[The Saucepan Man]

The additional Merry and Pippin scenes at Isengard in the TTT EE were nice. But the point is that the TTT EE did not have Theoden, Aragorn and co arriving at Isengard. So, are we to assume that there will be such a scene in RotK?<P>Clearly the scene would be there if the confrontation with Saruman was to be included. But, since Saruman and Wormtongue have (most unfortunately) been expunged from the theatrical release, I do wonder what the point would be of having Gandalf and co turn up at Isengard and not confront him. But if they do not go to Isengard, how will they be reunited with Merry and Pippin? And how will the Palantir come into their possession? Surely they won't simply have Pippin find it amongst the debris and give it to Gandalf later. That would be weak in the extreme (if nothing else, it turns an act of folly by Pippin into a very helpful one).<P>It looks more and more to me like Saruman's omission from the final film is going to cause more problems than it solves. But I suppose that we will soon know for sure ...