74 replies to this topic

[Loomis]

From http://news.bbc.co.u...ilm/3265475.stm:

Rings director cuts wizard scenes

Actor Christopher Lee has said he was mystified to learn that his key scenes have been dropped from the third Lord of the Rings movie.

Lee, 81, who plays the wizard Saruman in the trilogy, said he had expected to appear in seven minutes' worth of climactic scenes.

"Of course I am very shocked, that's all I can say," he told ITV1's This Morning on Wednesday.

He now plans to boycott the film's premi

[ray t]

his work as count dooku was superior to his work in TTT. more meatier. i think ewan mcgregor did a great job given he was talking to a figment of lucas' imagination and in a green room thru much of ATOC;)

[CommanderBond]

i would be pissed to if i spent a lot of time on the film and then was in it for only 7 min :mad:

[B007GLE]

Scaramanga, I mean Lee may be only in the theatrical version for 7 minutes but in the inevitable extended DVD he'll have a half hour or more. In the end we'll all get ot see his performance.

Hats off to him, he's had parts in three ofthe most successfull films series ever.

[DLibrasnow]

I agree B007GLE though I can certainly understand why Lee is so upset.

[Loomis]

Originally posted by B007GLE

Scaramanga, I mean Lee may be only in the theatrical version for 7 minutes but in the inevitable extended DVD he'll have a half hour or more. In the end we'll all get ot see his performance.

Exactly. Which is why I don't think he's doing himself any favours with this little tantrum.

[ray t]

he really ought not to be too upset...he's getting paid well in the twilight of his life and cultivating a new generation of fans.

from dracula...to scaramanga....to sauron and count dooku...villany personified!!! villany with style...

never was there a villian who had two sexy sweeds lounging around in tiny little bikinis....lucky bastood!!!!

[Triton]

Christopher Lee is being an ungrateful jerk! Peter Jackson gave Lee the opportunity to play the rather meaty and important role of Saruman in the theatrical versions of The Fellowship of the Ring and The Two Towers, and I understand that he appears more in the extended edition released on DVD.

Peter Jackson has said in an interview that Christopher Lee's scenes just didn't work in the theatrical cut of The Return of the King because it seemed like a finale at the beginning of the film and for artistic reasons he cut it.

Plus, Jackson cannot be expected to show every scene he shot on the screen. The running time for a film can only be so long before exhibitors begin to complain. We cannot expect the big theater chains to play a four or five hour cut of The Return of the King.

I thought that there was a friendship that developed between the lead actors and Peter Jackson during the making of the films.

I imagine that we will see Christopher Lee's footage in the extended edition of The Return of the King when it's released on DVD.

Lee is being unprofessional and allowing his ego to get the better of him.

[gkgyver]

It seems you don't understand: Christopher Lee won't be in the theatrical version AT ALL.
Originally he had a 7 minutes sequence containing a conversation with Gandalf and his death. As a person who read the novels I have to say that this is the key scene for Saruman and Gandalf and the consequences of cutting this scene are huge continuity and plot problems.
I don't want to spoil the movie for you, but those who know LOTR know what I mean.

PJ said that this decision was based on a pure "pacing problem". Originally, the scene was shot for the end of TTT, but they realized that it would have been kind of "anti-climatic" for the second film, so they kept it for ROTK. But then while cutting the final movie, they recognised that it wouldn't fit into the pacing of ROTK. PJ said that after the attack of the Ents in TTT and Saruman's defeat, he wanted to stay focused on Sauron as the main villain. Unfortunately, after ROTK, the moviegoer will be left wondering what happened to Saruman and Wormtongue.

Now I wonder about two things:
first of all, why on earth did they see these "pacing problems" just about two weeks before the finished cut had to be handed over to New Line?
Until now, PJ did a brilliant job by staying focused on the trilogy as a whole and now he wants us to buy that they realised that this late?

Secondly, during the whole year everyone was expecting (and indirectly PJ let it shine through) that ROTK will run about 3 hours and about 30 minutes (give and take a minute). We expected that. You could say that we already knew it.
According to PJ, ROTK has now a running time of 3 hours 17 minutes (including the end credits). He wanted to keep the film as tight as possible. Everyone expected 3 hours 30, so why on earth should seven minutes cause that much of trouble?

This wakes the suspicion that New Line wanted to keep the movie in the 3 hours 20 minutes frame and in order to do that, PJ took this scene out because it wasn't possible to shorten down the rest even more and said it was his own decision.

And most important to me: Christopher Lee, a man in his winter, possibly the biggest Tolkien-fan of the entire xy-thousand man strong crew, a man who has dreamed about this role for decades; this dream came true for him and he probably considers this role as the most important one of his life. And now, even without asking for his permission, the key scene of his character, which runs only lousy seven minutes, was cut in order to get ROTK below 3,20 ?

And I completely understand why Lee decided not to attend the premiere. As he said : "Where's the point?"
They robbed his dream, and he isn't even in the film, so why should he go there?


EDIT: Don't be so unsensitive! It's not about money, it's about the dream of his life!
We don't talk about an unacceptable running time.
It's 7 minutes. LOUSY, ******* LOUSY SEVEN minutes!
Isn't Christopher Lee's dream worth seven minutes?


EDIT 2: And that becomes even more unacceptable if you consider how many changes and addings PJ will most likely iflict on ROTK.

[Jaelle]

Originally posted by gkgyver
[B]This wakes the suspicion that New Line wanted to keep the movie in the 3 hours 20 minutes frame and in order to do that, PJ took this scene out because it wasn't possible to shorten down the rest even more and said it was his own decision.[B]

Hi gk,

I read the same thing that Triton did about Jackson's response to the announcement that he'd be cutting out Saruman's 7-minute scene. Jackson was so flustered by the criticisms that he felt the need to personally put up a defense on the AICN site, apparently. He adamantly denied that he was being pressured by New Line -- of course he would do that, wouldn't be politic to do otherwise.

I also wonder at the timing of this -- he's been editing the film for more than a year, he only realized this now?

In his defense he said (as both you and Triton explained) that the scene doesn't quite work as the intro to ROTK. Maybe, maybe not. I know the novels well and I'm with you about the importance of the scene.
Like you I'd prefer that the 7 minute scene be kept in -- 3 hrs 20 mins or 3 hrs and 30 mins doesn't make much difference to me.

Tho it certainly does to New Line and the theater chains. Remember that the theater chains don't like long movies because it means less revenue. It means they can show the film fewer times per day. So I'm sure that New Line is also thinking about them. I also think they may be worried about audience reception of such a long movie.

As to Christopher Lee's reaction...I understand his disappointment, he has every right to be upset. No actor has been a bigger supporter of this trilogy, and he's a cousin of Tolkien's after all. Would've been nice to have a relative of Tolkien's in the last film. Still, I wish that he wouldn't boycott the film. If I were a superstitious person, I'd be afraid that a row like this so close to the film's release (involving one of the main actors no less) looked like a bad omen.

At least we'll get to see the scene eventually in the extended dvd.

[gkgyver]

You may be right, but then again: lots of people considered three hours for TTT as long (not too long, though), so why should they be scared by those magical seven minutes? Sure "197 minutes" sounds not much shorter than "204 minutes", non?

And you may be right about the theatre chains if we were talking about a completely new movie. But ROTK may very well be the most anticipated film of 2003, so why should theatres be worried about, here it comes again, seven minutes?

And there's another question: why "Voice of Saruman"? The pacing thing sounds very lame to me, since those Arwen intermezzos in TTT didn't exactly match the pace of TTT as well.
Why not Gandalfs confrontation with the Witch King? Why not the forging of Anduril, some of the inevitable Gimli "jokes" or Legolas' superman-stunts? Sure, they are important, but they are a) not necessary to get the story of ROTK and not as important as Voice of Saruman.

No, no, I have another suspicion:
As we all know, TTT wasn't represented at this year's Oscars as New Line without a doubt had wished.
We also know that New Line has an "Academy Award consultant" who tells them what may be good or may not be good for ROTK AA-chances. New Line's marketing-chief said that ROTK will feature "2,5 hours of brand new music ... in order not to align it too much with the previous two movies".
I suspect that this Oscar-guy told New Line that all non-vitaly connections to FOTR and TTT should be eliminated from ROTK.

This may all sound very far-fetched, but after living in Middle-Earth for three years, nothing can surprise me anymore.

[Triton]

It's one thing to be disappointed that your role has been cut from a film. I think it's quite another thing to be hostile and to boycott the premiere of a film because your role has been cut. Do actors just attend premiers to stroke their own egos, or do they attend premieres to show support for the director, the other actors, and all the other people involved with making the film a reality.

The Lord of the Rings is such a large and complex novel, that any film adaption of it was likely to offend or upset Tolkien fans and scholars. I understand that Christopher Tolkien, J.R.R.'s literary heir, no longer speaks to his son because of the selling of the film rights to New Line.

It's clear from the end of The Two Towers that Orthanc has been destroyed by the Ents and that Saruman has been defeated.

Since Peter Jackson never intended to film the Scouring of the Shire, Sharkey, or introduced Lotho Sackville-Baggins as a character, would Saruman's death at the end of The Two Towers been upsetting to Tolkien fans and purists? Do we really need to see a scene in which Treebeard is given the responsiblity of imprisoning Saruman in the tower of Orthanc?

There was so much great story material that was already cut from The Fellowship of the Ring and The Two Towers, in their screen versions. But fans and actors have to realize that a twenty hour adaption of The Lord of the Rings is not feasible. That characters need to be cut or combined with others, such as the Galadriel/Glorfindel hybrid we have in the film and scenes need to be rewritten or deleted from the final film.

Christopher Lee should be grateful to Peter Jackson for the opportunity he was given to play Saruman in the first two parts of The Lord of the Rings, a part that was far more interesting on film, than in the books. Part of this gratitude should be to support Peter Jackson's artistic decisions concerning the films.

Director Peter Jackson and screenwriters Frances Walsh and Philippa Boyens should be congratulated for the job they have done so far with The Lord of the Rings. The whole project could have easily been a costly disaster that provoked the ire of most Tolkien fans and scholars.

[Blue Eyes]

Cut from the last leg of the greatest trilogy of all time - I think most people would be quite annoyed.

[gkgyver]

Like I said above: he has his legitimate reasons for not appearing at the pemiere.

Sure, he took a beating in TTT (btw, the Ents didn't destroy Orthanc because Orthanc is indestructible), but this doesn't reveal his fate.
Do you really think Saruman would be calmly sitting in his tower for the rest of his life, just because his army was destroyed?
LOTR is not that kind of movie, whose villains run away and never show up again only because they took one beating.

Additionally, it creates a logical problem: Saruman was called The White and now Gandalf is called The White. There can't be two white wizards in Middle-Earth. A confrontation between the two should be inevitable.

Also, like I said, the consequences aren't foreseeable. How should the Palantir come to Pippin? Does Pippin get the stone at all?
If not, what is the reason why Gandalf takes him to Minas Tirith? If Pippin doesn't get it, how can Aragorn get his hands on it? Again, if he doesn't get it, he can't look into it; consequently, why should Sauron attack too early then?
Even a more important question: what is the reason that drives Gandalf, Theoden and fellowship to Isengart? If they don't go there, how can Pippin get to Gandalf and Merry to Theoden?


You see, the consequences are deeper than you thought. The Scouring of the Shire is no reason, since we knew from the very beginning that it won't happen in Part 3.

[Loomis]

Originally posted by ray t

he really ought not to be too upset...he's getting paid well in the twilight of his life and cultivating a new generation of fans.

from dracula...to scaramanga....to sauron and count dooku...villany personified!!! villany with style...

Lee trivia note: according to the making-of documentary on the new 25th anniversary edition DVD of HALLOWEEN, John Carpenter offered the role of Dr Sam Loomis to Lee, but Lee turned it down. The role went to Donald Pleasence, and Lee later told Carpenter that he felt the biggest mistake of his career was not accepting the Loomis role.

Originally posted by Blue Eyes

Cut from the last leg of the greatest trilogy of all time - I think most people would be quite annoyed.  

I'm in the Triton camp on this one. Clearly, they didn't cut Lee from ROTK just to be mean to him. There would have been reasons, and I don't see that he or we are even especially entitled to know what they were. Famous actors are cut from films all the time. It's Peter Jackson's/The Powers That Be's call, not Lee's. Lee should just "suck it up", and he certainly shouldn't make a fool of himself like he's doing, threatening to boycott the premiere and spoil the party. I always assumed he had far more class than he's currently displaying, particularly at his age. He's behaving like a vain old queen. My sympathy for him? Zip.

[Blue Eyes]

Originally posted by Loomis
I don't see that he or we are even especially entitled to know what they were.

Well he worked hard at the role, he is entitled to know why he has been cut.

[gkgyver]

But hey, it wouldn't be that big a deal if the reason would be good. It's not a very honourable reason for me if you ruin a man's dream just because you want to raise the Oscar chances or think that maybe there could be a little pacing problems for *cough* seven minutes.

[Loomis]

Originally posted by Blue Eyes

Well he worked hard at the role, he is entitled to know why he has been cut.  

Why? The only cause for complaint would be if he didn't get paid - and I'm sure he was amply rewarded.

Originally posted by gkgyver

But hey, it wouldn't be that big a deal if the reason would be good. It's not a very honourable reason for me if you ruin a man's dream just because you want to raise the Oscar chances or think that maybe there could be a little pacing problems for *cough* seven minutes.

How has Lee's dream being ruined if he'll show up in the extended DVD cut? Anyhow, he'll always be remembered for his role in the LOTR films. And, to me, his dream comes a very poor second to the wishes of those who sweated blood to get these pictures made against overwhelming odds in the first place.

[gkgyver]

Any actor should have the right to know why his key scene gets cut so badly.
However, it's the theatrical version that gets the most attention, so I consider this as a very bad cut.

As for a ruined dream being not that important:
imagine you get the role of a Bond villain henchman, you work with brilliant actors (put aside BrosnanBond), put your heartblood into the role, fullfill your dream and four weeks before the movie comes out, you have to read an internet article just to realise that your key (death-) scene has been cut with the reason "Oh, it's just out of place, we wanted to focus on the main villain" .

Of course you wouldn't be mad at the director...

[Blue Eyes]

Originally posted by Loomis
Why? The only cause for complaint would be if he didn't get paid - and I'm sure he was amply rewarded.

I don't see how that even figures in. You get fired from work tomorrow Loomis, you've been paid, but you'd still like to know why wouldn't you? Of would you just 'suck it up' and say all nice and pretty things about your boss?

And for an actor, having scenes cut is on par with being fired regardless of a paycheck.

[Loomis]

Originally posted by gkgyver

As for a ruined dream being not that important:
imagine you get the role of a Bond villain henchman, you work with brilliant actors (put aside BrosnanBond), put your heartblood into the role, fullfill your dream and four weeks before the movie comes out, you have to read an internet article just to realise that your key (death-) scene has been cut with the reason "Oh, it's just out of place, we wanted to focus on the main villain" .

Of course you wouldn't be mad at the director...  

Reading the article, my impression is that Lee knew that his scene would be cut before he became aware of the internet article. It's not as though the first he knew of it was when he logged on to Ain't It Cool, or something. He says: "I'm only telling you this because it has been revealed on the internet...."

Lee is supposed to be a pro, and after all his decades in acting and his hundreds of roles, he ought to know that having an appearance trimmed or dispensed with is sometimes just the way the showbiz cookie crumbles. He should understand that there were many much larger issues during the editing of ROTK than merely making sure he was happy. I repeat: Peter Jackson and others didn't cut him out of the theatrical print just to spite him. And bitching about his lot to journalists is not the way for Lee to go about getting people on his side.

Originally posted by Blue Eyes

I don't see how that even figures in. You get fired from work tomorrow Loomis, you've been paid, but you'd still like to know why wouldn't you? Of would you just 'suck it up' and say all nice and pretty things about your boss?

That's a false analogy. Lee was not dismissed from a permanent job - he was contracted (as always) for a temporary acting gig. His employers did not fire him - they simply decided not to use the material he'd given them in the way he might have assumed they'd use it. They honoured the terms of the contract and paid him in full.

[gkgyver]

Second that.
Even worse, think you worked all your life with the goal of getting this one job and then exactly Blue Eyes' scenario would happen.

[gkgyver]

"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."


Did you really misunderstand that statement, Loomis?
Sure it's not PJ's job to make him happy, but no other character in LOTR has ever suffered such a big cut like Lee (maybe the cut of the Huorns was bad, but they are no human actors) and it's a fact that he's the last person on the list who deserves this.


EDIT: But playing his heart out and then getting kicked off the screen, although the "pacing problems" could have very well been recognised already during writing the script, without even getting told why, is like "you did a bad job, so you get kicked".

I know PJ didn't mean to harm him, but at least he could have explained it to Lee before he had to read it somewhere else.
It sounds like "you are done with it, we don't care about you anymore and you don't need to know why"

[Triton]

Originally posted by Loomis


Reading the article, my impression is that Lee knew that his scene would be cut before he became aware of the internet article. It's not as though the first he knew of it was when he logged on to Ain't It Cool, or something. He says: "I'm only telling you this because it has been revealed on the internet...."

Lee is supposed to be a pro, and after all his decades in acting and his hundreds of roles, he ought to know that having an appearance trimmed or dispensed with is sometimes just the way the showbiz cookie crumbles. He should understand that there were many much larger issues during the editing of ROTK than merely making sure he was happy. I repeat: Peter Jackson and others didn't cut him out of the theatrical print just to spite him. And bitching about his lot to journalists is not the way for Lee to go about getting people on his side.

I don't understand why actors need to be treated any differently from any other worker-for-hire. We don't see journalists bad-mouting their newspapers because parts of their articles have been cut or edited.

I never believed in the Ayn Rand notion that a worker-for-hire has any rights to the ultimate appearance of his or her creation. I don't call my boss a jerk when she decides to remove a quarter of the user manual I have written or be hostile or throw a fit.

[Blue Eyes]

Originally posted by Loomis
That's a false analogy. Lee was not dismissed from a permanent job - he was contracted (as always) for a temporary acting gig. His employers did not fire him - they simply decided not to use the material he'd given them in the way he might have assumed they'd use it. They honoured the terms of the contract and paid him in full.

It's not a false analogy at all because there is no such thing as a permanent job for actors - at all. So the analogy stands. Regardless of whether he was paid or not, he was told his services (and those are his appearance on celluloid) were not needed. And he has every right to know why. Just as you would if you were fired. Maybe it's not a contracted right, but it's just sheer decency to tell a person why you don't need their services anymore.

[Loomis]

Originally posted by gkgyver

Sure it's not PJ's job to make him happy, but no other character in LOTR has ever suffered such a big cut like Lee (maybe the cut of the Huorns was bad, but they are no human actors) and it's a fact that he's the last person on the list who deserves this.

Why is Lee the last person on the list who deserves this? Why should he, out of all the actors, get special consideration? Jackson's only duty is to craft the most perfect film he is capable of crafting, and if that means taking a few tough decisions so be it. I'm sure Jackson knows what he's doing, and talking of "cutting", let's cut him some slack, hey?

[Blue Eyes]

Originally posted by Triton
I never believed in the Ayn Rand notion that a worker-for-hire has any rights to the ultimate appearance of his or her creation. I don't call my boss a jerk when she decides to remove a quarter of the user manual I have written or be hostile or throw a fit.

But would you at least want to know why?

[Loomis]

Originally posted by Blue Eyes

It's not a false analogy at all because there is no such thing as a permanent job for actors - at all. So the analogy stands. Regardless of whether he was paid or not, he was told his services (and those are his appearance on celluloid) were not needed. And he has every right to know why. Just as you would if you were fired. Maybe it's not a contracted right, but it's just sheer decency to tell a person why you don't need their services anymore.  

What do you mean, his services were not needed? They were needed! They filmed all the scenes he turned up to act in, and as I understand it they'll be included on the extended DVD version. You're making it seem as though he arrived at the studio and was told without explanation to go home.

Lee was hired, employed and paid. No one dismissed him. No one decided not to use his services. Quite the reverse, actually. (That's why "If you got sacked from your job tomorrow...." is a false analogy.)

[Jaelle]

Originally posted by gkgyver
[B]Did you really misunderstand that statement, Loomis?
Sure it's not PJ's job to make him happy, but no other character in LOTR has ever suffered such a big cut like Lee (maybe the cut of the Huorns was bad, but they are no human actors) and it's a fact that he's the last person on the list who deserves this.[B]

Gk, I sympathize with you but I also think that Loomis is right when he says that Lee's public behavior on this is questionable. I'm very much in the middle on this argument. But in the final analysis, I'm still utterly amazed at what Jackson has done with the trilogy. You bring up good questions in terms of plot points but really the general audience won't be as attentive to problems of continuity or logic as you and I. For me, what Jackson has accomplished is astonishing. He's managed to adapt a huge complex story to the screen and yet still keep its integrity overall, imo.

His choices (summarized well by Triton) have been on-target, imo. I know many Tolkien purists have lambasted him (I'm not saying you have, gk) but they'll never be satisfied, and they don't understand cinema. An excellent lesson plan in filmmaking or drama could be designed out of comparing what Chris Columbus did with the Potter novels and what Jackson did with LOTR. So I'm cutting him some slack on this Saruman cut. I wish he hadn't had to do it but I can live with it knowing that he's included so much of the story as it is.

Lee could decide not to attend the premiere, ok. But talk as he has to reporters about all this doesn't show him in a very good light. He could've simply approached Jackson personally, expressed his feelings, and left it at that.

[Blue Eyes]

Maybe you should take a look at this from the perspective of an actor Loomis. He doesn't need either the employment or the money. He does it cause he can, cause he wants to be seen. So when he doesn't appear on screen, yes, that's being told his services were needed!

And irrespective of that fact, he still has every right to be told why he won't appear in the final print of the film. It's simple courtesy.