Lord Of The Rings & Hobbit: 12 BIGGEST Mistakes We Have To Live With
4. Cutting Saruman's Death
The biggest mistake The Lord of the Rings Trilogy made? Cutting this crucial death scene from the third film, which will never, ever make sense and was a decision that shocked Christopher Lee.
If you've never seen the extended editions of Lord of the Rings, you should definitely give them a look as they are fantastic and have some terrific extra footage; perhaps the biggest asset is that you actually see what happens to Saruman.
In the theatrical version of Return of the King, he just vanishes and is mentioned maybe once. In the extended edition, he does actually get a proper death scene. He falls from his tower after being stabbed by Wormtongue (Brad Dourif), a vengeful servant sick of Saruman's cruelty.
This is a good scene filled with excellent acting, and it provided closure for the franchise's best villain, so why the bloody hell was it cut out?!
This mesmerizing villain, who was blessed with one of the finest performances the late, great Sir Christopher Lee ever gave, deserved so much better. If they really wanted to cut this movie down, couldn't they have gone for the famously long ending scenes instead?