Oops! A typo–forgive me. (but that is funny as hell).
I liked the scene of Ewoyn and the WK, but I think the pace of it is off–she had more to fear from that nasty Orc, than the WK (which is messed up).
Yeah-Arwen’s always been pretty meh for me. And Liv isn’t regal enough to carry it off. It needs a Brit with high cheekbones and a certain demeanor, IMO. A young Helen Mirren or a (can’t think of any young Brit acrtresses who fit the bill).
And the guy who thought Viggo was too pretty to play Aragorn is out of his head. That is a huge role to encompass, and Viggo did it well.
Okay, this is making me nuts. The ‘index trees’ in the extended edition are far more confusing than anything Tolkien ever came up with. Where the heck is this scene hiding? There’s a storyboard animatic that illustrates the proposed sequence, but I haven’t been able to locate the film version. Do I even have the right ‘extended edition,’ I wonder? Was there an ‘extra-extended edition’ released later? I wouldn’t put it past them…
I’m not hugely troubled by most of the changes Jackson made to the story, but I have to wonder what he was smoking to even consider such a scene, especially alongside the proposed bit where Frodo kills Gollum! One shudders to imagine the consequences to the fanbase had such a scene actually found its way into the final film. There may have been fatalities. I can only conclude that this was some sort of final contingency plan on Peter Jackson’s part, to dramatically sabotage the trilogy right at the climax, and then escape in the confusion by rocket-pod with all his ill-gotten loot.
I haven’t had time to check my disks, but this link shows a still photo that I remember from the scene, and states that the scene is found in “The Appendices: The War of the Ring” DVD. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Annatar.jpg
So is that the extended edition or the special extended edition or the extra special with sugar on top e.e.?
Grrrrrr. I am not going out and giving New Line or PJ any more money to see anything. Bah.
Well, kerfooey. The “Abandoned Concept” section on my disc consists of the aforementioned crude storyboard animatic, which depicts Sauron more or less as he appeared in the prologue, except less detailed and more Dungeons-and-Dragonsy. The Wikipedia image is wholly unfamiliar to me (so much for Sauron not being able to assume a fair shape!). Unless there’s some sort of hidden “Easter egg” somewhere, I guess I got rooked.
There have only been 2 editions, the theatrical release and the Extended Edition. They did put out a collector’s Edition, but it basically just added a statue of some kind to the EE package. And it was put out at the same time as the EE.
OK, 39 minutes into disc 3 of the EE version of ROTK, there’s a 3 to 4 minute piece on the filming of Aragorn meeting “Annatar, Lord of Gifts” (Sauron’s guise before the Noldorin Elves of Eregion, when he suborned them), then doing battle with Sauron.
Son of a buck, there he is! Yé! utúvienyes! I have found it!* Thanks Qadgop! You rule! (What was that?-- “Why’d you get the EE anyway if you’re not going to pay attention to the flippin’ discs?” --Strange, I thought I felt a psychic wind…) Anyway. Wow, that was a profoundly ill-concieved notion, wasn’t it? That was just nuts.
Although now that I think about it, if PJ really did want Aragorn to fight some representation of Sauron, he blew the opportunity twice over, because he could have just used the Mouth of Sauron character. Honestly I think that probably would have been more appropriate than the cursory way the Mouth was dispatched in the film. That was one of the few moments that really did rub me the wrong way–* “Though you are our enemy, we honor your status as messenger-- opps, no we don’t! You’re dead!” * Real kingly.
The Mouth was supposedly a corrupted Numenorean himself; so he would have made a supremely formidable opponent. He was a sorceror too, so there could have been spellcasting into the bargain. Instead of an ignominious Boba Fett-like end, he could have laid the smackdown on Aragorn while empowered by the gaze of the Eye. It could have been a duel of epic proportions. The battle could have raged on for ten, fifteen minutes easily…
…On the other hand, maybe it’s just as well it didn’t.
*–that is to say, “Qadgop the Mercotan found it for me!” Which I don’t know how to say in Elvish. But it’s the thought that counts. Anyway: yé.
I just got the movies this weekend and spent Saturday watching all three in a row. I will have to take a look at the extras now. I can’t believe they even considered that. Thank goodness someone held him back.
This is the first time I saw the EE of the second two movies. While I generally liked what Jackson did with them, he seems to have a serious problem with lack of subtlety. Eye of Sauron? I guess that means there is a giant flaming eye on his tower. Ugh. That I actually let him off the hook for when I saw the theatrical release, as it was still possible to take it as an extended metaphor. The EE was terrible with this though.
Sam actually yells a Frodo to duck because the giant flaming lighthouse eye was pointing at them. It then got distracted by Aragorn’s beheading of the Mouth of Sauron in an absolutely horrific attempt to underline just how critical it was that their little army attacked at just that time. No subtlety whatsoever, and absolutely unnecessary.
Speaking of the Mouth, Illuvatar save us. Just like with the eye, Captain Literal went overboard. Now the only feature of mention on the character is his giant, CGIed, constantly mugging for the camera, mouth. Come on, that was more comic than scary or intimidating. The coup de grace of stupidity for the character was his beheading. Not like that was any kind of change for the character of Aragorn up to that point. Too bad he did it this way as I particularly liked the Mouth’s dialog.
So, I love the movies and I absolutely understand all the cuts to it Jackson needed to do to make it filmable. Fine. I understand he tweaked some things to match his own artistic vision. Sure, I can go along with that. But Captain Literal and his motivation-changing deputies were too much. I think I may want to go back to the theatrical release of the third movie.
You’ll be interested to hear what Peter Jackson has to say about that bit on the third disc; I know I was. It actually ties directly back to the scenes of Sauron that were filmed, which were recycled for that sequence.
I’m not sure the Mouth’s mouth was CGI-enhanced, actually. The actor was Bruce Spence from the “Mad Max” movies, who has an impressively wide gob.
