Although I’m loathe to cut and paste items directly from the LOTR Fan CLub Magazine (we like to get our own content), we’ve gotten so many emails about it I may as well post it. Take a look!
Brandon writes: I have some great news from PJ from the newest LOTR Fan Club Magazine! These are all straight from the interview with Jackson:
PJ – “We’ve started editing The Return of the King: I am cutting it in more or less chronological order, and I’ve probably cut about 25 minutes so far. That’s what I spend most of my day on. I have also completed the extended DVD cut of The Two Towers, which I wanted to get done so it didn’t interfere too much with The Return of the King. I did that just before and after Christmas.”
Are you looking at about the same amount of additional footage for the Extended Cut of The Two Towers as you had on The Fellowship of the Ring?
PJ – “We’re actually looking at a little bit more. We’ve ended up with about 43 minutes of additional material: I think The Fellowship had 32 minutes.”
PJ – “I think the thing I am most excited about is the fleshing out and expansion of the Treebeard/Ent story. His story, more than any other single part of the film, was reduced for the theatrical version. Most of the Treebeard stuff is humorous. We have a great scene-which I really would have loved to put in the theatrical version-where he recites really bad poetry to the Hobbits, who are desperately trying not to fall asleep because that would be rude, and they don’t want to be rude. In addition to the Treebeard material in that storyline, we also have a really funny sequence with Merry and Pippin and the Ent-draught, which is pretty much taken right from the book. There are a lot more surprises in that extra Fangorn material.”
