[The Ninth Valar]

Him finding it in the wreckage is as good an idea as any. Perhaps they filmed a scene where Gandalf picks it up off the ground and placing it in a blanket, a little quick shot with Pippin looking on, intrigued. This leads to him looking at it at night. <P>I wonder as well how they'd handle it. Maybe they'll put an even shorter version (less than 7min) it back in at the last minute, before the prints go out, finding it adding a sense of closure for Sauruman, albeit brief. We could come in mid-speech with Gandalf...:<P>Wide shot of Orthanc with dialogue over it, cut to Gandalf at the stairs, Sauruman rambling, the palantir on the ground. Then Grima rushes forward and pitches his master over the edge in a mad frenzy, being downed himself by an archer. The old man dies of the fall, gets impaled, blah blah blah, and Pippin picks the palantir off the ground only to have Gandalf take it away. You could do that in three minutes, if you join the scene en medias res.