Lord Of The Rings 10 Major Things The Movies Cut (Because They Had To)

Lord Of The Rings: 10 Major Things The Movies Cut (Because They Had To)

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To save on runtime and streamline the plot, there are some things that the Lord of the Rings movies were forced to cut out.

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Lord Of The Rings 10 Major Things The Movies Cut (Because They Had To)

It is an impressive feat by itself to create a cinematic rendition of one of the greatest fantasy epics of all time, The Lord of the Rings, not to mention how well the films reflected the tone and style of the books. With an almost ten-hour final runtime (in total), the amount of time and effort put in by the cast and crew to get to that point must have been considerable.

The movies, however, did shake things up a bit here and there — to save on runtime, to streamline the plot, and/or to make the narrative more fitting for its live-action debut. Here are some of the many instances of major things that were excluded from the trilogy.

10 Technically Should Have Been 6 Movies

Lord Of The Rings 10 Major Things The Movies Cut (Because They Had To)

The novels written by Tolkien are often published in a single compilation, but The Fellowship of the Ring, The Two Towers, and The Return of the King are actually known as volumes.

Each volume contains two books, stopping at crucial points in the story, for instance, Book 5 ends on a major cliffhanger: Aragorn taking the military of Gondor to the Black Gate, thereby diverting the attention of Sauron away from the pair of actual threats sneaking into Mordor through the back door. In terms of the films, it would have been quite exhausting splitting the narrative any other way, though.

9 Sauron’s Body

Lord Of The Rings 10 Major Things The Movies Cut (Because They Had To)

Being a Maia, an angelic being of great mystery and power, Sauron has been able to manifest a variety of forms — gigantic wolf, charming humanoid, and so on. Therefore, when he “dies” for the first time against Elendil and Isildur, the latter literally takes the One Ring from the Dark Lord’s corpse.

While in the films, Sauron is still non-corporeal (except for the flaming eye of Barad Dur), the text explains that he has regained his physical form during the time of the Fellowship. In fact, Gollum mentions that he still has one finger missing, “but they are enough, precious, they are enough!”

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8 Gandalf Vs. The Witch-King

Lord Of The Rings 10 Major Things The Movies Cut (Because They Had To)

The Witch-King of Angmar is, or was, a mere man. There is no way it should have been able to defeat Gandalf the White as it does on screen, almost like it’s smirking behind that gruesome helmet.

There is no need for the Rohirrim to come charging in and rescue the great Balrog vanquisher, except, perhaps, to make him look a bit more human, more relatable, and less like the infinitely wise Maia he’s supposed to be. Gandalf being vulnerable was certainly the right decision for atmospheric tension.

7 Elrond’s Twins

Lord Of The Rings 10 Major Things The Movies Cut (Because They Had To)

Elrond plays a major part in the “War of the Ring”, much as he did millennia ago when allied with the Numenorean escapees. Including Arwen, Elrond has two other kids, identical twin boys just like their father and his brother, Elros.

Elladan and Elrohir were most likely cut due to redundancy — the youngest Rivendell kid takes up far too much space to also squeeze her brothers in. This poses a bit of a problem during The Last Debate, forcing Gimli and Legolas to be employed as replacements for the missing twins, but this little change doesn’t take away from the bigger picture.

6 The Dunedain

Lord Of The Rings 10 Major Things The Movies Cut (Because They Had To)

The descendants of ancient Numenoreans are the Dunedain, a once great and powerful tribe that were gradually reduced to becoming the Rangers of the North as time went on. At the head of them is Aragorn, the heir of Isildur, leading dozens of men and women through the forests of Middle-Earth.

Skipping these characters was certainly a prudent choice (imagine the number of unnecessary extras scattered all over the place), but it would have been nice to delve a bit further into the details.

5 What About Radagast The Brown?

Lord Of The Rings 10 Major Things The Movies Cut (Because They Had To)

The Five Wizards included the naturalist, Radagast the Brown, who plays a prominent role in The Hobbit series. However, he does make an appearance in The Lord of the Rings as well, when he visits Gandalf to reveal that the Ringwraiths are on the hunt for the hobbit homeland.

In response, he requests Radagast to deliver important missives to Saruman’s stronghold through his animal friends. This is how the King of Eagles, Gwaihir, knows that he needs to go rescue Gandalf, as opposed to the latter’s mystical moth messenger in the movie.

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4 Tom Bombadil

Lord Of The Rings 10 Major Things The Movies Cut (Because They Had To)

The tale of Tom Bombadil, like the character, is older than the Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit, as well as The Silmarillion, being first published in poem form in 1934. The chapters detailing this character have been entirely scrapped from the script, a sort of deviating side arc that isn’t quite essential to capture the gist of Frodo’s struggle.

Bombadil is a fascinating character, though, considering that even the Elves (who tend to be thousands of years old) refer to him as Iarwain Ben-Adar, meaning “oldest and fatherless.”

3 Old Man Willow

Lord Of The Rings 10 Major Things The Movies Cut (Because They Had To)

On their way to Rivendell, the hobbits are cursed to “fall asleep” by an ancient tree/forest embodiment, Old Man Willow. This little plotline delineates that fury felt by the natural elements of Arda against human invasion, occupation, and destruction.

Luckily, before Frodo and Sam succeed in committing arson to free Merry and Pippin from Old Man Willow, Tom Bombadil appears out of nowhere and charms Old Man Willow into slumber by humming a lullaby of sorts. What on earth does any of this have to do with Sauron and the One Ring?

2 Scouring Of The Shire

Lord Of The Rings 10 Major Things The Movies Cut (Because They Had To)

At the end of the novel, Frodo and company return home to find their beloved Shire suffering under the rule of tyrants — Saruman and his creepy little helper, Grima Wormtongue.

To be fair, Frodo does have a very similar vision (burning Hobbit holes, Orc villains, the works), but this doesn’t come to life. Rather than doing this the more elaborate way, the screenplay opts to kill Saruman off via accidental suicide; a great and well-deserved splat all the way from the ramparts of Orthanc to his spiky doom.

1 So Many Songs!

The books have quite a few poems sprinkled in and around, the lyrics to which are usually accompanied by music. Samwise, especially, loves writing little ditties and odes to his experiences, even singing them out loud on several occasions.

Although there are a total of 61 poems in the written works, very few are retained in the movies, one of which is the lukewarm rendition of the “Lay of Lúthien”. These pieces would have definitely enhanced narrative depth, but the filmmakers decided to keep the score in the background and focus more on the action.

Link Source : https://screenrant.com/lord-of-the-rings-major-things-movies-cut/

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