In the appendices (and even the IMDb trivia here), it is shown that originally Aragorn was to fight Sauron himself at the Black Gate, and not the CGI troll. I am curious what the reaction here would have been if that had been the case?
On one hand, it sounds pretty dang cool and a neat bookend to the FOTR prologue.
On the other hand, it might have taken away from Frodo's journey as well.
It was a movie-only scene, scrapped in the planning stages for good reason.
It would have completely missed the point of Tolkien's story.
In a mythological sense we've already seen Isildur vs. Sauron. A battle between Sauron and Aragorn might have book-ended things but Tolkien had bigger fish to fry. Sauron is defeated not by strength of arms (or, in Isildur's case, a "lucky" swing) but by the Hobbits - the smallest, weakest creatures.
The Hobbits accomplish this through their innate goodness, courage, fellowship ("Frodo wouldn't have gotten far without Sam, would he?") and lack of desire for power. Even when these qualities seem to fail them at the end the mercy Bilbo and Frodo had shown Gollum became their deliverance.
What a great post. Thank you.
Also the fight was actually filmed! There are screenshots of it on the ROTK EE. If I could rip them from the DVD here and post them, I would. Also PJ mentioned that they used a good looking elvishesque actor to play Sauron, and we would have seen his real face.
It would have also gone against Tolkien's work as Sauron appeared in these screenshots as Annatar, the alias he used when he advised the Elves on the makings of the Rings. Sauron was unable to assume fair shape, having died twice since that point.
I didn't think Sauron was able to take on a physical form at this point. Maybe he needed the Ring to be able to do so again. Not positive though.
shareThere's some debate as to Sauron's ability to take physical form. The film implies that he can't but in the book Gollum has seen him and reports that, indeed, he's missing a (physical) finger.
As for Sauron's ability to "assume the fair guise" of "Annatar" the book tells us he can no longer deceive the Elves or Gandalf but I suppose it's possible he could appear a certain way to mortals.
As for that scene in general: Sauron's voice addresses Aragorn as "Elessar", presumably to offer some kind of deal. We cut to Gandalf who seems to be waving his hand in front of his face. The only way that scene makes sense is if Sauron (in whichever form) was trying to deceive or control Aragorn and Gandalf was "waving aside" the spell. It may have been a holdover from the "Annatar" scene. Aragorn turns back, says, "For Frodo" and the rest we know.
I think the makers made a good decision to change it in the CGI troll. Like you said: it would really look amazing and it would be great for the story of Aragorn. But it would have gone against the story.
Sauron couldn't take that physical form, the only way he could do that would be if he had his ring back.
One of the things that I love about LOTR is that the real power of Sauron is through the mind. Of course he has armies etc. But I think the way he slowly possesses Frodo through the Ring and others like Denethor and Saruman through palantirs is way more scary and powerful than any physical assault on Middle Earth could ever be.
So a physical fight between Aragorn and Sauron would be completely unlogical and, in my opinion, never could have added some more epicness to Sauron.