Posted: September 01, 1998 at 08:10:53: by Oberon
: : Sorry guys. I'll lay 10 to 1 odds that Bombadil gets axed completely from the script, so you might as well stop casting him now. As I said in an earlier post, you can axe the whole side trip through the Old Forest and the Barrow downs without doing real harm to the plot. Don't get me wrong -- it's one of my favorite passages. But if stuff has to get cut to get the first book down to 2 hours, I'd rather Jackson did that than give short shrift to "The Shadow of the Past" or "The Council of Elrond."
: Absolutely!
: Tom is not integral to the plot and would therefore easily be cut out without loosing anything from the story! I've been thinking more about possible cuts. Another Tolkien lay expert pointed out to me the high likelihood of major cuts in the story of "The Return of the King" after the Field of Cormallen -- at least if you're going to fit the whole progress of the war from Helm's Deep to Dagorlad, not to mention Frodo's journey to the cracks of doom, and do it in under two hours. Jackson's comments strongly suggest he's sure to leave Arargorn and Arwen's wedding in. But what about the Scouring of the Shire? So much of the last chapters could be regarded as anti-climatic in a movie setting. Or let me put it another way -- do you keep most of the Scouring of the Shire at the expense of cutting time devoted to the War? Tough call. But I think he's right. There won't be room for much between the wedding and the Grey Havens, unless Jackson can extend the third movie to 3 hours or more.
|
