9 Deleted Scenes That Totally Change How You View Famous Characters

5. Smaug And Sauron Are Already Working Together - The Hobbit

The Deleted Scene: Even though its total runtime is just shy of eight hours, there's still a lot of footage cut from The Hobbit Trilogy that's reinserted into the obligatory Extended Editions. And, surprisingly, some of the additions improve the films. There's a lot of extra time spent with the dwarves in An Unexpected Journey (which has the nice side effect of actually making them more distinct characters), but the most notable moments come from The Desolation Of Smaug.

Before being captured by the Necromancer, Gandalf comes across Thráin II, Thorin's father, at Dol Guldur, who reveals the true danger of the Dwarf company's mission - Smaug is already in league with Sauron.

How It Changes The Character: A lot of time was invested in making The Hobbit feel relevant to the greater The Lord Of The Rings story, with Ian McKellen stumbling through exposition to paint The Battle of the Five Armies as something more important than it is, Lee Pace all but winking the camera when referencing Aragorn and half the cast of the originals popping up irrespective of if they're actually in J.R.R. Tolkien's first book.

Yet here is a legitimate link between the two trilogies that feels organic within the narrative - Gandalf's big fear, that the dragon and the Dark Lord are in cahoots, is already realised. It's a twist on the lore, but at this point what hadn't been changed? Suddenly Smaug is more than just Benedict Cumberbatch growling.