The Lord Of The Rings trilogy offers fans an extensive journey through Middle-earth. The theatrical versions of LOTR by themselves add up to more than nine hours of runtime, bringing J.R.R. Tolkien’s epic mythology to life. The Extended Editions push that even further, clocking in at roughly 11 and a half hours total. Still, fans have continued to wonder whether there might be additional material out there, extra scenes filmed by Jackson and his team that never appeared in the Extended Editions.
However, Jackson himself says this doesn’t actually exist. “Are there great scenes that we never used? The answer is no,” he said in an interview with the Empire.
“There are bits and pieces, I guess. But if you did an extended-extended cut, or whatever it will get called, it would be disappointing. It would be the extended cut with a few extra seconds of something here and there; it wouldn’t be worthwhile doing.”
These rumours started because of mentions of certain scenes that were filmed but never shown, such as a younger, beardless Aragorn during his romance with Arwen.
“There was that, it was in Lothlórien,” confirms co-writer Philippa Boyens. “But there’s not a lot. There really isn’t,” she attests.
What could become a reality is a massive Lord Of The Rings behind-the-scenes documentary that Jackson is hoping to create someday. He says he has extensive footage available to work with.
“The footage contains alternative takes, it contains bloopers, it contains a bit more of a sense of the mechanics of making the films,” he teases. “But to this day, I haven’t persuaded [the studio], because obviously it’s a big undertaking.”
So while the Mithril Cut may be nothing more than fantasy, the possibility of a Mithril documentary remains alive.
