Dragged down by an Uruk?

[Balin999]

I guess if I'd seen this fish-orc I'd would not have even liked "the fellowship" which is the only one that I don't think of as not-so-good-as-people-say.
Come on, PJ, an orc in the water? out of nowhere?

that leads to another question... is there any written evidence that orks could swim? (maybe a new threat in the books? and pls don't tell me about the orks in world of warcraft )

[Knight of Gondor]

I like the water-orc jokes.

I never heard about this interview, etc., but here's my bet. There was a planned sequence in FotR where orcs ambush the three Elven boats. You can see storyboard shots in Fellowship, the Extended Edition. It joined the River of Nimrodel chase and attack sequence, and never made it to being filmed. Perhaps Elijah had a poor briefing on this dropped sequence, and that's how it came out in the interview.

[Kitanna]

Maybe PJ just felt a great need to ruin something. But since this scene did not make it anywhere near the final cut he must have come to his senses. Which is good for everyone involved.

[Elianna]

Just finished watching the production team commentary for FotR, and they explain this scene!

Frodo and Sam (after Sam did NOT almost drowned) were going to be paddling off to Mordor, and an Uruk comes out of the water and grabs Frodo. In the struggle, the Ring slips away from Frodo and the Uruk goes after it, actually drowning himself. Then Sam would then save Frodo (who magically gets the Ring back?) and they'd go off to Mordor alone together.

They said that New Line was thinking that it's a bit anti-climatic (I can't remember the precise word) for the end there with Frodo and Sam for them to just leave, add some excitement: add an Uruk. It was supposed to get you thinking that "the enemy is gone, but no wait, it really isn't."

Then New Line saw what they were doing with the scene, and were like, "Well, maybe it'd be better to put the focus more on Frodo and Sam, have Frodo almost loose Sam..." The folks making the movie happily agreed, and so now we have Sam almost drowning (that was in the book in the first place, I might add ).