The Lord of the Rings (film trilogy)

Aragorn has appeared in most dramatizations of The Lord of the Rings. In Ralph Bakshi's animated film of 1978 he was voiced by John Hurt, and in the Rankin/Bass animated television film The Return of the King (1980) by Theodore Bikel. The BBC radio serial of 1981 cast Robert Stephens in the role. In Peter Jackson's live-action trilogy (2001–2003) Aragorn was played by Viggo Mortensen, who joined the production at short notice after filming had already begun, replacing the originally cast Stuart Townsend.

Jackson's films alter the character in several documented respects. Where the book's Aragorn deliberately works toward claiming his inheritance and carries the reforged Andúril from Rivendell onward, the film version is presented as a reluctant heir who doubts his lineage because of Isildur's failure, and the sword is reforged only in the third film, brought to him by Elrond before he takes the Paths of the Dead. The romance with Arwen, confined in the novel chiefly to an appendix, is moved into the main narrative through added scenes and flashbacks. The films also insert an invented episode in which Aragorn falls from a cliff during a warg attack on the road to Helm's Deep and is presumed dead, and in the theatrical cut of the third film the Army of the Dead fights on the Pelennor Fields and is released afterwards, rather than being dismissed at Pelargir as in the book. In the second film Aragorn states his age as eighty-seven, making explicit a detail the novel leaves to the appendices.

The Moria episode has been carried into every screen and radio version that reaches it, and in each the creature is mute, so there is no speaking credit to record. Ralph Bakshi's animated film gave it its first screen appearance, with Gandalf voiced by William Squire; like much of that production the sequence was built over live-action reference footage rather than drawn free. The BBC Radio 4 dramatisation, the longest of the older adaptations at twenty-six parts, has no visual problem to solve and renders the thing entirely in sound against Michael Hordern's Gandalf, keeping both the confrontation at the bridge and the wizard's later account of what followed close to the order the book gives them. Peter Jackson's trilogy realised the demon digitally, again without a credited performer, and made its clearest structural change in the handling of that account: where the novel leaves the pursuit through the mountain and the fight on the peak to be reported in retrospect, the films show the fall and the running battle directly, beginning the second instalment with them.

The compression is a consequence of the show's own timeline rather than an isolated invention, but it detaches the waking from the delving-too-deep that the book makes its cause. A separate liberty in Jackson's third film touches this entity only through its name: the orc-commander on the Pelennor, played by Lawrence Makoare under prosthetics, is called Gothmog, a name the older legendarium attaches to the Lord of Balrogs and which the novel gives to an unseen lieutenant of Minas Morgul.

Bilbo has been portrayed across the major screen and radio versions of both books. In the Rankin/Bass animated television film of The Hobbit (1977) he was voiced by Orson Bean, who returned to the role in the same studio's The Return of the King (1980); in Ralph Bakshi's animated The Lord of the Rings (1978) he was voiced by Norman Bird. The BBC's 1968 radio serial of The Hobbit cast Paul Daneman as Bilbo, and in the 1981 BBC radio dramatization of The Lord of the Rings the part was taken by John Le Mesurier — alongside Ian Holm as Frodo, the actor who two decades later played the elderly Bilbo in Peter Jackson's film trilogy (2001–2003). In Jackson's three-part film adaptation of The Hobbit (2012–2014) the young Bilbo was played by Martin Freeman, with Holm reappearing in framing scenes as the old hobbit writing his memoir.

The film versions alter several particulars of his story. Jackson's Hobbit trilogy keeps Bilbo conscious throughout the Battle of Five Armies, placing him at Ravenhill as a participant in the fighting and a witness to Thorin's final combat, where the book has him knocked senseless near the battle's start; it also gives him an invented heroic moment early in the quest, in which he physically defends the fallen Thorin against the orc Azog, who is expanded into a pursuing antagonist across all three films. In The Fellowship of the Ring (2001), Bilbo's grasp at the Ring in Rivendell — which the book renders as a fleeting impression in Frodo's eyes — is realized on screen as a sudden, monstrous transformation of his face.

In Peter Jackson's film trilogy The Lord of the Rings (2001–2003), Elrond is played by Hugo Weaving. The films depart from the book in several respects. The prologue shows Elrond leading Isildur into the fire-chamber of Mount Doom to destroy the One Ring, whereas the book has him and Círdan merely counsel its destruction after the battle. The screen Elrond voices an open distrust of Men that the novel does not give him, and he presses Arwen to leave Middle-earth rather than bind herself to Aragorn. The reforging of Narsil is likewise moved: instead of the sword being remade before the Company leaves Rivendell, Elrond himself carries the newly forged Andúril to Aragorn at Dunharrow. His sons Elladan and Elrohir, who ride to Aragorn's aid in the book, do not appear in the films.

Earlier and later adaptations cast the figure differently. In the Rankin/Bass animated television film of The Hobbit (1977) Elrond is voiced by Cyril Ritchard, and in Ralph Bakshi's animated The Lord of the Rings (1978) by André Morell. Jackson's Hobbit trilogy (2012–2014) returns Hugo Weaving to the role and enlarges it beyond the novel: Elrond attends a White Council meeting shown on screen and joins an invented assault on Dol Guldur to free Gandalf.

In Peter Jackson's film trilogy Éomer is played by Karl Urban, appearing first in the second film and again in the third; he has no part in the opening film, which ends before the story reaches Rohan. The screen version keeps the encounter on the plains, where he meets Aragorn, Legolas and Gimli and lends them horses, but it alters the reason he is absent from Edoras afterwards. Where the book has him arrested and confined at the king's order, the films have him banished outright by Théoden under Gríma's influence, so that he rides into exile with a body of riders loyal to him. That change carries a second one: because he is not present in the fortress, the relief that arrives with Gandalf at dawn after the night battle is led by Éomer himself, taking over the function the novel gives to Erkenbrand of the Westfold. The death of Théodred, which the book reports at a distance, is instead shown on screen as a death at Edoras, and serves as the immediate cause of the banishment.

The films also simplify what surrounds him. Prince Imrahil does not appear at all, so it is Éomer who finds his sister among the fallen before Minas Tirith, and the marriage into the house of Dol Amroth that follows in the book has no place in the adaptation. Théoden's dying words are given to Éowyn rather than used to name an heir, and although Éomer is present at Aragorn's crowning, his own accession, his by-name and the long reign that follows are left outside the story the films tell. The BBC Radio 4 dramatisation of 1981, which runs to twenty-six parts and is by some distance the most complete of the earlier adaptations, has room for the sequence the films rearrange, and keeps his disgrace at court and his release in the form the book gives them. Ralph Bakshi's animated film of 1978 breaks off after Helm's Deep and so reaches none of his later career; the intended second part that would have covered it was never made.

In Peter Jackson's three-part film version Éowyn is played by Miranda Otto, appearing first in the second instalment of 2002 and again in the concluding film of 2003. The screenplay enlarges her presence in Rohan considerably. Where the book keeps her in Edoras and then sends her with the people of the Mark to the refuge under the White Mountains, the films attach her to the general retreat to Helm's Deep, so that she is inside the fortress during the siege and takes charge of the women and children sheltering in the caves; the Dunharrow muster is correspondingly reduced. Gríma's designs upon her, which Tolkien conveys largely at second hand through Gandalf's accusation, are dramatised directly in scenes invented for the film, as is a sequence in which Aragorn finds her practising with a sword. Her attraction to Aragorn is made a running thread across both films and is answered explicitly rather than left to a single exchange, and the name Dernhelm is never used: she rides in the host disguised but unnamed, with Meriadoc concealed beside her.

The Pelennor scenes follow the book's outline, with the winged steed destroyed and the Lord of the Nazgûl brought down after Meriadoc's stroke from behind, though the older prophecy that underwrites the moment goes unmentioned and the Barrow-blade's particular virtue is not explained. The aftermath is where the adaptation diverges most sharply: Aragorn's healing in the Houses of Healing is compressed almost out of the theatrical cut, Faramir and Éowyn's courtship survives only as a brief passage in the extended edition, and their marriage and settlement in Ithilien are not shown. Earlier screen versions treat her still more summarily. Ralph Bakshi's animated film of 1978, which ends with the battle at Helm's Deep, leaves her out of the Edoras material altogether, so that she has no part in it. The BBC's twenty-six-part radio dramatisation of 1981, being far fuller in scope, retains her withheld ride, the deed on the Pelennor, and the recovery and betrothal that follow it.

Frodo has been portrayed in every major dramatization of The Lord of the Rings. In Ralph Bakshi's animated film of 1978, which covers roughly the first half of the story, he was voiced by Christopher Guard; in the Rankin/Bass animated television film The Return of the King (1980) the part was spoken by Orson Bean. The BBC radio serial of 1981 cast Ian Holm as Frodo — the same actor who two decades later played the elderly Bilbo in Peter Jackson's live-action trilogy (2001–2003), in which Frodo was played by Elijah Wood. Wood reprised the role briefly in the prologue framing of Jackson's first Hobbit film (2012).

Jackson's trilogy departs from the book in several respects that bear directly on the character. The seventeen years between Bilbo's party and Frodo's departure are compressed into a brief interval, so that Frodo leaves the Shire as a visibly young hobbit rather than at fifty. The Old Forest and Tom Bombadil episodes are omitted, and the films add material without counterpart in the novel: Faramir brings the hobbits to Osgiliath, where Frodo comes close to surrendering the Ring to a Nazgûl, and before the pass of Cirith Ungol Frodo, deceived by Gollum's scheming against Sam, sends his companion away. The Scouring of the Shire is likewise absent, and the returning hobbits find their homeland unharmed.

Galadriel has appeared in most major adaptations of The Lord of the Rings. In Ralph Bakshi's animated film of 1978 she was voiced by Annette Crosbie, and in the BBC radio dramatisation of 1981 by Marian Diamond. The distribution of her gifts to the Fellowship, part of the theatrical narrative in the book, was included only in the extended edition of the first film.

Blanchett returned as Galadriel in Jackson's Hobbit trilogy (2012–2014), although the character does not appear in the 1937 novel. The films insert her into a meeting of the White Council at Rivendell and, in the final instalment, into an invented rescue of Gandalf from Dol Guldur, where she confronts and expels Sauron.

Gandalf has been portrayed across animation, radio, and live-action film. In the Rankin/Bass animated television film of The Hobbit (1977) and its later companion piece The Return of the King (1980), the character was voiced by John Huston; in Ralph Bakshi's animated The Lord of the Rings (1978), which covers roughly the first half of the story, William Squire provided the voice. Michael Hordern played Gandalf in the BBC radio serialisation of The Lord of the Rings (1981). The most widely known portrayal is that of Ian McKellen, who played the wizard in Peter Jackson's live-action film trilogies The Lord of the Rings (2001–2003) and The Hobbit (2012–2014), receiving an Academy Award nomination for the first film.

The Jackson films depart from the books in several documented respects. Gandalf's detention by Saruman at Orthanc, only recounted after the fact in the novel, is staged on screen as a physical duel between the two wizards. In the film of The Return of the King, Gandalf's confrontation with the Witch-king is expanded: an extended-cut scene shows the Nazgûl lord shattering Gandalf's staff, an event without counterpart in the book, and Gandalf intervenes against Denethor by force rather than through words alone. The Hobbit trilogy dramatizes Gandalf's absences from the original narrative, showing his investigation of Dol Guldur and his captivity there — material the novel leaves off-page and the appendices only summarize.

On screen and on air the people are represented almost entirely by the few individuals the stories follow. Orson Bean voiced Bilbo in the Rankin/Bass television film of the earlier novel, and took the part of Frodo as well in the same studio's version of the last part of the longer book, where Roddy McDowall played Samwise. Bakshi's film cast Christopher Guard as Frodo, Michael Scholes as Sam, Dominic Guard as Pippin and Simon Chandler as Merry, their movement drawn in part over filmed actors. The BBC dramatisation used Ian Holm as Frodo, Bill Nighy as Sam and John Le Mesurier as Bilbo; Holm returned two decades later as Bilbo for Peter Jackson, whose four travellers were Elijah Wood, Sean Astin, Billy Boyd and Dominic Monaghan, with Martin Freeman taking the younger Bilbo in the second trilogy. Difference of stature there was managed by forced perspective, doubled sets built to two scales, and stand-ins of smaller build rather than by any effect applied to the actors.

The departures are consistent in one respect: the domestic material at either end of the book is the first thing cut. Bakshi, the radio series and Jackson all pass over the Old Forest, Tom Bombadil and the Barrow-downs, and Jackson additionally compresses the long interval between the birthday party and the departure from Bag End, brings Merry and Pippin into the journey by accident instead of by the deliberate conspiracy of the novel, and drops the return home altogether, so that the four come back to a country that has never been occupied and needs no setting right. The Rankin/Bass treatment of the last part begins with the quest already far advanced and leaves most of the earlier narrative unrepresented. The radio version, longest of the older adaptations, is the only one of them to dramatise the retaking of the Shire.

Lúthien has never been portrayed by an actor in any authorised film or television adaptation, and no adaptation has dramatised the events of her life. The reason is a matter of licensing rather than of choice: the screen rights held by the various producers have covered only The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, and the chapter in which her story is told belongs to the posthumously published Silmarillion, which remains unadapted. She therefore reaches the screen only at the points where The Lord of the Rings itself mentions her, as a name in a song and as an ancestor, and in every case she is spoken of rather than shown.

In Peter Jackson's The Fellowship of the Ring (2001) the Weathertop episode is compressed and Aragorn's recital of her tale is cut from the theatrical release; the extended edition restores a brief scene in which he sings a few lines in Sindarin at the campfire and, questioned by Frodo, identifies the song as the Lay of Lúthien and its subject as an Elven woman who loved a mortal man and died. The quest for the Silmaril, her descent into Angband, her plea before Mandos and her choice of mortality are all absent, as is the explicit parallel the book draws between her and Arwen. The films likewise omit the Appendix material on Aragorn and Arwen, and with it the first meeting in which Aragorn, seeing Arwen in the woods of Rivendell, addresses her by Lúthien's second name. Her presence in adaptation is thus confined to allusion, and her name is better known to screen audiences through Arwen than in its own right.

The city has fared unevenly on screen. Ralph Bakshi's animated film never reaches it: the picture breaks off after the fighting at Helm's Deep and the intended second part was never produced, so Gondor's capital lies entirely outside its compass. The Rankin/Bass television film of 1980 takes up the closing part of the story instead, with John Huston voicing Gandalf and William Conrad voicing Denethor, but its running time of roughly ninety minutes obliges it to compress the siege severely and to summarise events it had not itself dramatised, since it does not continue Bakshi's film. Peter Jackson's trilogy gives the city by far the fullest treatment, making it the principal setting of the third film, with John Noble as Denethor; the earlier two films glimpse it only in passing. As in the older animated films, the city is realised through design and effects work rather than through any single performer associated with it, so the adaptations are compared chiefly by what they keep of the book's material.

Jackson's departures in the city are the ones most often noted. The lighting of the mountain beacons is turned into a clandestine act performed by Pippin at Gandalf's prompting, against the Steward's will, where in the book the beacons are kindled on Denethor's own order; Faramir is sent out on a hopeless charge to recover the river-city, an episode without a counterpart in the novel; and Denethor dies by falling in flames from the great rock spur above the Gate rather than on the pyre in the tomb-precinct. The films also drop the guardsman Beregond and his son entirely, so Pippin's introduction to the ordinary life of the place goes with them, and they supply no equivalent of the later explanation that the Steward's despair had been fed by a seeing-stone. Material set in the Houses of Healing, including the meeting of Faramir and Éowyn, survives only in abbreviated form in the extended version. The BBC Radio dramatisation of 1981, running to twenty-six half-hour parts, is the most faithful of the older versions in this respect: its length allows the councils, the Steward's household and the aftermath of the battle to be played out at something near the book's proportions, with Peter Vaughan as Denethor and Michael Hordern as Gandalf.

Peter Jackson's film trilogy keeps the sword in the story but rearranges almost every stage of its history. In the prologue to the first film the breaking is staged as an act of Sauron rather than an accident of Elendil's fall: Elendil is struck down in single combat and the blade is destroyed underfoot by his enemy, after which Isildur takes up the remaining hilt-shard and strikes off the finger that bears the Ring. At Rivendell the shards are given a fixed setting as displayed relics on a stone table beneath a memorial painting, and a scene without any counterpart in the novel has Boromir take up the hilt out of curiosity, cut himself on the surviving edge and put it back carelessly, which serves to establish Gondor's neglect of its own inheritance well before the Council convenes.

The most consequential change is the postponement of the reforging. Where the book has the smiths of Rivendell restore the blade before the Company leaves, the theatrical films leave the shards unmended through the first two instalments, so that Aragorn fights at Amon Hen and Helm's Deep with an ordinary weapon and remains a reluctant heir for far longer than in the text. The reforging is moved to the third film and given a new motive, with Elrond commissioning the work at his daughter's urging and then carrying the finished sword himself to Aragorn's camp at Dunharrow, where its delivery becomes the immediate spur for the ride to the Paths of the Dead. Among the older adaptations the BBC Radio dramatisation, running to twenty-six parts, is the one that preserves the book's sequence, treating the shards as an heirloom made whole at Rivendell before the journey south begins.

The best-known departure belongs to Peter Jackson's film trilogy, where the reforging is moved out of Rivendell and postponed by two films. In the first instalment the fragments of Narsil are treated as a museum piece kept in Elrond's house, and Aragorn, played by Viggo Mortensen, sets out with the Company carrying an ordinary sword of no stated ancestry. He fights at Amon Hen, in Rohan and at Helm's Deep with that anonymous weapon, so that the emblem of his descent is absent from precisely the halls where, in the book, it serves to identify him. The reforged blade reaches him only in the third film, brought to the Rohirrim's muster at Dunharrow by Elrond, played by Hugo Weaving, on the eve of Aragorn's ride to the Paths of the Dead. With that change the naming passes from Aragorn to Elrond, who both delivers the sword and pronounces its name, and the reforging becomes a signal that Aragorn has accepted the kingship rather than a preparation for the journey south. The book's arrangement, in which Aragorn's kinsmen ride to him with tokens from Rivendell during that stage of the war, is folded into Elrond's single errand.

Peter Jackson's three films give Arwen a considerably larger and more active part than the book allows her, and she is played throughout by Liv Tyler. The most conspicuous change comes early: the flight to the Ford of Bruinen, which in the novel is undertaken by Frodo alone on a horse lent by another elf of Elrond's house, is reassigned to her, so that she rides with the wounded hobbit before her and confronts the pursuing riders at the water's edge. Her presence is then sustained across the second and third films by material with no counterpart in the narrative, chiefly a series of exchanges with her father about whether she will sail, and a physical decline that ties her strength to the fortunes of the war. The banner she works in secret and sends south with the Rangers does not survive into the films, since the Rangers of the North do not appear in them; in its place Elrond himself brings the reforged sword to Aragorn in Rohan, which transfers to the father a function the book assigns to the daughter. Footage placing her at the battle of Helm's Deep was filmed and then removed before release, and the change of plan was afterwards discussed by the production at some length.

In every adaptation of The Lord of the Rings he is a discovery rather than a character, and no performer is credited for him. Jackson's earlier trilogy keeps him as the tomb in the Chamber of Mazarbul, with Gimli's grief supplying what the book supplies at greater length, and the recovered record reduced to a few read passages; Bakshi's unfinished animated film treats the same burial chamber more briefly within a compressed Moria sequence. The BBC Radio dramatisation, having the room of a twenty-six-part serial, follows the novel most closely here and lets the account of the colony's end be read out at length. He falls outside the Rankin/Bass Return of the King entirely, since that film begins after Moria; in the same studio's Hobbit the thirteen dwarves are so heavily condensed that little beyond Thorin is individuated, and Balin has no distinct role.

Peter Jackson's three films give Barad-dûr a far more literal presence than the novel allows it. Where the book keeps Sauron's Eye largely a matter of report, dream and dread — something felt, or glimpsed in vision, rather than simply seen — the films set a physically present eye of flame in the tower's crown and use it as a visible searching beam sweeping the land below, so that Sauron becomes an object on screen instead of an unseen will inferred from its effects. The prologue compresses the Second Age war along similar lines: the alliance's long investment of the fortress is reduced to a single engagement fought below the mountain, and Sauron's overthrow follows directly from the cutting of the Ring rather than from years of siege before the tower's walls. The theatrical cut of the final film also omits the parley of the Mouth of Sauron, the officer who speaks for the tower before the Black Gate, restoring him only in the later extended edition, so that cinema audiences encountered no representative of Barad-dûr's household at all.

Because Beren's story belongs to the Silmarillion material, which has never been dramatized in its own right, no actor has yet portrayed him as an on-screen character in a major adaptation; he enters dramatizations of The Lord of the Rings only through the references other characters make to him. In Peter Jackson's film The Fellowship of the Ring (2001), the book's long recital below Weathertop is reduced to a brief exchange: Aragorn, played by Viggo Mortensen, quietly sings a few lines in Sindarin at the camp, and when questioned identifies the song as the tale of Lúthien, the Elf-maiden who gave her love to Beren, a mortal, adding only that she died. The film thus names Beren without recounting the quest, the Silmaril, or his lineage, all of which the corresponding book passage supplies, and leaves the parallel to Aragorn's own love for Arwen implicit rather than stated.

In Peter Jackson's trilogy Boromir is played by Sean Bean, and the part is both enlarged and rearranged. The most visible structural change is one of placement: the death, which Tolkien sets at the opening of the third book, is moved forward so that it closes the first film, and the funeral on the river follows immediately rather than beginning the next instalment. The killing blow is given to an invented Uruk-hai captain named Lurtz, who has no counterpart in the novel, and the death scene is expanded into an explicit acknowledgement of Aragorn as his king, a submission the book never records. The dream that sends him north is dropped from the theatrical cut; in its place the extended version of the second film supplies a flashback to Osgiliath in which Denethor charges his son with the journey and makes plain that he wants the Ring brought to Minas Tirith, shifting the motive from a shared vision to a father's instruction. Added scenes of Boromir teaching the younger hobbits swordplay give the attachment the book states more directly on screen.

In Peter Jackson's three films Celeborn is played by Marton Csokas, and the part is reduced to a few moments beside Galadriel in the first instalment. He stands with her when the Company is received in Lothlórien and speaks briefly of the one who is missing from their number, but the substance of the book's audience is transferred to Galadriel or dropped: there is no reproach directed at the travellers for having forced the road under the mountains, and therefore no public retraction of it and no reconciliation with the Dwarf, which in the narrative is the chief thing the scene accomplishes for him. The departure from the wood is likewise altered. The gift-giving is absent from the theatrical version and restored only in the extended cut, where Galadriel bestows everything herself, so that the boats, the provisions and the detailed instruction on the river and its rapids—the one stretch of the story in which Celeborn directs rather than accompanies—leave no trace. He is not carried into the later two films, and he is absent altogether from the same director's Hobbit trilogy, where the council of the Wise and the assault on Dol Guldur are staged without him.

No other adaptation gives him a part. The dramatisations of The Lord of the Rings are set in the Third Age, long after his death, and none introduces him in flashback: he has no speaking presence in the BBC radio series, in Ralph Bakshi's animated film, or in Peter Jackson's trilogy, and in the last of these the attribution of the western gate of Moria to him and to the Dwarf Narvi, which Gandalf makes in the novel, is not carried over into the film's dialogue.

Elsewhere he is absent, and largely for structural reasons. The Rankin/Bass television Hobbit compresses the novel into a single short film and passes over the Battle of Five Armies without introducing him as a named figure at all. In The Lord of the Rings he never appears in person even in Tolkien's text — he is only reported, first by Glóin at Rivendell and afterwards in the appendices — so the adaptations of that book have no scene to dramatise. Jackson's film trilogy goes further and omits the northern theatre of the war entirely, with the result that neither the siege of Erebor nor the deaths before the Gate reach the audience.

In Peter Jackson's film trilogy the Steward is played by John Noble, who appears first in the extended version of the second film and then at length in the third. The screenplays set the palantír aside entirely: Denethor is never shown to possess or use a Stone, so his collapse is presented as the ordinary ruin of a grieving and partial father rather than as the end of a hidden contest of wills, and the deceiving vision of a black fleet no longer supplies the immediate cause of his despair. The beacons of the White Mountains are lit against his wishes at Gandalf's prompting rather than by his own order, and Faramir is sent to attempt the recapture of Osgiliath instead of to hold the causeway forts and the outer wall. Beregond has no part in the films, so the interruption of the burning falls to Gandalf and Pippin alone; nor does the Steward die upon the wood, for he takes fire, runs from the tomb and falls from the height of the city. The extended second film also adds an invented scene at Osgiliath in which he is seen with both sons before Boromir's journey north, giving the brothers' unequal standing an occasion it does not have in the book.

John Rhys-Davies played Gimli in Peter Jackson's trilogy of 2001–2003, and also supplied the voice of Treebeard; the films move much of the story's lighter register onto the Dwarf, adding jokes at the expense of his stature and a drinking contest that has no counterpart in the book, while shortening his more reflective speeches. The Hobbit films of 2012–2014 individuate the company far more than any earlier version, with Richard Armitage as Thorin, Ken Stott as Balin, Graham McTavish as Dwalin, James Nesbitt as Bofur and Billy Connolly as Dáin Ironfoot, and they enlarge the story with material Tolkien does not supply: the orc-chieftain killed long before at the eastern gate of the lost mansions is kept alive as a pursuing enemy, an invented Elf is given an attachment to one of Thorin's nephews, and the company's attempt on the dragon within the mountain is written for the screen.

In Peter Jackson's trilogy Elendil is a silent-scale presence rather than a role: he is played by Peter McKenzie and appears only in the prologue sequence of the first film, where the alliance of Elves and Men is compressed into a single engagement on the plain below Mount Doom. The treatment departs from the appendices at several points. There is no seven-year siege of the Dark Tower and no death of Anárion beforehand; Sauron enters the fighting in person as a towering armoured figure and strikes Elendil down without opposition from Gil-galad, who is shown at the muster but takes no part in the enemy's overthrow. Narsil is broken by Sauron rather than beneath its falling bearer, and Isildur, taking up the remaining shard from the ground, severs the Ring in what the film presents as an improvised act of desperation. The film also treats the loss of the Ring as the destruction of Sauron's body outright.

Peter Jackson's trilogy cast Hugo Weaving as Elrond, Cate Blanchett as Galadriel, Orlando Bloom as Legolas, Liv Tyler as Arwen, Marton Csokas as Celeborn and Craig Parker as Haldir, and made two changes that are regularly noted: Glorfindel is cut and his rescue of the wounded hobbit given to Arwen, whose role is enlarged throughout into a continuous subplot, and a company of elven archers under Haldir is sent to fight at Helm's Deep, an invention with no basis in the book. The later trilogy drawn from the shorter novel goes further, returning Bloom to a story in which his character does not appear, naming the woodland king Thranduil and casting Lee Pace in the part, and adding an elf-captain, Tauriel, played by Evangeline Lilly, who has no source in Tolkien at all and is given a romance with one of the dwarves.

Peter Jackson's trilogy gives the Ents their most extensive screen treatment, with John Rhys-Davies — already cast as Gimli — supplying Treebeard's voice. The most discussed departure is structural: where the book has Treebeard already roused by the felling along Fangorn's borders and the Entmoot resolving after long debate to go to war, the film reverses this, letting the assembled Ents decide against acting at all, so that Pippin must contrive to have Treebeard carry the hobbits southward past the stumps of the felled woodland, whereupon the sight of the destruction rouses him and the march follows. The films also dispense with the Huorns as a distinct kindred, which removes the wilder half of Fangorn's answer to Saruman and alters how the orc-host is dealt with after Helm's Deep, and they reduce the Entwives and the loss that thinned the Ents' numbers to a passing remark rather than the sustained elegiac thread of the novel. The result compresses the Ents' deliberateness into a single dramatic reversal instead of the extended argument about haste that the book sets at the centre of their portrayal.

In adaptations of the later story the mountain is reported rather than seen. Jackson's trilogy of 2001 to 2003 keeps Glóin at the council in Rivendell but drops his errand, so that the messengers sent north from Mordor, the offer made to Dáin and the war fought before the Gate in 3019 go unmentioned; the northern kingdom plays no part in the films' account of the war. The BBC Radio 4 dramatisation of 1981, in twenty-six parts, has room for more of that material and preserves the dwarvish embassy to Rivendell, though the fighting in the north remains outside the narrated action there as well.

Peter Jackson's trilogy gives the wood extended screen time and rewrites its central decision. John Rhys-Davies, who also plays the Dwarf of the Company, voices the Ent; the council is staged as in the book but reaches the opposite conclusion, declining to go to war, after which the hobbits persuade their host to carry them south so that he comes upon the felled trees himself and is roused by the sight. Responsibility for the wood's entry into the war thus shifts from the Ents' own deliberation to a hobbit's intervention. The trees that overwhelm the fleeing Orcs at Helm's Deep are retained, but the drink given to the hobbits and its effect on their growth appears only in the extended cut, and the meeting outside the ruined ring of stone is likewise absent from the theatrical release. The films also remove the wardenship that follows: rather than being held in his tower by the Ents and later released, the wizard is killed at Orthanc in the extended version of the third film, so the forest's long custody of its defeated neighbour has no counterpart on screen.

In Peter Jackson's trilogy of 2001–2003 Faramir is played by David Wenham, appearing in the second and third films. The best-known departure from the book is the reversal of the refusal: rather than letting the hobbits go from the hidden refuge, this Faramir declares that the Ring will be brought to his father and has Frodo and Sam escorted under guard to Osgiliath, releasing them only after Frodo is nearly taken there by a Ringwraith, so that a decision the novel presents as settled by a promise becomes a change of mind forced by what he witnesses. Gollum is treated more harshly on his order than in the book, and the extended edition of the second film adds a scene, absent from Tolkien, of the brothers together at Osgiliath before Boromir's departure, which makes Denethor's preference explicit. In the third film his father's command to ride against the occupied city is staged as a deliberate sending to death, and his rescue from the pyre and recovery are compressed: there is no healing by Aragorn in the Houses of Healing, and his meeting with Éowyn survives only in the extended version.

In Peter Jackson's film trilogy Gil-galad appears only in the prologue to the first instalment, played by the New Zealand actor Mark Ferguson. The part is silent: he is seen among the Elven host at the alliance's battle before the Black Gate and is not named in the spoken narration, so viewers who do not read the credits are given no way to identify him. The larger departure is one of emphasis rather than invention. The sequence assigns the visible command of the Elves to Elrond, who stands at Elendil's side and afterwards follows Isildur to the fire, while the king in whose name the Elves marched is reduced to a background figure whose death goes unmentioned. Because his end is omitted, so is the reason Elrond later holds one of the Three, and the transfer of that ring is never explained anywhere in the three films.

Peter Jackson's three films cast John Rhys-Davies, an actor of well above the height the part implies, so that the character was produced by scale doubles, oversized sets and forced perspective rather than by casting; the same actor also supplied the voice of Treebeard. The most discussed departure is one of register. Where the novel gives its Dwarf a settled gravity and reserves the humour for his exchanges with Legolas, the films move a large share of his material into comedy, adding invented business such as the drinking contest at Edoras and repeated jokes about his stature, and cutting much of the courtly manner he shows towards Galadriel; her gift to him survives only in the extended version. His enthusiasm for the caverns of Aglarond, and the bargain with Legolas that follows from it, are dropped, and with them the colony he founds there and his lordship of the Glittering Caves, since the films close without the Fourth Age material of the appendices. In the later trilogy drawn from The Hobbit he does not appear; his father is played there by Peter Hambleton as one of Thorin's company.

Peter Jackson's trilogy of 2001–2003 omits Glorfindel as well, and its substitution is the best known of all the departures attached to his name: the rescue on the road and the ride to the ford are given to Arwen, played by Liv Tyler, who takes the wounded Frodo onto her own horse and speaks the words that loose the flood. The change enlarges a character who has almost no presence in the first half of the novel, and it removes the only sequence in which the published book shows what an Elf-lord of the elder kind can do against the Nazgûl. Nothing of Glorfindel's part in the council survives either; the arguments he raises there are dropped or redistributed among the speakers who remain.

In Peter Jackson's live-action trilogy (2001–2003) Gollum was realised through Andy Serkis's motion-capture performance, glimpsed in the first film and fully present from The Two Towers onward; Serkis reprised the role in The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (2012) and also appeared undisguised as the pre-Ring Sméagol in the prologue of The Return of the King, which stages the killing of Déagol on screen rather than leaving it to Gandalf's narration. The films externalise the divided mind as spoken exchanges between two personae, adding a scene in which the Sméagol side dismisses his darker half, and they invent an episode in which Gollum discards the elven waybread and casts suspicion on Sam, prompting Frodo to send his companion away before Shelob's lair. The ending is likewise altered: Frodo grapples with Gollum at the brink of the Cracks of Doom and both go over the edge together, Frodo catching hold while Gollum falls. A further film centred on the character, The Hunt for Gollum, was announced in 2024 with Serkis attached as director and lead.

Peter Jackson's three films give the southern realm more attention than any other version, and the greater part of it falls in the last of them. Sean Bean plays Boromir, David Wenham his brother Faramir, and John Noble the last Ruling Steward. Two of the realm's central episodes are altered. Faramir does not release the hobbits at his refuge but sends them under guard toward Osgiliath, so that the contrast the book draws between the brothers is deferred and then settled by a change of heart; and the warning beacons of Anórien are kindled against the Steward's will rather than at his command, which turns a piece of military routine into an act of defiance. Denethor is deprived of his seeing-stone, so that his despair appears as temperament rather than as the outcome of a contest with the Enemy, and he dies by falling from the citadel instead of upon a pyre. The Dead of Dunharrow, dismissed at Pelargir in the book, are carried on to the Pelennor and end the battle themselves, which leaves the levies of the southern fiefs out of the victory. The healing in the Houses, on which the recognition of the king turns, was cut from the cinema release and only partly restored in the longer version.

The best-known screen treatment of the ravine is the second film of Peter Jackson's trilogy, in which the siege becomes the picture's central set piece and occupies far more of its running time than the corresponding chapters do of the novel. Several of the departures there are substantial. A company of Elves from Lothlórien under Haldir arrives to reinforce the garrison and is destroyed in the fighting, an intervention with no counterpart in the book, where the defence is entirely a Rohirric affair with three companions attached to it. Erkenbrand, the lord of the Westfold whose return at dawn decides the battle in the novel, does not appear; his part in the relief is transferred to Éomer, who in this version has been driven from Théoden's service beforehand and rides back with Gandalf. Éowyn is placed among those sheltering in the caverns, whereas the book sends her with the people of Edoras to Dunharrow instead. Théoden is characterised as retreating to the Deep against Gandalf's counsel and as unwilling to look beyond his own walls, a reading of the king considerably darker than the one the chapters support, and Aragorn is separated from the column by an invented warg attack on the road and presumed dead before rejoining the defenders.

Peter Jackson's trilogy gives Isengard far more screen presence than the book allows it, and makes several of its best-known departures there. Where the novel keeps Gandalf's captivity as a retrospective account, the films stage his imprisonment on Orthanc directly, with Christopher Lee as Saruman; the vale's conversion to industry is likewise shown at length, and the breeding of the Uruk-hai in delvings beneath the ring is an invention of the films rather than anything described by Tolkien. The fall of Isengard is also shown as it happens, in the second film, instead of being reported after the fact by Merry and Pippin, and the Ents are brought to war by a different route: at the Entmoot Treebeard and his fellows decide against marching, and only turn on Isengard after Pippin steers them to the felled woods at its edge. The largest change comes at the end. The confrontation before Orthanc was cut from the theatrical release of the third film and restored only in its extended version, and in that version Saruman is killed at Isengard by Wormtongue and falls from the tower, so that the wizard's later return to the Shire — and the whole of the Scouring — disappears from the adaptation.

In Peter Jackson's film trilogy Isildur is played by Harry Sinclair and appears chiefly in the prologue of the first film, which compresses the whole of the Last Alliance into a few minutes of narrated exposition. The most consequential change is that the refusal to unmake the Ring is staged rather than reported: Elrond leads Isildur into the fire-chamber of Orodruin and presses him at the brink itself, and Isildur turns away in silence, so that a decision the book presents through later counsel and hindsight becomes a scene played out on the mountain. The films also make Sauron's ruin instantaneous and physical, his armoured form bursting apart in a shockwave the moment the Ring is cut from his hand, where the written account describes a spirit that fled and a body undone. The ambush by the river is reduced to a brief sequence in which Isildur is alone; his sons, his escort and the esquire who carried away the shards of the sword do not appear, and the fragments are simply shown afterwards in Rivendell. Ralph Bakshi's earlier animated film treats the same material as a stylised narrated prologue in a technique distinct from the rest of the picture, and gives Isildur no speaking part, while the BBC radio dramatisation, for all its fullness, keeps him entirely in report.

Peter Jackson's three films, released from 2001 to 2003, cast Orlando Bloom, and the part is enlarged considerably as a fighting role. The Elves of Lórien are sent to the Hornburg in the films, so that Legolas fights there beside a contingent that has no counterpart in the book; he is given feats of arms invented for the screen, including the single-handed felling of a mûmak on the Pelennor. The Sea-longing, which in the text is the one lasting change worked upon him, survives only as a passing note. The same actor returns for the trilogy made from The Hobbit between 2012 and 2014, where the character does not appear in the source novel at all: he is written into the Woodland Realm as a captain under his father, who is himself shown on screen for the first time, and is paired with Tauriel, a she-Elf invented for those films with no basis in Tolkien. He is carried through to the battle at the mountain, and a line is added at the close pointing him toward the Ranger who will become Aragorn.

In Peter Jackson's trilogy the realm is held by Cate Blanchett as Galadriel and Marton Csokas as Celeborn, with Craig Parker as Haldir, and Galadriel is additionally given the voice-over that opens the first film, a framing role she has nowhere in the novel. The theatrical cut of The Fellowship of the Ring shortens the departure so that only Frodo's gift of light survives; the giving of the cloaks, the rope and the three hairs asked for by Gimli was restored in the extended version. The trilogy's largest invention concerning the wood comes in the second film, where Haldir leads a company of Lórien Elves to Helm's Deep and is killed there — an alliance with no basis in the book, which instead has the realm fighting three separate assaults on its own borders. Galadriel returns in the later Hobbit trilogy, at the White Council and at Dol Guldur, but her own country is not part of those films.

Peter Jackson's trilogy of 2001–2003 cast Dominic Monaghan, and reshaped the character considerably. The forethought that marks the hobbit of the book is removed at the outset: instead of organising a conspiracy and preparing a refuge across the river, Merry is swept into the journey by chance while running from an angry farmer, so that he leaves the Shire knowing nothing of the Ring. He and Pippin are treated for much of the films as a comic pair of near-equals, which flattens the distinction the novel draws between them, and the initiative before Isengard shifts to Pippin, who steers Treebeard toward the felled woods after the Ents have already refused to march. The stroke against the Lord of the Nazgûl is retained, but without the account of the blade's making that explains why it worked; Éowyn's smuggling of Merry out of Dunharrow is kept. The Shire's own war is cut entirely, and with it his standing as a leader at home, as are the Rohirric name given him afterwards and his later career as a writer and Master of Buckland.

Adaptations of The Lord of the Rings necessarily treat the wood as background, since the story itself never enters it. Jackson's earlier trilogy accordingly gives it no scenes, identifying Legolas only by his origin in the Woodland Realm and passing over the account of Gollum's captivity there; Bakshi's animated film likewise condenses the Council of Elrond sharply and drops most of what the chapter reports about events in the east. The BBC Radio dramatisation, having twenty-six half-hour parts at its disposal, has room for a good deal more of that reported material and preserves the forest chiefly as a place spoken of rather than reached, with Legolas voiced by David Collings.

Peter Jackson's trilogy, shot in New Zealand, built the fire-mountain from the volcanic landscape of the central North Island and made two changes to the realm that are regularly noted. Barad-dûr is crowned with a visibly burning Eye that sweeps the country like a beam, giving Sauron a physical presence on the skyline that the book withholds; and the fall of the tower is followed by the ground opening before the northern gate to swallow his armies, where the histories have them merely scatter or surrender. The interior journey is much shortened, the Mouth of Sauron appears only in the extended version of the third film and is killed at the parley, and at the mountain's chamber Frodo does not lose the Ring to a struggle he stands apart from but grapples with Gollum over the edge himself.

Peter Jackson's trilogy (2001–2003) makes the mines the longest sustained sequence of its first film and changes the episode at several points. The decision to take the road beneath the mountains is handed to Frodo rather than settled by argument between Gandalf and Aragorn; the stone dropped into a well, a moment of idle curiosity in a guardroom in the novel, becomes a skeleton toppled by Pippin within the tomb chamber, so that the alarm is raised at the worst possible moment; and the Orc-chieftain whose spear-thrust Frodo survives is replaced by a cave-troll. A collapsing stair on the way to the bridge has no counterpart in the text at all, and the three days of the book's timetable are reduced to what plays as a single continuous flight. Ian McKellen plays Gandalf and John Rhys-Davies Gimli.

In the screen and radio versions the Red Ring is almost as reticent as it is in the book, with the difference that most of them never disclose it at all. Peter Jackson's trilogy names the Three collectively in its opening narration but gives none of them a name, and although Nenya is worn visibly by Galadriel and Elrond keeps a ring of his own, the film Gandalf — played by Ian McKellen, who returned to the part in the later Hobbit films — is never identified as a Ring-bearer. The scene at the Havens with which the last film closes is built entirely around the departure of the hobbits, so the disclosure that ends the book has no counterpart on screen; a viewer of the films alone would have no reason to suspect that Gandalf carried one of the Three. Ralph Bakshi's animated version cannot reach the question, since it breaks off after Helm's Deep, and the Rankin/Bass television film that takes up the last part of the story does so without reference to the Elven-rings held by those who sail. The BBC Radio 4 dramatisation, the most complete of the older adaptations, follows the narrative to the Grey Havens with Michael Hordern as Gandalf, but the ring's earlier history belongs to the appendices, which none of these versions treat.

Peter Jackson's trilogy of 2001–2003 is the version whose alterations are most often discussed. Their chief was played in the third film by Lawrence Makoare, with Andy Serkis supplying the voice. The departures are structural rather than incidental. Glorfindel is removed from the flight to the ford and Arwen takes his part, summoning the flood herself. The Barrow-downs are omitted, and with them the origin of Merry's sword, so the films offer no equivalent explanation for why the stroke on the Pelennor told against a foe otherwise proof against men's weapons. An invented sequence in the second film brings Frodo and Sam to Osgiliath and sets a winged Nazgûl within reach of the Ring, an encounter with no counterpart in the text. The extended version of the third film restores the meeting at the broken Gate of Minas Tirith but has the Witch-king break Gandalf's staff, an outcome the book does not give.

In Peter Jackson's three films Galadriel is played by Cate Blanchett, and the ring is treated as a visible property of the costume rather than as a concealed thing brought forward at a chosen moment. It sits plainly on her hand from her first appearance in Lothlórien and is seen again in the closing sequence at the Grey Havens, so the disclosure that the novel stages as a deliberate act of revelation, and that depends on Frodo's altered sight, becomes in the films a detail the audience has already registered. The Mirror scene and the offer of the One are both kept, but the accompanying explanation of what the ring maintains and what its keeper stands to lose is heavily compressed. Blanchett returns in the Hobbit trilogy, where Galadriel is given a direct confrontation with Sauron at Dol Guldur and a display of power staged for the screen; the appendices record the White Council's assault at that date but nothing of the sort attributed to her personally. The 1981 BBC radio dramatisation, having no images at its disposal, can register the ring only in speech, and its Lothlórien episodes accordingly retain the naming and the refusal much as the book has them.

Peter Jackson's trilogy of 2001–2003 invented Lurtz, a named Uruk-hai captain played by Lawrence Makoare, to give the Orcs who shoot Boromir a face; in the novel they remain anonymous. The same films stage the breeding of Saruman's Uruk-hai beneath Isengard as an on-screen process, where the book supplies only rumour and inference, and retain Uglúk (Nathaniel Lees) and Grishnákh (Stephen Ure) from the pursuit across Rohan. The later Hobbit trilogy of 2012–2014 makes the more consequential change by keeping Azog alive: killed at Azanulbizar in the account given in the appendices, he instead survives, played by Manu Bennett, to pursue Thorin's company as principal antagonist across all three films, with his son Bolg demoted to a subordinate role, while the Great Goblin, voiced by Barry Humphries, is expanded well past his brief part in the novel.

Peter Jackson's film trilogy keeps the Orthanc-stone as a significant object but reduces it to a single stone rather than one member of a set. No account is given of the stones' making in Valinor, of Fëanor, or of the seven distributed among the towers of the two kingdoms; Gandalf's explanation is compressed to a warning about who else may be watching through it. The circumstances of its recovery are changed: Gríma does not hurl it from the tower at the parley, and the stone instead comes into the company's hands amid the flooded ruin of Isengard at the opening of the third film, with the Orthanc confrontation itself relegated to that film's extended version. Pippin's unbidden look and Gandalf's intervention are retained in substance. Aragorn's claiming of the stone and his self-revelation to Sauron likewise appear only in the extended cut, and the exchange is given a personal turn absent from the novel, with Sauron answering the challenge by threatening Arwen rather than by breaking off in alarm. The most consequential departure is on Denethor's side: his secret use of the Anor-stone is dropped entirely, so that his despair and his death by fire are supplied with other motives and the parallel between Steward and wizard, both undone by managed knowledge, disappears from the films.

Peter Jackson's trilogy of 2001 to 2003, in which Billy Boyd plays the part, alters the character's function at several points. The conspiracy by which the younger hobbits force their way into the journey is dropped, and the two cousins instead fall in with Frodo and Samwise by accident while trespassing in a field, which removes the deliberate loyalty that motivates them in the novel. The alarm in Moria is caused by a skeleton dislodged into the well rather than by a thrown stone, and the Ents' resolution is reassigned: instead of reaching their decision in council, they are turned toward Isengard because Peregrin steers Treebeard past a stretch of felled woodland. His theft of the palantír is moved forward into the third film and away from its setting in the book. In Minas Tirith he is given a song before the Steward, who does not release him from his service, and his killing of a troll before the Black Gate is not shown. The films end with the departure from the Grey Havens, so the return of the travellers to a Shire under occupation, the raising of his own country and his later succession as Thain have no place in them.

Peter Jackson's trilogy filmed the valley's exterior at Kaitoke Regional Park north of Wellington and cast Hugo Weaving as Elrond and Liv Tyler as Arwen, and its best-known departure falls on the approach: Glorfindel does not appear, his errand on the road is given to Arwen, and it is she who carries Frodo to the crossing and summons the flood. Inside the house the council is rewritten as an open quarrel between the delegations, and the reforging of Elendil's sword is removed from the valley altogether and postponed to the third film, where Elrond brings the finished blade to Aragorn in Rohan; the films also dispatch a company of Elves from Elrond to the defence of Helm's Deep, for which the novel offers no warrant. The later Hobbit trilogy returns to the same setting and enlarges the stay considerably, giving Lindir a speaking part (Bret McKenzie) and staging a meeting of the White Council in the valley, an episode assembled from the appendices rather than taken from the shorter book.

Peter Jackson's trilogy gives the realm more screen time than any other adaptation, most of it in the second film. Théoden is played by Bernard Hill, his niece by Miranda Otto, his sister-son by Karl Urban and the king's counsellor by Brad Dourif; the royal seat was built as a standing set on an isolated hill in the South Island of New Zealand and dismantled again after shooting. The departures are substantial and much discussed. The king's release from his counsellor is staged as a possession broken by force, with Saruman inhabiting him directly, rather than as the persuasion of the book. The muster is rearranged so that the whole population of the capital is evacuated to the mountain fortress instead of to the high refuge in the valley, and the sister-son is banished from the realm beforehand, which allows him to take over the dawn relief that the book assigns to Erkenbrand. An elvish contingent is sent south to fight at the fortress, an addition with no basis in the text, and the second battle at the western fords is dropped. In the third film the king hesitates over Gondor's summons out of resentment at past neglect, where the book has him answer the founding oath at once.

In Peter Jackson's three films the Rohirrim carry much of the middle and final movements of the story, with Bernard Hill as Théoden, Miranda Otto as Éowyn, Karl Urban as Éomer and Brad Dourif as Gríma Wormtongue. Several changes to the people's part in events are widely noted. Théoden's release from Wormtongue's influence is staged as the breaking of an outright possession by Saruman rather than as a recovery worked by counsel and will, and Théodred, dead before the narrative opens in the book, is brought on screen to die at Edoras. Éomer is banished from the Mark instead of briefly confined, which allows the films to give him the dawn relief of the Hornburg and to drop Erkenbrand of the Westfold from the story altogether. The whole population of Edoras is evacuated to Helm's Deep, so the muster at Dunharrow loses its function as the refuge of the folk, and a company of Elves is sent to fight at the Hornburg, an addition with no counterpart in the text. The films also rework how Rohan is called to Gondor's aid, the beacons being lit against the Steward's wishes rather than a formal summons being sent.

In Peter Jackson's live-action trilogy of 2001 to 2003, Sam is played by Sean Astin. The screenplays depart from the book at several documented points. Frodo and Sam are taken by Faramir to Osgiliath, an episode with no counterpart in the novel, and Sam's reflection on the old tales, spoken in the book on the stairs of the pass, is relocated there. In the third film Gollum contrives to have the last of the travelling bread thrown away and blamed on Sam, and Frodo sends his companion back down the stairs alone; Sam turns round and rejoins him before the spider's lair, an estrangement absent from the text. Galadriel's parting gift to him is Elvish rope rather than a box of earth and a seed, and the closing sequences omit the Shire's occupation and restoration entirely, so that the mallorn, the replanting, and his repeated election as Mayor do not occur on screen; his marriage to Rose and two children are shown instead.

In Peter Jackson's film trilogy The Lord of the Rings (2001–2003), Saruman is played by Christopher Lee. The films alter his story at several points. His confrontation with Gandalf in The Fellowship of the Ring becomes a physical duel of wizardry inside Orthanc, and the snowstorm on Caradhras, of ambiguous origin in the book, is shown as Saruman's own working, his voice heard on the mountain. He never adopts many-coloured robes on screen, remaining white-clad throughout, and the Scouring of the Shire is omitted entirely: in the theatrical cut of The Return of the King he simply disappears from the story after Isengard's fall, while the extended edition transfers his death to Orthanc itself, where Gríma stabs him atop the tower and he falls to be impaled on the machinery below. Lee reprised the role in Jackson's Hobbit trilogy (2012–2014), where Saruman attends an invented White Council scene in Rivendell in An Unexpected Journey and, in The Battle of the Five Armies, joins Elrond and Galadriel in a physical assault on Dol Guldur against the Ringwraiths — events only summarized, without such detail, in the book's frame of reference.

In Peter Jackson's three films Sauron has no embodied role after the opening sequence: the armoured figure of the prologue was performed by Sala Baldwin, while the voice, used both for Sauron and for the Ring itself, was Alan Howard's. For the remainder of the trilogy he is represented as a burning, lidless eye set upon the summit of Barad-dûr, which turns a figure of speech used by characters in the novel into the literal form the Enemy takes on screen; the book gives no warrant for a physically present eye, and keeps his person unseen but not disembodied. The prologue also rearranges his overthrow. Elendil is killed by Sauron directly and Isildur takes up the broken sword to cut the Ring from his hand, whereas the narrative in the appendices has Gil-galad and Elendil throw him down together and perish in the act; Gil-galad is absent from the sequence altogether. In the later trilogy drawn from The Hobbit the same studio gives him a considerably larger part, voiced by Benedict Cumberbatch, who also spoke Smaug. There the White Council's expulsion of the Necromancer from Dol Guldur, reported only in summary by Tolkien, is staged as an extended confrontation, and his identity is revealed on screen rather than deduced.

In Peter Jackson's three films Shadowfax is a physical rather than an animated presence, portrayed on screen by trained horses rather than voiced by any performer; the principal animal used for the close work was a white Andalusian stallion named Blanco. The most immediately visible departure is one of colour: where the books describe a silver-grey coat that shifts like dusk, the films present a plainly white horse, a choice that sacrifices the sense behind the name in favour of a clearer image against dark backgrounds. The circumstances of the partnership are also compressed. Théoden's gift and Wormtongue's objection are cut entirely, and the horse instead comes to Gandalf out of the wild grass of Rohan shortly after the eagle sets the wizard down, so that the acquisition reads as an unprompted meeting between two free agents rather than as a courtesy extended and grudged. The long ride from Isengard to Minas Tirith with Pippin is retained and given considerable weight, and the stand before the broken gate against the Lord of the Nazgûl appears in the extended edition of the third film.

Peter Jackson's trilogy of 2001–2003 goes furthest in the other direction, giving the Ring an audible voice — supplied by Alan Howard — so that its pull on a bearer is externalised rather than reported. Three departures bear directly on it: the seventeen years between Bilbo's farewell and Frodo's setting out are compressed to a short span; Faramir, who in the novel refuses the Ring almost as soon as he understands what it is, instead takes the hobbits and their burden towards Osgiliath before releasing them, which erases the contrast the book draws between him and his brother; and in the chamber within the mountain the Ring goes into the fire out of a struggle between Frodo and Gollum rather than through Gollum's own heedless triumph. The Hobbit films of 2012–2014 read the finding of the ring backwards from the later book, treating Bilbo's keeping of it as ominous from the first. A further film under the title The Hunt for Gollum has been announced with Andy Serkis directing, but nothing of its content is fixed.

Peter Jackson's trilogy of 2001 to 2003 gives its prologue to Galadriel, spoken by Cate Blanchett, and shortens the history considerably: Gil-galad has no part in it, and the ruling ring is cut from Sauron's hand after Elendil falls. The years between Bilbo's departure and Frodo's are compressed to a short interval. Galadriel is shown wearing her ring, but the dependence of the Three upon the One — and with it the reason the keepers take ship at the close — is left mostly unspoken. The Hobbit films of 2012 to 2014 move in the opposite direction and add what no source supplies: the Nine are given tombs in the High Fells of Rhudaur, found empty, and their bearers appear as wraiths at Dol Guldur to be driven off by Elrond, Saruman and Galadriel. The appendices the trilogy otherwise draws on record no such burial and no such encounter.

Peter Jackson's trilogy built the Shire as a practical location on farmland near Matamata in the North Island of New Zealand, and the set was afterwards rebuilt in permanent materials for the Hobbit films and left standing. The films' handling of the country departs from the book in two ways that are much discussed. The long interval between Bilbo's departure and Frodo's — seventeen years in the novel — is compressed to a matter of weeks, so that Gandalf's identification of the Ring and the flight from Hobbiton follow closely on one another. More substantially, the occupation of the country and its recovery are omitted altogether: Saruman is dealt with at Isengard rather than at Bag End, his death appearing only in the extended version of the third film, and the four travellers return to a Shire that has not been touched, which turns Sam's vision in Galadriel's mirror into an averted possibility rather than a prophecy fulfilled. The Old Forest and the Barrow-downs are cut with Tom Bombadil, so Buckland's hedged eastern boundary plays no part. The Hobbit trilogy frames its narrative with scenes at Bag End on the day of the birthday party, with Ian Holm and Elijah Wood returning in their earlier roles to join the two sets of films together.

In Peter Jackson's trilogy Théoden is played by Bernard Hill, appearing in the second and third films. The best-known departure is the treatment of his decline: where the book gives a man worn down by years of poisonous counsel, the film makes the affliction a direct possession by Saruman, visible in the king's aged appearance and reversed in a single confrontation from which he emerges physically restored. Around this several other changes follow. Théodred is brought home wounded and dies at Edoras, so that the king's grief is placed before his healing rather than reported from the Fords; Éomer is exiled rather than imprisoned and is absent from the defence of the Hornburg, his riders standing in for the force that the book brings up under another captain; and the withdrawal to Helm's Deep is presented as a policy the king chooses against Gandalf's advice. The films also make Théoden reluctant to answer Gondor's summons until the beacons are lit, in place of the errand-rider and the token sent from Minas Tirith. At the end he dies with Éowyn beside him rather than with his esquire, and the naming of his successor is not part of the scene.

The earliest screen appearance of the character is the Elvenking of the Rankin/Bass animated television film, where he was voiced by the film director Otto Preminger in a rare turn as a voice actor. That version keeps him nameless, as the novel does, and the compression of the whole book into roughly ninety minutes leaves him little to do beyond the seizure and imprisonment of the Dwarves and a brief presence in the closing battle; the long-standing grievance between his people and the Dwarves, which the book explains at some length before the trial scene, is passed over. He has no part in the animated Lord of the Rings of the following decade, which in any case breaks off midway through the story, nor in Peter Jackson's live-action trilogy of that book, where his son is a principal figure throughout but the father is only spoken of and never brought on screen.

Bombadil's fate in adaptation has largely been omission. The 1981 BBC Radio 4 dramatisation is the only one of the older versions to keep him: its twenty-six half-hour parts include the Old Forest, the house under the hill and the barrow, and Norman Bird took the speaking part. Because the series retained the episode, it also retained the consequences that follow from it, so that the hobbits leave the downs equipped as they do in the book. Ralph Bakshi's animated film of 1978 cut him entirely, along with the whole detour between Buckland and Bree, and moved the company directly toward the inn under pursuit. Peter Jackson's three live-action films did the same, and the omission was discussed at the time as a deliberate structural choice rather than an oversight. It obliged compensating changes elsewhere: with no barrow-hoard, the hobbits receive their swords from Aragorn on the road instead, and the ancient provenance of the blade that later matters at Minas Tirith goes unmentioned. The extended version of the second film relocates a version of the willow episode into Fangorn, where Merry and Pippin are seized by a hostile tree and freed by Treebeard, so that the rescuing function passes to another character while Bombadil himself is absent.

In Peter Jackson's trilogy Treebeard is a computer-generated figure voiced by John Rhys-Davies, who also plays Gimli. The films alter his decision in a way that is frequently noted: where the book's moot ends in agreement to march, the screen Entmoot concludes against war, and Treebeard turns towards Isengard only after Merry and Pippin steer him to the wood's southern edge, where the sight of felled trees provokes him. The initiative thus passes from the Ents' own deliberation to a hobbit stratagem, and the long-standing grievance against Saruman is replaced by a single immediate shock. Later scenes diverge again: in the extended version of the third film Saruman is killed at Orthanc rather than kept prisoner and afterwards released, so Treebeard's misjudged act of mercy — and the later meeting at which he gives up the keys of the tower — has no counterpart. The Huorns' arrival at Helm's Deep is retained, though presented without explanation of what the trees are.

The ring has no part in the older screen adaptations and only an implied one in the best known. Ralph Bakshi's animated film breaks off after the fighting at Helm's Deep, so the material in which Vilya would be named lies outside it altogether. In Peter Jackson's trilogy the Elven rings are established at the outset, in the prologue that summarises the distribution of the Rings of Power, but Vilya is never named and Elrond, played by Hugo Weaving, is never identified as a keeper. Of the Three only Galadriel's is made explicit, shown on her hand and spoken of during the Lothlórien sequence, which leaves the other two as an abstraction. The effect on the council scene is substantial: Elrond argues there for the unmaking of the One, as in the book, but the audience is given no means of knowing that he argues against his own keeping, and the quiet arithmetic of that speech is lost.

In Peter Jackson's three films the Lord of the Nazgûl is present from the pursuit through the Shire onward, though he is not named or explained until the last part; in The Return of the King he was performed by Lawrence Makoare, with his speech supplied by Andy Serkis, an arrangement that separates body and voice in a way the earlier films had not required. The chief departures are structural. Nothing of Angmar, of the northern war or of the flight of Eärnur is given, so the character arrives without the centuries of history the appendices supply, and the foretelling that he would not fall by a man's hand is attached to Éowyn's stroke alone rather than to an older prophecy, since Glorfindel does not appear in the films at all. The meeting at the broken gate of Minas Tirith was cut from the theatrical release and restored in the extended version, where the encounter ends with Gandalf's staff shattered — an outcome with no counterpart in the book, and one that reverses the balance Tolkien leaves undecided. The later Hobbit trilogy, drawing on appendix material for its Dol Guldur scenes, goes further and invents a tomb in the High Fells from which he is roused, an episode without any source in Tolkien.