5 Best (& 5 Worst) Lord Of The Rings Extended Edition Scenes
5. BEST: Saruman's Death
"Without Saruman it's not good versus evil," observed critic Peter Bradshaw, "it's good versus...a sort of swarming amorphous danger." The Return of the King may have won all 11 Oscars it was nominated for but it was noticeably lacking a main antagonist after Saramun's demise took place off screen in the theatrical release.
It is incredible that the last shot most audiences will have seen of Saruman is in The Two Towers after the Ents flood Orthanc where he is seen despairing from his tower. To discover there was actually a cut scene, relegated to the extended edition, which shows the fate of Saruman the White as he falls from his tower to be further impaled is incredible.
While it is possible to understand Peter Jackson's decision not to include it, it is not strictly relevant to the plot going forward and is a fairly predictable scene, it is easy to see how he and Christopher Lee fell out after this epic death scene was not included in the final theatrical cut of the film. As Lee famously stated in retaliation to having no screen time in The Return of the King: "audiences will want to know, 'where is Saruman?'"