Sauron is the main antagonist of Peter Jackson's Middle-earth franchise, based on J.R.R. Tolkien's fantasy novels The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit.
Once the servant of Morgoth before taking up his role for himself, Sauron was the dark lord of Mordor and the great enemy of the Free Folk of Middle-earth. He forged the One Ring to Rule Them All in ages past in order to enslave and conquer all of Middle-earth. In spite of this, he was defeated and destroyed for a time.
He was originally going to have a physical appearance in the 2003 Academy Award winning film The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King. He would have been played by Sala Baker and voiced by Alan Howard, the former previously portrayed the character in the opening of The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring.
History[]
Initially Sauron was going to return in a physical form and fight Aragorn at the tail end of the Battle of the Black Gate but the filmmakers ultimately decided against it and replaced Sauron with a powerful troll. Sketches of the intended battle were shown in a bonus feature on one of the discs of the Extended Edition, under "Abandoned Concept: Aragorn vs. Sauron".
In the cut scene, it is shown that Sauron also took his Annatar form. The scene was deleted because of the fact it was not in the novel and Peter Jackson felt it would take the focus away from Frodo and Sam. Furthermore, he believed that it would take away from Aragorn's act of sacrifice, ultimately Sauron was replaced by a CGI troll