The Lord Of The Rings May Regret Including Saruman's Death Scene In Its Extended Editions

Published Sep 29, 2026, 6:30 PM EDT Angel Shaw is a Lead Writer and Critic on ScreenRant's TV team, covering new-release and classic TV shows across all major streaming platforms. She has been a writer with ScreenRant since 2022 and specializes in Harry Potter, The Lord of the Rings, and fantasy. Angel holds a bachelor's degree in language interpreting and is passionate about all things culture and communication—especially in how it relates to popular media throughout history (from Shakespeare to Friends to Game of Thrones). Sign in to your ScreenRant account The Lord of the Rings franchise is growing, which naturally means that continuity is doomed to become even more complicated. This growth takes the form of new on-screen adaptations, several of which are currently in development with Warner Bros. and New Line Cinema. Among the upcoming projects are The Lord of the Rings: The Hunt for Gollum and The Lord of the Rings: Shadows of the Past, both of which join Prime Video's ongoing TV series, The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power. With so much development, more is sure to come. This is a combination of great and concerning news. Peter Jackson has, overall, done a wonderful job with J.R.R. Tolkien's works, so the idea of him and his team, as well as many members of the original trilogy's cast, is quite promising. On the other hand, with each new screen adaptation, it becomes increasingly difficult to maintain smooth, cohesive continuity. The reason is that no screen adaptation can completely avoid altering the original story. Jackson's Lord of the Rings trilogy is generally agreed to be excellent, but it's still full of adjustments to Tolkien's canon. These changes become more extreme as we move into Jackson's The Hobbit trilogy, and each ad every one will have some ripple effect across these and other new Lord of the Rings projects. It's especially troublesome for sequels like Shadow of the Past or other potential ideas, such as the Scouring of the Shire. Warner Bros. Is Making More The Lord Of The Rings Movies, And The Scouring Of The Shire Is Ideal If you've never heard of the Scouring of the Shire, we wouldn't be surprised. This was a significant segment of Tolkien's Return of the King that was left out of Jackson's adaptation. This wasn't done for a terrible reason by any means. The Scouring of the Shire is essentially another battle that takes place after Frodo, Sam, Merry, and Pippin return home following Sauron's downfall. In the book, this mini arc serves an important purpose. In the movie, however, a brand new conflict squeezed into the end of the story would have just felt strange. Said and done, it was more meaningful that the Hobbits return to a Shire that was almost untouched by change. The darkness they just observed in the larger world hadn't reached this small, comfortable concept of home. Still, as previously stated, there is value to the Scouring of the Shire. The idea here was that villains under Saruman's leadership took over and industrialized the Shire. The Hobbits had done away with the source of evil, but they still had to earn back their homes and free their people, all without the help of wizards, Elves, Men, or Dwarves. As a story that has never been brought to the screen before, there is obviously some potential here. A movie titled The Scouring of the Shire could revive Tolkien's commentary on corrupt industrialization and the values of a simple life and hard work. This would be a story all about community, bravery, and reclamation after oppression. The problem is Saruman is the primary villain of this adventure, and it's he who the Hobbits triumph over in the end. That would be hard for the franchise to pull off now, since The Return of the King killed off Saruman in Isengard. Saruman's Death Scene In The Lord Of The Rings' Extended Editions Makes The Scouring Of The Shire Tricky The theatrical cut of The Lord of the Rings sort of just forgot about Saruman. In the extended edition of The Return of the King, Grima Wormtongue pushed the wizard off Orthanc just after the forces of good reclaimed Isengard. In Tolkien's version of the story, however, Saruman was kept prisoner in Orthanc until after the war, at which point Treebeard lets him go, and he headed out to claim the Shire. This villain certainly dies in the canon story, and it's ultimately Grima who does the deed. However, the idea that Saruman impaled himself at the foot of his tower obviously isn't compatible with the Scouring of the Shire. This is one of the rare cases in which the extended edition really matters. The fanbase famously prefers these versions of the films, and plenty of streamers feature only the extended editions. As far as the screen goes, Saruman's death will be remembered as we saw it in The Return of the King, so reviving him to take over the Shire would be an odd stretch. How Warner Bros. Can Get Around Saruman's Death It must be acknowledged that Saruman's death in the extended edition of The Return of the King isn't the only obstacle to a Scouring of the Shire adaptation. Christopher Lee has passed away, so any film featuring this character would have to be recast. More than likely, a project of this kind would have to be animated, like The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim, both because of Lee's absence and for the trouble of getting Elijah Wood, Sean Astin, Dominic Monaghan and Billy Boyd back on screen just as we left them. From there, it would then become important to handle the continuity issue between Saruman's death in Peter Jackson's trilogy and a Scouring of the Shire film. Pretending that the extended-edition scene never existed is an option, though not a great one, considering the popularity of this version of the film. Instead, it might be better to come up with an in-world reason that stories don't match up. Interestingly, this is something Tolkien himself did when he had to rewrite parts of The Hobbit to fit The Lord of the Rings better. In the original version of The Hobbit, Bilbo and Gollum's little game was much less deceptive. When Gollum lost, he willingly gave up his magical ring as part of the terms of Bilbo' victory. Later, when Tolkien made this particular golden tricknet into an item of pure evil, it no longer made sense that Gollum wouldn't be far more resistant to handing it over. So, Tolkien republished The Hobbit as we know it now and included a note stating that, in his old age, Bilbo eventually shared the details of the true story, finally admitting he lied to make himself look less like a thief. A Scouring of the Shire movie or another sort of sequel could take a similar approach. Suppose Astin's Sam narrated this potential film as he tells his daughter, Elanor (a key character in the upcoming Shadow of the Past), about the Scouring of the Shire. He would tell her that he hadn't shared the whole story, since he hoped to protect her from the truth of what they faced after the War of the Ring. However, after all those years, Sam would decide to set the record straight, especially as he hands over the Red Book of Westmarch. It's not a perfect solution, and the actual film would have to be tweaked to make it work without feeling overly cheesy. It's going to be a headache regardless, and even a project like Shadow of the Past could run into issues with Saruman's death that it will have to deal with. There are, at least, some options here, and if new, excellent Lord of the Rings movies can arise from the whole thing, it will have been worth it. Movie(s) The Lord of the Rings (1978), The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug, The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies, The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim Created by J.R.R. Tolkien First Film The Lord of the Rings (1978) Cast Norman Bird, Anthony Daniels, Elijah Wood, Ian McKellen, Liv Tyler, Viggo Mortensen, Sean Astin, Cate Blanchett, John Rhys-Davies, Billy Boyd, Dominic Monaghan, Orlando Bloom, Christopher Lee, Hugo Weaving, Sean Bean, Ian Holm, Andy Serkis, Brad Dourif, Karl Urban, Martin Freeman, Richard Armitage, James Nesbitt, Ken Stott, Benedict Cumberbatch, Evangeline Lilly, Lee Pace, Luke Evans, Morfydd Clark, Mike Wood, Ismael Cruz Cordova, Charlie Vickers, Markella Kavenagh, Megan Richards, Sara Zwangobani, Daniel Weyman, Cynthia Addai-Robinson, Lenny Henry, Brian Cox, Shaun Dooley, Miranda Otto, Bilal Hasna, Benjamin Wainwright, Luke Pasqualino, Christopher Guard, William Squire, Michael Scholes, John Hurt TV Show(s) The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power Character(s) Frodo Baggins, Gandalf, Legolas, Boromir, Sauron, Gollum, Samwise Gamgee, Pippin Took, Celeborn, Aragorn, Galadriel, Bilbo Baggins, Saruman, Aldor, Wormtongue, Thorin Oakenshield, Balin Dwalin, Bifur, Bofur, Bombur, Fili, Kili, Oin, Gloin, Nori, Dori, Ori, Tauriel, King Thranduil, Smaug, Radagast, Arondir, Nori Brandyfoot, Poppy Proudfellow, Marigold Brandyfoot, Queen Regent Míriel, Sadoc Burrows The Lord of the Rings is a multimedia franchise consisting of several movies and a TV show released by Amazon titled The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power. The franchise is based on J.R.R. Tolkien's book series that began in 1954 with The Fellowship of the Ring. The Lord of the Rings saw mainstream popularity with Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit trilogies.