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Underground > Film, TV & Theatre >

Saruman of many Edits

Scrambled Password Bogus Email

10:19 / 14.11.03

From AOL this morning :

SIR Christopher Lee has been dropped from the new Lord Of The Rings film.

The actor, who plays evil wizard Samuran, said he was "shocked'' to learn that his scenes have been cut out of the movie.

He had expected to play a pivotal role in the climax of the film, The Return Of The King, which is released next month.

But the 81-year-old star said his scenes have ended up on the cutting room floor.

Sir Christopher said he was mystified by the decision, adding: "If you want to know why you would have to ask the company New Line or director Peter Jackson and his associates because I still don't really know why.

"I can't say any more because I signed a confidentiality agreement and I honour my word.''

The actor, star of the first two Lord Of The Rings films, said he had expected to appear in seven minutes' worth of the climactic scenes.

And he plans to boycott the film's premiere when it is released next month.

Asked if he would attend, he told This Morning: "No, what's the point? What's the point of going? None at all.''

Errrrrr.......I thought it was well known that the 'Scouring of the Shire' was not going to be part of the final chapter, or does Saruman have any other role (It's beena while since I read it...and since I saw TTT, but isn't the sacking of Isengard the last heard of Saruman except in conversation? The Ents kick him, out, see ya later, until his surprise reappearance as all round malcontect Don John The Bastard in the Shire. Could be wrong though.)

Wonder if the axed scenes are being saved for the 'Extra Feature$ DVD'??

Regrettable Juvenilia

10:38 / 14.11.03

What cracked me up was Lee saying in another version "And Brad Dourif isn't in the third one now either!" Good on him for sticking up for his far less newsworthy colleague...

Scrambled Password Bogus Email

10:44 / 14.11.03

Is that Worm then?

Suedey! SHOT FOR MEAT!

11:11 / 14.11.03

No no no, there's that whole bit where Gandalf has to get ol' Saruman out of his tower, isn't there? While Merry and Pippin get high off the ol' weed... or something...

I expected that to be at the start, I'm not bothered about any bits in the conclusion.

11:56 / 14.11.03

Christopher Lee is a class act, and a huuuuge Tolkien fan. He says in the FotR commentary track that he re-reads the trilogy every year. It's a pity he feels hard done by.

That said: if you're doing a version of LORD OF THE RINGS that effectively ends with the destruction of the Ring--that is, that omits the scouring of the Shire (which is, after all, where the "final fate" of Saruman and Wormtongue is revealed)--then there's little point (from a story standpoint) of having all the foofaraw with Saruman shouting from the high tower and then flinging the Palantir out the window.

I admit, it's a pity: Saruman's dialogue from the window, veering between flattery and malice, is a fine piece of writing--but because he is never seen, the pleasure of the passage is entirely the pleasure of language. It works wonderfully in the books (and in the radio play), but I can see why they cut it in the film.

I suppose they'll simply suggest that Saruman and Wormtongue were killed when the Ents wrecked Isengard, and Pippin will simply tumble across the Palantir in the rubble.

We're The Great Old Ones Now

12:16 / 14.11.03

Yeah, but with the somewhat revised version of the plot they've used in the film, who knows what Lee was expecting? Some kind of big tussle, perhaps? A crucial distraction for Sauron as Frodo fights his internal battle with the ring? They've played up the angle of Sauruman as Sauron's ally/henchman/competitor, so there's a plot thread there which might have been resolved somehow as part of the climax, but has now perhaps been abandoned. Who the hell knows? There are some fairly major changes in the films, in amongst the slavish faithfullnesses...

12:21 / 14.11.03

nah i reckon saruman will be in lord of the rings 4: saruman resurrection, set in the future middle earth where genetically modified orcs get hi-tech battle armour from the clone saruman (grown from a drop of his blood found in isengard) who now uses nano-tech to simulate magik as all magik powers left with the elves

total shame about him not being in 3 though, him and gandalf were just total class, it was such a treat to see in the the first place though, if ever someone was born for that part it's him

a

13:19 / 14.11.03

Won't the scenes be reinstated on dvd in a year or two anyway?

13:46 / 14.11.03

If they shot 7 minute's worth of footage, he probably expected that footage to be in it. Fair enough.
If he's not in the extended edition I shall cry, why shoot it and not use it? That's a crime, shame on Jackson if he lets that happen.

Our Lady of The Two Towers

14:51 / 14.11.03

To be honest, I can see why he doesn't turn up much from Jackson's point of view, with TTT ending after the battle for Helm's Deep both threads of the story are waaaaaaaay behind, the only real reason to go to Isengard would be to find out that Saruman has a Palantir, which we knew already, so I suspect that Gandalf and Pippin will head off straight to Minas Tirith, and the Rohirrin will all demand Aragorn becomes their King (sorry, but my main dislike of the second movie was how shabbily the Rohirrim were treated in order to make the Fellowship seem great) and ride of to the Paths of the Dead. I'm rather annoyed that they've chickened out of the Scourging of the Shire sequence as that was the heart of Tolkien's wolrdview, I presume they'll ride back to Rivendell, and from there Bilbo, Frodo, Gandalf, Elrond and Galadriel will go straight to the Grey Havens.

Maybe they'll have five seconds of an animated Saruman being stamped on by an angry Ent.

I've had sinking feelings about film three because after the second one I realised they were going to have to butcher the remaining story even more to fit it in to the time.

16:40 / 14.11.03

I'm not positive on this, but I vaguely recall before the first film, an article in Time Magazine which said that instead of dying during the scouring of the shire, Saruman would die during a battle with Gandalf. I hadn't finished reading the trilogy at the time, so I sort of skimmed over that part, but I'm pretty sure that's what it said. So, perhaps this fight is what has been cut.

19:39 / 14.11.03

So, perhaps this fight is what has been cut

If so then I'm all for it. If I want to see skinny greybeards with RSC accents unconvincingly grapple for domination then I'll just go home for Christmas. They've made it clear from the start that they weren't going to film the scouring and I've had three years to make my peace with that. If that means that we lose seven minutes of Chris in order to fit more whiz-bang Orc-on-Gondorian action into the theatrical edit then so be it. It's not as if we can take the first release as a definitive version with this series anyway, but that's a whole 'nother thang. On the other hand, if we are missing out on knowing what the hell happens to Saruman just so Sam can deliver another tearful speech about how we should all stop fighting and work together to pay for the policing of Iraq... I thought I had point here.

Whisky Priestess

20:52 / 14.11.03

Apparently, all 7 minutes of footage is to be replaced by one of three sets of stock shots:

1) Orlando Bloom's blond locks rippling becomingly in the breeze (it's our last chance to enjoy, girls - he really is *not* a cute brunette)
2) Viggo Mortenson as Aragorn looking like he has just kicked his own arse through a hedge, backwards. Possibly clutching a can of Tennent's to complete the trampalike theme.
3) Dreadful cheap cheap "comedy moment" to do with dwarf tossing, specially engineered to make viewers want to gouge their ears out.

06:19 / 25.11.03

I don't think the scouring itself would have translated well to film, at any rate... outside of Frodo,Sam, Pippin, and Merry, the rest of the hobbits have been portrayed with, shall we say, less than dignity. Not comic relief, but certainly not something you could come back to at the end of the 3rd film and see as corrupted, menacing, and cowardly. Frodo was already a couple levels above the rest of them, stature-wise, to begin with, and... I dunno. It just wouldn't have looked right, come to think of it.

That said, I am still kind of dissapointed to hear the scouring won't be filmed, oddly enough. I don't keep up with a lot of pre-release press crap, so I didn't have any idea of it until I read this thread.

The resistable rise of Reidcourchie

09:09 / 25.11.03

The scouring would be a shit way to end a film but now, as a result of this thread, I really want to see the Gandalf vs Saruman RSC celebrity death match.

They shouldn't fuck with Lee, he may be a gent but he's a scary, scary individual. I also feel a bit sorry for Dourff who's an underrated character actor who delivered a brilliant performance as Wormtongue.

Jack The Bodiless

11:12 / 25.11.03

It's unlikely they'll leave Saruman out of ROTK forever - probably just for the theatrical cut, which is really a placebo for the backers anyway, so's they get their box office. Everyone knows Jackson sees the extended cuts as the only version of the movie worth owning, if not necessarily the only one worth seeing. Leaving Saruman's fate completely undecided and hanging in the air after building him up so much would be an embarrassing oversight for a director that, on this project, has prided himself on an almost abject devotion to the tiniest details.

The Natural Way

15:49 / 26.11.03

the only real reason to go to Isengard would be to find out that Saruman has a Palantir...

....and so that Pippin can gaze into it and get Sauron all hot for him and the ring (Something that IS in the film - at least the 'hot Sauron' bit is...); and so that we get to viddy the fab moment when Aragorn and his royal eyeness get into a staring contest....

Interested to see how Jackson deals with this stuff.

nedrichards is confused

15:38 / 27.11.03

Yep it will be in the extended dvd version which for those of you who haven't seen either of them yet actually turn the things into proper movies with plot, character development and *everything*.

A quick example the mad way that David Wendham (Faramir) says "Quality" in TTT makes sense when there's a whole 'Men showing their quality despite the fact that they're not pretty pretty elves' subplot going on.