Powerful Deleted LotR Scene Reveals Frodo's Worst Possible Future
As the second film in Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings trilogy, The Two Towers continues the story of the Fellowship as they attempt to destroy the One Ring and defeat Sauron's forces.
As the quest to Mordor persists for the two hobbits, the film portrays the growing strain of the ring on Frodo and Sam. And in one deleted scene, the movie showed just how bad things could have been for Frodo if he had submitted to the Ring's corruption.
Throughout the film, we start to see Frodo slowly suffer the Ring's will. He appears increasingly worn and dishevelled, dark circles appear under his eyes, and his mood becomes more irritable. However, Peter Jackson was willing to demonstrate the damaging effects of the ring much further. In a scene that was not included in the original film cut or the extended version, Jackson wanted to show Frodo's fate should the ring have taken him over fully.
The scene in question was to be placed after Faramir interrogates Gollum, and learns Frodo has the ring.
At first, he seems to be almost drawn to the ring himself; in much the same way as his brother Boromir.
However, Frodo pushes his sword away and retreats against the stone wall. In the released version of this clip, Sam comes straight to Frodo's aid, telling Faramir to back off. Yet in this now deleted scene, Faramir was shown to have had a vision of Frodo corrupted by the ring.
Looking not too dissimilar to Gollum, with wispy hair, pale skin, and a haunting look about him. This likely explains Faramir's surprised expression afterwards, which was kept in the scene anyway.
It is uncertain why Jackson removed this short but striking moment from the final cut. Perhaps it was simply a matter of cutting down on total film length. It is possible he did not want to insinuate that Frodo was more distorted by the ring's influence than he already was. Or maybe it was deemed too disturbing and would have detracted from the overall tone of the scene.
Yet it does seem to provide some greater depth into the meaning behind the moment. Such a vision may have been what prevented Faramir from ever trying to physically take the ring for himself. Perhaps it was why he eventually let Frodo and Sam go. Had Boromir seen such a vision for himself, would he have never attempted to take the ring?
The deleted scene is a powerful illustration of the corrupting influence of the ring and the gradual erosion of Frodo's willpower. Although it was inevitably cut from the movie, it can still be seen briefly as a preview in the behind-the-scenes documentary, found on both the extended edition DVD and Blu-ray.