Aragorn Fought Sauron's Physical Form In Deleted Footage

In the deleted footage, a bright light shines upon Aragorn and his army, just before a ghostly figure steps out of the Black Gate of Mordor. It turns out to be Annatar, the angelic form used by Sauron in the Second Age to deceive the Elven Smiths of Eregion. However, Aragorn quickly recognizes the deception, and Sauron becomes the hulking figure seen in the opening of The Fellowship of the Ring. Their weapons are drawn, and these two rivals finally have their face-to-face confrontation. However, the fight is mostly Aragorn's blade deflecting off of Sauron's hulking armor.

When reviewing the footage, Jackson felt that Aragorn vs Sauron took away from the true battle: Frodo and Sam's perilous journey to the heart of Mordor, where they would hurl the One Ring into the fires of Mount Doom. "It was not what Tolkien imagined," the filmmaker recalled. "And we realized it was actually totally demeaning to what Aragorn was doing." Aragorn's heroics at the moment weren't from a confrontation with Sauron but instead from placing his life on the line to enable Frodo and Sam to accomplish their mission.

The Aragorn Vs. Sauron Fight Was Replaced With CGI

But Jackson and his team still wanted Aragorn to have some sort of heroic fight. Therefore, the footage was edited to replace Sauron with a large, armored CGI troll. The revised scene is so seamless that it's easy to believe Aragorn's fight against the troll was the original plan. Even the shot of a bright light shining upon Aragorn and his army made it into Return of the King's final cut. However, the revised scene instead cuts to the all-seeing Eye of Sauron casting its gaze directly at Aragorn.

The trilogy's dedication to the source material and honoring what Tolkien originally wanted is what makes the movies so special. While there were plenty of changes made during the adaptation process, the core concepts remained the same. In Tolkien's The Return of the King, Sauron never fights Aragorn. In fact, Sauron's appearance is never properly described, perhaps because he's a notorious shapeshifter. As such, showing Aragorn fighting Sauron would be a disservice to the author.

Although a fight between Aragorn and Sauron may have been an epic moment, most fans will agree the reasons for leaving out the scene are valid. Most movies typically have the final duel between the hero and villain, but that's not what The Lord of the Rings is really about. The real journey is two unlikely Hobbits saving the world from evil, not by strength but by their courage.