“There’s a much longer version of Mirkwood that we shot. Umm… there’s a really beautiful sequence where Bombur falls into the stream, the Enchanted Stream, and we have to carry him. And then also, Thorin and Bilbo see the white stag, which is this sort of manifestation of the Elf King, kind of projecting himself into the forest. And Thorin kind of symbolically tries to kill the stag with his crossbow. Which I…you know, that was really disappointing that that couldn’t be in the film because I do think, I think it’s like a little beacon of the relationship between Thorin and the Elf King.”
— Richard Armitage in The Hobbit Twitter Q&A : “What scenes will be included on the extended edition of Desolation?”