Kevin's Watch

Peter Jackson, director of the upcoming third Lord of the Rings film, The Return of the King, told the Ain't It Cool News Web site that he reluctantly excised Saruman (Christopher Lee) from the last film in the trilogy. "We have decided to save the Saruman sequence for the DVD," Jackson told the site.

Jackson added, "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 seven-minute '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 reluctantly made the decision to save this sequence for the DVD," Jackson said. "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." Return of the King opens Dec. 17.



from scifi.com

Though many will not be pleased, Jackson can do whatever he wants, as far as I'm concerned. From what I've seen of the last two films I completely trust him to make a stellar, beautiful movie this December, The Voice of Saruman or not. All I want to see is Sam carrying Frodo on his back up Mount Doom, honestly. And then I'll try not to cry during that scene.

This just points to the differences between the mediums...arts...of literature and film. What might work very well in one doesn't necessarily work well in the other...
I agree with Lord Foul. Jackson, for the most part, has handled the difficult transition from literature to film well with these books. Think of all of the stinky movies made from good books (-- and alternately the good movies from from mediocre books like Jaws) -- and the differences between literature and film begin to stand out.
I will stand beside Lord Foul in this and put my trust in Jackson...

*rubs chin speculatively* Everything seems fine, except for one thing:

I wonder how they will handle the palantír in the ROTK movie if they don't show the Saruman sequence at all.

I can just picture it now!

“Lor bless!” exclaimed Gandalf, presenting the palantír before Aragorn. “We received this from a scene that will be on the Extended Edition DVD this November.” And lo! Gandalf turned and looked as if he were peering through a movie screen, his bushy eyebrows sticking out at the audience. "Kids, tell your parents to pre-order now!"

(snickers)

What about The Scourging of the Shire?? Saruman and Wormtongue are both in that part. Has he left that off too??

I'm a bit annoyed that this piece isn't going in, but PJ has done an amazing job so far, so I still reckon iit is going to be the best of the LOTR films.

"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 seven-minute '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. ...

He's forgetting one thing here. Altho, they are seperate books and seperate movies...they are all ONE complete story (LOTR was written as one long book). It's like moving Shelob to ROTK, at this point, it doesn't really matter which movie all these events are in as long as they are there. Leaving this out about Saruman was like leaving out the giving of the gifts in Lorien in the theatrical release of FOTR. Those gifts become very important later on in the story. And for people not having read the books, it would cause confusion for those who did not see the extended DVD version.

I have no doubt this movie is going to be fantastic, PJ is doing an awesome job. But he shouldn't worry about the Saruman scene wrapping up Two Towers...it's all one story...and needs to be there...somewhere.

Furls Fire wrote:What about The Scourging of the Shire?? Saruman and Wormtongue are both in that part. Has he left that off too??

The Scourging is out, yeah. That's been public for a long time.

Can't help but feel disappointed that Saruman doesn't even get a proper "goodbye" scene. He deserves better than that.

I’m going to go way out on a limb and predict that ROTK will be a tremendous success in any case. My faith continues to lay in Peter Jackson's handling of the films and this situation.

Theo wrote:

Furls Fire wrote:What about The Scourging of the Shire?? Saruman and Wormtongue are both in that part. Has he left that off too??

The Scourging is out, yeah. That's been public for a long time.

Can't help but feel disappointed that Saruman doesn't even get a proper "goodbye" scene. He deserves better than that.

oh

Yes, I have been hearing for months that the scouring is not going to be in the movie at all, due to time constraints -- but on the other hand, supposedly the scenes at the end in the Gray Havens are the best from all three films...

Would love to have it completely on song ... but movies just don't work that way ...

if only they had made each dvd about 5 hours long...or would...as in the case of rotk...