Christopher Lee totally cut from Return of the King?

[Sarxis]

Ha! I did manage to find one- yes only one- Second Age Sauron action figure.

Still kick myself for not picking that one up.

[Imran Siddiqui]

The way the second film ended, with no cliffhanger, and barely a hint of danger to the heroes, it looks likely that the good guy are going to win, no problems.

EXACTLY! It just seems way too neat. Unlike what Guy said, it feels more Hollywood to have it seem everything is going ok. Can you imagine an cliffhanger with Sam thinking he'll have to bring the ring to Mt. Doom? It'd be incredible .

I hated TTT anyway... not even bothering to get it on DVD.

[Mr. Harley]

I thought I was the only person who kept expecting Elrond to say, "Mr. Anderson..." Seriously, though, Hugo Weaving just didn't come across as Elrond, and I also wasn't very fond of Kate Blanchett as Galadriel. Galadriel just was NOT creepy in the books. I did tell friends when I first heard about the movie that she would be the toughest to cast.

When I surfed IMDB to try to put into words my disappointments with the first movie (I still loved it) I found someone else had already done it for me. They commented after both the scenes with Elrond and especially Galadriel, the fellowship was uplifted and their mood was bright. Another person commented that there were no songs (vs. soundtrack) and that the songs were in fact integral parts of the books. However, I will still stand by the fact that Jackson has made the best LOTR movie you could get made in Hollywood. His editing to try to fit at least 20 hours of material into 10 is excellent. I'm sorry Sauruman got edited out of the last movie, but I'll see him in the home theatre version.

I'm waiting for the deluxe, uber-extended collection of all three films, which of course they will add even more extras and scenes to. to all you who were snookered and bought the extended wide screen version, you'll have to buy a $100 plus new version (I loathe studio marketing). Oh, for an amusing satire on some of the shortcomings of the first film.

http://groups.msn.com/dvcg2o69vq0acjeeru47naico5/thelordoftheringsbreadboxeditionpartv.msnw

[Gibsie]

Originally posted by Theben


I think you'd have MORE people *****ing about that then the current issue.

Right, here's the final solution: add it to the middle of the film as a flashback, like the first time the wizards had a ruck. Problem solved!

[chequita guevara]

It's not the stuff they cut that I mind so much as the stuff they've added. With all the crap they added to the movie, they could have preserved a real scene or two.

What woulda been really cool is if he filmed the whole story just for DVD, but shortened it for film release.

[Sprayber]

I can see the studios reaction to that.

[Alex]

the movies are better than the books, anyway. but i would like to see Saruman vs. Gandalf in the theater.

[Mr. Harley]

I want my Tom Bombad - but who would they cast as Goldberry?

[Kc7mxo]

I agree that Jackson definetly kinda wrote himself into a hole regarding Saruman especially since he wanted to kill him off (which wouldn't really fit either, given the characters involved).

There really hasn't been enough time for Grima to be pissed/looney enough to want to kill saruman, and none of the other characters would do that to a defeated enemy. Because at this point, Saruman is essentially defeated.




As to the characters, I didn't really like the way they wrote Elrond, since he doesn't at all match the elrond of the hobbit, and only faintly matches the one from LoTR. All the rest worked great for me though. Especially Gimli. Now if he was just not the butt of every joke in the movie.

[lord of the mark]

I liked the scouring of the shire section in the book - i may not agree with all the implicit ideology in it, but it was a nice view of how the big issues played on the intimiate scale of the Shire - and well i could go on and on.

BUT i can well see that it is NOT necessary, and given the time involved, and the distraction from the main plot line, wouldnt work in the movie.

And with no Scouring, how do you kill off Saruman? Rather than have Jackson make something up, I think its just as well they left it out.

And so far Im okay with the added material - which is mostly an increased role for Arwen. The books are still the canonical story - the extra material in the movies is "fan fiction" - but its well done and I think it works. And I think princess of the mark is happy to have more prominence to the female warriors

[lord of the mark]

re: creepy Galadriel

It all depends on how you interpret a couple of lines from LOTR, where Galadriel is speaking, and her appearance is clearly troubling to Frodo, though we arent given the details, IIRC. But look at Galadriel in the Silm - this is a lady with a dark side - she supported the Noldor return to middle earth, in defiance of the Valar, out of her ambition for lands to rule.