Can someone explain... (a scene from ROTK, I think)
 

The Scouring of the Shire? I keep hearing about this scene, but I don't know exactly what it's about. I'm watching PJ's commentary on FOTR: EE, and he brings it up. Is it what will happen if the bad guys win? Or does it really happen somewhere in the trilogy?

Just curious... thanks for the help!

It has been so long since I've read these books but I think it refers to something that happens after everything else (i.e. at the end of ROTC). I also think it may have something to do with the vision Frodo has of the Shire being ravaged by Orcs in the first movie.

Yeah, PJ brings it up in his commentary when Frodo is with Galadriel, and he sees that vision in the pool of the Shire burning, and Sam and other Hobbits getting rounded up by evil-looking folk... PJ says that was their "homage to the scouring of the Shire."

Basically, when all is said and done, the Hobbits clean up the Shire. Rebuilding and trying to restore normalcy, as it were.

I was hoping someone here would mention that was involved. (kinda important)

Okay... but I thought Saruman was pretty much defeated in TTT? Or was it just his army and war-making capabilities that were defeated? Why does he go to the Shire to mess things up? He could've gone anywhere... why the Shire? As one last middle finger to the hobbits, or what?

He was secretly hooked on Hobbit Pipeweed. Seriously. Also, the Shire was ripe for the picking. It was pretty easy for Saruman to hire a bunch of jack-booted thugs and set himself up as tin-horn dictator (all in the name of protecting the Shire, of course).

Since the movies are changing this I don't think this is a spoiler, but if it is, here's the warning.

Saruman was defeated but Gandalf let him go after breaking his staff and leaving him "powerless". They even meet him on the road again later and give him another chance to "be good". He sneers and leaves a veritible beggar. Jim Cook nailed what happened later and yes, it was a very definite middle finger to the Hobbits who he saw as causing his downfall. Thing is, it goes on for 100 pages or so after the defeat of Sauron (if that's a spoiler, someone needs to get out more often ;) ) and would be anticlimactic for the movie, so it's been left out. It's quite good in the books as it shows how the Hobbits have grown from passive to proactive.

The section in the book is fairly long, from the hints at Bree to the end, it is longer than the Council of Elrond section in the books. Imagine that on film. That's two hours itself. I don't mind seeing it not in the film. But it makes me wonder what Saruman's eventual end will be. Of course if this was a fegular Hollywood pic, Saruman would be shown at the end alive and heading to the Shire..."I'll be back!" The sequel would be Lord of the Rings: Saruman's Revenge and be three hours of the Scouring of the Shire.

Spoiler (possibly major) regarding Saurman's outcome in the third movie: