Gandalf and Saruman scene

[bmilder]

Should PJ include the scene where Gandalf is captured by Saruman? As you know, in the actual book, the story is just told by Gandalf, never actually covered "as it's happening" in the text. But in the animated version, the scene is used. Since this is a film, visuals are better than stories that can be used in books, but I think that using that scene and cutting into Frodo's flight wouldn't be good. The audience wouldn't have the suspense about Gandalf. Of course, most people will know the plot already, but it still makes little sense. I think that the scene can be used, but if it is used as Gandalf tells it so the audience finds out when Frodo does.

[juntel]

If I remember well, even the Balrog battle is a description-after-the-fact by Gandalf.
So same question here... although we can bet that the scene will be more spectacular than in the book (it may be NewZealand... but it's still Hollywood)

[IronParrot]

The editing will be interesting in general, because of how LOTR is written - you see the events in one time frame, leaving some mysteries unsloved... then you jump back and see the same time frame from a different perspective, which solves them. How this will be reproduced in Jackson's film I really don't know. Obviously the biggest problem would have to be the bridging between Two Towers and RotK, because of how Book IV overlaps over Book III, and Book VI overlaps over Books III AND V...

Plus, there's all the scenes where someone tells their tale to another, whether or not it has already been shown - I mean, how will Frodo and company tell the entirety of their tale in Rivendell? It would be a bit cheesy to do a "Well, it started like this," followed by a fade out, then a fade back in and a "And that's the end of my story." But this is really an issue because Tolkien has a whole ton of "character X recounted his exploits so far to character Y" without any dialogue. While this works in books, it simply does not work in a film.

[Fat middle]

i believe that scene has been already filmed. I remember reading something about it at the Mckellen´s official site.

[kcbob]

I wouldn't have a problem with showing the Gandalf vs. Saruman showdown almost as it happens. I don't believe PJ will be able to go straight from Bilbo's farewell straight to Rivendell. I can see Bilbo's party, Frodo's party, and then switching to Gandalf and Saruman. This would provide some change of pace to the flow of the movie. As somebody pointed out, the biggest change would then be Gandalf's part in the Council of Elrond.

BTW. The Balrog battle happened "real-time". The explanation of what happened to Gandalf was the flashback. THAT might be better left to a flashback in TT.

[IronParrot]

Otherwise the loss of Gandalf wouldn't seem so tragic and significant.

[Darth Tater]

I agree with kcbob, that would be a good progression