January 10, 2001 - Deleted Scenes from the Fellowship of the Ring

Well, I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas! Most of you probably saw the movie over the holidays and have formed an opinion about the adaptation of the book The Fellowship of the Ring to the big screen. As we have seen on the ElvenRunes discussions everyone has different thoughts on the movie. I won't go on about what I thought since it is only my opinion, rather I will try to fill you in on what got edited due to time restrictions or to make the movie "easier" to watch for the non-Tolkien fan.

Most people who have read the books have displayed some disappointment at the treatment of Lothlorien. It was a very brief part of the movie with little introduction. The first we hear about Lorien and Galadriel is when the company is already entering the woods. Gimli makes a little speech, then before you know it elves are everywhere.

The company then appears before Galadriel and Celeborn, the company goes to sleep, Frodo look in the mirror and then its over! The only gift given is the phial. Gimli makes a little speech, then before you know it elves are everywhere. The company then appears before Galadriel and Celeborn, the company goes to sleep, Frodo look in the mirror and then its over! The only gift given is the phial.
Little is told about Galadriel, definitely not enough to warrant Frodo offering the ring to her. The keen eye (or those who have seen the movie more than once) will note that after Lorien all the company has the elven leaf brooches on their cloaks and most of the gifts from the books are present. So what happened to Lorien in the movie?

The gift giving scene was edited out, presumably for time reason. The average movie viewer, according to New Line Cinema, doesn't want to see a movie over 3 hours long. So something needed to be cut and Lorien was, unfortunately, it. But don't despair! Galadriel giving out her gifts was filmed, and will most probably be on the DVD when it comes out.

When you think about it the movie, compared to other modern day movies, is long to the point of truly being an epic. A three hour movie would take nearly four hours on television (in Australia anyway since there is 13 minutes of commercial advertising per hour).
If shown as a sunday night movie (once again using the Australian standard TV movie starting time of 8:30pm) it would end after midnight! This is very late even with keeping the movie to three hours (2 hours 47 mins to be precise). In my opinion there is probably about an hour of the movie that was filmed and cut. When you have the luxury in july of watching the "full" version on DVD
you will see not only a Lothlorien that is fully explained, but actually get to know the character of Galadriel for who see is.

A true elven queen that has seen the light of Valinor, a claim not even the great Elrond can hold. There is another part close to Lorien that was edited out. The moria orcs chase the company, as was hinted by Aragorn pressing the company to keep moving despite their grief, out of the mines.

There is numerous images to support a large orc hunting party following the company all the way to Lorien, where they get ambushed by some rather accurate elven archers. There is a couple of reason why this scene, although filmed, was cut.

The director had a large problem with the Fellowship of the Ring in that the natural climax is Moria. Moria, unfortunately, is the in the middle of the movie. The casual movie viewer does not want to see a movie that has little in the way of climax at the end. So it is really a question of balance. To continue the Moria battle sequence and adrenaline high would only server the highlight Moria as the climax even more.

Hence the need to make a bigger deal of the Uruk-hai patrol and the death of Boromir . So the orc hunting patrol got the axe (or the arrow I guess). I have provided best images I could, but I am sorry to say most are small and not the best quality.

I guess New Line Cinema has done a smart commercial move on all. The movie was watchable by the general public, and us Tolkien fans will rush to buy the DVD to see those scenes we wanted to see. Once we are content with the Fellowship, along will come the Two Towers. Look like a we are to spend the next three years discussing Tolkien...

Finally, how many MUME-ers have examined the sign of the Prancing Pony Inn? I believe (since it was a little before I started to MUME) there was a competition to design that sign. I think it was Gwaywffon who won the competition and now his sign is in place (this happened in 1998/9??).

All you Bree legends spend lots of time at the SPPI, so what do you think it looks like? Did Gwaywffon do well? Did the movie capture what you see as your "home" away from reality?

Well that concludes this comparison of images. Next week it will be back to the "normal" column. In the mean time ponder where you travel in MUME. What does it look like? Or is it all black and white text (ok so maybe I am the only one using telnet without colour.....).