So I have been looking at the changelist for Kerrs book edits of the films… Whilst I have been studying up a bit there are some noteworthy things.
Cahadras and the choice to leave and take the path to Moria. Whilst the book remains anonymous about what makes the mountain so dangerous and suggests the mountain itself decided to hinder the fellowship. The film shows Saruman creating a storm… But was this lifted from the two towers as Saruman created a storm over helms deep?
This is a possibility that this scene was repurposed and harkens back to the Ralph Baski movie too which does lend a bit more credence.
The scene with the black Rider looking across the landscape the coming on a hobbit hole “Shire… Baggins” “Baggins, they are all up in hobbiton” this scene was meant to precede Frodo and Sam sleeping in the forest and the animal that wakes them up. Tension building.
When we have the black rider chasing Frodo and leaping on the ferry raft as the black riders depart the scene with the guy holding the lantern “who goes there?” And then is killed. The Black Rider killing was moved from this part at the fery to another part of the film.
When Aragorn does his Narration in Bree about the Ring Wraiths and “They will never stop hunting you” I think this last shot in the sequence shows the Black Riders on the road where the hobbits hide under the tree… This also infers that it was similar to the Ralph Baski version originally where the straddler black Rider stopped where the other black riders passed by. One last thing on this instead of Merry throwing the bag to distract the Nazgul did he instead go after old farmer maggot scythe in hand? I have a feeling althouh only suggestive violence it was toned down pethaps and farmer maggots demise although off screen would be a better reason for the black rider to freak out and leave than the lame bag distraction.
New Line recently expressed interest in releasing an R rated version of the films for which I assume anything that was removed to recieve a Lower age certificate would be re-instated if they did this, but you also have to perhaps look at scenes being re-arranged with the black riders making it less scary and more disconnected.
Going back to the ending of the two towers the scene that bridges The gap between Helms deep victory and Sarumans death is travelling to Isengard and seems to involve legolass reciting a poem to the ents.
One more small discovery when In Rivendell and Frodo awakens and Elrond declares “Welcome to Rivendell” Hugo Weaving was to continue Narrating over the imagery and about this place. Then when Frodo comes out on to the balcony it is here that Arwen and Frodo look at one another… Apparently Aragorn comes and walks off with Arwen to finish that scene off.
The dialogue spoken by Elronds narration can be found in the script.
The computer game “the third age” contains a couple of interesting edits for when Gandalf travels to Minas Tirith to research the ring. Although the narration spoken in the game is probably not from the film It does serve a purpose of explaing that this is the case and mentioning the name of the place. The most interesting part however is when Gandalf highlights “it is precious to me” reciting Isildurs writings we snap to gollum “Precious” Bilbo “Precious” and then back to gandalfs realization that it is the one ring. This I feel is an older edit of the scene that made it over to EA games.
The other interesting dialogue is Gandalf narration over diffetent races arriving at Rivendell which is probably recorded for the game but works well it goes something like “Elrond called a meeting of the different races of middle earth and with them came Boromir son of Gondors steward” this I think is quite needed as Boromir is never really formally introduced and is a very important character. Kerrs edit change list places Boromir and Narsil after the council meeting. This is probably correct.