Why Was Saruman’s Shocking Death Cut from ‘The Return of the King’?

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Blockbusters rarely get as good as Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings trilogy. Not only did it accomplish the seemingly impossible in faithfully bringing J.R.R. Tolkien’s saga to life, but it also legitimized the fantasy genre almost single-handedly and won critical acclaim, high box office returns, and countless industry awards. Yet even by those lofty standards, The Return of the King was an astonishing conclusion, giving viewers everything they could want in a massive tentpole: strong characters, epic spectacle, and emotion in spades. There’s a reason it still holds the record for the biggest sweep in Oscar history, winning every one of its 11 nominations.

Jackson’s films somehow got even richer upon release of the extended editions. Despite building upon the already-demanding runtimes (each extended edition clocks in at roughly three and a half to four and a half hours), they fly by in an instant and actually give even more depth to the story. Many fans now rightfully consider them the definitive versions of the films. But perhaps there’s no better case for the extended editions than the fact that they include a key scene that was inexplicably cut from the theatrical versions.

Saruman Was a Key ‘Lord of the Rings’ Figure

Throughout Jackson’s trilogy, Saruman the White (Christopher Lee) is established as a key figure and a wizard capable of power to rival even Gandalf. But almost as soon as he’s introduced in The Fellowship of the Ring, it’s revealed that he’s sold out his friends and allied with the Dark Lord Sauron, knowing that his return will allow him greater power. From that point on, Saruman functions as the second main antagonist in the series, and the one with the most screen time, only behind Gollum (who’s soon getting his own spin-off movie).

In fact, Saruman’s role is actually expanded significantly from the books, as Peter Jackson and his creative team invented scenes to allow the character to have more to do. Jackson himself has confirmed that this was a practical decision, as Saruman could function as a substitute for Sauron, who never appears directly. Saruman is given especially heavy focus in The Two Towers, as he leads his army of Orcs to capture the village of Rohan. After Aragorn and his team successfully defend the village in the Battle of Helm’s Deep, the storming of Saruman’s tower of Isengard functions as the film’s climax.

While it ends with Saruman unambiguously defeated, he returns in a brief scene in The Return of the King. In a significant change from the book, where he returns near the end of the story in an attempt to take over the Shire, Saruman is left cornered at Isengard very early in the film, refusing to surrender. His servant, Grima Wormtongue, finally snaps and stabs his master, leading Saruman to fall off the tower to his death.

It’s a beautifully done scene, poetically showing Saruman as the pathetic leader he really was — eager to throw his loyalists under the bus for his own gain and ignorant of how expendable he ultimately was to Sauron. The only problem is that it was cut from the theatrical version of The Return of the King, thus leaving audiences confused about the fact that the second-biggest antagonist never even got mentioned.

Why Did ‘The Lord of the Rings’ Cut Saruman’s Death?

Even over two decades later, Saruman’s death is almost unanimously agreed upon as the most baffling difference between the theatrical and extended editions of the entire franchise. Even Christopher Lee was reportedly shocked by the decision to cut the scene, especially considering how prominent he’d been prior. Peter Jackson, who initially intended to place the scene at the end of The Two Towers, made the decision to remove it entirely, feeling that it felt like an anticlimax for the character, especially following the epic Battle of Helm’s Deep.

Yet, we’d argue this was exactly why Saruman’s death worked so well. For a character built up throughout the trilogy as a formidable threat, enough to even best Gandalf in combat (at least before he became Gandalf the White), of course it’d be reasonable to expect him to meet a particularly brutal end on the battlefield. Yet Saruman, at the end of the day, was nothing more than a pawn for Sauron, and upon facing utter humiliation at the fall of Isengard, there was no more curtain for him to hide behind. His final moments show who he truly is at heart — a coward and an opportunist, and thus, there’s something darkly amusing about the unceremonious end he meets, stabbed in the back by his lackey.

Especially for newcomers to Tolkein’s saga, seeing an antagonist so effectively built up only to disappear in the final installment must have been particularly baffling to see in the theaters. The Return of the King, even in its theatrical cut, tied up virtually every other possible loose end, so it made no sense to leave a particularly crucial one dangling. Some would argue that the film, which ran 200 minutes in the theatrical cut, was already running too long, but Saruman’s death was a short scene very early on; five more minutes wouldn’t have hurt.

Nonetheless, it’s a testament to the strength of Jackson’s work on the trilogy that the movie still works as amazingly as it does, even with the baffling decision to cut Saruman’s death. However, considering time has led many fans to declare the extended editions the definitive version of The Lord of the Rings, even with extra-bloating runtimes, this scene may be the biggest case in how they approve the story in almost all regards. The Lord of the Rings trilogy, theatrical and extended cuts, are available to stream on Max.

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2025-03-16 20:36