Further to our report from an extra who took part in a scene with Sauron (see below) we got some good thoughts about it from you. [More]
Month: March 2001
Good fun opening the email this morning! Thanks to all of you who wrote in. Some of you pointed out that since there were NINE wringraiths surrounding Sauron, and there’s only eight of them left by the end of LOTR, the scene that was reported to us is more likely to be from LOTR’s pre-history – like The Battle of the Last Alliance. Joe wrotein to say that in Tolkien’s own pictures of Sauron, he drew him with the spiked armour as described in the scene. On the other hand, Stevanos tells us “It looks like PJ (or whoever designed the costume) has based it on the description of Morgroth when he and Fingolfin duel it out in The Silmarillion. Morgroth’s hammer was called Grond, the very weapon the Battering Ram at the Siege of Minas Tirith was named after: “The Hammer of the Underworld”.
Jason told us about the John Howe painting that shows this spiked armour on Melkor. You can see it in Rolozo Tolkien, here
Thing is, who influenced who? Did Howe base his picture of Melkor on Tolkien’s picture of Sauron? Did the designers for the film base their vision of Sauron on either of those? John Howe and Alan Lee are the conceptual artists for the film, after all.
From: Demosthenes
I found this little snippet about Cate Blanchett (Galadriel) in the latest edition (March 17) of New Idea (a popular Australian women’s magazine).
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It seems more and more certain that we WILL see Sauron in the movies, according to this report from an extra who was THERE. Nobody’s been able to say yet whether the scene in question is from the Battle of the Last Alliance, when the Ring was cut from Sauron’s finger, or whether he’ll appear at the end of ROTK, but it seems we’ll get more than a quick glimpse. (More)
Fantastic spy report from Sylvesterpasemester
“A few months ago me and my friend, was working as extras during the filming of some battlescenes. I have read the books twice and I am very certain that what I saw ain´t in the books. I saw a huge guy with black armour and a huge kind of battleaxe or a hammer, who was standing in the front of a giant bluescreen and there were nine, I repeat !!NINE!! smaller guys with crowns around him. .
There were some kind of spikes attached to the armour and his helmet. It all looked very scary. Around him there lay tons of dead human bodies and a great corps[?] The guy in the giant armour must have been SAURON!!!!!!!! Me, my friend and the rest of the 50 extras ran in terror from this Sauron guy while there was two cameras filming us. It took three takes until the filming crew had what they wanted. From what I have read Sauron never leaves Barad Dur, so this was a big surprise.”
Now, a similar report came in months ago but in less detail, as it was what somebody saw who was passing by on another errand. This really seems to confirm that we will see Sauron. Given that the ancient history of the Ring is included in the movies, we could have guessed that we’d see Sauron at least when Isildur cut the Ring from his finger, but this latest news may mean we get to see him doing his thing at length. Could he even appear at the final battle before the fall of the Dark Tower? One clue will be: What armour were the extras wearing?