Peter: [Elven Rope] It’s great to have a different title shot. It’s the same as what we did with ‘The Fellowship’ Special Edition – it sort of freshens up… You know, it kind of identifies this as the Special Edition, because the title of the film’s on a completely different place in the movie.

Philippa: I remember, Pete, you and I tried about a million different ways to get this – the rope, the Elvish Rope into the…

Peter: I know.

Philippa: Because it was just such an iconic moment, and…

Peter: It’s a lovely part of the book, and it was always tough to fit it in and…

Philippa: It didn’t have a story imperative, unfortunately.

Peter: Well, you realise it’s become a DVD Special Edition kind of thing now, because the giving of the Elvish Rope to Sam was in ‘The Fellowship’ Extended Cut [Philippa agrees], and then the using of it is in ‘The Two Towers’ Extended Cut! [All three laugh, Philippa: Yeah!] If you look at the movie-version, it doesn’t exist! [laughs] It’s kind of cute!

Philippa: We’re first approaching this that you wanted to show Frodo less grim – you didn’t want to start on him being grim.

Peter: Yeah, this was one of the scenes we shot as a pick-up scene, with the actors coming back during the course of the editing and doing some extra shooting; and this was one of the scenes we actually shot, although we didn’t use it in the movie eventually. But it was done to try to see a little bit more of a lighter side to Frodo and Sam before the story got too grim. It does succeed in that – I’m pleased to have it back, because the Frodo that we see here at the beginning of the film is more similar to how Frodo ends up at the end of the film, after he’s travelled the journey that he’s about to go on.

Philippa: Fran and I went hunting for something that could remind Frodo of the Shire. Sure enough, there it was in the book, and the salt is actually something that Sam does carry all the way.

Peter: [Sam: “Who’s going to follow us down here, Mr. Frodo?”] The little prefiguring of Gollum is quite nice, too, because, you know, we’re aware that Gollum’s around after the first movie; and we… Certainly in this longer version, we’d shot little bits and pieces that were teasing on him following them; we abandoned all that in the theatrical and just sort of introduced him very quickly. (beat)