Topic awaiting preservation: LOTR : Return of the King *sans Saruman"! (Page 1 of 1)

This is pathetic! How in the world can you take such a significant character out of the picture?
I guess Peter Jackson has just graduated from the George Lucas school of bad film making...

Read more here


Thoughts on this?...


Later,

C:\


~Binary is best~

It's been known for a long time that they were going to dump "The Scouring of the Shire" completely. In the book (as I recall) that's the only place where you see Saruman again.

Not too much of a surprise to me although I do think it's unfortunate that they had to cut that part out.

:::11oh1:::

why are they cutting it?


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That is pretty lame. Although I'm sure it will be in the extended edition dvd. It's only 7 minutes but than again its a whole 7 minutes of Christopher Lee - if you take my meaning I'd really hate to miss those parts.

PS: For the same reason they cut around 30 minutes from both the previous ones - the studio seems to have decided that people won't watch a film over 3 hours long.

Directors cut of the Two Towers is out on the 18th here so I hope that smooths out some of the films wrinkles.

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Emps

The Emperor dot org

It's all about money. The more people they can get into seats in a day and the more people you can sell candy and drinks too is all they really care about. The theaters can make twice as much money on a 90 minute film that they can on a 3 hour long monster.

So they want short films to show over and over again.

although for the most part, the theater gets 1/2 of the money from each ticket sale. 8 bucks a ticket, 4 goes to the theater and the other 4 gets split up between investers, producers, and so on...

So the theaters get lotssah monnahz, and the producers/studios don't get as much so they are forced to make the movie shorter so it is cheaper to make and so it will get shown more times.

So uh.... get the DVD. And be happy, you are getting a full 3 hours.

but my point is, is that Saruman is the cause of the uprising ( well actually a puppet to the whole thing). I mean, how are they going to deal with him not even being there now? Just doesn't make sense.

oh well. I'll still go see it and certainly buy the DVD's

Later,

C:\


~Binary is best~

oh yah, well.

I don't know.

I did kind of think that he seemed *finished* after the second movie. His empire was destroyed, and he lost the battle.

As far as what happenes in the movie, I am sure it will take care of itself.

[Note: for those of you who have not read the books, this post does contain (book) spoilers...]

I must admit that I had the same knee-jerk reaction when I saw the thread title, but krets is right. Saruman doesn't really play any part in the book except at the end (although his involvement in the Shire is hinted at in "Flotsam and Jetsam"). Granted, in the greater scheme of things, he is quite a major figure, but if you're not going to have the Scouring of the Shire, it makes sense to take Saruman out of it from the beginning.

As for the reasons why the Scouring of the Shire is being cut out of the movie... Well, I won't deny that movie theaters want to make money, but I do not think that is the only reason (or even the most important reason, for that matter). IMHO, the Scouring works for a 1000+ page book, but it just will not work in a movie (even if you consider "the movie" to be the sum of all three films). For those of us who know and love the books, the Scouring is something we look forward to, like you look forward to sitting down in front of the fireplace at the end of a hard day. The scary stuff is over, and while there still may be an element of dramatic tension, there is no real danger to the characters. It's a wrapping up, a way to put a fitting end to the adventures of the four hobbits by putting them back into their native Shire and seeing how they fare on their own.

Imagine trying to put the Scouring into the movie, though: the Kings of the West are at the Black Gate, making their last stand against Sauron's army, when suddenly the Nazgul abandon the field and race back toward Mount Doom. Frodo and Gollum struggle on the edge of the fire, the Ring goes in (along with Gollum), the Nazgul perish in streaks of flame (that part had better be in the movie), and victory is snatched from the jaws of defeat. I imagine we will have happy reunions, and we are likely to see Aragorn's marriage to Arwen as well. But I imagine that will be about it. A movie can't really handle a denouement of much more than five minutes--a massive picture like LOTR might get away with ten, but I doubt it. The action is over, everyone is psyched, and you want them to leave the theater on that high. To bring in the Scouring at that point would (cinematically) ruin everything you've worked so hard to build up. Perhaps as an add-on for the DVD (even that's doubtful, though), but definitely not in the theater. It has nothing to do with money, and everything to do with the medium.


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Suho: www.liminality.org

Suho, it's still pretty lousy.

I agree with Suho, though generally loads gets cut from films before they see the theatres.

RN3: Lousy or no, I think it was pretty much inevitable. And I think no less of Peter Jackson for it. Although I suppose I should reserve that judgment until after I see the movie...

prawnstar: Yup. They could make several more movies out of what gets left on the cutting room floor.

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Suho: www.liminality.org

I agree with Suho. As a fan of the books I would love to see the Scouring, but I don't think it will work as well in a movie as it did in the book.

In my opinion they should have made 6 movies (each 3+ hours) instead of only 3, each movie covering one of the 'mini-books'. But I doubt something like that would have been profitable for the movie companies

_________________________
"There are 10 kinds of people; those who know binary, those who don't and those who start counting at zero"
- the Golden Ratio -

I think on the making of they said they filmed for 3 years for the 3 films.

So if they managed to get 1 hours worth of "unique" (by unique I mean not take 1,2,3 etc of 1 scene) footage shot each week and left it all in, that's make each film 52 hours long. Who's up for a double-all nighter LOTR fest at my place? lol.

I really have no idea on average how much they manage to get on film say...per week. There's all the sets / make up and stuff that has to be done too.

Veneficuz: And I think Peter Jackson probably wants to go on and make some more movies I think he should make the worlds best zombie film but perhaps he already has........

Anyway lets be brutal about this - by cutting 30ish minutes from the film they get to make people pay to see the film, buy the cinematic release of the DVD and then (just in time for Xmas) the full directors cut - kaching!!

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Emps

The Emperor dot org

I won't argue that there isn't some financial motivation here. I did say above that "it has nothing to do with the money," but that was in reference to the Scouring. It does work out rather nicely for them, what with the different versions of the DVD. You know what, though? I don't begrudge them that. If ROTK lives up to the first two films, they will have made the best fantasy trilogy of all time. And I know you all already have the extended edition of the DVD for FOTR--that DVD spoiled me completely. Even with the Star Wars DVDs I was like, "That's it? No more extras?"

Can't wait for TTT DVD...


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Suho: www.liminality.org

I agree with Suho that their primary motivation is probably the nature of the modern audience. To me the Scouring of the Shire almost seemed like a completely new book stuck onto the end of ROTK. I love that part of the story but I really doubt that most people today could appreciate it; they would probably see it as a let down after the suspense of the battle is finally ended.

Maybe on the DVD they'll put it in, that would be sweet.

:::11oh1:::

[This message has been edited by krets (edited 11-13-2003).]

They really did some strange things with the story line in TTT. I had to watch the movie twice to get their plot straight in my head. The editing they did also left something to be desired. I'm waiting for the expanded DVD to come out, myself, to see if it doesn't fix some of the holes. Once I'd managed to get around the parts they changed, it turned out to be a pretty good "middle" movie. But you can tell it's the middle.

It is a shame they left out those scenes with Saruman at the very end. There's a whole scene from TTT after the flooding of Isengard that they didn't deal with properly in my mind. No closure to that in the movie. Just the end of the movie there. But then, you're right, he doesn't come back again until the very end. I'm looking forward to seeing how they resolve some of the other plot strings in ROTK.

On the whole, I think Mr. Jackson has done a very creditable job with the mass of material he had to work with. There's really no cost effective way to get it all into a movie anyway... Though 6 movies is a really good idea... I'd watch 'em all!


Cell 617

('been on slashdot too)

Just for the record:
They are not cutting 30min from THE film. They decided not to use the some already shot scenes. So those scenes are NOT part off THE film. The movie is ot finished yet. They just decided to cut a part of the original story, a less important part too. Right now the editors are working like hell to get the movie finished on time. With the first movie there was just a two week window before the film got in the theaters. And those two weeks were needed for copying and distributing the movie to the theaters. In my opinion the only place for the part from the shire would be when the end-titles are running. "The story is over but this is what happend to our hero's...."

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"Art has to be forgotten. Beauty must be realized."
Piet Mondriaan

I think everyone realizes that they don't make the 3.5 hour movie first and then cut 30 minutes from it to get the theatrical release. What we're saying (or at least what I'm saying), is that for the theatrical release they are working within certain time constraints, whereas for the "director's cut" the time constraints are a little more lenient.

The fact does remain, though, that what you see in the theater is 30 minutes (give or take) shorter than what the director envisions as his work. That doesn't change just because the theatrical version happens to be produced and released first.

[Edit: I had almost forgotten about "The Voice of Saruman." I think that's a more painful cut than the Scouring, to be honest, but I can still see the justification. As was mentioned above (maybe by izzay? can't remember), Saruman did seem pretty much finished at the end of the second film, so I think they did a fairly good job of wrapping that up. The only question I have is how are they going to get the palantir (which, in terms of main storyline action, is the only thing that really happens in that chapter)?]

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Suho: www.liminality.org

I agree with Suho above, and I'll just wait, as I have after the first two, for the special edition to come out.(Next tuesday! Productivity that day = 0).

I truly respect Peter Jackson. He basically has made 2 films for every one of the books- one with mass market appeal and another for the fans. I think he's doing a great job.

Most of the time the decision on the length of the "cut" is not in the director's hands. The studio decides if they believe the audience will sit through a 3+ hours, most of the time it's no. Possibly my favorite film of all time, Lawrence of Arabia, has gone through around 4 different cuts to get to the fully restored version thats out on DVD now. They even had to bring Peter O'Toole back into the recording studio to redo the audio for one cut scene.

I think special editions are truly for the fans of the books, and they are closer to Jackson's vision for the films. I Veneficuz once told me that Jackson is trying to get the SE's re-released to the theatres next year.


-tiki, cell 478

Such is the nature of all historical docu-dramas... sometimes accuracy is compromised in the name of entertainment. But then (and I hesitate to say this) it is quite possible that even Tolkien's account is not an unbiased, 100% accurate account of the actual events.

After all, it was so very long ago....

tiki: SE Screening

norm: Obviously a true Tolkien scholar.


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Suho: www.liminality.org

The expanded TTT comes out next Tuesday? Where are you again? I haven't heard a thing about it... Got to make sure I have the $40 it's gonna cost! Sweet!




Cell 617

Bodhi: TTT at amazon

Thanks Suho.
-tiki, cell 478

[This message has been edited by tikigod (edited 11-14-2003).]

'preesh tiki! And that price is probably better than any I'll find walking into a store... must purchase that very soon...



Cell 617