Bits must add less than 60 seconds to the length of the film.
They are bits from the novel that were left out of LotR: FotR or LotR: TTT.
You miss them and wish they had been put in instead of left out.
Here’s mine: “From a locked drawer, smelling of moth-balls, he took out an old cloak and hood. They had been locked up as if they were very precious, but they were so patched and weatherstained that their original colour could hardly be guessed: it might have been dark green.”
I get misty over that passage every time. It would have added mere seconds to the film, and added nothing for most folks I’m sure, but would have meant a lot to fans of the entire story.
Three seconds, max: We should have seen Boromir blowing his horn as they left Rivendell. “Silent it may be now. But I always blow it on setting forth on a journey”. With or without the line. It would have given a lot more context to his death scene, and the discovery of his body by Faramir.
I’d have liked a bit of a scene where Gandalf goes easy on Pippin after all his crustiness towards him in Moria (although it was deserved). It couldn’t have been done just like the book, where Gandalf offered to take Pippin’s watch in the guardroom, as that scene was done differently. But some little brief scene to show that he bore no ill will towards Pip and to set up their later relationship in ROTK would have been nice.
I didn’t miss Tom Bombadil, but I would have loved to have seen Gandalf’s meeting with Radagast the Brown. Could have taken 30 seconds.
I also hoped Saruman’s robes would scintillate and subtly change into “many colors” when he moved (and that Gandalf would tell him he liked white better).
A serious omission: nowhere in the film do they say that Sauron won’t be expecting them to destroy the ring. I’m hoping this will be remedied in RotK, but so far it’s absolute madness to be sending the ring into Mordor if Sauron is expecting it.
I think a lot of the omissions were for the sake of non-book-fans. The stuff that was added back in the EE of the FotR would have only confused the neophytes.
For instance, the scene where Frodo and Sam watch the wood-elves heading for the grey havens. Newbies would have filed it away, thinking it was essential to the plot, and ended up being confused. Same goes for Aragorn kvetching at his mother’s grave, the saga of the Ent-wives, and so many other wonderful concepts.
You can only pack so much into a self-contained story. Us true believers would get it, but so many others would just be scratching their heads…Timmy
Ah, but the bits with the gifts in Lothlorien do come into play in the later movies. In The Two Towers, we see Aragorn pick up the clasp of the cloak, saying that the leaves of Lorien don’t fall idly, or something, and Sam and Frodo use the elf rope to scale the hills and contain Gollum. Remember? “It burns us! It freezes us!”? Not to mention the joke about lembas. It’s really inexplicable, to me, why they left Galadriel’s gifts out of the first movie.
Not quite less than 60 seconds, but the bit with Butterbur and the letter from Gandalf. Of course, if Return fo the King won’t have the Scouring of the Shire and they don’t go back home, we needn’t know who Butterbur is anyway.
Also, the buying of Bill the Pony.
Also, finding Gandalf’s sign on the rock at Weathertop. That would have emphasized their danger slightly more, that it took someone like Gandalf to fight off several of the Ringwraiths.
The Fellowship entered Lorien without matching cloaks and brooches and left with them, Sam says something to the effect of “this elvish stuff ain’t bad,” and Gollum says something like “nasty elveses twisted it,” so I think it’s easy to deduce the cloaks, brooches, waybread and rope were all gifts from the elves. I liked the gift-giving scene because it showed the lighter, friendlier side of Galadriel, but I wouldn’t say it was necessary to the plot.
I actually like the fact that the movies don’t contain everything the book does. It makes those “missing” moments seem a little more special and personal when I reread the book.
“There are older and fouler things than Orcs in the deep places of the world.” He did not speak aloud his thought that whatever it was that dwelt in the lake, it had seized on Frodo first among all the Company.
I did not miss Tom Bombadil, but in chopping that bit out we also missed the barrow downs. Again probably no big loss in the overall flow of te story but it was a whole lot more gripping than Tom dancing “Tol noddy pom pom” through the forest.
What we do miss out and I regret is the origin of Merry’s weapon. Very significant later in ROTK.
I’m not sure if this counts as an omission, but I would have liked to have seen Frodo leap at the wraiths on Weathertop, crying “The Shire!” instead of backing away in terror as he did in the film. I liked him having those little moments of bravery showing.
Actually, he cried “The Shire!” when he stabbed the cave troll in the foot when they were attacked at Balin’s tomb in the Mines of Moria. But yeah, I really missed that part too.
