100% with Christopher Lee on this. Lee wasn't just a distinguished, esteemed veteran actor, he was the only person involved in the production to have actually met J.R.R. Tolkein. After playing such a major role in the first two parts of the trilogy, it was the best decision story-wise as well to bring closure to his character. This is why people hate when the suits get involved.
Oh RIGHT, I forgot he actually met J.R.R. Tolkien! I have also always been with him on that one. This fact strengthens my opinion greatly. Christopher Lee was awesome!
i’m a total outsider on LOTR but it seems so obvious that this was barely even Lee vs. Jackson - more like Jackson vs. an honest portrayal of the work. i couldn’t imagine being an LOTR fan and just not seeing such an iconic depiction of closure. just a total lack of catharsis.
Jackson realized his mistake too late. He should have realized that this scene would not fit at the end of the Two Towers and should instead have tried to move the climax to the attack of the Ents. I think Jackson would be right to assume that additional post-climatic 7 minutes would have made the movie worse, so his solution of leaving the scene out was acceptable, after the attack of the Ents Saruman had no longer immediately relevant power. It would have improved the movie if there were a bigger climax to Saruman's arc, but the lack of it generally did not raise negative attention.
@@anaussie213 While I agree I don't think it would have worked for general audiences. People already complained that RotK "ended three times" as it was.
I am one of those people who didn't see the films in the theater and ONLY saw the extended cuts at home. I had no idea that a ton of people hadn't seen the death of Saruman until years later and I was shocked to discover that. It feels like one of the most important scenes in that whole film.
@@adampetten5349 Agreed, this is something fans always fight about, but the Scouring of the Shire is so painfully anticlimactic, in my opinion. Peter Jackson made the right call there. The Ring is destroyed, the dark lord antagonist defeated, the rightful king crowned, but wait! Remember that bad wizard? He's a Shire slumlord now! We better deal with him for another thirty pages.
As someone who grew with the extended cuts I agree with Lee, just because you can’t cut out such character with no explanation; imagine if Darth Vader suddenly disappeared and we just had Luke fight the Emperor
I think they want to made re-shoot that explain why Saruman disappear but really hard for Lee to agree on that , especially when they back stab him like that
That's a dishonest way of describing the theatrical cuts. Saruman did NOT just "disappear". You clearly see him defeated at the end of Two Towers in a completely conclusive way. It's a dramatic shot with conclusive climatic music with Sam's voice over saying that "good will triumph evil in the end" and then you see Sarumon, looking completely humiliated and defeated, retretae into his tower followed by a wide shot showing the entire fortress completely flooded. So when ROTK boots up you don't need more of him. It's enough for Gandalf just to say that he'll remain in his tower under the guard of treebeard.
Yes you can. You can cut anything, it is up to the edit/creative team to decide, and they did brilliant in those final edits of the films. You can't just give in to demands from actors or anyone here and there, everyone has their own opinion, whether those opinions are valid or not, or whether they are brilliant in their role/posts has nothing to do with it, there needs to be someone who has the overall picture and the final word, or else, we would never get those iconic films.
@@StupidusMaximusTheFirst You're completely right. Furthermore, the guys comment is just incorrect. You clearly see Sarumon defeated at the end of Two Towers and the beginning of ROTK Gandalf tells Treebeard to guard him in the tower for the rest of time. It's a conclusion to his character. He doesn't just "disappear" with no explanation.
Nahh back at the day it just work, people assume the ents just werck him as his last panel is him getting overun by them and hiding on his tower, the true is his actual detrah happen in the hobbits town , so even lee option is not correct
It's worth mentioning Lee's relationship with Tolkien's work. He was a massive fan of The Lord of the Rings and read the books several times throughout his life. He had dreamt of playing Gandalf for years should a film adaptation ever come to be. This fantasy epic was a huge part of his life and to see it broken for the sake of 7 minutes must have been heartbreaking to say the least.
He also actually met tolkien Who said to lee that if films ever get made, he has tolkiens blessing to play gandalf Only reason he didnt was due to being unable to do all the horseback riding at his age
Exactly! And his commentary on the films really sheds light to certain things that may fly over our heads. I don't think this was an "ego" thing on his part, but a genuine disappointment for his character arc and the novel's plot in general.
@@ConnorNotyerbidness As the other guy said, that was a rumor. Lee really only passed by Tolkein at a bar and said hi and that he was a fan. Thats about it. BUT he did meet him.
For everyone that doesn't know, Christopher Lee was the only one in that set that met personally Tolkien, he liked his books so much that was a tradition to him to read all the Tolkyen books once a year, so you can understand why he was so upset.
@@PCgamer923 Well he did die, and in a similar-ish manner it was just much later, and that would have required them to include the whole re-taking of the shire 1 chapter arc that happens in the books but I understand why it was cut. Though I was unhappy about it at the time because that was one of my favorite parts of the books as a kid.
It seems the could have found 7 mins. That movie have so many pointless landscape scenes, and laboured dialogue, killing sauraman was far more important than many other scenes.
The commitment of the fans to the extended editions was probably something no one anticipated at the time. I think at this point the extended editions are considered the “official” versions by most fans. I watched a theatrical cut for the first time in years a little while ago and there seemed to be a LOT missing - not just Saruman’s death.
Theatrical cuts have better pacing. Can’t stand how bogged down things get with the hobbits in Fangorn and the other extra scenes, some don’t even look good.
@@MrTonyBarzini yeah, the balance between showing everything from the books with what can actually work in cinema is a knifes edge. I have read all the books, but was glad for a lot of the cuts. Overall I like the extended versions, but I get what you are saying about flow. To the reader there is a nostalgia in the saturation of details. But this can come across as a bit odd, particularly if the viewer is not vested in the original story., which you may be, while still preferring the ease of flow that cinema can offer.
It was indeed a strange decision to cut Saruman’s death from the picture. One of the key antagonists. Glad it made it into the extended version, which I believe has become the standard way to watch LOTR now anyway.
It’s so bizarre when you consider that RotK won best picture and a bunch of other awards and that was for the theatrical release. How you leave out such a pivotal scene yet still manage to clothesline the competition is honestly impressive
@@GoldenMushroom64You extended fanboys are the biggest idiots of all time. So because one scene that is ARGUABLY important was cut therefore it’s “bizarre” that it won awards? The rest of the extended scenes for ROTK are complete dogshit. And even the Saruman was loaded with flaws as well.
@@goodpeopleoftheworlduniteThat's only if you're used to it. After I got used to faster action and comedy movies I felt the slowness of Fellowship extended, something I didn't feel when I saw it extended about 2 years ago, and it's my favorite film in general lol. Extended editions are more suitable for those who are already fans or dont have the habit of watching many films one after the other
I think the worst part of all this, is that they ended up doing EXACTLY what Jackson said they were trying to avoid here when it came to The Hobbit and they left the Smaug climax for the last movie.
@@joeyjerry1586 I believe in the book and maybe what the director was trying to accomplish is focusing more so on the power vacuum created? It might be a reaxh
The fact that Lee found out he wasn’t in the third movie until he saw it is very telling. This story would almost certainly would have been different if someone had the balls to have a hard conversation with him.
You can't have conversations with someone who is wrapped up in his own arrogance. He is a great actor and I've always liked him, but he does not run the show. The studio does.
@@williamscoggin1509 I don't know if he's arrogant or not. He may be. It's still a d!ck move not to tell him his scene was cut. You can have a conversation with anyone. If need be it can be curt, and short, and poorly received. But you 'can' have it.
@@williamscoggin1509 Christopher Lee’s desire for the film to be faithful to the books, and wanting one of the key villains to be given a proper conclusion, is far from arrogance.
Imagine Palpatine and Saruman working together. But in the end, we can be happy that Christopher Lee had a long and fulfilling life. After his death, I received a letter from him which he must have sent just before. RIP
Well he’s a way more prominent role in the film series than he is in the book, so you can be grateful for that. Also, I’d take quality over quantity. He may not have had an endless amount of screen time, but the scenes he’s in are all amazing, and they are made more special by their infrequency.
Normally, I side with the director in situations like this, but in this case, I’m in total agreement with Christopher Lee. When I first saw The Return of the King in theaters, I was massively disappointed by Saruman’s absence. After all, he was really the only villain with a human face. I actually think placing his death at the beginning would have caused the audience to be on edge. With Saruman being killed off early, people would be constantly wondering about who could be next. It was a lost opportunity.
Surprised you didn't mention the book. Saruman has quite a different ending in the book, which Lee was expecting to play, and Jackson's decision to have him die earlier (while understandable) was the first step that led to this disagreement/disappointment on Lee's side.
I loved The Scouring of the Shire in the book. I understand there was no way there would be time to cover those events in the movie trilogy but the journey home and the scouring of the Shire could pretty much have been a whole film in their own right, although not a long one, because there was so much to cover.
Knowing that the shot of Saruman saying “Leave Sauron to me!” in Battle of Five Armies was the last time we would ever see Christopher Lee on screen makes me even more glad that he and Jackson reconciled. Man was an absolute legend to the end!
I know. It leaves Saruman and Christopher Lee on a great note. While I don't think BOTFA is most Hobbit fan's fav film I love it for how it leaves so many beloved actors on good terms.
@@davetheimpaler204 Yes, that battle scene was very good, the big gripe I have about it though is they all then forgot about Sauron for 60 years, apparently.
@@s0larflare I mean this is where things are a bit more muddled, because in the whole story Gondor is still very much at war with Mordor and Sauron has always been a menace to Middle Earth. But I don't think The White Council 'forgot Sauron' but rather this is more a case that Saruman is "taking care of it" and 60 years later it turns out that "Oh Saruman really didn't have it under control" so I can see Gandalf on one hand being like "ok well we've got him out of the big picture for now and he doesn't have the ring so whatevs" It's kinda like if a Nucular Bomb from a dictatorship country has a probablility to fire at anytime, but you know that they most likely won't unless they had a few other countries backing them.
In the books, Saurman died in the Scorching of the Shire which was a whole story from the books that got left out due to time limitations for the films. Sorry that the whole situation wasn’t handled well, but the extended editions definitely create a fuller/better movie version of the story for sure- I love both the films and the books
I think the arc is anticlimatic for a movie. In fact, the ending of the movie is actually in the middle of the third book. You can't do that in a movie, so changes have to be done. And the last arc in the shire, when everybody says that Merry and Pippin have became taller than normal hobbits, it's the one that doesn't have a place as an epilogue of a movie. It is much more than a post credits scene, but less than a movie for itself. Maybe if it was a series, it could've been a chapter. In any case, I agree with you.
I am so glad they left Scorching of the Shire out of the movie. It was a weird decision to write that after the story is essentially done and it ruined the natural conclusion of the story. Movie-end flows way better.
@@MrProthall The flow of the movie is different from the book. Most of the changes are in the attempt to make a better movie, which is why I generally don't complain about them. But the wrap-up of the books works, It's the same kind of gentle climb-down as The Hobbit. There... and back again. The contrast of Great Events vs the small, and in a sense how even the small are not unchanged by the great.
The Extended, Extended version had Christopher Lee falling from a cliff. I’ll just leave now and sorry for ruining everyone’s weekend with a bad, terrible joke. Good day sirs and madams
Just reminds me of the story where Peter Jackson tried to tell Lee how to act when stabbed and Chris asked him if he’d ever actually heard a man get stabbed, cause he did. Lmao an actual badass irl.
I remember the story, Jackson wanted Saruman to scream when the knife went in, but Mr. Lee said, "do you know what happens when a man is stabbed in the back? I do." That made me realize that, in order to reach the heart from the back, the dagger has to first pass through the lung and deflate it. The victim does not have enough air to make anything but a slight sucking sound.
@@zukacs Saruman, the second most important villain of arguably the best trilogy of all time, was killed…offscreen, and not even mentioned in the final film of the trilogy. His death should have been included, even if it was early in the film, it was still there.
I didn't watch LOTR till I was probably in my teens (this was about 10 years ago) and my friend gave me 3 copies of the films (extended) so I watched them all and I thought everything made sense. I never knew of this drama till my friend mentioned it after I watched all 3. I didn't get to see the actual version where they just cut him out but I did see his death so I knew he was gone.
Another detail that might add to the pain that this scene was cut: originally, Sir Lee was told to scream when his back is stabbed. And he refused to do that and said, if someone is stabbed, the person sharply inhales, but does not scream. He asked the team, if they ever had to whitness a person beeing stabbed, of course they said no. Unfortunately, he had to whitness such events during his service. So they changed the scene to how it is now in the extended edition. That made the scene really personal to him, since it triggered a lot of bad memories and he had to put a lot of his own trauma into it, I can imagine. Seeing it landing on the cutting room floor must have hurt deeply.
@@AntiM1001 Not everyone does. Why do you have to be so stuck up, bro? The guy just came along, dropped some info for people to learn from, and you felt the need to try and crap on their effort? What has to go through your mind, for your neurons to activate and fire, for that to be the result of reasoning within your head? Really pathetic.
Sadly, the theatrical release of Return of the King is quite broken. Not only is Saruman ignored, the Witch King of Angmar tells the commander of the orcs that he will confront Gandalf personally... but never does. The Return of the King is the only LOTR film where the extended edition feels necessary, rather than as an extra bonus.
What's sad to me is they could have cut some of the slow-ass Treebeard stuff and put Saruman back in. We didn't need 40 minutes of Merry and Pippin on a tree.
@@my2randomcents There is no way to be 100% accurate. That is why it's called theatrical ADAPTATION, not transcription. Even if I love the book. A book's a book, a movie is a movie. You can't expect everything to follow 100% the same thread while changing the medium. It would be like trying to make a pencil drawing, except your tools are a brush and oil paint. Doable? Yes. Chances of success? Next to none.
I'm with Lee on the fact that it was a betrayal, and I also remember thinking it was really stupid to skip out on an ending for Saruman. As far as the extended versions being a cash grab, that's a hard disagree from me. The extended versions were as close to a complete story they could have done without adding events and characters that would have changed the story they had shown in theaters. I would consider it the complete version while the theatrical version was abridged to be more reasonable to sit through in theaters.
I think cashgrab in the sense that they took stuff out to entice people to buy the extended edition. I hope Lee did see how many people watched the extended edition in the end and considered it the definitive edition
@@McDonaldsCalifornia Well when your already edited down versions are still nearly 3 hours, I'd say it's justified we as a viewer are still getting twice as much value for the same price as a lot of other films. As for cash grabs that change the story and add in new characters, we have but to look no further than *The Hobbit*.
Yeah I don't get this part, no idea why Christopher Lee was mad about this. He's was in the business for a long time already and should know that it's not 100% Jackson's decision to cut him out. 7 minutes are damn long and the cinema edition of the movie already cut down so much stuff. It's pretty sad, the SEE is the real version, but Jackson and co. weren't able to show it in cinemas back then.
@@McDonaldsCalifornia The extended editions were never cash grabs. The theatrical editions were paced for viewing at cinemas. The extended editions were planned from day one as the more complete versions for the fan base. Jackson makes this abundantly clear more than once in the supplementary material.
Sometimes the studios would require a set screen time like 120 minutes and won't allow a single minute to go over it. In those cases it's out of the director's control.
Going with Sir Christopher Lee here, 100 percent. I was heartbroken as a kid, really. I can understand cutting the entire Tom Bombidal acid-trip from the films... but not The White Wizard.
@@terencevangaalen4127 YES. You don't need to belittle the men around Aragorn to make him look cool - he is already so cool. What was that weird "Oh no, he fell off the cliff!" addition anyway? No time for Saruman closure, but time for a whole weird horse guide side quest?
As a fan of the books long before seeing the movie I was disappointed Sauroman's death was cut from the story. If they wanted to cut something they should cut out some of those CGI battles. Spoiler alert: there were no elves at Helms deep in the books.
Something else from the 2 towers could have been cut and replaced with Sarumans death. I love the movie but if you're thinking how do we trim it for a theatrical release, the battle for helms deep, the ents, the journey to Mordor, all of these parts of the movie surely combined have 7 minutes to spare a co main villains death.
@@maryosborne9952 Yes but the books and the movies aren't the same thing. In the movies Saruman dies at Orthanc. The raising of the Shire never happens because it's not in the ending of the return of the king film and therefore Sarumans death in the movies is a very important event. If you're watching the movies and haven't read the books what do you think happens to him? They just left a central villain of the trilogy in his tower and never spoke of it again.
The only thing I found really odd in the theatrical cut. Treebeard: _"But there is a wizard to manage here, locked in his tower."_ Gandalf: _"And there Saruman must remain, under your guard Treebeard"_ Gimli: _"Well, let's just have his head and be done with it."_ Gandalf: _"No. He has no power anymore."_ Me in the theater 2003: What? What do you mean no power? They are just gonna leave him there? The scene in the extended cut wasn't even that long, but added a much needed resolution. They should have keept it in. I understand why Christopher Lee felt betrayed.
Right! Because of the lack of resolution, I was fully expecting him to show up again throughout the movie. I hadn't even read the books and didn't know about the Scouring of the Shire, but, well, obviously, *he's the main* (on-screen, unlike Sauron) *villain, and he was just in his tower, which never stopped him from being a threat before.* It ruined the climax of the movie for me because I never got the sense that the bad guys were defeated, never had that relief, I was waiting for the villain to appear and then the movie just ended. Resolution with Saruman was needed for me to know to take the rest of the story at face value. Without it, I was denied many of the feelings the movie was supposed to invoke in me through the climax and ending, like the excitement of the final battle ("well, this is obviously not going to be the final battle because Saruman has still yet to come, so let's just get this short-lived victory overwith ... oh wait what) and the bliss and relief of victory, heartfeltness of the ending, etc. It was *so* odd. And also, "how the heck did Saruman's crystal ball end up in the water?" That didn't make sense either, and was another plot point I expected to be explained later in the movie.
Yup. I also don't buy the argument that it feels like wrapping up the previous movie instead of beginning RotK either. It gives more context to Pippin finding the palantir, which is basically the inciting incident that sends him and Gandalf off to Minas Tirith.
Again I feel that Peter Jackson and his team had very little choice in the matter, I mean yes one could fight to keep it in. But I can see Jackson being persuaded by the notion that IT IS Gonna be in the film's full version, but they need to get this film out to theatres and the studios are deeming the scene too long.
Never saw the extended cut and this was one the reasons. This movie was dumb after this part. Before an epic story, after this just a regular movie with no respect for the fantasy world they created.
Because that's exactly what happened in the books. They left Saruman up in his tower with the Ents to watch him over. I. The end, the Ents ended up releasing him, because the Ents are fundamentally opposed to the idea of imprisoning people, and Saruman's voice was still very powerful, and could convince many to his cause. He then went north, where he is ran into on the Greenway on August 28 3019 heading north by Gandalf, Galadriel, and the hobbits. November 3rd of that year, he was revealed to be "Sharkey" who had taken over the shire, replacing Lotho Sackeville-Baggins as "Boss" of the Shire. He was then killed by Grima, after Frodo counselled that none should kill him, as while he is evil, he is still a wizard, and it isn't right for just anybody to judge him worthy of death.
I remember finding it really strange that Saruman's last scene in the theatrical cut of the trilogy was a two second shot of him looking out over his balcony. That's like Darth Vader disappearing in the middle of Empire, and then never shown or mentioned again.
it's to show how irrelevant he was to Sauron, how small he was and how powerless he was. we thought him someone to fear but really he's the one who should've been afraid. that's what I liked about watching him fall to his death betrayed by even his worm. shows how evil Sauron is that not even his once powerful allies were safe.
Yeah, we have to ask: Is there no less relevant scene that could have been cut? Or maybe some details shortened a bit? Was there no indulgence in play length to be reduced a bit so that it wouldn't cause storytelling problems later?
That dumb sequence of Legolas shield skateboarding down the steps as he's shooting orcs at Helm's Deep etc That could've been cut, it added nothing to the film.
@@bigfatchubbybritboy9445 lmfao that's literally 10 seconds long tho...Saruman's death is like 6 minutes...as a director myself who works with producers daily I can unfortunately see the difficult spot Peter was in
The scene in which Gandalf says, "Saruman, your staff is broken" is the literal climax of The Two Towers book. It was bizarre to leave it out, and I remember leaving the theatre feeling crestfallen.
I’m glad it was cut. The CGI didn’t look great and it slows down the wheels going forward with the trilogy. I’d rather imagine him having lost his powers rather to see it literally,..
I have to agree with Lee on this, that scene should have been in the theatrical cut with Saruman and Wormtongue as it was awesome. You can see the people involved with the money making decisions (as if they were not going to make huge amounts anyway) saying if we keep that for the extended DVD people will be talking about it as the best scene to give as a reason to buy a extended edition.
I honestly never noticed this because I only watch the extended editions now. I remember reading a long time ago that Sean Bean went down to NZ just to film that scene after the battle of Osgiliath. The scene that really showed the stark difference of Denethor's relationship with Boromir vs Faramir as well as the relationship of the two brothers. That scene got cut for theatrical release but luckily was included in the extended edition. If I remember right, Bean was pretty upset about that. Also just want to say Lee was a legend, and I'm so glad he was able to be included in these films 💝
@@RaiceGeriko sure he is, I think you misunderstood my comment - I was chuckling at the pun: stark difference as in big difference between both roles, and stark difference between both roles as he plays a stark in one of them.
As someone who had only ever seen the extended version growing up, it wasn't until I was an adult that I realized there was a shorter version. Someone invited us over to watch LoTR and I was very confused about why it was so short and missing so many important scenes...
Eh, Sarument was weird, but the extended version has worse pacing than the original. Its just too much stuff crammed into a movie. I still prefer the long version, but the cinema-version got some reasonable cuts.
@@planescaped Well Peter Jackson himself says that the theatrical release is the definitive edition of the film. The pacing is better, it's tighter and still tells the same story arc just as well, if not better (due to less meandering). And that's not my opinion, it's Peter Jacksons!
Knowing that Christofer Lee is the kind of guy who stood so hard by his conviction in artistic projects like 'The Wicker man' that he played the role for free, it is criminal that they treated a character he played that way. The dedication and commitment that he brought to his roles ... it is becoming a lost art form.
Nowadays so called "actors" are people who assault others on stage in front of their peers and then accepts an award and is given a standing ovation from said peers.
My favorite character in the trilogy due to Lee's presence, he and the Witch King of Angmar deserved more screen time in my opinion.. RIP to the great Sir Christopher Lee
@@chatteyj "Most people" wouldn't be into Sir Christopher Lee's work in the music industry as a vocalist on metal albums, but he did it anyway and you can tell he loved doing it.
I can understand Jackson leaving out Tom Bombadil and the Barrow Downs since that is not essential to the course of the story. However to leave out the Scouring of the Shire which shows the destruction wrought by Saruman, subverts the whole thrust of Lord of the Rings, that in war everyone loses, there are no real winners. The world they all knew has passed away, like the world Tolkein knew before the First World War.
Excising that insufferable Tom Bombadil was, by far, the best decision Jackson made. And this Saruman intrigue was probably the worst. None of the "movie length" explanations work with LotR, because everyone knows/knew that it's an EPIC and simply was **going to be** long, no matter how you slice it (pun intended). This is especially true when you compare it to how Jackson bloated "The Hobbit" into 3 severely overwrought films that he attempted to "co-write" with Tolkien (what arrogance, to think he had anything to ADD to the genius of Tolkien's work!!!!) The Hobbit could have been neatly told in two concisely edited films that **stuck to the frickin' original story** and reined in the unnecessary "Hollywood action sequences"!! Jackson gave back a considerable amount of the good will he earned with LotR, with the way he completely f***ed up The Hobbit. He should have known that his only contributions in editing could be made by omission (Tom Bombadil), not by ADDition.
Agreed about Tom, ambivalent on the scouring of the Shire. Screenwriting makes it difficult to explain the ideals portrayed in the written form. It would've taken at least another hour to properly flesh that out.
@@Stiglr Tom Bombadil only ever adds to the scale and wonder of the world. I believe him to be an essential part of LOTR and the world that Tolkien created. However, it would not fit well in a movie, I can agree with you on that. But Tom is far from insufferable, and has every reason to play a part in LOTR as everything else does.
@@AUGSpeed42 What demigod needs to wear yellow galoshes? Please. Bombadil was pure frolicking stupidity, and about the only foot Tolkien put wrong in his creation of Middle Earth.
Reason is obvious. The climax of the trilogy was getting to Mordor and destroy the ring. That was the moment three movies build towards. To then add a scourging of the shire and battle after that would feel anti-climactic. The story didn't need more action after the destruction of the ring. The arc was complete. I think they made a good choice not to include it. Frodo being affected and leaving the Shire was emotional enough for the general audience, it didn't require the entire Shire getting scourged.
Christopher Lee was right though, if the Scouring of the Shire was to be cut, then Saruman's death needed to be the finale of Two Towers. If the film was two long something else needed to be cut. The compromise of moving it, was a bad idea taken to put off a hard decision, which is always a mistake.
While I agree that Christopher Lee was right in regards to Saruman's death being the best way to end two towers, I do disagree with him blaming Jackson for it. People believe that the Director has final say but he doesn't. The production companies have final say. They are paying for it and if they disagree strongly enough they can stop production entirely. Given Jackson's passion for LoTR, I can't imagine him wanting it to be anything other than the best adaptation possible and The Two Towers ending with Saruman's death makes the most sense if you're not gonna do the Shire being raided. In this way, the Two Towers end with one Tower falling and a definitive direction and focus being placed on Gondor and Mordor moving forward. Edit: Plus ending with the battle of Helms deep feels like a studio decision.
@@mikecabral2420 Christopher Lee certainly did blame Jackson. Given his huge experience in films, I suspect he understood the complexities of who decided what. I don't think Jackson himself, ever passed the buck on it either.
Funny thing is, as a many-time reader of the books, I distinctly remember not expecting to see Saruman die at Orthanc. It was only after realizing that the scouring of the Shire had been omitted that I realized what a horrible loose end had been created. My cynical side immediately expected this was to use Saruman as a villain in further stories. I had no idea it had ended up on the cutting room floor.
It’s nowhere near a masterpiece for this and many other reasons. It’s actually the most overrated of fantasy epics, and the flaw being discussed here is devastating. *There really is NO villain in this film.* He died offscreen. Lol. That’s not a minor problem, sorry.
@@Serjo777 yes, he played Francisco Scaramanga. Known for his love of physically flawed hand guns, Giant death rays, Midgets and tthe fact he has three nipples👍
After having read the books for decades, I missed many things. Tom Bombadil for one, but for me the most important omission was the battle of the Shire with Saruman's reappearance as Sharkie and his subsequent demise. Sam's replanting of the decimated Shire using Galadriel's gift was another that was missed. If you don't recognise these events at the end of the stories then READ THE BOOKS!
It has always irked me that Jackson replaced Lady Galadriel's magic seeds with "herbs for a roast chicken". Even without the Scouring of the Shire, consummate gardener Samwise Gamgee could have made good use of those seeds. When I first watched FOTR in the theater, it also irked me that Aragorn just handed the daggers to the Hobbits, rather than having to acquire them from the Barrows. Lore-wise, the daggers' origin was very important - it's why Merry was able to injure the Witch King in ROTK. I do understand cutting Tom Bombadil though; it's just unfortunate that book-relevant lore has to be glossed over. Then again, the legendary weapons of Glamdring and Sting were just randomly pulled out of a troll hoard.
Tom Bombadil would've ruined the movie. The thing that is really missing to make the whole thing make sense would be them finding the Westernesse blades, but then they are saved from the Barrow Wights by Tom so maybe thats why its not there, Tom Bombadil is not good movie materia, it makes sense in the book, if they put him in the movie it would slow things too much, all his gibberish about his wife, you coudl'nt fit that.
@@DaniboyBR2 Bombadil could have been adapted into a character who was light hearted and merry on the surface, but hard as iron underneath. Like the British characters in 19th and early 20th century fiction who left the Empire, married a local woman, and "went native" because they were sick of war and intrigue. They were happy in their new lives, but retained that hard veteran soldier personality under the surface.
Saruman was one of the best movie villains of all time. Christopher Lee performance was just perfect and once in a lifetime, just like the whole trilogy. Watching him bringing Saruman alive into the movie was one of the highlights of the movie. It won’t be the same without him and it would make the third movie even better that it already was. The man is a natural talent for the craft of acting. Haven’t seen any other actor pulling off a villainous role like him since LOTR and Star Wars episode 2. That’s just prove how good and legendary he is in these unforgettable roles.
I don’t blame Lee at all. It was a damn good scene too.I remember being confused as to where he went at the end of Two Towers. The theatrical cut of Saruman slinking back into Isengard and never seen again is just not narratively satisfying enough for how built up his character had been.
the book version is better - Saruman and Grima escape Isengard and make their way to the shire - thus the "Scourging of the Shire" - if you have not read the books - you should...
Yes, he was hyped as a good white mage who betrayed them and turn his allegiance to sauron. Saruman was the bid bad guy in two tower, so i was confused to as to what happened to the character, i assumed he either escaped to make a comeback im the last film or died in the assault of the ents.
One of my big questions at the end of RotK was "what happened to Saurman?" When I received the extended edition of TTT, I thought that scene was both one of the best performed and critical to the story. That is one of Jackson's only mistakes making that trilogy.
Yes and no. The closure war really missing, but then we got that frankly comedic flip-and-impale ending. Would have been better if he just fell into the water with a final shot of his lifeless eyes.
At the time, after Two Towers was released my friends and I thought Sauraman (and Grima) were being saved for their big twist at the end of the Return of the King book, where they attack the Shire after the Hobbits go to return. It was not to be. But, it still worked.
Wasn't Saruman supposed to show up and enslave the Shire at the end of Return of the King fulfilling Galadriel's prophecy. The Hobbits, having just returned and emboldened by their adventures overthrow him ultimately having Wormtongue stab him. I'm not sure if this is in the book which I never got through, as I saw it in a play, but way too many comments to tell if someone mentioned this. If they had removed all the slow-mo at the end they could have fit it in the runtime surely.
You're absolutely right. It's a brilliant twist in the penultimate chapter of The Return of the King - The Scouring of the Shire. Saruman, robbed of his power by Gandalf and imprisoned in the Tower of Orthanc with Treebeard as gaoler, escapes with Grima and together go to the Shire to wreak revenge on the Ring bearer's country. Understandable, I suppose, that PJ changed the story - the dramatic dynamic of the last film with this part of the tale in it would have been difficult to manage, but a great shame. In the film of course the Shire remains unchanged and the inhabitants utterly ignorant of all the drama that's unfolded.
That’s the ending in the book for sure. But I don’t think the run time is return of the king could have supported another epic battle for the shrine after everything that already had happened leading to it. Most movie stories like this always round off the way the movie ended it, peaceful and clam.
Lee was also a HUGE Hobbit/LOTR fan, reading the books every year. He knew the characters and the story inside and out. That's hard to argue with successfully.
In fairness, an important characters death being cut is a big deal to the film, not *just* the actor. There are plenty of other scenes that could have been trimmed to make space in run time.
Was very disappointed that Return of the King did not have the hobbits win back the Shire from Sauraman and his goons at the end, without the help of elves, dwarves, wizards, or men. It was one of the good points I think Tolkien had brought home in his books, that the hobbits (and perhaps those of us in our comfortable lives) are capable of a lot more than we think we are.
Of all the changes Peter Jackson made to the story, that was one I had the least trouble stomaching. I like your interpretation, but it's such an obvious thing to cut from a rhythm standpoint. You've already reached the climax of the movie at the point where the One Ring is destroyed, and with what was left in the movie, it still took Peter Jackson a long time to wrap it up. In today's age, I feel like it might have been referenced, briefly, and then they might have released a streaming-only mini-series about the Scouring of the Shire, or as a bonus feature in the Super-Deluxe Extended Blu-ray cut.
Once the Ring is destroyed, the audience wants you to wrap it up. That’s the difference between movies and books. That’s why the whole Scouring of the Shire sequence would’ve been too anticlimactic.
@@adamzanzie Exactly. People were complaining that the original theater cut at 3:23 was too long. The extended version is something like 4:10. If they had done the scouring of the shire it would have been at least 5 hours long. No modern audience is going to sit through all that.
I was expecting to see "The scouring of the Shire" in the last movie, though I think that it might not of been good for the movie if they had included it. It might of been seen as an anti-climax.
I tend to agree with Lee on this - they never should’ve cut that scene. I remember being disappointed that it was gone when the movie first came out in theaters. Peter Jackson should’ve known that millions of Tolkien fans were expecting to see it.
Actually, this scene is something millions of Talkien fans wouldn't have expected. To some extent, many fans would find it a reasonable explanation for the theatrical version, if the studio just decided to cut the arc where Saruman took over the Shire.
Peter Jackson cut the "Scourging of the Shire", Saruman & Wormtongue didn't die after the defeat at Isengard. Remember the "being faithful to the books"? So you should NOT have expected a Hollywood ending for Saruman. Nor the awful extended Disney style ending of Return of the King which misrepresented Tolkien's work
@@Eustres true the films did, but the OP was ironically complaining about the cutting of a "made up" non-canon scene saying "millions of fans expected to see it" which makes no sense at all pre-directors cut box set. Nobody decided to read the books because Saruman's death was cut or included. I had to have a go at Return of the King which was extremely disappointing, missing Tolkien's prosaic point about post-war/saga effects on participants, so much better than the "and they all lived happily after" easy crapola copout.
It may have been worth mentioning that even the extended version's ending for Saruman is much different than the end of the book. Although in both instances it is Wormtongue who stabs him, the timing, location, and context are completely different
@@planescaped I loved both, even though the game was what hooked me into the Witcher franchise, being my first game I played multiple hundred hours, the books are what kept me immersed into the story and world, and only through them could I understand the game properly. If you read a lot of books, the writing style is incredibly refreshing and new, keeping the already amazing story aside, the framework around it is one of it's kind. As a game, the Witcher series is incredible, as a book, it is as well. Neither is really better than the other, as you can't really compare them, but both excel in what they're supposed to do
I didn't know Sir Christopher Lee started acting at age 40. That's amazing that a man like him that had no acting roles in his youth he would rise to become one of the most famous actors in the world and play Dracula, Count Doku and Saruman! It proves that you should always chase your dreams.
Lee's problem was his size. He was standing at a peak height of 196 centimeters when he was younger and therefore had severe trouble finding minor roles in a movie, because he was just way taller than most of the lead actors. Nowadays movie makers don't give a damn about this but in the 60's it was, unfortunately, a big deal.
@@zumogerstubchen2340 its actually still a big deal today. Watch Top Gun or Fast and Furious as examples. You'll see all the camera angles taken to make sure Tom cruise and Vin diesel don't look like manlets. All for actor ego or to make sure a scene doesn't look ridiculous
@@zumogerstubchen2340 It was different times. Today an actor like Sir Christopher Lee could be casted to play George Joestar I, Jonathan Joestar, George Joestar II, Dio Brando, Joseph Joestar in a live action series if the actor would be 196 cm, British and buff. And it would be amazing, having such a great actor portray those characters.
That is a oversimplification... He acted... just not in major roles. In fact you could argue that Sir Christopher had been acting even during his military career; he was, after all, a member of Special Operations Executive (the precursor to MI6 in some ways).
Having watched the extended editions, as much as I love them, I agree with most of what they chose to cut for the theatrical releases as far as pacing goes. But they should've never cut this scene for the theatrical release. It makes no sense that Saurumon just disappears from the story and is never spoken of again.
Yeah the only closure you get is that gandalf says he has no more power anymore or something, I think one of the hobbits or gimli wanted to kill sauroman lol
Yeah, the extended editions had a lot of scenes that shouldn’t have been in it, including some where the cgi did not hold up at all, even at the time of release. But a few of the scenes should never have been cut.
It’s amazing that Jackson also made the Hobbit movies, where he made so so many mistakes he conscientiously avoided in LoTR. Like starting the third movie by wrapping up the second one…
The Hobbit films were plagued with problems, starting with the fact that there were three of them. That book is not long enough to be 3 films. Most of the stuff that was added is just crappy filler that's obviously there to pad out the run time and milk more money from moviegoers. It should have been no more than two films, or maybe even just one long film. And it really felt like Peter Jackson phoned in the whole thing after maybe the first film.
@@SithCats The Hobbit should have been two films that corresponded to the two books, LOTR should have been six films that corresponded to the six books. That would have been the perfect balance in both cases.
i wish they would release a comprehensive full cut of all that they filmed (such as Faramir and ÉOwyn's wedding). These films are a masterclass in filmmaking and I watch them every year
Having not watched the theatrical versions since they were in theatres, I'd forgotten that Saruman's death wasn't included. I think for most fans, the extended cuts have become the standard viewing experience and Saruman's full arc remains intact. Hopefully that might serve as some consolation...
I know it's not Peter Jackson's fault alone, but I'm with Christopher Lee on that one. I think he was a fine Sir, not only in title but also attitude, and deserved to have his arguably most famous character's final scene included in the premiere.
Saruman dragging Aragorn’s patchy lineage is good tee-up for Return of the King That said, the whole commerce vs storytelling angle Lee argued from kinda peels apart for 3 Hobbit films
What is amazing is that scene with Lee is so key, so essential ... I do not even remember the movie without it by now! I mean if the theatrical release was missing the scene I just do not remember it. I remember him and that scene and his death. The extended cut has become THE movie and the theatrical release is a forgotten has been. I know Jackson thought he was doing the right thing but without that scene the second movie is incomplete. You never find the movie shown anywhere without it.
It was another one of those unfortunately cut sequences with the only mention of the Scouring being in Galadriel's mirror. I would have loved to meet movie Tom Bombadil, but again, that didn't happen.
@@janeenschultz8502 I can see why both were removed. Tom Bombadil was a... sidequest of sorts; for all of his power, he doesn't play into the subsequent story whatsoever, his biggest "impact" later on is Gandalf making a joke about him hypothetically losing the Ring. If anything could be cut for run time reasons, it was that. The Scouring of the Shire, meanwhile... I might be a little biased, in that I only read the books after seeing the movies, but it struck me as an out-of-place story beat. The climax is the battle at the gates and the destruction of the One Ring in Mount Doom. To follow the characters back to the Shire expecting the story to wind down, but instead get this extra plot point, it felt narratively unbalanced. Neither was inherently bad writing in the books, but movies work better with a tight, disciplined narrative structure, and both of those removals improved it in that sense.
Ultimately it ruins the point of the entire movie trilogy cutting out the scouring of the Shire and ending it on a happy note as if everything was AOK and they lived happily ever after when anyone who's ever read the books knows better.
@@badlydrawnturtle8484 The point of the scouring of the Shire is that you may defeat evil but you will do so at a cost. The most important thing about the scouring of the Shire is that yes they won but even if they work at it for the rest of their lives the Shire will never be what it was when they left
@@deadend1041 And that is an interesting, complex message for a book directed at an intellectual audience. Not a movie for the general public, which needs, as I said, a tight, focused narrative structure. And I'm pretty sure Tolkien would disagree with the notion that the Scouring of the Shire was the "whole point". They maintain the "at a cost" thing by emphasizing Frodo's mental scars, but give some hope back to the audience because depressing endings are depressing, no matter how many literary accolades you get for making them. The book version isn't sacred. Tolkien didn't make the perfect, unalterable tale. Ask yourself whether you're ultimately criticizing the change because it's legitimately a worse version of the story, or because it's a change and changes feel insulting to the "true fans". If it's the latter, get over yourself. Stories can, and should be, altered and improved upon.
Yeah same, I'm not old enough to have watched and remembered watching the films in theaters. I watched it with my dad who only watched the extended versions.
With a story like LotR the extended cuts actually help reduce that bloat as scenes have time to settle in, and take form, while also letting cut stuff back in. The original cuts felt bloated because they had to deal with those time constraints, and I am thankful that we got the extended version.
The most retarded argument I have ever read. Even if you want to argue that most of the extended scenes are good and necessary (they’re not, they’re mostly cringe and filler) then bloated would still be the wrong word to use. Bloated literally refers to something having TOO much. Saying something feels bloated because it has too little is a logical absurdity.
Fun fact about the scene: Christopher Lee used his military knowledge while filming this scene accurately. When he is stabbed, Peter Jackson originally wanted Saruman to yell out in pain in a very theatrical way, but Christopher chimed in and said that in war, when you stab someone in the back, there is no scream. Only small grunts and silence. That was the take Peter agreed with and is in the scene.
The Theatrical films are amazing on their own. But the true experience is the Extended Edtions. I totally would love one day to just watch the whole extended trilogy in a theatre.
Growing up not watching the extended version, I was always confused by what happened to the main, actually physically, bad guy. Like he just disappeared! Definitely with Christopher Lee on this one, at the very least from a storytelling point, if not more
Lee took his Lord of the Rings very seriously and knew that the book's ending for Saruman was a vital part of "The Hero's Journey" framework, specifically the part where the hero returns to where his story began, but as a changed man (erm, Hobbit) and uses what he's learned on his journey to put things right at home. It's the closure of the circle and the story is incomplete without it. Basically, Saruman IS the villain of the trilogy - Sauron never shows - so it makes zero sense to simply "forget" the character two thirds of the way through. I appreciate that the structure of Tolkein's book presents major problems with adaptation, but I still think Jackson should've recognized the importance of Saruman and "The Scouring of The Shire" to the overall story and found a way to divide the material between the films differently to make it work.
Totally agree, the Hobbits left inexperienced and from all their trial's, they brought back much courage and experience, to save their homeland; I think that this was a major aspect of Tolkien's story, being in the trenches of World War 1 himself, which means the films though enjoyable to have been produced, the so called artistic licence, to me, changed the spirit of the work.
@@johnobrien7626 That's right. It's an incredibly important part of the overall story. It shows that The Shire isn't immune to events in the wider world, and it's also Frodo's main heroic moment. Without that ending, Frodo is quite a weak character who basically fails the quest and only succeeds accidentally. But with the Shire ending, he's redeemed - we see how he's grown as a person, how he's no longer like the other Hobbits who have meekly accepted Sharkey's rule. We see him organise a successful battle against Sharkey's men and then choose - by his own free will this time - not to kill Saruman but to pity him instead. Heck, what annoys me most about Jackson losing the book's ending is that he included the clues to that ending in his films, just dropped the pay-off. It's established that Saruman has a weakness for pipeweed, then Merry and Pippin find barrels of Shire pipeweed in the wreckage of Saruman's tower - a huge tip-off that Saruman has more connections with The Shire than they realise and that it's a likely choice for where he'll go after he's evicted from his tower.
You do realize that the last movie was already over 3 hours. It would have been very difficult for them to include the portion of scouring of the shire. Maybe if they had made 6 movies instead of 3, this would have been viable.
@@AnkhArcRod imho The Scouring of the Shire is far more important to the overall story than, for example, mooting around with Treebeard, Faramir taking Frodo on a wholly-invented side-journey to Osgiliath, raising ghost-armies in Dunharrow, etc. Nips and tucks could certainly have been made. It's a strange choice to simply drop the Saruman story half-way but keep those things. The pacing and structure of The Lord of the Rings books do not make for a natural and easy fit with the standard 3-act template that we expect from movies. I fully appreciate the adaptation difficulties. But if Peter Jackson had tried to cover a little more ground in Parts 1 and 2 - and added less of his own invented material - he would've had ample time for more plot-critical matters such as doing Saruman justice and ending the story properly.
I'm inclined to agree with Lee on this one. The way the theatrical versions were cut, it felt like Sauruman's arc just stopped without really having a conclusion. It felt like a gip. I know what happened to him in the book is vastly different but that part wasn't in the movie either so... yeah. lol feels incomplete
Never really bothered me in the teatherical cut. It just seemed fitting that the man who betrayed his mission because he got persuaded by power was now forced to be locked inside Orthanc with the forest he decided to ravage being his jailors. Him being stabbed by Wormtongue who then just gets killed by Legolas felt like a odd scene either way, them both just being nicely written out of the story in one swoop without any interesting consequences.
I agree. There are lots of issues with that scene (like how Theodan can communicate with Grima who is standing almost a thousand feet above him) but the one problem I do have with the theatrical version is why the Palantir is in the water. Like how did it get there?
I saw a doco about the making of a Hollywood blockbuster once (it may even have been about Lord of the Rings), which contained the comment that it was like laying down the track for an express train while it was thundering towards you. Once you realised you'd missed an opportunity, you couldn't back the train up for another go. In artistic terms, leaving Saruman's death in the film was about telling the story the best way possible, not about reconciliation between friends. Peter Jackson has always seemed a decent person to me. I'm sure he regretted the artistic failure but regretted more the deep and lasting hurt he caused Christopher Lee.
The extended versions of the Lord of the Rings feel like they're the editor's best version of the films - they don't feel like deleted scenes were thrown back in for the sake of sales. It's clear that the theatrical cuts are ONLY shorter for the sake of cinema run times. The Hobbit extended cuts on the other hand...
But the majority of the clips added into the extended editions weren't actually all that useful for the story. Really the only one that was really cool was the diplomat from Mordor who Aragorn chopped the head off of in the last movie's extended edition. The scene with Saruman being killed was okay, but the movie worked either way. Many of the clips, like Frodo talking about the elves walking by in the first movie or Merry and Pippen eating the food that made them grow slightly after the battle of Isengaurd, made the movie worse in the extended edition.
@@greywolf7577 The movie didn't work for me either way. There was no resolution with Saruman in theatre, so I kept waiting for him to show up. Ruined any sense of immediate danger or importance to the battles, because I knew "this can't be the final battle, Saruman has yet to show up"...
the Hobbit movies is where Jackson truly fell from grace in my eyes. The ONE book he extends past one movie, it's the one that genrally could have fit into one goddamn movie. 2 if he had to stretch it. I swear there is more filler and stuff in those movies than actual plot from the book
There were a lot of cuts that Jackson made from the books to the movies, and most of them I agreed with. But I side with Lee here: Jackson absolutely did Saruman dirty.
As a massive Tolkien fan and a film editor, I fully understand Jackson’s dilemma. Run time is such a massive part of the decisions of getting to the final cut. Perhaps one who hasn’t worked in an edit bay for hours on end wouldn’t understand. The A Story (the quest to destroy the One Ring) is the master and everything else must help move the A story forward. If there’s doubt then it can be considered to end up on the cutting room floor.
This is why I can't stand Peter Jackson or his fans. There were THREE HOURS of added content to those films - mostly rubbish no one ever talks about that detracted from the story. Yet people like you always trot out this tired line of "oh it is so difficult to cut stuff" - it is only difficult if you add your dreary fanfiction and can't discipline your scriptwriters to stick to adapting the original text.
@@archvaldor Never get tired of reading book purists whining. Since when did Tolkien LOTR book fans become such cry babies, and take personal offense to the films because of insignificant changes that overall worked to the films benefit.
Jackson found plenty of time for crap additions. Like the Hobbit, LOTR needs a Tolkien edit - it won't save third-rate showrunners or producers, but it will make the material fit for the next generation of fans.
I understand why several important and intense parts were not included in the movie. For example, the "trilogy" - the Old Forest, Tom Bombadil and the Barrow-Downs. It requires at least one extra hour or more. But I can't accept some significant changes such as Sauron's appearance, the wrong-mood scenes in the Prancing Pony, Balrog's appearance and others. It could be done just like in the books.
I mean….it’s small consolation, but, since these came out when I was a kid, when I actually got into them, my family only owned the extended editions, so I thought that the extended editions were the actual cut. I still struggle to watch the non-extended editions to this day, it feels like skipping several stairs on a staircase.
you can tell a lot about a man, by the expectations he has for others. Lee expected Peter to be true to his word, and for artistic integrity to prevail. The scene was absolutely needed. As a kid not having read the books, I just wondered what ever happened to Saruman?
Eh i dunno, i was the theatrical cut dozens of time and it was made clear what was his fate: being forever à prisonner of his own castle, watched by the very nature he took joy in destroying.
Did we really need to see him shoot a fireball, have his staff break with wonky CGI, and then fall and get impaled? No. We didn't. It's great to see it in the extended edition. But I never for a moment thought it was missing when I saw Return of the King in the cinema five times in 2004.
I actually like that Saruman's death sequence was put to the beginning of the third movie. I kind of subverts the audience's expectations in a good way. However, I think it was major injustice to Lee to only include it in the DVD release. So I completely understand his disappointment and boycott. When I saw The Return of the King first time in a movie theatre, I was actually confused why Saruman was not shown at all and only briefly mentioned by Gandalf. It left me wondering what happened to him. The scene really should have been included in the theatrical release, too.
Saruman basically disappears from the theatrical editions after he tells the Uruk Hai to go to Helm's Deep. You seem him for five seconds looking out his tower when the Ents attack, but his last line of dialogue in the theatrical cuts is in the middle of Two Towers.
I only saw the theatrical version of each one time, when they came out in theaters. After that I waited till the extended DVD's came out and watched them numerous times. Eventually upgraded to a Blu-Ray + Digital copy when I got it for a steal of a price. I honestly don't remember what wasn't in the extended versions at this point.
One thing glaringly omitted from your commentary was that not only was Lee the only person to have actually met Tolkien from the cast or crew of the film, but he was also a HUGE fan of the books himself and knew more arguably than anyone about them as he habitually ready them once a year for decades.
It was shameful that Sarumans final demise was omitted,and an insult to such a beloved actor as Christopher Lee,who breathed life into the character so magnificently,it was also very disappointing for the audience.
I was disappointed to see the hobbits go back to the Shire and everything was normal. In the book, Saruman took over the Shire and turned it into a wasteland. The hobbits had to rally everyone and force him out. I would have loved to see that on screen.
Reason is obvious. The climax of the trilogy was getting to Mordor and destroy the ring. That was the moment three movies build towards. To then add a scourging of the shire and battle after that would feel anti-climactic. The story didn't need more action after the destruction of the ring. The arc was complete. I think they made a good choice not to include it. Frodo being affected and leaving the Shire was emotional enough for the general audience, it didn't require the entire Shire getting scourged.
@@Planetdune Yeah, totally agree, that is why adaptation when changing medias is required. What work on books does not always work on movies. But I also didn't like the Saruman's end of the expanded edition. I would liked it much more if they haven't change his story. They could have kept it but without showing, just a mention from Frodo on the epilogue of the movie: "When returning home not everything was as expected, we had to deal with an old enemy we thought was gone, but that is a story for another time". This would have left things open for another movie if they wanted.
@@diguss Good idea! When I get a time machine, one of the first things I'll do is to convince Peter Jackson (and the studio) to use your suggestion. After I got to talk to Benjamin Franklin and tell him that the current flows from negative to positive electric poles, of course. Gotta have priorities.
Yes, Wormtongue threw the palantir at Gandalf and they were locked into the tower. Sarumon escaped to become Sharkey, only to be stabbed in the back by Wormtongue. Sad...so sad an ending
If they had made 4 films instead of 3, it could've been worked. As people say, in movies it would've been anti climatic. Actually, in the book is quite anticlimatic, because the destruction of the ring is the end of the book 5 and then you have the book 6 telling you this story among others (Frodo going with the elves and this stuff). They decided to cut this the same they cut Tom Bombadil or they mixed Glorfindel into Arwen and Imrahil into Aragorn (I think).
@@gospaironija2762 Morgoth is an equal opportunity villain, he wants to conquer everything. Sauron could only attack Middle Earth because he was too weak for the Valar.
I feel bad for Lee. He had his character get killed at the beginning of the third film in a trilogy not once but TWO times. Both Star Wars and and LoTR.
One thing not mentioned is that the ending they filmed, extended version or otherwise, was entirely different than the books. The event towards the very end of the books - the Scouring of the Shire - is considered one of the main morality lessons of the entire trilogy of books. Yet it was totally cut out of the movies and Saruman was simply stabbed in the back much earlier on.
@@fernandoerbin6751 So it wasn't about the story being told or the epic nature of 20 odd years of work coming together, it's about the pacing for you... okay... I don't respect anyone who thinks they can tell Tolkein's story better than Tolkein.
@@south6bt No, it's about different media having different ways to tell a story, which apparently someone so quick to judge and disrespect as you wouldn't be able to grasp.
@@Watcher4111 Again, different medium. That it should be replicated as close as possible is a matter of debate. What's the point of an exact copy, if you already have the original? But aside from that, the thing is sometimes it's just not possible to do it like in the books, and sometimes even if it is, it still doesn't work.
Lee was the only person who had met Tolkien. His commando missiins are still classified, and his cousin Ian Fleming is said to have based 007 off of Lee.
Cristopher Lee was soldier, actor, opera singer, metal singer, assassin, Real life James Bond (yes james bond the character was inspired by Sir. Lee), and a knight. Like wtf was that man for real. True legend.
James Bond was inspired by John Dee, not Christopher Lee. I cannot post a link here but he's easy to google. One of the foremost thinkers in England, John Dee combined science with spiritualism to rise to the top of Elizabethan politics and cast a spell over the queen with his counsel. And while his enemies would ensure that he was ridiculed and forgotten, he lives on in the codename for beloved superspy James Bond
"Studios don't expect the average movie goer to watch a 3 hour movie" That's not why they cut movies down to 2 hours. It's because of selling tickets. A movie ticket is the same price, regardless how the length. The shorter each movie, the more movies can be played. The more movies can be played, the more tickets can be sold. How often do you not hear that a scene is "cut for time"?
Like someone already point it out. this view doesn't make much sense because the majority doesn't go the movies and watch whatever film is there. they go specific for one and they majority go with a limited time frame. So it's better a long that fill the room then a short one that take a quarter to a half of the room
Movies get cut for time because most people don’t have the attention span to watch a movie longer than 2 hours unless it’s extremely good, and 2 hours is still longer than most movies used to be
Lee got into acting long before his 40s. He got started as an extra when he was in his 20s and gradually got more significant roles. His first Dracula performance was when he was in his mid 30s.
I love the extended edition of FOTR and TTT. But the extended edition of ROTK is almost unbearable. It's too long and the extra scenes are just BAD. We needed Saruman's death, The Mouth of Sauron and the confrontation between the Witch King and Gandalf... but the way that scenes were shot were SO WRONG that, sincerely, I'm glad the theatrical cut ommits them.
Saruman falling to his death and being impaled by the spike was the cheesiest part of the Two Towers extended cut. It was actually more true to the books to have the character fade into the background and pop up later in the scourging of the shire which was also left out. The problem was the stupid arc with Aragorn and Arwen that took up WAY too much time in Two Towers, pushing Shelob to the third movie and not allowing for Saruman to make his final appearance.
Completely agree with you - i actually really dont like the scene of him falling to his death - seems like such a poor way for him to die when he had a whole other arc in the books they cut out.
That's not the reason they didn't want to include the scourge of the shire though, they simply chose to remove it because it would be a weird closure to the trilogy as most characters wouldn't be present and the bigger evil was already defeated...
@@masser4555 for me it was that ridiculous "thunk" on the spike at the end of the fall. It just seemed to lack any creativity for such an important character.
I actually have never seen these 'theatrical releases', so I'm really shocked at these differences. Watching these extended cuts is one of my favorite things, and a key part of my childhood. Really bizarre to see the things that were missing from the regular films
After having seen the extended editions it's practically impossible to enjoy the theatre versions anymore. They feel sooo rushed down and shallow, it's unbearable
I just saw the extended version for the first time. I was like WTH. I always felt like Saruman’s story was left hanging. I feel kinda robbed. Those scenes were good and necessary to end Saruman.
This is why those of us who LOVE The Lord of the Rings Trilogy ALWAYS recommend watching the extended version. There were so many great scenes in the extended version that watching the Theoretical Version just feels like being cheated. I can understand why they did it considering the length of the films but I have not been able to watch the Theoretical Version since I saw the Extended version when it first came out on DVD and I bought it. In fact, I refuse to watch the Theoretical Version.
![[Full] 4 ต่อ 4 Celebrity EP.920 | 3 พ.ย. 67 | one31](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/KwiW2M_kAg4/mqdefault.jpg)
Want more LOTR content?
YES!
Yep.
Yes please!
Sure why not 😊
Why not more LOTR content???
100% with Christopher Lee on this. Lee wasn't just a distinguished, esteemed veteran actor, he was the only person involved in the production to have actually met J.R.R. Tolkein. After playing such a major role in the first two parts of the trilogy, it was the best decision story-wise as well to bring closure to his character. This is why people hate when the suits get involved.
Oh RIGHT, I forgot he actually met J.R.R. Tolkien!
I have also always been with him on that one. This fact strengthens my opinion greatly.
Christopher Lee was awesome!
i’m a total outsider on LOTR but it seems so obvious that this was barely even Lee vs. Jackson - more like Jackson vs. an honest portrayal of the work. i couldn’t imagine being an LOTR fan and just not seeing such an iconic depiction of closure. just a total lack of catharsis.
I wanted the scouring of the shire quite frankly. Really wraps up the story as the hobbits return as heroes.
Jackson realized his mistake too late. He should have realized that this scene would not fit at the end of the Two Towers and should instead have tried to move the climax to the attack of the Ents. I think Jackson would be right to assume that additional post-climatic 7 minutes would have made the movie worse, so his solution of leaving the scene out was acceptable, after the attack of the Ents Saruman had no longer immediately relevant power. It would have improved the movie if there were a bigger climax to Saruman's arc, but the lack of it generally did not raise negative attention.
@@anaussie213 While I agree I don't think it would have worked for general audiences. People already complained that RotK "ended three times" as it was.
I am one of those people who didn't see the films in the theater and ONLY saw the extended cuts at home. I had no idea that a ton of people hadn't seen the death of Saruman until years later and I was shocked to discover that. It feels like one of the most important scenes in that whole film.
It was still wrong, it took place in the Shire, after he had taken over and destroyed the Hobbits' home in petty vengeance for his losses.
literally same
@@supercheese7033 Which was an error of Tolkien. The inventor sometimes isn't the best one to make decisions.
@@adampetten5349 yeah having his death at Isengard is a lot better than him creeping around the shire after the climax lmao
@@adampetten5349 Agreed, this is something fans always fight about, but the Scouring of the Shire is so painfully anticlimactic, in my opinion. Peter Jackson made the right call there. The Ring is destroyed, the dark lord antagonist defeated, the rightful king crowned, but wait! Remember that bad wizard? He's a Shire slumlord now! We better deal with him for another thirty pages.
It's been so long since I've seen a non-extended version I didn't realize that scene was one of the extensions.
Wow what a fake fan
@@brandonmunsen6035 😒
@@brandonmunsen6035 oh, you are one of those, huh?
@@brandonmunsen6035 Bruh this isn't star wars, we're better than that
@@mysticwraith6667 as a Star Wars fan I can confirm the Star Wars community is the most toxic
As someone who grew with the extended cuts I agree with Lee, just because you can’t cut out such character with no explanation; imagine if Darth Vader suddenly disappeared and we just had Luke fight the Emperor
I think they want to made re-shoot that explain why Saruman disappear but really hard for Lee to agree on that , especially when they back stab him like that
That's a dishonest way of describing the theatrical cuts. Saruman did NOT just "disappear". You clearly see him defeated at the end of Two Towers in a completely conclusive way. It's a dramatic shot with conclusive climatic music with Sam's voice over saying that "good will triumph evil in the end" and then you see Sarumon, looking completely humiliated and defeated, retretae into his tower followed by a wide shot showing the entire fortress completely flooded. So when ROTK boots up you don't need more of him. It's enough for Gandalf just to say that he'll remain in his tower under the guard of treebeard.
Yes you can. You can cut anything, it is up to the edit/creative team to decide, and they did brilliant in those final edits of the films. You can't just give in to demands from actors or anyone here and there, everyone has their own opinion, whether those opinions are valid or not, or whether they are brilliant in their role/posts has nothing to do with it, there needs to be someone who has the overall picture and the final word, or else, we would never get those iconic films.
@@StupidusMaximusTheFirst You're completely right. Furthermore, the guys comment is just incorrect. You clearly see Sarumon defeated at the end of Two Towers and the beginning of ROTK Gandalf tells Treebeard to guard him in the tower for the rest of time. It's a conclusion to his character. He doesn't just "disappear" with no explanation.
Nahh back at the day it just work, people assume the ents just werck him as his last panel is him getting overun by them and hiding on his tower, the true is his actual detrah happen in the hobbits town , so even lee option is not correct
It's worth mentioning Lee's relationship with Tolkien's work. He was a massive fan of The Lord of the Rings and read the books several times throughout his life. He had dreamt of playing Gandalf for years should a film adaptation ever come to be. This fantasy epic was a huge part of his life and to see it broken for the sake of 7 minutes must have been heartbreaking to say the least.
the cartoon gandalf looks more like Lee than Ian to be fair
He also actually met tolkien
Who said to lee that if films ever get made, he has tolkiens blessing to play gandalf
Only reason he didnt was due to being unable to do all the horseback riding at his age
@@ConnorNotyerbidness Pretty sure this was debunked as a rumor
Exactly! And his commentary on the films really sheds light to certain things that may fly over our heads. I don't think this was an "ego" thing on his part, but a genuine disappointment for his character arc and the novel's plot in general.
@@ConnorNotyerbidness As the other guy said, that was a rumor. Lee really only passed by Tolkein at a bar and said hi and that he was a fan. Thats about it. BUT he did meet him.
For everyone that doesn't know, Christopher Lee was the only one in that set that met personally Tolkien, he liked his books so much that was a tradition to him to read all the Tolkyen books once a year, so you can understand why he was so upset.
*Tolkien
I was upset too having read the book knowing suraman never died like in the extended movie.
@@PCgamer923 Well he did die, and in a similar-ish manner it was just much later, and that would have required them to include the whole re-taking of the shire 1 chapter arc that happens in the books but I understand why it was cut. Though I was unhappy about it at the time because that was one of my favorite parts of the books as a kid.
It seems the could have found 7 mins. That movie have so many pointless landscape scenes, and laboured dialogue, killing sauraman was far more important than many other scenes.
@@BudoReflex Truly. I was not happy with the Saruman ending they showed in the extended edition. It was more spiritual in the book.
The commitment of the fans to the extended editions was probably something no one anticipated at the time. I think at this point the extended editions are considered the “official” versions by most fans. I watched a theatrical cut for the first time in years a little while ago and there seemed to be a LOT missing - not just Saruman’s death.
The extended editions are the only way to watch the films imo, the theatrical cuts are incomplete.
Theatrical cuts have better pacing. Can’t stand how bogged down things get with the hobbits in Fangorn and the other extra scenes, some don’t even look good.
Not watching the extended editions is a cardinal sin.
Totally agreeing with you.
@@MrTonyBarzini yeah, the balance between showing everything from the books with what can actually work in cinema is a knifes edge. I have read all the books, but was glad for a lot of the cuts.
Overall I like the extended versions, but I get what you are saying about flow.
To the reader there is a nostalgia in the saturation of details. But this can come across as a bit odd, particularly if the viewer is not vested in the original story., which you may be, while still preferring the ease of flow that cinema can offer.
It was indeed a strange decision to cut Saruman’s death from the picture. One of the key antagonists. Glad it made it into the extended version, which I believe has become the standard way to watch LOTR now anyway.
It’s so bizarre when you consider that RotK won best picture and a bunch of other awards and that was for the theatrical release. How you leave out such a pivotal scene yet still manage to clothesline the competition is honestly impressive
@@GoldenMushroom64You extended fanboys are the biggest idiots of all time. So because one scene that is ARGUABLY important was cut therefore it’s “bizarre” that it won awards? The rest of the extended scenes for ROTK are complete dogshit. And even the Saruman was loaded with flaws as well.
@@GoldenMushroom64 Because each film stands up very well on its own
It's the only way to watch them. Originals are too short .
@@goodpeopleoftheworlduniteThat's only if you're used to it. After I got used to faster action and comedy movies I felt the slowness of Fellowship extended, something I didn't feel when I saw it extended about 2 years ago, and it's my favorite film in general lol. Extended editions are more suitable for those who are already fans or dont have the habit of watching many films one after the other
"From Lee's perspective, this was a massive betrayal."
So did he feel like he'd been stabbed in the back?
Tee hee!
he was one of the few people on set that knew what sound a person made when it happened...
Someone going to deep fake Peter Jackson's face on the stabber now?
@@adam346 Damn it, one day too late.
Again, you mean?
I think the worst part of all this, is that they ended up doing EXACTLY what Jackson said they were trying to avoid here when it came to The Hobbit and they left the Smaug climax for the last movie.
I was literally thinking the same until i saw this comment. Quite the irony.
I don’t know I quite liked that it was done that way
And Smaug gets killed in the first 10 minutes. What was the point of ending DoS like that?
@@joeyjerry1586 I believe in the book and maybe what the director was trying to accomplish is focusing more so on the power vacuum created?
It might be a reaxh
The Hobbit was horrible. The overuse of CG stopped me from being emersed in the world.
The fact that Lee found out he wasn’t in the third movie until he saw it is very telling. This story would almost certainly would have been different if someone had the balls to have a hard conversation with him.
Yeah, that was a d!ck move.
You can't have conversations with someone who is wrapped up in his own arrogance. He is a great actor and I've always liked him, but he does not run the show. The studio does.
@@williamscoggin1509 I don't know if he's arrogant or not. He may be.
It's still a d!ck move not to tell him his scene was cut.
You can have a conversation with anyone. If need be it can be curt, and short, and poorly received. But you 'can' have it.
Jackson is a pussy. He disrespected Lee
@@williamscoggin1509 Christopher Lee’s desire for the film to be faithful to the books, and wanting one of the key villains to be given a proper conclusion, is far from arrogance.
No one can ever compare to the villains Sir Christopher Lee brought to life on screen. I hate that we didn't get more time with him.
Imagine Palpatine and Saruman working together.
But in the end, we can be happy that Christopher Lee had a long and fulfilling life.
After his death, I received a letter from him which he must have sent just before.
RIP
Well he’s a way more prominent role in the film series than he is in the book, so you can be grateful for that. Also, I’d take quality over quantity. He may not have had an endless amount of screen time, but the scenes he’s in are all amazing, and they are made more special by their infrequency.
@@RemusGT he wasn't palpatine🤣
Ah, but he didn't want to be Saruman. He wanted to be Gandalf but didn't get the job.
Wait is Christopher Lee dead?
Normally, I side with the director in situations like this, but in this case, I’m in total agreement with Christopher Lee. When I first saw The Return of the King in theaters, I was massively disappointed by Saruman’s absence. After all, he was really the only villain with a human face. I actually think placing his death at the beginning would have caused the audience to be on edge. With Saruman being killed off early, people would be constantly wondering about who could be next. It was a lost opportunity.
Right. Just shorten the scene, don't cut it.
I think it would have felt as disappointing as Smaug in the battle of the five armies.
@@Carloszavalalol Lol imagine 🤣
I fully agree! I felt really bad for him when I heard that he was even more disappointed.
@@glanni I remember being so disappointed at that 😂
Surprised you didn't mention the book. Saruman has quite a different ending in the book, which Lee was expecting to play, and Jackson's decision to have him die earlier (while understandable) was the first step that led to this disagreement/disappointment on Lee's side.
I loved The Scouring of the Shire in the book. I understand there was no way there would be time to cover those events in the movie trilogy but the journey home and the scouring of the Shire could pretty much have been a whole film in their own right, although not a long one, because there was so much to cover.
The Scouring of the Shire was my favorite chapter of the books, when I finished them I couldn't understand why would they take it out of the movies
@@Lennyman simple. Because it's anti climactic after the huge battle scene against Sauron.
@@Lennyman it would have been so awkward to have another battle at the end of all that
@@Lennyman It works in book format and creates nuance. But in a movie it can be a little weird right after the main climax.
Knowing that the shot of Saruman saying “Leave Sauron to me!” in Battle of Five Armies was the last time we would ever see Christopher Lee on screen makes me even more glad that he and Jackson reconciled. Man was an absolute legend to the end!
I know. It leaves Saruman and Christopher Lee on a great note. While I don't think BOTFA is most Hobbit fan's fav film I love it for how it leaves so many beloved actors on good terms.
This scene, the battle against the Necromancer, was the only memorable part of that film tbh.
@@davetheimpaler204 I dunno man it's pretty awesome when the army of Dwarves arrive
@@davetheimpaler204 Yes, that battle scene was very good, the big gripe I have about it though is they all then forgot about Sauron for 60 years, apparently.
@@s0larflare I mean this is where things are a bit more muddled, because in the whole story Gondor is still very much at war with Mordor and Sauron has always been a menace to Middle Earth. But I don't think The White Council 'forgot Sauron' but rather this is more a case that Saruman is "taking care of it" and 60 years later it turns out that "Oh Saruman really didn't have it under control" so I can see Gandalf on one hand being like "ok well we've got him out of the big picture for now and he doesn't have the ring so whatevs"
It's kinda like if a Nucular Bomb from a dictatorship country has a probablility to fire at anytime, but you know that they most likely won't unless they had a few other countries backing them.
In the books, Saurman died in the Scorching of the Shire which was a whole story from the books that got left out due to time limitations for the films. Sorry that the whole situation wasn’t handled well, but the extended editions definitely create a fuller/better movie version of the story for sure- I love both the films and the books
I know right!!
I think the arc is anticlimatic for a movie. In fact, the ending of the movie is actually in the middle of the third book. You can't do that in a movie, so changes have to be done. And the last arc in the shire, when everybody says that Merry and Pippin have became taller than normal hobbits, it's the one that doesn't have a place as an epilogue of a movie. It is much more than a post credits scene, but less than a movie for itself. Maybe if it was a series, it could've been a chapter. In any case, I agree with you.
scouring, not scorching. as in cleaning it up
I am so glad they left Scorching of the Shire out of the movie. It was a weird decision to write that after the story is essentially done and it ruined the natural conclusion of the story. Movie-end flows way better.
@@MrProthall The flow of the movie is different from the book. Most of the changes are in the attempt to make a better movie, which is why I generally don't complain about them.
But the wrap-up of the books works, It's the same kind of gentle climb-down as The Hobbit. There... and back again. The contrast of Great Events vs the small, and in a sense how even the small are not unchanged by the great.
He wasn't cut. He was stabbed. Oh wait.
I'm afraid your not on point today
Bazinga
they shouldn't have trimmed the fat in this case.
The Extended, Extended version had Christopher Lee falling from a cliff.
I’ll just leave now and sorry for ruining everyone’s weekend with a bad, terrible joke. Good day sirs and madams
Oh great me hitting like turned this into 666 likes 😱
Just reminds me of the story where Peter Jackson tried to tell Lee how to act when stabbed and Chris asked him if he’d ever actually heard a man get stabbed, cause he did. Lmao an actual badass irl.
Yeah I saw that TH-cam clip too. Maybe Peter Jackson forgot Christopher Lee served in WW2 1941-1946, idk.
P.J. clearly was humbled to say the least!
@@bryguysays2948 Not humbled enough he cut the scene out
Yes and way back when Lee did Dracula has risen from the grave, he never makes a sound as he is impaled on the big sharp end gold cross. also.
I remember the story, Jackson wanted Saruman to scream when the knife went in, but Mr. Lee said, "do you know what happens when a man is stabbed in the back? I do." That made me realize that, in order to reach the heart from the back, the dagger has to first pass through the lung and deflate it. The victim does not have enough air to make anything but a slight sucking sound.
@@emmitstewart1921 But then again, Saruman is NOT human.
I gotta take Christopher’s side, that’s some BS with what they did with his character
can you explain
Yep
@@zukacs Saruman, the second most important villain of arguably the best trilogy of all time, was killed…offscreen, and not even mentioned in the final film of the trilogy. His death should have been included, even if it was early in the film, it was still there.
I didn't watch LOTR till I was probably in my teens (this was about 10 years ago) and my friend gave me 3 copies of the films (extended) so I watched them all and I thought everything made sense. I never knew of this drama till my friend mentioned it after I watched all 3. I didn't get to see the actual version where they just cut him out but I did see his death so I knew he was gone.
@@Ghtherich That’s the beauty of the extended cuts
Another detail that might add to the pain that this scene was cut: originally, Sir Lee was told to scream when his back is stabbed. And he refused to do that and said, if someone is stabbed, the person sharply inhales, but does not scream. He asked the team, if they ever had to whitness a person beeing stabbed, of course they said no. Unfortunately, he had to whitness such events during his service.
So they changed the scene to how it is now in the extended edition.
That made the scene really personal to him, since it triggered a lot of bad memories and he had to put a lot of his own trauma into it, I can imagine.
Seeing it landing on the cutting room floor must have hurt deeply.
you act as if not everybody knows about the stabbing-history of Lee.
@@AntiM1001 Not everyone does. Why do you have to be so stuck up, bro? The guy just came along, dropped some info for people to learn from, and you felt the need to try and crap on their effort? What has to go through your mind, for your neurons to activate and fire, for that to be the result of reasoning within your head? Really pathetic.
@@AntiM1001 What a silly statement. How could everyone know? lol
Whitness
Such a badass move, when he asked them if they ever had seen a person being stabbed which they hadn't and he had. Respect.
Sadly, the theatrical release of Return of the King is quite broken. Not only is Saruman ignored, the Witch King of Angmar tells the commander of the orcs that he will confront Gandalf personally... but never does. The Return of the King is the only LOTR film where the extended edition feels necessary, rather than as an extra bonus.
Agreed. While Fellowship and Towers are two of the greatest films ever, Return is a step below.
What's sad to me is they could have cut some of the slow-ass Treebeard stuff and put Saruman back in. We didn't need 40 minutes of Merry and Pippin on a tree.
Neither of these things ever felt like a serious flaw, and these cuts were a small price to pay for better pacing.
Yet the extended edition shits over the source material time and time again
@@my2randomcents There is no way to be 100% accurate. That is why it's called theatrical ADAPTATION, not transcription. Even if I love the book. A book's a book, a movie is a movie. You can't expect everything to follow 100% the same thread while changing the medium. It would be like trying to make a pencil drawing, except your tools are a brush and oil paint. Doable? Yes. Chances of success? Next to none.
I'm with Lee on the fact that it was a betrayal, and I also remember thinking it was really stupid to skip out on an ending for Saruman. As far as the extended versions being a cash grab, that's a hard disagree from me. The extended versions were as close to a complete story they could have done without adding events and characters that would have changed the story they had shown in theaters. I would consider it the complete version while the theatrical version was abridged to be more reasonable to sit through in theaters.
I think cashgrab in the sense that they took stuff out to entice people to buy the extended edition.
I hope Lee did see how many people watched the extended edition in the end and considered it the definitive edition
@@McDonaldsCalifornia Well when your already edited down versions are still nearly 3 hours, I'd say it's justified we as a viewer are still getting twice as much value for the same price as a lot of other films. As for cash grabs that change the story and add in new characters, we have but to look no further than *The Hobbit*.
Yeah I don't get this part, no idea why Christopher Lee was mad about this. He's was in the business for a long time already and should know that it's not 100% Jackson's decision to cut him out. 7 minutes are damn long and the cinema edition of the movie already cut down so much stuff. It's pretty sad, the SEE is the real version, but Jackson and co. weren't able to show it in cinemas back then.
@@McDonaldsCalifornia The extended editions were never cash grabs. The theatrical editions were paced for viewing at cinemas. The extended editions were planned from day one as the more complete versions for the fan base. Jackson makes this abundantly clear more than once in the supplementary material.
Sometimes the studios would require a set screen time like 120 minutes and won't allow a single minute to go over it. In those cases it's out of the director's control.
Going with Sir Christopher Lee here, 100 percent.
I was heartbroken as a kid, really. I can understand cutting the entire Tom Bombidal acid-trip from the films... but not The White Wizard.
Along the same lines, I'm *still* salty about completely cutting Sam's temptation from ROTK. That was his best scene in the entire book!
@@jasonblalock4429 yes. the sam’s temptation should be in, to show what a man Sam is. He stayed true till the end albeit the temptation.
@@terencevangaalen4127 Huh? Do you mean Boromir? Faramir lived to be 120.
@@terencevangaalen4127 YES. You don't need to belittle the men around Aragorn to make him look cool - he is already so cool. What was that weird "Oh no, he fell off the cliff!" addition anyway? No time for Saruman closure, but time for a whole weird horse guide side quest?
As a fan of the books long before seeing the movie I was disappointed Sauroman's death was cut from the story.
If they wanted to cut something they should cut out some of those CGI battles.
Spoiler alert: there were no elves at Helms deep in the books.
Something else from the 2 towers could have been cut and replaced with Sarumans death.
I love the movie but if you're thinking how do we trim it for a theatrical release, the battle for helms deep, the ents, the journey to Mordor, all of these parts of the movie surely combined have 7 minutes to spare a co main villains death.
I could sacrifice the segment of Legolas taking down the Oliphaunt - immersion breaking
Sarumandidnt die at ortbanc. He died in the Shire. Wormtongue cut his throat
@@maryosborne9952 Yes but the books and the movies aren't the same thing.
In the movies Saruman dies at Orthanc. The raising of the Shire never happens because it's not in the ending of the return of the king film and therefore Sarumans death in the movies is a very important event.
If you're watching the movies and haven't read the books what do you think happens to him? They just left a central villain of the trilogy in his tower and never spoke of it again.
Would it have fit in Two Towers, though?
@@isaacnikolic5895It's not important at all. His power is gone and he's beaten. He doesn't even need to die. They can deal with him later.
The only thing I found really odd in the theatrical cut.
Treebeard: _"But there is a wizard to manage here, locked in his tower."_
Gandalf: _"And there Saruman must remain, under your guard Treebeard"_
Gimli: _"Well, let's just have his head and be done with it."_
Gandalf: _"No. He has no power anymore."_
Me in the theater 2003: What? What do you mean no power? They are just gonna leave him there?
The scene in the extended cut wasn't even that long, but added a much needed resolution. They should have keept it in. I understand why Christopher Lee felt betrayed.
Right! Because of the lack of resolution, I was fully expecting him to show up again throughout the movie. I hadn't even read the books and didn't know about the Scouring of the Shire, but, well, obviously, *he's the main* (on-screen, unlike Sauron) *villain, and he was just in his tower, which never stopped him from being a threat before.* It ruined the climax of the movie for me because I never got the sense that the bad guys were defeated, never had that relief, I was waiting for the villain to appear and then the movie just ended.
Resolution with Saruman was needed for me to know to take the rest of the story at face value. Without it, I was denied many of the feelings the movie was supposed to invoke in me through the climax and ending, like the excitement of the final battle ("well, this is obviously not going to be the final battle because Saruman has still yet to come, so let's just get this short-lived victory overwith ... oh wait what) and the bliss and relief of victory, heartfeltness of the ending, etc.
It was *so* odd.
And also, "how the heck did Saruman's crystal ball end up in the water?" That didn't make sense either, and was another plot point I expected to be explained later in the movie.
Yup. I also don't buy the argument that it feels like wrapping up the previous movie instead of beginning RotK either. It gives more context to Pippin finding the palantir, which is basically the inciting incident that sends him and Gandalf off to Minas Tirith.
Again I feel that Peter Jackson and his team had very little choice in the matter, I mean yes one could fight to keep it in. But I can see Jackson being persuaded by the notion that IT IS Gonna be in the film's full version, but they need to get this film out to theatres and the studios are deeming the scene too long.
Never saw the extended cut and this was one the reasons. This movie was dumb after this part.
Before an epic story, after this just a regular movie with no respect for the fantasy world they created.
Because that's exactly what happened in the books. They left Saruman up in his tower with the Ents to watch him over. I. The end, the Ents ended up releasing him, because the Ents are fundamentally opposed to the idea of imprisoning people, and Saruman's voice was still very powerful, and could convince many to his cause. He then went north, where he is ran into on the Greenway on August 28 3019 heading north by Gandalf, Galadriel, and the hobbits. November 3rd of that year, he was revealed to be "Sharkey" who had taken over the shire, replacing Lotho Sackeville-Baggins as "Boss" of the Shire. He was then killed by Grima, after Frodo counselled that none should kill him, as while he is evil, he is still a wizard, and it isn't right for just anybody to judge him worthy of death.
I remember finding it really strange that Saruman's last scene in the theatrical cut of the trilogy was a two second shot of him looking out over his balcony. That's like Darth Vader disappearing in the middle of Empire, and then never shown or mentioned again.
it's to show how irrelevant he was to Sauron, how small he was and how powerless he was. we thought him someone to fear but really he's the one who should've been afraid. that's what I liked about watching him fall to his death betrayed by even his worm. shows how evil Sauron is that not even his once powerful allies were safe.
Sauron manipulated and used Saruman just as he was by Morgoth. The cycle of evil is forever continuous...
Darf
@@TheBorathon I'm a tit! 🤣
Kind of always enjoyed the idea that Saruman was stripped of his power and locked in his tower forevermore. It's a fate worse than death for him.
100% with Lee on this 1. It was just weird to see Saruman just dissapear. Poor choice of Jackson in my opinion.
Yeah, we have to ask: Is there no less relevant scene that could have been cut? Or maybe some details shortened a bit? Was there no indulgence in play length to be reduced a bit so that it wouldn't cause storytelling problems later?
That dumb sequence of Legolas shield skateboarding down the steps as he's shooting orcs at Helm's Deep etc That could've been cut, it added nothing to the film.
@@bigfatchubbybritboy9445 lmfao that's literally 10 seconds long tho...Saruman's death is like 6 minutes...as a director myself who works with producers daily I can unfortunately see the difficult spot Peter was in
The scene in which Gandalf says, "Saruman, your staff is broken" is the literal climax of The Two Towers book. It was bizarre to leave it out, and I remember leaving the theatre feeling crestfallen.
I’m glad it was cut. The CGI didn’t look great and it slows down the wheels going forward with the trilogy. I’d rather imagine him having lost his powers rather to see it literally,..
I have to agree with Lee on this, that scene should have been in the theatrical cut with Saruman and Wormtongue as it was awesome. You can see the people involved with the money making decisions (as if they were not going to make huge amounts anyway) saying if we keep that for the extended DVD people will be talking about it as the best scene to give as a reason to buy a extended edition.
I honestly never noticed this because I only watch the extended editions now. I remember reading a long time ago that Sean Bean went down to NZ just to film that scene after the battle of Osgiliath. The scene that really showed the stark difference of Denethor's relationship with Boromir vs Faramir as well as the relationship of the two brothers. That scene got cut for theatrical release but luckily was included in the extended edition. If I remember right, Bean was pretty upset about that. Also just want to say Lee was a legend, and I'm so glad he was able to be included in these films 💝
Haha stark difference
@@Armarta Meh... Sean Bean is a fine actor, man. He is a Christopher Lee in the making.
@@RaiceGeriko sure he is, I think you misunderstood my comment - I was chuckling at the pun: stark difference as in big difference between both roles, and stark difference between both roles as he plays a stark in one of them.
@@Armarta Ah
Only having watched that scene one can understand Boromir's relationship with Frodo, and his regrettable attempts at seizing the ring.
As someone who had only ever seen the extended version growing up, it wasn't until I was an adult that I realized there was a shorter version. Someone invited us over to watch LoTR and I was very confused about why it was so short and missing so many important scenes...
Why would anyone willingly watch the theatrical cut aside for posterity reasons these days? O_o
Eh, Sarument was weird, but the extended version has worse pacing than the original. Its just too much stuff crammed into a movie.
I still prefer the long version, but the cinema-version got some reasonable cuts.
Hope you read the books. The movies aren't even a third of the actual story.
@@planescaped Well Peter Jackson himself says that the theatrical release is the definitive edition of the film. The pacing is better, it's tighter and still tells the same story arc just as well, if not better (due to less meandering). And that's not my opinion, it's Peter Jacksons!
@@oliverwarren1074 Jackson's opinion is wrong. Just him trying to justify having a lesser version of the films in theaters.
Knowing that Christofer Lee is the kind of guy who stood so hard by his conviction in artistic projects like 'The Wicker man' that he played the role for free, it is criminal that they treated a character he played that way.
The dedication and commitment that he brought to his roles ... it is becoming a lost art form.
True
Well said sir.
"Criminal" lol that is a bit excessive
Film editing is not based on the dedication and commitment of the actors, fortunately.
Nowadays so called "actors" are people who assault others on stage in front of their peers and then accepts an award and is given a standing ovation from said peers.
My favorite character in the trilogy due to Lee's presence, he and the Witch King of Angmar deserved more screen time in my opinion.. RIP to the great Sir Christopher Lee
I'm so glad they reconciled during The Hobbit before Lee passed.
No matter what one thinks of the hobbit trilogy I’m glad they were brought together again
@@Betito1171 absolutely
@@Betito1171 And most people think they suck.
@@chatteyj "Most people" wouldn't be into Sir Christopher Lee's work in the music industry as a vocalist on metal albums, but he did it anyway and you can tell he loved doing it.
Too bad the Hobbit movies were such a mess
I can understand Jackson leaving out Tom Bombadil and the Barrow Downs since that is not essential to the course of the story. However to leave out the Scouring of the Shire which shows the destruction wrought by Saruman, subverts the whole thrust of Lord of the Rings, that in war everyone loses, there are no real winners. The world they all knew has passed away, like the world Tolkein knew before the First World War.
Excising that insufferable Tom Bombadil was, by far, the best decision Jackson made. And this Saruman intrigue was probably the worst.
None of the "movie length" explanations work with LotR, because everyone knows/knew that it's an EPIC and simply was **going to be** long, no matter how you slice it (pun intended). This is especially true when you compare it to how Jackson bloated "The Hobbit" into 3 severely overwrought films that he attempted to "co-write" with Tolkien (what arrogance, to think he had anything to ADD to the genius of Tolkien's work!!!!) The Hobbit could have been neatly told in two concisely edited films that **stuck to the frickin' original story** and reined in the unnecessary "Hollywood action sequences"!! Jackson gave back a considerable amount of the good will he earned with LotR, with the way he completely f***ed up The Hobbit. He should have known that his only contributions in editing could be made by omission (Tom Bombadil), not by ADDition.
Agreed about Tom, ambivalent on the scouring of the Shire. Screenwriting makes it difficult to explain the ideals portrayed in the written form. It would've taken at least another hour to properly flesh that out.
@@Stiglr Tom Bombadil only ever adds to the scale and wonder of the world. I believe him to be an essential part of LOTR and the world that Tolkien created. However, it would not fit well in a movie, I can agree with you on that. But Tom is far from insufferable, and has every reason to play a part in LOTR as everything else does.
@@AUGSpeed42 What demigod needs to wear yellow galoshes? Please. Bombadil was pure frolicking stupidity, and about the only foot Tolkien put wrong in his creation of Middle Earth.
Reason is obvious. The climax of the trilogy was getting to Mordor and destroy the ring. That was the moment three movies build towards. To then add a scourging of the shire and battle after that would feel anti-climactic. The story didn't need more action after the destruction of the ring. The arc was complete. I think they made a good choice not to include it. Frodo being affected and leaving the Shire was emotional enough for the general audience, it didn't require the entire Shire getting scourged.
Christopher Lee was right though, if the Scouring of the Shire was to be cut, then Saruman's death needed to be the finale of Two Towers. If the film was two long something else needed to be cut. The compromise of moving it, was a bad idea taken to put off a hard decision, which is always a mistake.
A few minutes of the battle of Helm's Deep could have most definitely been cut. That's such a bloated scene...
@@AdamFloro nah, cut some unnecessary scenery panning shots. Battle of Helm's deep was dope af
While I agree that Christopher Lee was right in regards to Saruman's death being the best way to end two towers, I do disagree with him blaming Jackson for it. People believe that the Director has final say but he doesn't. The production companies have final say. They are paying for it and if they disagree strongly enough they can stop production entirely. Given Jackson's passion for LoTR, I can't imagine him wanting it to be anything other than the best adaptation possible and The Two Towers ending with Saruman's death makes the most sense if you're not gonna do the Shire being raided. In this way, the Two Towers end with one Tower falling and a definitive direction and focus being placed on Gondor and Mordor moving forward.
Edit: Plus ending with the battle of Helms deep feels like a studio decision.
@@mikecabral2420 Christopher Lee certainly did blame Jackson. Given his huge experience in films, I suspect he understood the complexities of who decided what. I don't think Jackson himself, ever passed the buck on it either.
The fact that Jackson thought he could make a trilogy from 'The Hobbit' showed he was more than capable of making bad decisions.
Funny thing is, as a many-time reader of the books, I distinctly remember not expecting to see Saruman die at Orthanc. It was only after realizing that the scouring of the Shire had been omitted that I realized what a horrible loose end had been created. My cynical side immediately expected this was to use Saruman as a villain in further stories. I had no idea it had ended up on the cutting room floor.
As much as I consider The Return of the King to be a masterpiece, I thought it was awkward the way the theatrical version hand-waved Saruman's defeat.
It’s nowhere near a masterpiece for this and many other reasons. It’s actually the most overrated of fantasy epics, and the flaw being discussed here is devastating.
*There really is NO villain in this film.* He died offscreen. Lol. That’s not a minor problem, sorry.
@@summertyme5748 *"There really is NO villain in this film."*
Gollum? Denethor? Witch-king of Angmar? Sauron???
@@michaelstrong5383 Denethor feasting while his son and men go on an impossible, deadly mission is one of my favorite scenes
@@dianebrooks1859 I had chills with the song Pippin sang to him as he's eating.
@@michaelstrong5383 I've seen that scene so many times throughout the years. Even so it still have me chills on our last EE rewatch a few weeks ago
Only the extended cut matters. The quality and importance of that Saruman scene is perhaps the biggest reasons why.
Gandalf broke Saruman's staff, not realizing he still was the Man with the Golden Gun...
Wat?
He played the man with the golden gun in the similarly name 007 Bond film
@@harveypotts2432 Youngsters!
@@Serjo777 yes, he played Francisco Scaramanga. Known for his love of physically flawed hand guns, Giant death rays, Midgets and tthe fact he has three nipples👍
@@HeSoldScrollsLowAndBehold Christopher Lee was also taken in for questioning when he tried to board a plane with the prop gun in his luggage
After having read the books for decades, I missed many things. Tom Bombadil for one, but for me the most important omission was the battle of the Shire with Saruman's reappearance as Sharkie and his subsequent demise. Sam's replanting of the decimated Shire using Galadriel's gift was another that was missed. If you don't recognise these events at the end of the stories then READ THE BOOKS!
Even the BBC left out the Tom Bombadil scenes when adapting LOTR for the audio book on CDs...
It has always irked me that Jackson replaced Lady Galadriel's magic seeds with "herbs for a roast chicken". Even without the Scouring of the Shire, consummate gardener Samwise Gamgee could have made good use of those seeds.
When I first watched FOTR in the theater, it also irked me that Aragorn just handed the daggers to the Hobbits, rather than having to acquire them from the Barrows. Lore-wise, the daggers' origin was very important - it's why Merry was able to injure the Witch King in ROTK.
I do understand cutting Tom Bombadil though; it's just unfortunate that book-relevant lore has to be glossed over. Then again, the legendary weapons of Glamdring and Sting were just randomly pulled out of a troll hoard.
@@tinydog1234 the gift included a box of soil to help and that was important to the recovery of the shire. That box got turned into a box of salt.
Tom Bombadil would've ruined the movie. The thing that is really missing to make the whole thing make sense would be them finding the Westernesse blades, but then they are saved from the Barrow Wights by Tom so maybe thats why its not there, Tom Bombadil is not good movie materia, it makes sense in the book, if they put him in the movie it would slow things too much, all his gibberish about his wife, you coudl'nt fit that.
@@DaniboyBR2
Bombadil could have been adapted into a character who was light hearted and merry on the surface, but hard as iron underneath. Like the British characters in 19th and early 20th century fiction who left the Empire, married a local woman, and "went native" because they were sick of war and intrigue. They were happy in their new lives, but retained that hard veteran soldier personality under the surface.
Saruman was one of the best movie villains of all time. Christopher Lee performance was just perfect and once in a lifetime, just like the whole trilogy. Watching him bringing Saruman alive into the movie was one of the highlights of the movie. It won’t be the same without him and it would make the third movie even better that it already was. The man is a natural talent for the craft of acting. Haven’t seen any other actor pulling off a villainous role like him since LOTR and Star Wars episode 2. That’s just prove how good and legendary he is in these unforgettable roles.
I don’t blame Lee at all. It was a damn good scene too.I remember being confused as to where he went at the end of Two Towers. The theatrical cut of Saruman slinking back into Isengard and never seen again is just not narratively satisfying enough for how built up his character had been.
the book version is better - Saruman and Grima escape Isengard and make their way to the shire - thus the "Scourging of the Shire" - if you have not read the books - you should...
Yes, he was hyped as a good white mage who betrayed them and turn his allegiance to sauron. Saruman was the bid bad guy in two tower, so i was confused to as to what happened to the character, i assumed he either escaped to make a comeback im the last film or died in the assault of the ents.
One of my big questions at the end of RotK was "what happened to Saurman?" When I received the extended edition of TTT, I thought that scene was both one of the best performed and critical to the story. That is one of Jackson's only mistakes making that trilogy.
Yeah it doesn’t feel out of place at all.
Ever since the end of The Two Towers I always asked what happened to Saurman?
I give the movie maybe a 9/10 and if Sarumans death were in it, I'd give it a 10.
Yes and no. The closure war really missing, but then we got that frankly comedic flip-and-impale ending. Would have been better if he just fell into the water with a final shot of his lifeless eyes.
At the time, after Two Towers was released my friends and I thought Sauraman (and Grima) were being saved for their big twist at the end of the Return of the King book, where they attack the Shire after the Hobbits go to return. It was not to be. But, it still worked.
Wasn't Saruman supposed to show up and enslave the Shire at the end of Return of the King fulfilling Galadriel's prophecy. The Hobbits, having just returned and emboldened by their adventures overthrow him ultimately having Wormtongue stab him. I'm not sure if this is in the book which I never got through, as I saw it in a play, but way too many comments to tell if someone mentioned this. If they had removed all the slow-mo at the end they could have fit it in the runtime surely.
You're absolutely right. It's a brilliant twist in the penultimate chapter of The Return of the King - The Scouring of the Shire. Saruman, robbed of his power by Gandalf and imprisoned in the Tower of Orthanc with Treebeard as gaoler, escapes with Grima and together go to the Shire to wreak revenge on the Ring bearer's country.
Understandable, I suppose, that PJ changed the story - the dramatic dynamic of the last film with this part of the tale in it would have been difficult to manage, but a great shame.
In the film of course the Shire remains unchanged and the inhabitants utterly ignorant of all the drama that's unfolded.
That’s the ending in the book for sure. But I don’t think the run time is return of the king could have supported another epic battle for the shrine after everything that already had happened leading to it. Most movie stories like this always round off the way the movie ended it, peaceful and clam.
Out of all the changes made for the sake of making the books into movies, this is the only one I've never been able to come to grips with.
The Scouring of the Shire also shows off the military potential of the hobbits.
I was pretty disappointed at its exclusion.
You are correct. At the end Sam uses the dirt he received in a box as a gift from Galadriel to repair the Shrine fields
Lee was also a HUGE Hobbit/LOTR fan, reading the books every year. He knew the characters and the story inside and out. That's hard to argue with successfully.
The argument would be that Peter Jackson directed the three greatest movies of all time.
@@anonlukes5447 which ones lol
@@anonlukes5447 lmao “greatest” that is the definition of a subjective statement.
@@anonlukes5447 Not even close. They are great movies though.
@@anonlukes5447 They were fine
In fairness, an important characters death being cut is a big deal to the film, not *just* the actor. There are plenty of other scenes that could have been trimmed to make space in run time.
Yes, practically all of Arwen's scenes, and the elves arriving at Helm's Deep. They were fantasy additions to an already fantasy world.
Was very disappointed that Return of the King did not have the hobbits win back the Shire from Sauraman and his goons at the end, without the help of elves, dwarves, wizards, or men. It was one of the good points I think Tolkien had brought home in his books, that the hobbits (and perhaps those of us in our comfortable lives) are capable of a lot more than we think we are.
That was quite disapointing.
Of all the changes Peter Jackson made to the story, that was one I had the least trouble stomaching. I like your interpretation, but it's such an obvious thing to cut from a rhythm standpoint. You've already reached the climax of the movie at the point where the One Ring is destroyed, and with what was left in the movie, it still took Peter Jackson a long time to wrap it up. In today's age, I feel like it might have been referenced, briefly, and then they might have released a streaming-only mini-series about the Scouring of the Shire, or as a bonus feature in the Super-Deluxe Extended Blu-ray cut.
Once the Ring is destroyed, the audience wants you to wrap it up. That’s the difference between movies and books. That’s why the whole Scouring of the Shire sequence would’ve been too anticlimactic.
@@adamzanzie Exactly. People were complaining that the original theater cut at 3:23 was too long. The extended version is something like 4:10. If they had done the scouring of the shire it would have been at least 5 hours long. No modern audience is going to sit through all that.
I was expecting to see "The scouring of the Shire" in the last movie, though I think that it might not of been good for the movie if they had included it. It might of been seen as an anti-climax.
I tend to agree with Lee on this - they never should’ve cut that scene. I remember being disappointed that it was gone when the movie first came out in theaters. Peter Jackson should’ve known that millions of Tolkien fans were expecting to see it.
Actually, this scene is something millions of Talkien fans wouldn't have expected. To some extent, many fans would find it a reasonable explanation for the theatrical version, if the studio just decided to cut the arc where Saruman took over the Shire.
Peter Jackson cut the "Scourging of the Shire", Saruman & Wormtongue didn't die after the defeat at Isengard.
Remember the "being faithful to the books"?
So you should NOT have expected a Hollywood ending for Saruman. Nor the awful extended Disney style ending of Return of the King which misrepresented Tolkien's work
@@RobBCactive ain't no way you just called the ending of RoTK awful and "disney". Ease up, snob sob.
@@RobBCactive But it did bring many people to read the books.
@@Eustres true the films did, but the OP was ironically complaining about the cutting of a "made up" non-canon scene saying "millions of fans expected to see it" which makes no sense at all pre-directors cut box set. Nobody decided to read the books because Saruman's death was cut or included.
I had to have a go at Return of the King which was extremely disappointing, missing Tolkien's prosaic point about post-war/saga effects on participants, so much better than the "and they all lived happily after" easy crapola copout.
4:33 This is no mere Eragon. He is Aragorn, son of Arathorn. You owe him your allegiance.
Aragorn? This is Isildur’s heir?
I knew him as Strider...
...recently returned from service as weapons officer on board the USS Alabama
@@owensims7491 I love that movie!
It may have been worth mentioning that even the extended version's ending for Saruman is much different than the end of the book. Although in both instances it is Wormtongue who stabs him, the timing, location, and context are completely different
I was thinking the same thing. How can you claim "the scene was originally from the book 'The Two Towers'" when, no, it wasn't. ?
Which is why 99% of the time the book is always better than the movie whatever the title is.
@@couchwarrior2449 The Witcher game series is one time where the video games were better than the book though. :P
@@planescaped Arguably
@@planescaped I loved both, even though the game was what hooked me into the Witcher franchise, being my first game I played multiple hundred hours, the books are what kept me immersed into the story and world, and only through them could I understand the game properly. If you read a lot of books, the writing style is incredibly refreshing and new, keeping the already amazing story aside, the framework around it is one of it's kind.
As a game, the Witcher series is incredible, as a book, it is as well. Neither is really better than the other, as you can't really compare them, but both excel in what they're supposed to do
The extended versions are just so essential. I wish there were extended versions of the extended versions.
I wish the proper ending were included.
Read the books, even more essential.
I didn't know Sir Christopher Lee started acting at age 40. That's amazing that a man like him that had no acting roles in his youth he would rise to become one of the most famous actors in the world and play Dracula, Count Doku and Saruman! It proves that you should always chase your dreams.
Lee's problem was his size. He was standing at a peak height of 196 centimeters when he was younger and therefore had severe trouble finding minor roles in a movie, because he was just way taller than most of the lead actors. Nowadays movie makers don't give a damn about this but in the 60's it was, unfortunately, a big deal.
@@zumogerstubchen2340 its actually still a big deal today. Watch Top Gun or Fast and Furious as examples. You'll see all the camera angles taken to make sure Tom cruise and Vin diesel don't look like manlets. All for actor ego or to make sure a scene doesn't look ridiculous
@@zumogerstubchen2340 It was different times. Today an actor like Sir Christopher Lee could be casted to play George Joestar I, Jonathan Joestar, George Joestar II, Dio Brando, Joseph Joestar in a live action series if the actor would be 196 cm, British and buff. And it would be amazing, having such a great actor portray those characters.
@@universalspaceexpeditioner8259 shut up
just shut up
That is a oversimplification... He acted... just not in major roles. In fact you could argue that Sir Christopher had been acting even during his military career; he was, after all, a member of Special Operations Executive (the precursor to MI6 in some ways).
Having watched the extended editions, as much as I love them, I agree with most of what they chose to cut for the theatrical releases as far as pacing goes. But they should've never cut this scene for the theatrical release. It makes no sense that Saurumon just disappears from the story and is never spoken of again.
Yeah the only closure you get is that gandalf says he has no more power anymore or something, I think one of the hobbits or gimli wanted to kill sauroman lol
Yeah, the extended editions had a lot of scenes that shouldn’t have been in it, including some where the cgi did not hold up at all, even at the time of release.
But a few of the scenes should never have been cut.
They basically cut Saruman's stories and pray audience wont notice, usual post production f-up
It’s amazing that Jackson also made the Hobbit movies, where he made so so many mistakes he conscientiously avoided in LoTR. Like starting the third movie by wrapping up the second one…
The Hobbit films were plagued with problems, starting with the fact that there were three of them. That book is not long enough to be 3 films. Most of the stuff that was added is just crappy filler that's obviously there to pad out the run time and milk more money from moviegoers. It should have been no more than two films, or maybe even just one long film.
And it really felt like Peter Jackson phoned in the whole thing after maybe the first film.
@@SithCats spoken like someone who doesnt even know how to turn on a camera on his phone and a total idiot
@@SithCats the Hobbit trilogy was plagued with studio interference and that ruined it
@@SithCats The Hobbit should have been two films that corresponded to the two books, LOTR should have been six films that corresponded to the six books. That would have been the perfect balance in both cases.
Jackson wasn't supposed to direct the Hobbit films in the first place. He pretty much stepped up to save the project.
i wish they would release a comprehensive full cut of all that they filmed (such as Faramir and ÉOwyn's wedding). These films are a masterclass in filmmaking and I watch them every year
Having not watched the theatrical versions since they were in theatres, I'd forgotten that Saruman's death wasn't included. I think for most fans, the extended cuts have become the standard viewing experience and Saruman's full arc remains intact. Hopefully that might serve as some consolation...
I know it's not Peter Jackson's fault alone, but I'm with Christopher Lee on that one. I think he was a fine Sir, not only in title but also attitude, and deserved to have his arguably most famous character's final scene included in the premiere.
Saruman dragging Aragorn’s patchy lineage is good tee-up for Return of the King
That said, the whole commerce vs storytelling angle Lee argued from kinda peels apart for 3 Hobbit films
What is amazing is that scene with Lee is so key, so essential ... I do not even remember the movie without it by now! I mean if the theatrical release was missing the scene I just do not remember it. I remember him and that scene and his death. The extended cut has become THE movie and the theatrical release is a forgotten has been. I know Jackson thought he was doing the right thing but without that scene the second movie is incomplete. You never find the movie shown anywhere without it.
I’m just sad they didn’t give Saruman his Scouring of the Shire role.
It was another one of those unfortunately cut sequences with the only mention of the Scouring being in Galadriel's mirror. I would have loved to meet movie Tom Bombadil, but again, that didn't happen.
@@janeenschultz8502
I can see why both were removed. Tom Bombadil was a... sidequest of sorts; for all of his power, he doesn't play into the subsequent story whatsoever, his biggest "impact" later on is Gandalf making a joke about him hypothetically losing the Ring. If anything could be cut for run time reasons, it was that.
The Scouring of the Shire, meanwhile... I might be a little biased, in that I only read the books after seeing the movies, but it struck me as an out-of-place story beat. The climax is the battle at the gates and the destruction of the One Ring in Mount Doom. To follow the characters back to the Shire expecting the story to wind down, but instead get this extra plot point, it felt narratively unbalanced.
Neither was inherently bad writing in the books, but movies work better with a tight, disciplined narrative structure, and both of those removals improved it in that sense.
Ultimately it ruins the point of the entire movie trilogy cutting out the scouring of the Shire and ending it on a happy note as if everything was AOK and they lived happily ever after when anyone who's ever read the books knows better.
@@badlydrawnturtle8484 The point of the scouring of the Shire is that you may defeat evil but you will do so at a cost. The most important thing about the scouring of the Shire is that yes they won but even if they work at it for the rest of their lives the Shire will never be what it was when they left
@@deadend1041
And that is an interesting, complex message for a book directed at an intellectual audience. Not a movie for the general public, which needs, as I said, a tight, focused narrative structure. And I'm pretty sure Tolkien would disagree with the notion that the Scouring of the Shire was the "whole point".
They maintain the "at a cost" thing by emphasizing Frodo's mental scars, but give some hope back to the audience because depressing endings are depressing, no matter how many literary accolades you get for making them. The book version isn't sacred. Tolkien didn't make the perfect, unalterable tale. Ask yourself whether you're ultimately criticizing the change because it's legitimately a worse version of the story, or because it's a change and changes feel insulting to the "true fans". If it's the latter, get over yourself. Stories can, and should be, altered and improved upon.
not me being confused then remembering that I've only seen the extended editions
Yeah same, I'm not old enough to have watched and remembered watching the films in theaters. I watched it with my dad who only watched the extended versions.
I grew up with the extended edition and was shocked to learn Saruman's death wasn't part of the regular edition!
Same !!
With a story like LotR the extended cuts actually help reduce that bloat as scenes have time to settle in, and take form, while also letting cut stuff back in.
The original cuts felt bloated because they had to deal with those time constraints, and I am thankful that we got the extended version.
The most retarded argument I have ever read. Even if you want to argue that most of the extended scenes are good and necessary (they’re not, they’re mostly cringe and filler) then bloated would still be the wrong word to use. Bloated literally refers to something having TOO much. Saying something feels bloated because it has too little is a logical absurdity.
Fun fact about the scene: Christopher Lee used his military knowledge while filming this scene accurately. When he is stabbed, Peter Jackson originally wanted Saruman to yell out in pain in a very theatrical way, but Christopher chimed in and said that in war, when you stab someone in the back, there is no scream. Only small grunts and silence. That was the take Peter agreed with and is in the scene.
To this day I've never actually seen the theatrical editions of LOTR.
Normally Id say you wouldnt miss much, but in this case you would actually be missing a lot
Same
Extended DVDs for the win
Same lol
The Theatrical films are amazing on their own. But the true experience is the Extended Edtions. I totally would love one day to just watch the whole extended trilogy in a theatre.
And I've never watched the extended editions, as I refuse to be blackmailed to pay for something that should have been included in the theatrical cut.
Can’t get enough of these, been binging Nerdstalgic videos like crazy.
Spread the word!
ikr. got randomly recommended then just can't stop watching. btw it's 3 am here.
Growing up not watching the extended version, I was always confused by what happened to the main, actually physically, bad guy. Like he just disappeared! Definitely with Christopher Lee on this one, at the very least from a storytelling point, if not more
Lee took his Lord of the Rings very seriously and knew that the book's ending for Saruman was a vital part of "The Hero's Journey" framework, specifically the part where the hero returns to where his story began, but as a changed man (erm, Hobbit) and uses what he's learned on his journey to put things right at home. It's the closure of the circle and the story is incomplete without it.
Basically, Saruman IS the villain of the trilogy - Sauron never shows - so it makes zero sense to simply "forget" the character two thirds of the way through. I appreciate that the structure of Tolkein's book presents major problems with adaptation, but I still think Jackson should've recognized the importance of Saruman and "The Scouring of The Shire" to the overall story and found a way to divide the material between the films differently to make it work.
Totally agree, the Hobbits left inexperienced and from all their trial's, they brought back much courage and experience, to save their homeland; I think that this was a major aspect of Tolkien's story, being in the trenches of World War 1 himself, which means the films though enjoyable to have been produced, the so called artistic licence, to me, changed the spirit of the work.
@@johnobrien7626 That's right. It's an incredibly important part of the overall story. It shows that The Shire isn't immune to events in the wider world, and it's also Frodo's main heroic moment. Without that ending, Frodo is quite a weak character who basically fails the quest and only succeeds accidentally. But with the Shire ending, he's redeemed - we see how he's grown as a person, how he's no longer like the other Hobbits who have meekly accepted Sharkey's rule. We see him organise a successful battle against Sharkey's men and then choose - by his own free will this time - not to kill Saruman but to pity him instead.
Heck, what annoys me most about Jackson losing the book's ending is that he included the clues to that ending in his films, just dropped the pay-off. It's established that Saruman has a weakness for pipeweed, then Merry and Pippin find barrels of Shire pipeweed in the wreckage of Saruman's tower - a huge tip-off that Saruman has more connections with The Shire than they realise and that it's a likely choice for where he'll go after he's evicted from his tower.
You do realize that the last movie was already over 3 hours. It would have been very difficult for them to include the portion of scouring of the shire. Maybe if they had made 6 movies instead of 3, this would have been viable.
@@AnkhArcRod imho The Scouring of the Shire is far more important to the overall story than, for example, mooting around with Treebeard, Faramir taking Frodo on a wholly-invented side-journey to Osgiliath, raising ghost-armies in Dunharrow, etc. Nips and tucks could certainly have been made. It's a strange choice to simply drop the Saruman story half-way but keep those things.
The pacing and structure of The Lord of the Rings books do not make for a natural and easy fit with the standard 3-act template that we expect from movies. I fully appreciate the adaptation difficulties.
But if Peter Jackson had tried to cover a little more ground in Parts 1 and 2 - and added less of his own invented material - he would've had ample time for more plot-critical matters such as doing Saruman justice and ending the story properly.
No, the ring is the villain. And it gets destroyed, it's a classic theme.
I'm inclined to agree with Lee on this one. The way the theatrical versions were cut, it felt like Sauruman's arc just stopped without really having a conclusion. It felt like a gip. I know what happened to him in the book is vastly different but that part wasn't in the movie either so... yeah. lol feels incomplete
If I could watch extended extended editions that were 6 hours each I would be quite happy. Make the trilogy a solid week long.
Never really bothered me in the teatherical cut.
It just seemed fitting that the man who betrayed his mission because he got persuaded by power was now forced to be locked inside Orthanc with the forest he decided to ravage being his jailors. Him being stabbed by Wormtongue who then just gets killed by Legolas felt like a odd scene either way, them both just being nicely written out of the story in one swoop without any interesting consequences.
I agree. There are lots of issues with that scene (like how Theodan can communicate with Grima who is standing almost a thousand feet above him) but the one problem I do have with the theatrical version is why the Palantir is in the water. Like how did it get there?
Peter Jackson trying to make up to Christopher Lee only to make the situation more insulting with each attempt is sketch comedy at it's finest.
I saw a doco about the making of a Hollywood blockbuster once (it may even have been about Lord of the Rings), which contained the comment that it was like laying down the track for an express train while it was thundering towards you. Once you realised you'd missed an opportunity, you couldn't back the train up for another go.
In artistic terms, leaving Saruman's death in the film was about telling the story the best way possible, not about reconciliation between friends. Peter Jackson has always seemed a decent person to me. I'm sure he regretted the artistic failure but regretted more the deep and lasting hurt he caused Christopher Lee.
The extended versions of the Lord of the Rings feel like they're the editor's best version of the films - they don't feel like deleted scenes were thrown back in for the sake of sales. It's clear that the theatrical cuts are ONLY shorter for the sake of cinema run times. The Hobbit extended cuts on the other hand...
But the majority of the clips added into the extended editions weren't actually all that useful for the story. Really the only one that was really cool was the diplomat from Mordor who Aragorn chopped the head off of in the last movie's extended edition. The scene with Saruman being killed was okay, but the movie worked either way. Many of the clips, like Frodo talking about the elves walking by in the first movie or Merry and Pippen eating the food that made them grow slightly after the battle of Isengaurd, made the movie worse in the extended edition.
I saw the extended version of the third film. It was painfully boring.
@@greywolf7577 The movie didn't work for me either way. There was no resolution with Saruman in theatre, so I kept waiting for him to show up. Ruined any sense of immediate danger or importance to the battles, because I knew "this can't be the final battle, Saruman has yet to show up"...
@@greywolf7577 Wierdly enough, your example of a good scene was the one where Aragorn commits a war crime. Terrible scene.
the Hobbit movies is where Jackson truly fell from grace in my eyes. The ONE book he extends past one movie, it's the one that genrally could have fit into one goddamn movie. 2 if he had to stretch it. I swear there is more filler and stuff in those movies than actual plot from the book
There were a lot of cuts that Jackson made from the books to the movies, and most of them I agreed with.
But I side with Lee here: Jackson absolutely did Saruman dirty.
Well saw both versions and Saruman should have had the extended version in the second movie ,made sense for second movie story arc.
As a massive Tolkien fan and a film editor, I fully understand Jackson’s dilemma. Run time is such a massive part of the decisions of getting to the final cut. Perhaps one who hasn’t worked in an edit bay for hours on end wouldn’t understand. The A Story (the quest to destroy the One Ring) is the master and everything else must help move the A story forward. If there’s doubt then it can be considered to end up on the cutting room floor.
This is why I can't stand Peter Jackson or his fans. There were THREE HOURS of added content to those films - mostly rubbish no one ever talks about that detracted from the story. Yet people like you always trot out this tired line of "oh it is so difficult to cut stuff" - it is only difficult if you add your dreary fanfiction and can't discipline your scriptwriters to stick to adapting the original text.
Get off your high horse bud.
@@archvaldor Never get tired of reading book purists whining. Since when did Tolkien LOTR book fans become such cry babies, and take personal offense to the films because of insignificant changes that overall worked to the films benefit.
Jackson found plenty of time for crap additions. Like the Hobbit, LOTR needs a Tolkien edit - it won't save third-rate showrunners or producers, but it will make the material fit for the next generation of fans.
I understand why several important and intense parts were not included in the movie. For example, the "trilogy" - the Old Forest, Tom Bombadil and the Barrow-Downs. It requires at least one extra hour or more. But I can't accept some significant changes such as Sauron's appearance, the wrong-mood scenes in the Prancing Pony, Balrog's appearance and others. It could be done just like in the books.
I mean….it’s small consolation, but, since these came out when I was a kid, when I actually got into them, my family only owned the extended editions, so I thought that the extended editions were the actual cut. I still struggle to watch the non-extended editions to this day, it feels like skipping several stairs on a staircase.
Read the books and you'll find both versions unwatchable.
you can tell a lot about a man, by the expectations he has for others. Lee expected Peter to be true to his word, and for artistic integrity to prevail.
The scene was absolutely needed. As a kid not having read the books, I just wondered what ever happened to Saruman?
Eh i dunno, i was the theatrical cut dozens of time and it was made clear what was his fate: being forever à prisonner of his own castle, watched by the very nature he took joy in destroying.
@@Waltersop yeah I never wondered what happened to him either. I just thought "well he's lost"
Understandable. But a director can't make hundreds of people equally happy.. It's a shame. Id want more saruman rather than treebeard
Did we really need to see him shoot a fireball, have his staff break with wonky CGI, and then fall and get impaled? No. We didn't. It's great to see it in the extended edition. But I never for a moment thought it was missing when I saw Return of the King in the cinema five times in 2004.
Did you idiots even watch the theatrical cuts? It’s made perfectly obvious what happens to him.
Lee and his VOICE as Saruman is something I will never forget. Absolutely brilliant
I actually like that Saruman's death sequence was put to the beginning of the third movie. I kind of subverts the audience's expectations in a good way. However, I think it was major injustice to Lee to only include it in the DVD release. So I completely understand his disappointment and boycott. When I saw The Return of the King first time in a movie theatre, I was actually confused why Saruman was not shown at all and only briefly mentioned by Gandalf. It left me wondering what happened to him. The scene really should have been included in the theatrical release, too.
I’ve never seen the theatrical cut. I’ve only ever seen the extended cut.
Saruman basically disappears from the theatrical editions after he tells the Uruk Hai to go to Helm's Deep. You seem him for five seconds looking out his tower when the Ents attack, but his last line of dialogue in the theatrical cuts is in the middle of Two Towers.
I only saw the theatrical version of each one time, when they came out in theaters. After that I waited till the extended DVD's came out and watched them numerous times. Eventually upgraded to a Blu-Ray + Digital copy when I got it for a steal of a price. I honestly don't remember what wasn't in the extended versions at this point.
One thing glaringly omitted from your commentary was that not only was Lee the only person to have actually met Tolkien from the cast or crew of the film, but he was also a HUGE fan of the books himself and knew more arguably than anyone about them as he habitually ready them once a year for decades.
It was shameful that Sarumans final demise was omitted,and an insult to such a beloved actor as Christopher Lee,who breathed life into the character so magnificently,it was also very disappointing for the audience.
Definitely on Lees side. Lee was a phenomenal talent AND even though he was celebrated I still think he was underrated
And we can all see he put a lot of passion and efforts given his age at that time into saruman.
I was disappointed to see the hobbits go back to the Shire and everything was normal. In the book, Saruman took over the Shire and turned it into a wasteland. The hobbits had to rally everyone and force him out. I would have loved to see that on screen.
Reason is obvious. The climax of the trilogy was getting to Mordor and destroy the ring. That was the moment three movies build towards. To then add a scourging of the shire and battle after that would feel anti-climactic. The story didn't need more action after the destruction of the ring. The arc was complete. I think they made a good choice not to include it. Frodo being affected and leaving the Shire was emotional enough for the general audience, it didn't require the entire Shire getting scourged.
@@Planetdune Yeah, totally agree, that is why adaptation when changing medias is required. What work on books does not always work on movies.
But I also didn't like the Saruman's end of the expanded edition. I would liked it much more if they haven't change his story.
They could have kept it but without showing, just a mention from Frodo on the epilogue of the movie:
"When returning home not everything was as expected, we had to deal with an old enemy we thought was gone, but that is a story for another time".
This would have left things open for another movie if they wanted.
@@diguss Good idea!
When I get a time machine, one of the first things I'll do is to convince Peter Jackson (and the studio) to use your suggestion. After I got to talk to Benjamin Franklin and tell him that the current flows from negative to positive electric poles, of course. Gotta have priorities.
Yes, Wormtongue threw the palantir at Gandalf and they were locked into the tower. Sarumon escaped to become Sharkey, only to be stabbed in the back by Wormtongue. Sad...so sad an ending
If they had made 4 films instead of 3, it could've been worked. As people say, in movies it would've been anti climatic. Actually, in the book is quite anticlimatic, because the destruction of the ring is the end of the book 5 and then you have the book 6 telling you this story among others (Frodo going with the elves and this stuff). They decided to cut this the same they cut Tom Bombadil or they mixed Glorfindel into Arwen and Imrahil into Aragorn (I think).
Peter Jackson: cuts Lee's character death from the final movie of the trilogy.
George Lucas: Fine, I'll dew it myself.
Cutting the death scene of a movie's main villain is one of the dumbest decisions in cinema history.
“The fellowships ultimate enemy” - Saruman
Middle earths ultimate enemy - Sauron
Isnt Morgoth the bigest enemy?
@@gospaironija2762 Morgoth is an equal opportunity villain, he wants to conquer everything. Sauron could only attack Middle Earth because he was too weak for the Valar.
@@Rosula_D yes he is the n. 1 evil by far, Sauron is his student
Yeah, but Morgoth is imprisoned in the void until the end of time, so he isn't exactly the biggest threat in the Third Age.
@@gospaironija2762 Morgoth is pretty much the enemy of everything, hence "Morgoth".
I feel bad for Lee. He had his character get killed at the beginning of the third film in a trilogy not once but TWO times. Both Star Wars and and LoTR.
One thing not mentioned is that the ending they filmed, extended version or otherwise, was entirely different than the books. The event towards the very end of the books - the Scouring of the Shire - is considered one of the main morality lessons of the entire trilogy of books. Yet it was totally cut out of the movies and Saruman was simply stabbed in the back much earlier on.
It was obvious the scouring was gonna be removed. It just woudn't work in a movie. It barely does in the book, in terms of pacing.
@@fernandoerbin6751 So it wasn't about the story being told or the epic nature of 20 odd years of work coming together, it's about the pacing for you... okay... I don't respect anyone who thinks they can tell Tolkein's story better than Tolkein.
@@fernandoerbin6751 movie should be as close to source as pissible. Not cut out
@@south6bt No, it's about different media having different ways to tell a story, which apparently someone so quick to judge and disrespect as you wouldn't be able to grasp.
@@Watcher4111 Again, different medium. That it should be replicated as close as possible is a matter of debate. What's the point of an exact copy, if you already have the original?
But aside from that, the thing is sometimes it's just not possible to do it like in the books, and sometimes even if it is, it still doesn't work.
Lee was the only person who had met Tolkien. His commando missiins are still classified, and his cousin Ian Fleming is said to have based 007 off of Lee.
Cristopher Lee was soldier, actor, opera singer, metal singer, assassin, Real life James Bond (yes james bond the character was inspired by Sir. Lee), and a knight. Like wtf was that man for real. True legend.
and met jrr tolkien in person, don't forget that one.
James Bond was inspired by John Dee, not Christopher Lee. I cannot post a link here but he's easy to google.
One of the foremost thinkers in England, John Dee combined science with spiritualism to rise to the top of Elizabethan politics and cast a spell over the queen with his counsel. And while his enemies would ensure that he was ridiculed and forgotten, he lives on in the codename for beloved superspy James Bond
"Studios don't expect the average movie goer to watch a 3 hour movie"
That's not why they cut movies down to 2 hours. It's because of selling tickets. A movie ticket is the same price, regardless how the length. The shorter each movie, the more movies can be played. The more movies can be played, the more tickets can be sold.
How often do you not hear that a scene is "cut for time"?
Follow the money!
Well, if a longer movie would be considerably more popular you’d still sell more tickets than with a short unpopular movie
Like someone already point it out. this view doesn't make much sense because the majority doesn't go the movies and watch whatever film is there. they go specific for one and they majority go with a limited time frame. So it's better a long that fill the room then a short one that take a quarter to a half of the room
Movies get cut for time because most people don’t have the attention span to watch a movie longer than 2 hours unless it’s extremely good, and 2 hours is still longer than most movies used to be
Honestly even as a kid I never understood what happened to him, or why they killed him off-screen.
Lee got into acting long before his 40s. He got started as an extra when he was in his 20s and gradually got more significant roles. His first Dracula performance was when he was in his mid 30s.
That's why everyone watches the 4h extended cuts instead of the versions that were released in cinemas...
I love the extended edition of FOTR and TTT. But the extended edition of ROTK is almost unbearable. It's too long and the extra scenes are just BAD. We needed Saruman's death, The Mouth of Sauron and the confrontation between the Witch King and Gandalf... but the way that scenes were shot were SO WRONG that, sincerely, I'm glad the theatrical cut ommits them.
Saruman falling to his death and being impaled by the spike was the cheesiest part of the Two Towers extended cut. It was actually more true to the books to have the character fade into the background and pop up later in the scourging of the shire which was also left out. The problem was the stupid arc with Aragorn and Arwen that took up WAY too much time in Two Towers, pushing Shelob to the third movie and not allowing for Saruman to make his final appearance.
True…I could have done with less Treebeard and more Saruman as well.
Completely agree with you - i actually really dont like the scene of him falling to his death - seems like such a poor way for him to die when he had a whole other arc in the books they cut out.
That's not the reason they didn't want to include the scourge of the shire though, they simply chose to remove it because it would be a weird closure to the trilogy as most characters wouldn't be present and the bigger evil was already defeated...
@@masser4555 for me it was that ridiculous "thunk" on the spike at the end of the fall. It just seemed to lack any creativity for such an important character.
@@lllKXlll that is true. Just thinking that without some of that other added content, there would have been room for the scourging.
I actually have never seen these 'theatrical releases', so I'm really shocked at these differences. Watching these extended cuts is one of my favorite things, and a key part of my childhood. Really bizarre to see the things that were missing from the regular films
Yeah. TIL that I’ve only ever watched the Extended Editions. Good.
After having seen the extended editions it's practically impossible to enjoy the theatre versions anymore. They feel sooo rushed down and shallow, it's unbearable
I just saw the extended version for the first time. I was like WTH. I always felt like Saruman’s story was left hanging. I feel kinda robbed. Those scenes were good and necessary to end Saruman.
This is why those of us who LOVE The Lord of the Rings Trilogy ALWAYS recommend watching the extended version. There were so many great scenes in the extended version that watching the Theoretical Version just feels like being cheated.
I can understand why they did it considering the length of the films but I have not been able to watch the Theoretical Version since I saw the Extended version when it first came out on DVD and I bought it. In fact, I refuse to watch the Theoretical Version.