I hadn't heard until I came across a bit on the Beeb (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/3267993.stm) website that Christopher Lee's seven-minute performance as Saruman in the final installment of Lord of the Rings has apparently hit the cutting room floor. According to the New Zeland Herald (http://www.nzherald.co.nz/latestnewsstory.cfm?storyID=3534371&thesection=news&thesubsection=general), Lee will not attend the film's premiere. The story seems to have broken on the net, and Lee confirmed the cut in an interview with ITV1. According to RTE (http://www.rte.ie/arts/2003/1113/lotr.html), Lee said during the interview that he only confirmed the cut because the story had already broken.

Um ... the Beeb article described the scene as nearly word-for-word from Tolkein. Given everything else--time and budget constraints--why these seven minutes? Can the film be complete without it? (I guess we can wait for the DVD release featuring extra footage from the cutting room rubbish bin.)

I heard about this on Aintitcoolnews.com. Apparently the final version of RoTK is so long that Peter Jackson has to cut out a certain amount. So why not Christopher Lee? His seven minutes probably aren't important.

At least Peter Jackson won't omit it from the DVD version, I'm sure he'll put it in. So really I see no reason to be upset with this.

Most the people that see it in theaters will probably think he died in TTT.

Return of the King's runtime is 210 minutes.

They said that they cut the scene out, I believe, because it didn't seem like a beginning for ROTK but rather another ending for TTT. I guess they just don't have time to fix it up.

For those of you who have read the book, did they take out Saruman's part at the end? Is that what your saying? Because if that's the case, this could change the entire ending of the movie.

I agree with mgwisni, its imperative that you keep saruman in otherwise you change the ending. And the moral of the talem which is just as imprtant.

The ending of the film I know doesn't have the ending the book has - SPOILER Scoring of the Shire SPOILER

So they could most likely pull it of fairly well.

What!? Theyve changed the ending? F*** ?>>**#%%#%@$#@$@$@**##(%&*(#&*%(#(. bastards.

Well they pretty much destroyed the storyline (knowing it almost by heart), but all in all one mustn't complain. Been praying for this movie 20 years now. And I should be glad it's a more than fair movie of it. Buying the extendend DVD's anyways they are true movies not the one shown in the cinema's
And I for one would have LOVED an 40 hours presentation.

I love the books but JESUS when are people going to realize that film and books are different media? I wish the books had been broken up to make 10 feature films (it would take at least that to include everything) but we only get three, therefore stuff HAS to go. As far as saruman goes,

!!!!!!SPOILER!!!!!!!

since the scouring of the shire won't be in the movie there isn't really any point in introducing him again, there's enough main characters to worry about without adding 7 min of one who does nothing besides lose the palanteir (how ever you spell that). I'm sure PJ will come up with a satisfactory way for the palanteir to be given to the good guys. The Ents kicked saruman's ass in TTT and for the movie version, I think that wraps his character up fine.

I'd never even heard of christopher lee until LOTR so I don't know what he's bitching about, I hope he rethinks not going to the premier ... it seems pretty childish to me if he doesn't. I certainly understand why he's disappointed but its not like his cutting from the film was out of spite or a condemnation of his acting, you'd think he'd trust PJ's instincts by now.

Originally posted by buffys
I'd never even heard of christopher lee until LOTR so I don't know what he's bitching about

Just wanted to point out that the simple fact that you hadn't heard of him doesn't really make much of a difference.
He is one of the most accomplished actors in the world who has had hundreds of acting jobs and has been working steadily for more than 60 years now.

Clisk me if you are at all curious. (http://imdb.com/name/nm0000489/)

I think he is justified in being upset.

ok, let me rephrase that for you. Very, very, few of the people of my generation or younger (aside from avid 'hammer horror' fans) had ever heard of him before LOTR, more to the point, he would not be as well know or regarded today without his invovement in LOTR. I'm aware he has an extensive resume of B horror flicks but unless your over 40 there is a very good chance you've never seen one.

And as I said he has every right to be disappointed, I certainly would be but ditching the premier makes him look childish IMO especially after all the franchise has done for his career.

He's well educated, well read, a vetran and in his eighties for god's sake, you'd think a man of his stature would be above pouting.

Originally posted by buffys

!!!!!!SPOILER!!!!!!!

since the scouring of the shire won't be in the movie there isn't really any point in introducing him again, there's enough main characters to worry about without adding 7 min of one who does nothing besides lose the palanteir (how ever you spell that). I'm sure PJ will come up with a satisfactory way for the palanteir to be given to the good guys. The Ents kicked saruman's ass in TTT and for the movie version, I think that wraps his character up fine.

*SPOILER BELOW*
Excluding the scouring of the shire is a grievous mistake.

Actually, the Scouring of the Shire was represented in the first film when Frodo looks through Galadriel's mirror thingy. In my opinion getting rid of the scouring is great, I mean, it was so disapointing. It was a poor, poor, boring anticlimax that could have easily been removed. I wish they had done away with it completely and replaced it with Tom Bombadil. As I've said before, there's nothing cooler than a bearded dude in a yellow hat who hops around in the forest singing poems about his wife.

I think the scouring is my favourite part of return of the king but it's a huge story in and of it's self. In my opinion the only way that could be done properly is make it a fourth movie or add an extra 2 hours to the film. I mean think about it, if peter jackson had included it he would have only been able to barely scratch the surface since there is so much material to be told.

Return of the king is one of the only books i've ever read that spends almost half the book ending the different story threads. I'd rather lose entire pieces of the book than see a severely edited and thin version of the scouring. Time restraints would have forced them to cut it to the barest skeleton, all the charm and the things that make that section of the book great would be lost without proper time given to it and no one will sit in a theatre for 6 hours straight. Like Tom Bombadil, I wish it was included in there but I understand why it isn't. Like i said earlier, if they'd made 10 movies instead of three everything might have been able to be included but they had only three to work with.

Am I totally satisfied with what I've seen so far? no, but it's 100 times better than I thought anyone could ever do considering the limitations of a book to movie adaptation. Especially these books.

-And as pollux said, considering the arc of the entire series it is a bit anticlimactic. I always sort of think of the scouring section as a fourth book, separate from the ring story.

To those who like to moan about what got cut out:

Just be glad you got three movies, the original studio Peter Jackson pitched to wanted him to sqeeze it all into one movie.

actually i believe it was originally slated as two movies. But either way I agree with your point, it is suprising that we got 3 at all. A shockingly daring choice for an industry known best for its anal accountants and it's creativity crushing atmosphere.

I'm not usually one to tip my hat to the big studios but they made a seriously ballsy decision ... from what i've read it was a no shit, make'm or brake'm kinda thing. Pretty impressive really.

Originally posted by buffys
actually i believe it was originally slated as two movies. But either way I agree with your point, it is suprising that we got 3 at all. A shockingly daring choice for an industry known best for its anal accountants and it's creativity crushing atmosphere.

I'm not usually one to tip my hat to the big studios but they made a seriously ballsy decision ... from what i've read it was a no shit, make'm or brake'm kinda thing. Pretty impressive really.

Peter originally pitched it as two movies to the first studio(Feeling that he couldn't push for three), but they would only committ to one. Nowing that he couldn't do the material any justice that way he went elsewhere.

At New Line he made the same pitch for two movies and was met with the response of
"Two movies? Impossible. You need to make three to do it right."

And history was made.

[Edit]: I think the cut will make the movie be okay, as long as it's included in the "extended version." I think some important details were cut out of "The Two Towers," like I would have liked to see in the theaters, the part between Boromir, Farmir, and their father, where the father somewhat favores Boromir and tells him to bring back the ring so that Gondor can use it.... but, what could Peter Jackson do when he was told to cut the movie down?

(Grr... why is saving a post so difficult to do today? It's taking a long time.)

Hubby and I laughed at the fact at Maramax passed on "The Lord of the Rings" and that it was picked up by "New Line." We presumed, jokenly, that Maramax execs had said, "'The Lord of the Rings'? No way! That might be a big hit. No, we're sticking with crap, like the Ben Affleck movies." LOL. Of course we know that the decision is based on complicated issues, like budgets, but it's just fun to pretend that they had really said that.

I think we're lucky to see the movies at all. Imagine if George Lucas had made LOTR? He would of cut them down, used a crap load of blue screens, crappy music, crappier plot line, etc.

Then 20 years down the road George would of said "Hey, let's add in all this special crap that wasn't suppose to be in the movie anyways."

Instead we get Peter Jackson. The only reason he cut down the movies was because he had to. So instead he releases an extended version DVD with loads of extras, which is awesome. And this pleases hard core fans like us.

So really Peter did the best he could under the circumstances....

*Shutter* George Lucas. *Cring*

Worse liberties have been taken with books, and produced decent movies.

That said I haven't been totally impressed with LOTR so far... TTT was mostly a big-ass extended fight scene, I was actually surprised by the dearth of dialogue. The headliner in that movie was Gollum of all people... that whole externalized internal dialogue thing was okay, but I've seen better versions of it done by real actors.

I think my point has been made. It could have been much worse. *Shudder* George Lucas. *Cring*

Cringe has an "e" on the end... Cring was the black longsword forged from a thunderbolt used by that barbarian from The Colour of Magic...

It could have been much worse. *Shudder* George Lucas. *Cring*

There was a time when Lucas was looked at just like Jackson is now, I'm not a huge fan of George's recent stuff but I think he's been overly condemned in recent years.

I can understand why Lucas wants to alter his classics. When he made them he was on a shoe string budget and had little time to work on it. Now he's rich, successful and can put the time and money that he'd always wanted into them. Like most creators it's not the good stuff he notices over time but the mistakes, the things that are imperfect (in his mind anyway). The small 'flaws' in any creation can haunt you over the years of watching and rewatching.

It's only natural that he'd wish to revisit them, I think it's an error but I understand why he feels the need to do it. There 'but for the grace of god' peter jackson could go in 20 years if he's not careful, history shows it's an easy trap to fall into.

Originally posted by BigBlueHead
Cringe has an "e" on the end... Cring was the black longsword forged from a thunderbolt used by that barbarian from The Colour of Magic...
I'm more of a nerd than you, i knew its spelt with a K, not a C.

Originally posted by BigBlueHead
Cringe has an "e" on the end... Cring was the black longsword forged from a thunderbolt used by that barbarian from The Colour of Magic...

How uninteresting.

CounselorCoffee: You're too funny.