10 Movies Saved By One Single Cut
4. Cutting Arwen From Helm's Deep - The Lord Of The Rings: The Two Towers
The Lord of the Rings trilogy was a massively ambitious undertaking for director Peter Jackson, and for even the most organised and confident of filmmakers, a sure editorial nightmare.
But Jackson made things worse for himself when he decided to tinker with J.R.R. Tolkien's beloved source material by adding Arwen (Liv Tyler) into The Two Towers' Battle Of Helm's Deep.
Jackson filmed the mammoth action sequence with Arwen playing a significant part in the battle (unlike the novel), and according to the director he then leaked an image of Liv Tyler at Helm's Deep online to gauge fan reaction.
Unsurprisingly the fan response was near-universally negative, some even dubbing Tyler's heroine "Arwen: Warrior Princess" (ala Xena), prompting Jackson to cut her out of the sequence. If you look closely, though, you can actually see her in the background of a few shots.
Now granted, Jackson's trilogy made a ton of changes from the books, but this one was egregious enough that it could've soured fans on what ultimately turned out to be one of the most spectacular battle scenes ever put to film.