The Lord Of The Rings: The Return Of The King

[Green]

I didn't mean any of what I said to be negative, I'm only expecting to get the feeling that the movie has some gaps here and there that the extended edition could fill out better. BTW, I never felt like that watching the first two, so who knows. Also, I mainly posted that because station mentioned looking forward to the ROTK extended cut next year, which is a nice feeling because it's a bit sombering to think it'll all be over (for the most part) in a couple weeks. I have full faith in PJ making the right decisions for the movie, the LOTR movies are my all-time favorites. That said, the Saruman scene will be much more significant than any of the previous extended footage additions, so the ROTK extended cut will at least be more important than the previous ones.

[jonas]

A little off topic: I saw the first Hellboy trailers before Last Samurai last night. My god that movie looks cool.

[PaperWork]

I re-read ROTK.

So did I. It was the first time I read a book in one sitting.

Now I'm wishing Jackson would make a film out of the Appendix. He could get a couple hours at least just showing where everyone ended up.

[station82o]

I honestly dont know why people keep talking about the loss of Saruman. Peter Jackson's explanation is perfectly reasonable. He's a filmmaker first and foremost, and from what I understand (never read the books), he made some very liberal changes to the movies, but can any big LOTR buffs say that he has not been able to capture the mood, spirit, and feel of the books? Doubtful.

It's impossible to cover a massive, overly wordy tome like LOTR into a movie. Changes have been made. In all the PJ interviews Ive read he is very confident of all decisions he has made. Surely a good sign.

Agreed - I dont pay much heed to people who bitch about little nitpicking story details - get over it, these are well made films and the work should be appreciated by an Tolkien fan or simply a film goer. Green wasn't being negative I think but he's right, the extended cut dvds are 10x better than the theatrical releases. These films have been special.

[MarsVolta]

You can only put so much of a 1100 some odd page book into about 3, 2 and 1/2 hour movies. I salute Peter Jackson on an extremely well done job and am looking foward to the conclusion. The extra dvd's in the extended editions are an awesome idea and a way for the fans to see the much time and effort put into making these awesome films. I hope Jackson decides to make The Hobbit into a movie after he gets finished w/ King Kong. Maybe Christopher Tolkein will give Jackson the rights...you never know...

[Megatron]

How long is script of this movie? I'm just wondering.

[Green]

Don't know the script lenght, but the movie itself is around 3 and a half hours.

[Green]

Here's what PJ said to IGN about Saruman-
Q: Tell us about the absence of Saruman.
JACKSON: The Saruman sequence, which is seven minutes long, and it's at the end of Two Towers [the book], it was always in the Two Towers. It never was in Return of the King. The scene was never in the script. It was a scene we shot for the Two Towers and when we cut that movie last year, we tried it then, but we felt it was anticlimactic to the extent [of] how deep was the end of the movie and what's next is you wanted to get out of the film as fast as you could, because people had been there for three hours already and you just wanted to wrap it up. We had some Gollum scenes that we had to wrap up the film at the end with, so the seven minutes of return to Isengard didn't feel like it was a good place to have it. Then I thought it was possible we could have it at the beginning of Return of the King, so we kept it back for that reason. We didn't put it in the DVD of the Two Towers, which was possibly one place for it, but we felt like there was a potential it could be at the beginning of this movie. It's been in this movie as we've gone through various cuts through the year. We had a 4 hour 15 minute cut of Return of the King with everything in there that we shot but it was too long. It felt like the emotional impact of the film was being diluted, it was just too long. So we started trimming the film back and the Saruman scene was one of many scenes we cut. Obviously, an hour of the film has been cut out of the theatrical version to get the length down. The length to me was totally related to the emotional impact of the last 20-30 minutes and I wanted that to be as strong as it could. The longer the film was, the least strong it got because you felt like you'd been there for too long and it lost its impact.

[JM]

I can see why he did it from a director's point of view, but if there is no closure in this, it leaves a huge hole in the plot. Throughout the first two movies, there are two antagonists, Sauron & Saruman. Saruman was actually the more active of the two, since he got way more screen time. Now we have the master of one of the Two Towers (the fucking TITLE of the second film) who just dissapears from the film with no explanation. Even people who haven't read the book will be all "WTF" if they just think about the situation for even a minute.

I get the whole "trimming time" thing, but this omission leaves a big hole in the plot, & will make ROTK an incomplete story. I understand that it will probably be in the DC of ROTK, but none of the added scenes in the other films were needed to make them feel finished, they were just great extras. That is not the case, and we will not be able to see all the pivotal scenes untill the DVD comes out next year.

JM

[Despair]

I can see why he did it from a director's point of view, but if there is no closure in this, it leaves a huge hole in the plot. Throughout the first two movies, there are two antagonists, Sauron & Saruman. Saruman was actually the more active of the two, since he got way more screen time. Now we have the master of one of the Two Towers (the fucking TITLE of the second film) who just dissapears from the film with no explanation. Even people who haven't read the book will be all "WTF" if they just think about the situation for even a minute.

I get the whole "trimming time" thing, but this omission leaves a big hole in the plot, & will make ROTK an incomplete story. I understand that it will probably be in the DC of ROTK, but none of the added scenes in the other films were needed to make them feel finished, they were just great extras. That is not the case, and we will not be able to see all the pivotal scenes untill the DVD comes out next year.

JM

I definately agree with JM here. Saruman was just too big and important of character to just WRITE HIM OFF. Pretty bad decision on PJ part, even with the explanation that Green posted.