour movie is just a bad idea all around.
by the beginning of ROTK. I'm not sure that he has any role in the story at all until after the final battle with Sauron is already over. I believe that the original poster overstated his importance to the plot.
To the majority of people, the only goal is the destruction of the ring. The movies turn an incredibly deep set of books into the more formulaic "magical item/quest/good guy/bad guy/final showdown/short denoument" series of steps. Most people don't care about the Shire, or what happens to the elves, or what Sauron or the Balrog really were, or where Frodo's going. If the ring is destroyed, the quest succeeds. If the good guy gets the girl, that's a good thing, too, but if the quest succeeds, end of movie.
So can it possibly meet our standards as a faithful representation of the world of Tolkien and capture hearts and minds the way the books did? Of course not. It's not supposed to. The movies are supposed to provide ~3 hours of entertainment each, and they succeeded..
Multiple news sources just confirmed that Aragorn has been completely cut from `Return of the King'. Now, I have complete faith in Peter Jackson as filmmaker, and the 60 minutes of deleted footage will return in next year's RotK special edition DVD release. But, this does bring the theatrical release running time down to a more manageable 241 minutes. Rumour has it that the film contains 78 minutes of scenes not in the book involving Liv Tyler, some of which detail a surprising romantic relationship between the she-elf and Sauron. (Oops! Sorry about the spoiler!)
Fred
"A fool and his freedom are soon parted"
-RMS
The book, Lord Of The Rings, is NOT a trilogy. It's a book that has SIX parts.
RTFB!
Given that the spoiler is the article title itself, I'm flabbergasted.
If you're going to post spoilers, then entitle the article "ROTK Spoiler for all interested".
Idiot.
Total idiot.
I for one welcome our new Saruman cutting overlords..
"HURON" is a big lake up by America Junior. "HUORNS" are the big walky talky trees.
From what I remember of the books, what we'll miss is the scene where Saruman is trapped in the tower with Wormtongue as the remnants of the fellowship meet at his ruined fortress and witness his humiliation for his hubris. If there's no Saruman, we'll probably also miss Wormtongues death. Also, we'll miss seeing Frodo's mithril shirt save him one last time; this time from Saruman's attempt to murder him. We'll miss one of Tolkien's attempt to show that all living things are capable of making terrible mistakes by having the Shire taken over by ruffians and bandits, while the shirefolk allow it to happen. Then, we'll miss their redemption as they retake their homes.
The more I think of it, the more likely I'll miss these scenes and can only hope they show up on DVD.
= 9J =
Count them: 1. The ring gets destroyed. 2. Aragorn gets crowned. 3. The scouring of the shire. 4. Sailing to the west. With all that, Film 3 still has to get in some middle, like Shelob, The Witch King's final death, Denethor's pyre scene, maybe even Aragorn's taking the Paths of the Dead. Endings 1 and 2 just about have to be there, as the name of the film is Return of The King, and the build up to the ring's distruction has to be wrapped up. Ending 3 is bitter sweet by itself without 4, or it will have to be dumbed down. Personally I want ending 4 to make it. That will probably wait for the Director's Cut too.
Who is John Cabal?
Supposedly the point of the rave scene was to demonstrate how you've got this situation where the remainder of humanity just had to reproduce like heck in order to survive, so you've got this wild party to get everybody horny to facilitate that.
Uhh, yea, I didnt quite catch that when I was watching the movie heh, just seemed totally superflous as it dragged on. They shoulda counterpointed it with some mom trying to keep her baby asleep with this annoying rave going on. Then at least it woulda been comedic.
Speaking of pacing, I think a cool idea for software would be something along the lines of a DVD remixer, with an online database of remixes. Have the capability to jump to any spot, play any length, and maybe do some post effect type transitions if they'd be too abrupt in your mix. Then you'd be able to pop in some action flick, pick the 'fights / chases / explosions' mix, which could maybe be broken up a little bit with maybe the few actually funny moments in the movie and be entertained for 10 minutes and spared an hour and a half of really cheesy garbage crap.
My guess is that they kept the script modular enough that they could add Scouring of the Shire to the Extended Edition if there was enough demand. By taking Saruman out of the theatrical edition, they've taken his early death out of the audience's minds.
It would be a burden to bring everyone back together to shoot the 15 to 20 minutes of Saruman surviving Orthanc and then Scouring of the Shire, and do it all in one year between now and RotK EE, but I think it would make money.
Weta wouldn't have any of these pacing problems if they'd stuck with the book. TT ended with a solid, action ending that would have been perfect for the movie.
Fool! Why do you post about movies about books which you have not read?
The stories of New Line and the producers of the pictures, and their doubts and thoughts throughout the process.
A great quote near the end:
'I mean, how many things can you really franchise except the Bible?' he says. After considering it a moment, he adds, 'Although that's a good idea.'
- Bob Shaye, New Line Co-chief Executive
Moreover, how does Gandalf get the palantir and how do the Hobbits get to Gondor? The journey to Isengard and confrontation is absolutely frikin key to the progression of the plot.
TTT openning was possibly one of the most satisfying in the history of filmmaking seeing Gandalf battle the Balrog at last even if it was a Frodo dream sequence, it was amazing.
The start of ROTK may be one of the most disappointing because of it's sin of omission.
Maybe Jackson will just cut it short, it would be totally impossibly to eliminate Isengard and have it make any sense without a lame voiceover or flashbacks later in the movie (equally bad).
...until I have seen the movie (and the special edition DVD, I suppose). Turning a book into a movie is hard in most cases, and the LOTR is a challenge indeed. I think Jackson's interpretation of the book is quite good so far, both in the cinema version and the extended version, which (for once) did actually add something worth watching, without short-changing those who only went to see the regular version.
You could say that they're holding out on us in the cinema version in order to sell us the special DVD, but perhaps it is thanks to DVD technology that we get to see the extra footage that simply would not have fit into the cinema version. As for the true fans... they'll buy anything. No need to set them up.
If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
The love story is from the Appendix of ROTK, though, yeah, Jackson cooked up most of the details.
Oh, by the way, Frodo dies.
Where the theater dosen't matter at all, but buying a silly platter of polycarbonate/aluminum substrate matters more than the age old theater trip?
If this is true, then we are victims of a scam, plain and simple. When you go to teh movie's you pay to see "A movie", not "part of a movie". Sure all movies have cuts, but you just ond't cut a major plot element just to throw it on your $100 "special edition" to make a few more bucks.
If I find this to be true, I will be advocating NOT watching it at the theaters and NOT buying the DVDs, with exception to the speical edition, and only when it has reached $25 at the stores.
A book translation has to have certain elements intact, and I remeber as clear as day the first time I read that portion of the book, and at the least it deserves to be in the main film.
To cut it is like omitting the transmission from the Ferrari F-50, just to include it in a package that costs 10x more, or omitting the bacon from a bacon double cheeseburger and telling you to buy the bacon double cheeseburger SE...It's just plain retarded.
I say we cut Frodo out of film #3 - afterall it's Sam who's the real hero in the end. Anyone who has read the book knows that...
I'm sure they'll make up for the lost footage with plenty of Arwen Gets Naked scenes.
*******
"What good is science if no one gets hurt?!" - Professor Chromedome
... the third Matrix sucked, and now the third LOTR movie's gonna suck?
Then again, beyond Rocky III and Nightmare on Elm St. III, what 3rd movie in a series didn't absolutely suck moose bawlz? (hopefully not Once Upon A Time In China III, haven't seen _that_ yet..)
And my bud Random's gonna be _PISSED_, if his reaction to TTT is any indication...
(and I think I'll wait for the super-mega-duper-20-dvd set that'll be out in a year.. just look at the new Alien release)
You'd think the announcement was, "Tolkien's LotR Trilogy to be Confiscated, Burned. Anyone Caught Selling, Reading, or Reminiscing Fondly About the Original Books Will Be Subject to Prosecution Under the DMCA."
You can still go back and read the books if you like that version better, you know. Peter Jackson didn't sneak down your chimney with a bottle of Liquid Paper.
What I'd actually like to see is the whole series done as a single movie, without the changes made to make the breaks work. (One thing that hard about making a book into a movie is that people read books in chapters, and put the book down in between, but watch movies in theaters all together. On a DVD, however, you can watch a few scenes and then go do something else)
Which implies he'd like to see the movies re-edited to be one long movie, without the plot interruptions and reviews that come with three separate movies. The extended editions are still cut as 3 separate movies, and they still follow (approximately) the usual movie formula of pacing the beginning, middle, ending.
Well the soundtrack contains a track called "The Grey Havens" so that should mean something positive.
anyone who hasn't read the damn books probably shouldn't be commenting on jackson's choices in filmmaking...
filter: +3. Hey, look! all the trolls went away!
But its the best bit. It brings home the anti-war message that these things affect the people at home too. It needs that to balance the gung-ho heroics.
Yay me!
What *I* want to know is why the other two horror greats from the past, Peter Cushingand Vincent Price were cut from this monumental film.
It's a sad day when this sort of thing happens and illustrates a defanite lack of respect for the old guard.
I suppose NewLine could milk LOTR for another four years...
Since the script was originally written for TWO movies, the studio could recut the three films into two, and release them for two more years of profits. And then recut it again as a one film movie (As the original studio wanted)...
And then recut the trilogy into 5,6,7, or more HDTV films as a miniseries, using scenes not included in the Extended Editions
(there are 6 'books' and an appendix section...)
Hmm... NewLine did license The Hobbit...
Symphonie Fantastique was composed by Berlioz, based on an opium-induced nightmare. It's successes like that which convince me I need to take more drugs.
It may look like I'm doing nothing, but I'm actively waiting for my problems to go away.
--Scott Adams
http://www.cas.unt.edu/~hargrove/bombadil.html
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
Easy; it's a ploy to sell more copies of their "Special Edition" DVD. Time to start a "Boycott" Campaign; the only thing that New Line Cinema and their "Artisic Excuse" Peter Jackson truly fear.
For those of us who have read the books know that Saruman plays a role in the end of the book with how Gandalf can not help the hobbits fix anything.
bmdean, why buy webspace when you can host your own??
In the books after the ents deal with him and Gandalf and Aragon pay him a visit he's not mentioned in the slightest..
If he's completely out though that kinda suggests a twist of the visit Gandalf pays him and is important. Though I just went back to that part in the book and they can get away with it but "why" is beyond me.
My guess is that they will zoom forward to Aragorns wedding to Arwen. This would conclude the "love story" and allow them to tie things up a bit.
Somehow, they must depict the departure to the Grey Havens of "the elders". That is Elrond, Bilbo, and Gandalf. In the cartoon, they depicted them leaving directly from Minas Tirith. Somehow, I don't think that Peter Jackson would do something as heretic.
-------- -------- Support Wesley Clark for president!!!
I appreciate the joke, but in the book it was a very important chapter. Until that point Saruman was Gandalf's senior, and in this chapter you see Gandalf overtake him (although arguably he had done so before, but just not as openly). The fact that it established Gandalf's new power is very important I think - it shows how much he has changed since his death.
Although in the movies Jackson will prolly just do this by making Gandalf whack a few more orcs and shoot a few fireballs from his staff... sigh.
It's actually:
"There's an old saying in Tennessee--I know it's in Texas, probably in Tennessee--that says, fool me once, shame on--shame on you. Fool me--you can't get fooled again."--Nashville, Tenn., Sept. 17, 2002
From The Complete Bushisms on Slate.com.
You're welcome!
-F.A.B.
The author of the story is complaining because a scene has been cut from the movie that he hasn't had the damned courtesy to read before he complains about it? That's rich.
Once you ditch the Scouring of the Shire, there's no more need for Saruman after the Ents defeat him. Jackson has a point.
Obviously some people never even bothered to read the books, now did they...?
- White Knight of the Order of Mihoshi Enthusiasts
Unfortunately, Joe Filmgoer will probably never notice.
... but I won't rush out and buy the theatrical version on DVD. I'll wait for the 4 DVD set. I could have endured an extra seven minutes to see Saruman cast down, and I agree with others that there we'll no doubt be treated to many *more* minutes of gloriously-rendered battle scenes. I can understand needing to change the flow of the story to translate from book to screen, and this is a relatively minor omission, but I was hoping after the warg-riding, Faramir-baiting, Oedipal Arwen interludes in Two Towers we'd somehow find our way back to the story as written by Tolkein. No such luck, apparently. :(
Get off my virtual lawn, you damned virtual kids!
Opinions are like assholes -- everybody has one.
You should add, "And they all stink."
Except mine, of course.
Too expensive in CG? Nah, the Huorns are in TTT EE. It was cut to keep the running time under 3 hours. Though why PJ had to add that whole sequence of Aragorn going over a cliff, revived by his horse, and then those adds-nothing-to-the-narrative let's watch Viggo ride through NZ on his horse scenes, is beyond me. That's a real head-scratcher.
PJ didn't need that sequence at all to tell the story, when he could have given us more of the Ents and and resolved the ending of Saruman instead.
Am I not remembering properly, because I thought he was what the return to the Shire is all about.
As long as they don't forget to make Aragorn king, then I guess they'll at least get one major plot component right.
...with a painting titled "The Isle of the Dead."
Turned out pretty good.
I liked the way Saruman was never destroyed in the book, because it gave the impression that evil could still surface later. I guess this is too complex for movie-going audiences though.
When you look at the state of the world, how can you not become a radical, liberal anarchist?
No, I did read the books, so I know that PJ had some decisions to make regarding Saruman. Now merely by reading headlines in /. I find out what some of those decisions are before I see the movie. It's just plain stunning to me how time after time this kind of shit gets posted.
Any rumors regarding "Bombadil in" are hopelessly misinformed.
Hi,
the fact that Saruman has been cut is not a huge problem in itself, indeed. It worries me for the palantir which, I hope, will not fall from the golden sky.
But actually this questions the whole process involved in making the trilogy. I am a die-hard fan, and I liked the Felllowship and the Two Towers.
I found that Jackson added too much scenes, that, if they were designed to make the story more understandable and/or the characters cooler, proved to be useless. Let's consider it : first you have the Rohirrim knights slaughtering the Orcs that took away Merry and Pippin. If my memory is ok, I think that Tolkien gives it 4 lines. Jackson, on the other hand gives it at least 5 minutes. Second, we have the destruction of a Rohirrim village ; actually the tale of the little boy who has to leave his mother and then become a warrior to avenge her etc. is, say, sad (/?) but stupid. It takes 5 minutes (Go ! Go! my son Go!). Aragorn wounded after the battle against the vile goat-dog-dragon, saved by his horse, fainting in the setting sun. The death of the fat elven guy at the end, who has no importance but that of being the character that dies at the end. I'm sure I omitted some others, but let's say that it took something like 15-20 minutes. It is *plenty* of time to put other things instead.
Nevertheless I liked the Two Towers. But less than the first one, for there was some very strong misunderstandings between the book and the movie.
- Who *ever* said that Saruman was the vilain ? (I base my comment on the fact that Jackson said that in the ROTK, Sauron was now the vilain) Again if my memory is ok, it is always said, mainly by Gandalf, that Saruman is a pet in the Dark Lord's hands. That Saruman's armies are strenghten by His spirit. Well, in my opinion, it was a complete mistake to present Saruman as the first enemy ; Sauron then seems to be a challengeable partner. We shouldn't forget that he is one of the God's servants.
-Who *ever* said that Gimli was a fucking asshole ? Who *ever* wrote that dwarves needed to be thrown ? This completely kills the Gimli character, and frankly, this is a shame. It relies on the very intuitive human cliche of the fantasy world, in which humans are warriors, elves are archers and clever, and dwarves are axemen and quite stupid beared creatures. I think Tolkien showed that he had much more sharpness in its way of considering the *main* character, and that it could have been underlined in the movie.
For the Lord of the Rings (book) does not cater to intellectuals, and there was absolutely NO need to put some attractive but all the more boring sequences (I've seen the trailer of ROTK, and I was frightened by the scene between crying Eowyn and Aragorn : "No Eowyn, you're never going to see a king's dick").
Cutting was Ok, but adding and shifting the overall sense of the story : no good.
Regards,
Jdif
Let's overcome our weakness.
It's just as easy (easier actually)to argue that the real story of LOTR is about the passing of the time of the Elves and their leaving Middle Earth to go to the West, not about whatever Hobbocentric crap everyone's getting so upset about.
The scouring of the Shire is a postscript to the story of the end of the Third Age and is irrelevant to the overall narrative arc of the three movies.
It's Jackson's interpretation of the books.
I just hope he ends it with Aragorn balls-deep in Arwen. Doggy style.
- learn to swim.
You can't cannonize this movie. For accuracy sakes a good port would mean the movie would be 20 hrs long and incredibly boring. Most of the plot had to be stripped (relievnce of the barrow down+the witch king+the end of the movie. One of many subtexts from the book).
Ridley Scott can put years of research in just a few seconds of film, Peter Jackson doesn't do things that way and I'm satisfied with the results.
with all the crap they've *added* to the trilogy I most certainly will not be wasting money on the Two Towers or Return of the King dvds. Perhaps I don't count as a fan, lets see I've read the trilogy through about 30 times? I completely lost faith in Jackson and company on learning that they were cutting the final chapter entirely from the book.
Linux is Linux, if One need clarify their dist: <Dist>/GNU Linux
bsds are of course just BSD
Jeez. Next thing you know, they'll be posting that Ahab gets the whale or the Martians get killed by bugs, and people will just shrug. Sigh.
then $$$ would speak more than petitions.
Remember this country is about $$$ and only $$$.
Everything here can be bought and sold.
Including presidents.
Cheers for the AC. So damn incisive.
What was that by the way?
I've had my tickets for Trilogy Tuesday for a month now. If ROTK is good, I might consider seeing it again, though I doubt they'd give me back my $25 for the trilogy ticket and let me use a freebie. :)
The truth about Scientology, Xenu, and you: Operation Clambake
Personally, I have no problems with studios releasing 18 versions of a movie. You're stupid enough to buy them, or just plain think they're worth your money, that's your right. And theirs to sell it to you, in a free country.
:)
But anyone who thinks it's not about money, ask yourself this:
How many fans do you know that *still* bought both DVD versions? There are the collectors, the 2 people that didn't know about the SE, and the hordes and hordes of fans who didn't want to wait several months to own the movie.
Same reason that people will pay $15 (or whatever) to see a movie once, then another $15 (or more) to own the DVD a few months later.
It's ALL about maximizing the income from these things. (some) Marketers have degrees in psychology for a reason.
And there's absolutely nothing wrong with this. You're free to buy, or not buy, as you so choose.
Me? I'm waiting for a nice Terminator (1-3) movie box set, and have been for a few years now. Same with Alien - I can wait till AvP comes out, in all its suckitude
Endless arguments over trivial contradictions in books written by ignorant savages to explain thunder in the dark.
Anyone in the know care to comment on why I haven't seen a single Legolas toy/action figure/merchandising item for ROTK?
:)
Does he die REALLY early in the movie or something?
(Oh, before I get modded +1, Funny - I've never made it all the way through the books
Endless arguments over trivial contradictions in books written by ignorant savages to explain thunder in the dark.
Um. That's not a sign. That's him.
They're in the DVD.
You cannot apply a technological solution to a sociological problem. (Edwards' Law)
And, yes, it is a waste.
The wheel is turning, but the hamster is dead.
the scene they cut from FotR, the one where Elrond takes Gandalf aside and confides in him that he won't be sending a division of elves along with the ring after all, since he has a feeling they'll be needed somewhere else.
Peter Jackson can hardly claim to be honest. He started off saying that RotK would be the closest to the books out of the three movies. This, as shown here, can not be further from the truth
I beg of you all, that before you comment on how good of a director he may seem to be, consider his track record of honesty towards the fans of J. R. R. T.'s works, and the general population.
(Shameful Plug: visit The Tolkien Forum for Tolkien discussion, including the movies.)
--<Mike>--
if he had dispensed with the horrible Osgiliath fiasco, and sundry Arwen sequences, he would have had time in TTT for this 'inconsequential' snippet.
You forgot Fatty. Poor, poor Fatty...
The mirror scene with Frodo was a small fragment of the scouring filmed especially for that scene. I can confirm, Jackson says himself in the commentary with the extended edition of FOTR that scouring isn't included. Yeah I think it sucks too - no doubt its going to have the traditional Hollywood Ending when the ring is destroyed, cut to big celebration when Aragorn becomes king, and everyone lives happily ever after and none of the audience have any psycological challenges to deal with.
On the contrary, reports are that people leave ROTK crying. Elijah Wood says he refuses to watch it, because the first time it was screened for him, he left in tears.
Peter Jackson says his favorite scene of the entire trilogy is the Grey Havens, so rest easy. ROTK will be about loss, mourning, and coping with the aftermath of grief and heroism. He's stated this several times in the past.
"Sufferin' succotash."
OK, thanks guys. This is the first time I'm really PISSED with /.
how could you dare to put such an information about an upcoming movie into a HEADLINE, impossible to overread, and thus, revealing such a big plot thing?
Well OK it's just a speculation, so maybe it turns out to be wrong.
But why not put a f*cking spoiler warning into the headline and the rest into the message body?
Thanks, a lot. Again. Well, and sorry for my emotional outbreak, but this simply sucks.
Anyway, keep up the other good work ;)
Seriously, though, I don't get these people who refuse to read the books until they've seen the movies.
You're supposed to read the books first, then see these films. Most of the time, it doesn't matter, but these movies are different in that they're really made as tributes to the books (okay, TTT to a lesser extent).
Plus, it just reaks of MTV generation to refuse to read them until you've seen the Hollywood version.
"Sufferin' succotash."
its been a while since i read them.. i thought that Sauramon was Sauron (books are on loan cant spell.. to lazy to google)
i always wondered why the two of them sound so much alike??
The More Knowledge you have the Luckier you Get- J.R. Ewing
In the books isnt Faramir's father driven mad by Sauron through the palantir he is using? Couldn't Sauron see Pippin use that one?
Gandalf caan't weild the ring, he said so himself in the first movie
They live in fear, knowing they can't defend themselves. Therefore they dread breaking the fragile 'peace' they think exists. Hell, the USA can't 'really defend' itself against a concerted terrorist attach. The USA can't even keep illegal immigrants out. Good thing fanatical groups are often at odds with each other and cant organize. Your god help us if they do...
Is he trolling? OK, see yah later!
Blar.
I only saw episode three last night. After avoiding all mention of it for days I finally started reading about it today on forums and have been dissappointed by the general "bag the Matrix" mindset I've come accross. I think a lot of people went in there expecting or wanting to be dissappointed and got that wish. Personally I was impressed and it finished on a much more "real" rather than "mumbo-jumbo" footing than I expected.
Boffoonery - downloadable Comedy Benefit for Bletchley Park
I would be pissed, too. Think about it; Christopher Lee is witnessing the complete desecration of his character. Peter Jackson is assassinating his character 2.5 books (of 6) early. That's bullshit, and Lee should be pissed off. We all should be. I hate to be a geek about this, but this isn't just about the elves showing up where they shouldn't, this alters the whole point and potency of the story.
Look, the scouring of the Shire is the anchor of the story. Without the normalcy of the Shire for the Hobbits (with whom we are obviously meant to identify) to bask in, the story grows so much darker. And it rings truer. As others have pointed out, it's a very dramatic, and "suck you right back in" sequence. It's a surprise the first time your read the book, and it completes the maturation of the hobbits into leaders and demonstrates true character growth. More to the point for the residents of the Shire, it shows the wrath and reach of war.
But what concerns Christopher Lee is that it shows what a crafty, sneaky and evil old guy Saruman really is. He quickly finds a bunch of cronies, travels a long distance and enslaves a new people, all within, what, a couple of months? As far as despotic rulers go, this guy is the pimp. Imagine if Saddam Hussein had a new (secret) full-on dictatorship goin' in a small country already! Saruman is a major character (and well established as such by Jackson) and he deserves to be in the third movie, along with the scouring of the Shire.
This omission will be remembered as the largest goof Peter Jackson made during the creation of these movies ...or just the singular: movie. It's a horrible mistake, but his other ones weren't too bad. I can deal with dream sequences, beefed up women's roles (let's face it, Tolkien spends about as much time writing about women as the average slashdot poster), gratuitous burning eyeball shots and inexplicably appearing elves, but this mistake will mar the series. I just hope the scouring is in the DVDs, but it doesn't seem like it.
Other than that, I'm sure the movie will be cool, with lots of explosions and fire, and orcs shooting into the sky, but I miss the subtleties. I wish filmmakers wouldn't dumb down shit like this. If people don't get it the first time....that's okay, ya know? I'm fine with not completely knowing what I just witnessed. That's what DVDs are for; not for adding scenes that should've been in the wide release cut. I like movies that you can peel thru like an onion, finding new and deeper layers of meaning. It's not easy to do, but, damn it's enjoyable when somebody does it.
Can Peter Jackson do it? Time will tell.
Electric Monkey Pants
*WARNING* Don't read this if you haven't read the books! SPOILERS!
Those of us that read the books no doubt loved the Battle of the Shire at the end...is this getting axed? That really sucks.
~Knautilus
>>It's not like we've forgotten that you once burned Washington :)
really? I didn't think they taught that in american schools...
"a lesson some americans need to learn."
What lesson would that be?
War results in bad things happening so we should cower in a corner instead of fight? Maybe you think it's nobel to be a coward.
War results in bad things happening so we should try to minimize the bad things and maximize the good things?
But then nothing good ever came out of war huh? Nothing but our country, the end of slavery, ad nauseum.
Grab a clue, troll. America is quite aware what war is about and we went anyway. I know it's impossible to wrap your mind around.
This is your flawed line of reasoning,
"How could anyone go to war if they knew what happens there?"
Lots of people. War is ugly but war is sometimes necessary. If you don't like it, feel free to surrender when the time comes.
Ben
Work Safe Porn
First of all, as has been said in every possible opportunity for well-on 3 years now, the scouring was never even filmed. So no, it won't be on the DVD's (I'm not sure where all these people keep coming from that seem to not know this, since it's brought up *every* time an LOTR movie debate gets rolling).
That said, I agree that the Scouring is a very essential part of the story, and it's definitely a disappointment that it will be left out. I just reread the trilogy last month and was reminded how critical the Scouring truly is for the characters and message of the books.
Fortunately though, the last chapter of the story (The Grey Havens) is definitely in, and is allegedly the crux of the trilogy's emotional impact, along with the Crack of Doom.
I personally hope they keep in the part where Frodo and Sam are brought before the king without even having had a chance to change out of their filthy, ragged clothes. That part's always been a favorite of mine since it really hammers home how unreal it is for the two hobbits after their ordeal.
Mmmmm.... Pigeons. Sometimes, they come with notes attached...it's like...a fortune cookie with wings.
I can understand that if you leave out the scouring of the shire, then you also cut out Saruman's part entirely from Return of the King, and that there wasn't time to cover that part. What bothers me about this more is that you never really see that Saruman is defeated in the TT movie (although I haven't seen the extended release of TT yet, so maybe it was in there) After Isengard is flooded and Ent'ed to smithereens, there's still the part where the group parleys with Saruman (and the audience learns of his smoothtalking skills, and, more importantly plot wise, the palantir is dropped and Sauron sees "a hobbit" in it, and is thusly decieved about the ring's whereabouts. It's the cutting of THIS instance of Sauruman that I am most annoyed at. It shows that he is truly defeated, even if they do leave him stuck locked up in the tower and can't get to him - and it would have been a chance to hear Christopher Lee play the smooth-talking "reasonable" evil guy, which would have really rocked.
At the end if TT, I just assumed that the reason we hadn't seen that part yet was the same reason we didn't see Shelob - it was pushed forward into the third movie. Now that I see it won't be, I'm a bit confused by Peter Jackson's decision (as confused as I was by his addition of Faramir taking a long time to change his mind and let Frodo go, dragging him all the way to Osgiloth in the process - That didn't add anything to the story and there's no reason to ADD material to the story when it's already impossible to fit everything in and stuff is being cut all over the place. Those were valuable minutes of footage to fit under the 3 hour cap - minutes that could have been spent on something plot related, like the cut Saruman scenes.
Don't label something "offtopic" unless you know the topic well enough to tell what's on topic.
CANnot! "You CANNOT pass!" It's not an argument; it's a statement of fact. In other words, do not meddle in the affairs of wizards...
ok I'm gonna go lie down now, please carry on
-hamsterspeed
pants
That headline almost make it look like, well, that Saruman won't be in RotK. He will, just not in the theatre release. :-P The cut shouldn't be vital for the movie either.
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
Sorry, but anyone who is such a "fan" of LOTR should read the books. I've enjoyed the movies, and I'm hoping they'll do The Hobbit eventually, but the movies are never going to be as good as the books. That's just the way it is.
Tolkein was an incredibly skilled writer. Some of that will translate into the movies, but lots of it will not. The books are also fairly long. The movies, even after cutting a fair amount of the story and rearanging things to keep it down to the minimum, end up being 3 hours long. There simply isn't a way to make a full blown, nothing left out version of the books and expect the theaters to show it. They don't want their theater tied up for six hours for one movie, and the people (like you) who want to watch a movie but who won't read the books aren't going to sit there that long.
I was sorry that Tom Bombadil was cut from the first one, bu I understood why, and I didn't bitch and whine about it like you are doing.
Of course, since you never read the books, you have no idea who Tom Bombadil was.
What's Star Track?
Hobbocentric crap everyone's getting so upset about.
According to the book ITSELF, it's primarily concerned with hobbits.
Don't label something "offtopic" unless you know the topic well enough to tell what's on topic.
This story further confirms my suspicions that ROTK will suck, regardless of whether or not this is a cynical marketing ploy (it is - the film is just an advert for the extended DVD, after all). Any director that screwed up the relatively plot-free Two Towers to the extent of
- getting the wrong freakin' Two Towers (they should be Orthanc and Minas Morgul)
- drafting in new armies for the Battle of Helm's Deep and forgetting it was the trees that killed most of the Orcs
- saving all the Shelob stuff for ROTK and inserting some crappy dream sequence where Aragorn discovers his love for a horse
can't really be trusted with something fairly complex like ROTK.When I am king, you will be first against the wall.
find that in the real books. (i.e. the movie strayed considerably - and the shield maiden of rohan wasn't AT helm's deep for aragorn to lust after...)
so i've stopped expecting to be delighted by the accuracy of the movies. but maybe they'll still be fun to watch.
"Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us." -Jesus Christ The Lord's Prayer
No one has ever been able to answer this question about a major flaw in the books:
If the eagles are so eager to help out, why couldn't they come to Rivendell, take Frodo directly to Mount Doom, where he would drop the damn thing in the fire and still be home in time to hear Bilbo sing yet another brain-numbing rendition of latest song?
I guess that I'm one of those people you don't get then. My own reason for refusing to start the LOTR trilogy (having focussed more on Asimov's _Foundation_ trilogy/series in my youth) until after I've seen all three LOTR movies is so that I can actually enjoy the movies without criticizing them for the parts that were necessarily left out.
I learned to do this after reading and thouroughly enjoying Arthur C. Clarke's 2010: Oddessey II as a boy, then seeing the total hack job that Hollywood did to such a great story years later. All of my favorite parts, and many of my favorite characters didn't even appear in the movie version.
Don't blame "the MTV Generation" rather blame Hollywood for their stupid rules which apparently constrain artists like Peter Jackson. It sounds as if he's forbidden from releasing a movie much longer than three hours long. This is a shame as more time is apparently needed to do LOTR justice on the silver screen.
To email me,subtract my nick from my email address, starting with the second character. (hint: adto.uiuc.edu is wrong)
i'd be happy to raze your house, pillage your neighborhood and fuck your wife before you teach me that lesson you fucking spineless pussy.
i love how you, one person, can teach "americans" a thing or two. you think way too much of yourself, asswipe.
yes, and all throughout history diplomats and emmissaries were so fucking effective.
the religion is greed, money, survival. if you and your utopian bullshit really existed, we would all be fucking food for some better animal.
you hiding behind this intellectual crap as one of the priveledged few that owns his own computer, owns a TV and has a telephone number (you probably dont know how many DONT have those), and then ripping down the system that gives you all these things.
you are a fucking armchair asshole who DOES nothing. nothing. you could easily be replaced by a robot. prepare yourself, automaton, bleating unthinking self deprecating whelp!
Hah, so they're not even showing that. Bastards. They shouldn't be allowed to mutilate Tolkien's story like that. ESPECIALLY with such nice visuals! He must be spinning in his grave.
Daniel
Carpe Diem
Jackson has said he's not been under any pressure from the studio.
;-)
I'm sure he was under severe pressure from the studio to say that...
"First lesson," Jon said. "Stick them with the pointy end."
GANDALF: Hi, Saruman. You look like you've got something to say. Do you?
SARUMAN: Yes, I certainly do!
SARUMAN: I have to go now. My planet needs me.
Note: Saruman died on the way back to his home planet.
I'm confused! If Saruman is completely left out of ROTK - there's a couple of things that must also be missing:
t -of-the-shire instead?
1) When Gandalf talks to Saruman -trapped in his tower - Wormtounge flings the palanthir (seeing stone) after them - which prevents Saruman from informing Sauron on the Armies gathering and the (re-)existence of Gandalf. How are they going to deal with that?
It is a while since i read the books last - but does Aragorn not use the same palanthir to show himself to Sauron - another critical bit (in my view) of Aragorns transformation into a king - which we have essentially seen nothing of yet.
2) When the hobbits return to the shire after the wars and find corruption and drive out the "bandits" they meet Saruman and learn that his plotting had been going on for a loooong time. So will the entire return-to-the-shire scene be missing or will it just be a hobbits-in-shining-armor-drives-halfwit-humans-ou
-.sig sauer-
...they explain why the ring is powerfull and why Gandalf is powerfull.
I mean, so far what have we seen; the ring can make you invisible. Oh, woodedoo a simple cloaking device. What else? Can it move mountains? Split the atom?
And what about Gandalf - a big Orc army comes stomping, and what does he do? Does he cast bolts of lightning? Summon tornados? Rain fire from the skies? No no, just runs away to get some help! He doesn't even fly away to get help, he rides on a horse!
Pwaa - some wizard he is.
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating
I do wonder how much of this is to pamper to modern day US audiences requirement for a happy ever after ending.
The scouring of the Shire, while ending in a positive note, also shows a darker side to the hobbits that may have been felt could depress audiences.
Shame France or Japan weren't the prime market, there'd be far more chance of the real ending still being in. It is essential to the plot after all (one of the components of the story being the hobbits coming to maturity as a people, losing their care free inocence).
We learned about it in my school, but it was the British, not the Canadians in particular. This is when Dolley Madison saved some stuff that was in the White House. We also learned about the "Battle of New Orleans" and all that crud.
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I just read that twice, and I have no idea what the hell you wrote....
LOTR is a complex story. To this point I think variation from the written story line has been effective. I hope they use the extra few minutes to highlight Eowyn's role in the story, perhaps with some nudity. She's awesome!
an ill wind that blows no good
yes, now is the time to start hoping for a prequel!
and of course the hobbit would make an excellent prequel, but i doubt you could stretch that book into three movies.
maybe if you incorporate parallell stories, stuff from sillmarillion, some stories about tom bombadill, the ents search for entessess - i'd be like a full feature discovery channel guide to middleearth.
and i so want to see a good, nice, dwarf-eating dragon!
i saw "reign of fire" just cause i like dragons, fer crissake.
f64 : as seen on tv
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It's more important than that. If you leave off at the "YEAH! We won! Everything's great now!" moment of the book, you miss the *ENTIRE* point.
The Scouring of the Shire and what follows displays the true results of the war. If you don't learn that Frodo basically never recovers, what happens to the rest of the hobbits, the depths to which Saurumon falls, and the way in which almost everything great and beautiful needs to leave Middle Earth, then you never understand a tenth of what the story's about. At that point, it's just stupid Hollywood happy-ending bullsh*t.
I believe the TT quote is:
"'Many are my names in many countries,' he said. 'Mithrandir among the Elves, Tharkun to the Dwarves; Olorin I was in my youth in the West that is forgotten, in the South Incanus, in the North Gandalf; to the East I go not.'" ("The Two Towers" p. 353)
Well, please excuse me if I don't believe everything I hear on Slashdot. It's hard to tell who has inside information, and who's just spreading FUD. Be that as it may, I have heard conflicting information stating that every scene was filmed, just in case. This is probably not true (either?), so I guess we'll just have to wait and see.
I'm still not over this, though. Something about this omission really pisses me off. I can't fully explain my frustration and disappointment... I guess it's because it looked like the movies were gonna be so damn cool.
Electric Monkey Pants
No, I'm sure Tolkien in walking Middle Earth somewhere, happy knowing that his creation is finally getting the theatrical airing it deserves. Christ, each movie is nearly 4 HOURS LONG... It's a double triple feature, man... ;-)
If I remember correctly from the book, Sauromon(sp) isn't really key in ROTK. I seem to remember him being taunted by Gandalf and the Ents at one time as he is in his tower after the ents go bugshit at the end of TT. Short of his character meeting his plotline demise I can't see this being a huge detriment to the film.
Am I remembering things wrong? It really has been a while.
- Jimbob
Ok, even if you don't care about the continuity of the story, or about keeping close to the original novels...how can you pass up the chance to have Christopher Lee's character push around a bunch of helpless halflings, and instill in them the virtues that made America great (destroy and pillage nature and personal liberty, in the glorious pursuit of profit)?
:)
There, now the trolls will have full bellies and I have a lighter Karma load to carry.
As soon as that thing comes out, I'm doing a Phantom Edit with an added scene where Saruman falls and can't get up. It's fair enough to cut things to make it fit, but that ass monkey is adding crap in at the same time. God damn tree hugging goose stepping robo-pixies, go to hell.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
but you will know the one true edition by the following inscription when warmed by a DVD burner.
"One DVD to rule them all,
One DVD to find them,
One DVD to bring them all
to Amazon.com and buy them"
It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men. -Frederick Douglass
Spider, yes. Demon, no.
:o
For a moment there, I thought you were talking about the DOOM boss! Imagine seeing that machine thing crawling around the underground lair!
The parent is in reply to a comment about the book "CLOCKWORK ORANGE" and how there is (apparantly) an extra chapter in the book which is not in the movie.
- Oh my God ! They killed Saruman !
- You bastards !
I was cured, all right.
According to the book ITSELF, it's primarily concerned with hobbits.
Yes, because Tolkien presents himself as a "translator" of a book written in Elvish by a Hobbit author (Frodo). The first chapters of FotR contribute to this illusion...but they were also cut from the movie (you'll find it - "Concerning Hobbits" or whatever - in the DVD Extended Edition).
I read an interesting book on LotR, JRR Tolkien: Master of Middle Earth, in which the author argued (convincingly, I think) that the real story LotR is that of Aragorn becoming king, and the real hero is Sam, Frodo's "working-class" lieutenant who holds everything together (and - in the book - is unaffected by the corruption of the Ring).
of two hours each, rather than three movies of three plus each. I'd pay money so I don't have to run the risk of Deep Vein Thrombosis.
But the "deapths to which Saruman falls" were the dumbest part of the book. Sure, war could have touched the Hobbits, but why did it have to be Sharky, and why was he so effective at this, taking the war to the hobbits, and yet so pathetically easy to kill at the end?
It was a setup for a moral. As such, it was overdone and weakly told.
Besides, pretty much all that it teaches is that you should kill bad guys instead of letting them go free because they always come back by the end of the movie. And you should always shoot them after they're down because a bad guy always takes ten times the bullets to kill.
Agreed - ending it with any other line ("Well, I'm back.") would leave me horribly disappointed. That's the one comment I made to the people I saw FotR with.
Addlepated - punk & metal
Read it again. He takes it off before crossing into Mordor.
>The movies are supposed to provide ~3 hours of entertainment each, and they succeeded..
Not for me. Half of the running time is drawn-out fight scenes. The 5 minutes of story that makes it in is simply changed; the dialogue is movie-ized to one-liners. People say 3 hours isn't enough, but then stuff is actually *added* -- scenes that never happened in the book. So, it seems to me that 3 hours per film could work if you actually did what was in the books, without 20-minute cave troll fights or slow-motion invented-orc fights or falling-off-warg fights or elf-praying, elf-solidarity, ninja blondes, love triangles, and the like.
I think people would even like the "real version" better, but that's just because hundreds of millions of people have read the books.
Movies that make $100 mil at the box office make $300 mil on DVD. You bet your ass the director makes money on it, especially when he basically runs the film industry in his country.
>As a professional editor
Kinda like how the Clippers are a professional basketball team?
TTT film opened up with "wrapping up" Gandalf's fall. You can edit these any number of ways; it may work on one level, but it doesn't mean it's better. PJ is keeping the scenes in the DVD version, which the cast and crew consider to be the signature work.
Anyway it doesn't matter, these films are way below what they could've been. Everyone did a great job except the screenwriters.
I heard at one point that saruman dies by grima stabbing him in the back. That would be disgusting, but i suppose that is one way of dealing with him not being able to die in the shire (where he should have died). Oh well.
I suspected you are a moron and didnt expect you to comprehend shit.
really? I didn't think they taught that in american schools...
Of course we learn about it in school. How could we ever forget the "War of Canadian Aggression?"
(That, and the Arrogant Worms sure as hell won't let me forget, either... ;) )
There's no wrong way, to eat a Rhesus...
Stayed away from the 2nd SE
Wow. That's some restraint. What with it not being out until next Tuesday and everything....
Karma: Non-Heinous
I think I saw something on /. recently about a sense of humor transplant. Consider it.
Slashdot "libertarians": Small government for me, big government for those I disagree with. -1, I disagree with you
Attendance almost always goes down with increasing sequels. No one jumps in at movie 2, usually, certainly not 3 - and there are always people (not hard core fans) who get bored with things. It happens.
Also, the movie studios have noticed that attendance at a bad movie drops off extremely quickly these days thanks to the internet etc, which makes "word of mouth" much faster. So if they release a dog, they'll lose a ton of fans.
The real fans bought the extended versions anyway - the promise of a real ending was never necessary. If the released edition sucks, they'll lose the casual fan. They might even lose the hard-core fans who decide just to wait for the extended-edition DVD to see the movie at all.
I maintain that screwing up the movie intentionally isn't a great idea.
-Looking for a job as a materials chemist or multivariat
What is he thinking? Not bad enough that he has gone out of his way to botch Two Towers but now he's removing Christopher Lee? Most directors would kill to have this man make a cameo and Jackson is going to drop him outright? I think the success of "Peter Jackson's version of something that almost seems like Lord of the Rings" has gotten to Mr. Jackoff's.. er Jackson's head.
Dedicated Cthulhu Cultist since 4523 BC.
Saruman did not chuck the palantir out the window.
Grima Wormtongue did. And apparently caught absolute bloody hell from his boss for the act, once Sharky figured out just what his little stooge had tried to bounce off of Gandalf's skull.
Geez. Leave it to the girl geek to get the details right... ;)
Doing my level best to piss off the religious right wing...
Last Post!
Obviously some people never even bothered to learn that correlation != causation.
hmmm, where the fsck did that subject come from???
Obviously you can't keep everyone out, but you can at least deport the ones found...and there are many.
Blar.
haven't read the LOTR trilogy books...yet. (I'm waiting for ROTK to hit the theaters)
That's a good excuse...
Were you one of the morons who left the theatre after Fellowship muttering 'what kind of an ending was that?'
Didn't , like, the trees kill him?
... Always leave a door open for a sequel! Does it MATTER that there were only three books? No, not to Hollywood! Sauruman (Soreumon? Sorry-mon!) is gonna come back in the 4th movie, "Lord of the Box Office". Peter jackson will object, they'll give it to the guy who made the SpyKids movies, and it will be screen magic!
The real problem I had was destroying the character of some of the characters. To wit:
Jackson's Elrond loses all of the warmth that Tolkien put in. The real Elrond adopted Aragorn. Jackson's Elrond seems ready to chase Aragorn off of his duaghter with a shotgun.
Jackson's Gimli is a clown. The real Gimli was a die-hard with a poetic heart (especially where Galadriel was concerned).
Jackson's Faramir is a copy of his brother Boromir, an overbearing jerk. The real Faramir was a prince: "Not if I found it by the side of the road, would I take it." (Book IV somewhere).
Jackson's Galadriel is creepy. Nuff said.
Still and all, I give Jackson high marks for what he's done. But the character changes make me very sad. As you pointed out, the overall sense of the story is lost. It is much darker now, and much more glamorous, in a negative way. *sigh*. I've waited twenty years for these movies. Guess I'll have to wait another twenty.
On a slightly related topic, does anyone know how much Jackson interacted with Tolkien's theology? (that would be Catholic, not Norse!)
Human being (n.): A genetically human, genetically distinct, functioning organism.