December 23, 2004

The final Extended Edition of the Trilogy...
Bob Praz

In response to Brett C., Frodo didn't push Gollum in deliberately. What is shown in the "Deleted concept" of Aragorn fighting Sauron is what the writers and director initially intended to be in the movie, but which they changed at the last minute. Gollum's fall is different in the final cut. So in the Crack of Doom scene, Frodo is indeed supposed to be fighting Gollum for the Ring, and they fall accidentally. As for why (or how) Frodo grabbed the ledge, let me just say that these kind of things, although seen often enough in movies, are not always very plausible to me. My theory, however, is that although Frodo would have been temporarily overpowered by the Ring when fighting with Gollum, I don’t think that it was to the same degree as Gollum (who has been crazed and under its influence for 500 years); therefore falling off the ledge would have been enough to make him stumble out of his madness and promptly try to save his own life. Just like in the book, Frodo wouldn’t have been "possessed" enough to jump into the Crack of Doom himself in a desperate attempt to regain the Ring from a falling Gollum; his mind wasn’t completely overthrown, and that’s one of the only things that still differentiates Frodo from Gollum towards the end of the quest.

Anyhow, I quite enjoyed your post about how the Witch-King of Angmar could have been portrayed in the movie; I wish they had done something more similar to that. Of course, I can see why they wanted to have the Witch-King on a fell beast the whole time (it might have confused others in the audience if they saw him riding a horse again, though this is debatable nonetheless), but I still miss that great moment from the book.
I was disappointed, like many others, with both the Witch-King’s confrontation with Gandalf (everything was really awesome up until Gandalf’s staff spontaneously exploded) and with Aragorn randomly beheading the Mouth of Sauron (now THAT was uncalled for, and it certainly didn’t fit with Aragorn’s character). As for the latter, I can only somewhat appease myself with the thought that, since PJ knew early on that he would have to cut the scene, he didn’t bother to make any last-minute changes to it (as might have happened, I hope, if the scene had made it to the theatrical cut).

Everything else in the Extended Edition was great, in my opinion, I still thoroughly enjoyed the longer, more complete, version of the movie. The extended stuff for the Paths of the Dead and the invasion of Osgiliath was particularly great, as was the new stuff with Denethor.

On a last related subject, I had learned early on (and I promptly felt disappointed at the time) that the Palantir of Minas Tirith would not be in the EE, because John Noble (Denethor) said in an interview that they had never shot such material for him. Although this still is an opportunity missed for Denethor’s character, I understand that it would have been hard to explain to the audience that there was another seemingly identical Palantir in Minas Tirith which Denethor had access to. Of course, Denethor’s dialogue in the movie does hint to his use of the stone ("I have seen more than you know..." and so on), but I don’t think it goes any further than mere metaphor in this case, unfortunately. Of course, that also means that the Palantir which Aragorn uses in the throne room was definitely the one from Orthanc (just like in the book); the reason he did it in the Hall of Kings would have been to show Sauron that the Heir of Elendil was indeed in Minas Tirith, ready to reclaim the throne of Gondor.

Anyhow, my final words on those extended scenes which were disappointing: something flawed is better than nothing at all.