THE RETURN OF THE KING: Extended DVD version... Yesterday, I attended one of my relatives’ Christmas party in Hawthorne (near Inglewood and LAX airport), and to kill time, we watched the extended DVD version of the third Lord of the Rings film...all 4 ½ hours of it. Actually, I went home right after Frodo destroys the Ring at Mt. Doom. No need to see a bunch of pansy Hobbits jumping up and down on a bed again. Anyways, out of all the extra scenes that were added into the film, there were 2 scenes that really stood out from the rest: Saruman’s death scene (oops, did I spoil it for you guys?? No I didn't.) and the Mouth of Sauron scene. Saruman’s demise takes place at the beginning of the film, when Gandalf and company find Merry and his boy toy—err, friend Pippin toking outside the Tower of Isengard. Words are exchanged between Gandalf and Saruman—who is standing at the very top of the tower, and the scene eventually ends with Saruman plummeting to his death after being stabbed in the back by his assistant Grima Wormtongue (the dude who was watching Saruman create gunpowder for a bomb in The Two Towers). What caused Wormtongue to do such a dastardly deed? He was standing next to Saruman when the wizard slapped Grima like a little bitch after Grima said something insubordinate.
The other cool addition to ROTK is the Mouth of Sauron scene that occurs near the end of the film (well, I wouldn’t say it’s near the end). It takes place as Aragorn, Gandalf and the rest of their army approach the Black Gates of Mordor to finally confront Sauron’s forces, and a lone figure—shown in the pic above and to the upper left-hand image of the montage below—riding on a horse exits from the gate to deceive Aragorn and Gandalf into thinking Frodo is dead by flaunting that metal vest Frodo received from Bilbo Baggins in the first LOTR film. [In case you forgot, or don’t care (I’m pretty sure it’s the latter), the metal vest was taken from Frodo when the Orcs bring his unconscious body to a Mordor tower after Frodo is bitten by Shelob the Spider.] This villain is such a cool-looking character, even though he gets his head chopped off by Aragorn. Being a Star Wars fan and all, why can’t a Sith Lord look like this in one of the prequels? Oh well, Darth Sidious still rules!!
Despite such a detailed journal entry about Lord of the Rings, I’m still a bigger Star Wars fan. How big a fan am I? You’ll know on New Year’s Day. Bring on Revenge of the Sith!
EDIT: Oh- and the dude getting stabbed by an arrow in the lower left-hand image of this montage is LOTR director Peter Jackson, making a cameo in his own Oscar-winning film.
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