History Film / TheLordofTheRings

* EndOfAnAge: [[spoiler: The destruction of the One Ring and the Second Defeat of Sauron marked the end of the Age of Elves and of magic in Middle-earth; the Third Age. In turn, it would give rise to the Fourth Age, which would become known as the Age of Men.]]

** Gimli's cousin, Balin, calls Moria, a dwarven mine and his (Balin's) own kingdom, a mine. A ''mine'', get it?

** However, the next Rohirrim cavalry charge, head-on at the giant Oliphaunts while swatting at their legs, goes exactly as one would expect. However, this was due more to real-life considerations than artistic licence. According to the DVD commentaries, going by the book - ''shooting the Oliphaunts in the eyes'' - was deemed too gruesome and reminiscent of animal cruelty toward real elephants to be filmed.

* HaveIMentionedIAmADwarfToday: Gimli does not deal with other people. It's always a dwarf dealing with an elf or a human. He almost completely refers to other people not by their name, but only by their race. He does refer to both Aragorn and Legolas by their names during their expedition to get the support of the Army of the Dead, but only once each.

* BigBad: Sauron. His malevolence is retained because all his power was in the ring. He would be able to regain physical form if he retrieved the ring, and nearly every problem they deal with is connected to his power. [[note]]The only enemies not directly connected to Sauron are the three "monsters": the Balrog of Moria, which is a primordial enemy of a similar class of being to both Sauron and Gandalf, Shelob, a daughter of an EldritchAbomination that only cares about satisfying her endless hunger, and the Watcher in the Water, a... ''thing'' that attacks the Fellowship outside Moria for reasons unknown. [[/note]]

* BigBad: Sauron. His malevolence is retained because all his power was in the ring. He would be able to regain physical form if he retrieved the ring, and nearly every problem they deal with is connected to his power. [[note]]The only enemy not directly connected to Sauron is the Balrog of Moria, which is a primordial enemy of a similar class of being to both Sauron and Gandalf.[[/note]]

** Thanks to Peter Jackson's staging of the flashback with Elrond and Isildur, many who haven't read the books wonder why Elrond didn't just grab the Ring from Isildur and destroy it himself, or even just push Isildur into the lava if he wouldn't destroy something so ObviouslyEvil. In the books, there's no such epic confrontation since at the time "few marked what Isildur did" and not even Elrond really knew what the Ring did, only that it was an evil wrought by Sauron to master the other Rings and should be destroyed on that basis, not because it was Sauron's SoulJar. Therefore, when Isildur took the ring as a token of victory, a memorial to his father and brother's heroic deaths, and heirloom for his kids[[note]]Look up the tradition of ''weregild''[[/note]], no one really had any solid evidence to oppose him doing so.

** Faramir is also an example. In the book he immediately recognizes the danger of the Ring, thereby becoming the ''only'' "normal" Human in the entire story who isn't tempted by the Ring.[[note]]Aragorn isn't "normal" in this sense. He's an old-time Westerner and was raised by elves.[[/note]] Of course, RuleOfDrama prevailed, so in the movie he follows in his brother's footsteps and tries to get the Ring to Gondor, due to massive angst over being the less-favoured son. The scene of Denethor treating Faramir as TheUnfavourite also was added to justify this change.

** In the infamous surfboard sequence, the shield that Legolas uses as a surfing board manages to plant itself inside an Uruk even though he's wearing plate and chainmail. That would be hard to do even for a pike, let alone a shield, even if it has two sharp edges.

* ArcherArchetype: Legolas notably, and exaggerated somewhat from the books -- especially with the jumping on elephants and shooting point-blank.

* AdaptationalWimp: Gondor gets hit with this big time. Due to the omission of Dol Amroth and reinforcements from other parts of the kingdom, it seems very much like Gondor is just a city-state in this continuity and all the soldiers within Minas Tirith is everything they have.

* AdaptationalWimp: Gondor gets hit with this big time. Due to the omission of Dol Amroth and reinforcements from other parts of Gondor, it's very easy for the audience to get the impression that the entirety of Gondor is just Minas Tirith and Osiliath.

** During the surprise attack on Osiligath, a Gondorian sentry is killed instantly with an arrow to the chest despite wearing a plate cuirass. That would be implausible even [[https://youtu.be/DBxdTkddHaE?t=854 for a longbow]].

** During the surprise attack on Osiligath, a Gondorian sentry is killed instantly with an arrow to the chest despite wearing a plate cuirass. That would be implausible even [[https://youtu.be/DBxdTkddHaE?t=827 for a longbow]].

** During the surprise attack on Osiligath, a Gondorian sentry is killed instantly with an arrow to the chest despite wearing a plate cuirass.

** In the infamous surfboard sequence, the shield that Legolas uses as a surfing board manages to plant itself inside an Uruk even though he's wearing plate and chainmail. That would be hard to do even for a pike, let alone a shield.

** The issue of Aragorn as heir to the throne of Gondor. While the films play it off as Aragorn's own reluctance to rule, if Boromir can recognize the heir of Isildur simply from the name 'Aragorn', then why weren't his ancestors made kings long ago? In the books, the issue is far more complicated since although Isildur did rule Gondor at one point, he would later relinquish it to his nephew Meneldil, thereby removing any claim he and his descendants had over it. The Council of Gondor would later make this into law, declaring that only the direct male-line descendants of Meneldil be allowed to sit on the throne. As someone who is only descended from Meneldil through a female ancestor, Aragorn does not fulfill that criterion and cannot simply walk into Gondor demanding his kingship. When Gandalf tells Denethor that he has no authority to deny the return of the king, that is a major deviation from the books, as Gondor has already done it once to Aragorn's own ancestor.

** The issue of Aragorn as heir to the throne of Gondor. While the films play it off as Aragorn's own reluctance to rule, if Boromir can recognize the heir of Isildur simply from the name 'Aragorn', then why weren't his ancestors made kings long ago? In the books, the issue is far more complicated since although Isildur did rule Gondor at one point, he would later relinquish it to his nephew Meneldil, thereby removing any claim he and his descendants had over it. The Council of Gondor would later make this into law, demanding that only the direct male-line descendants of Meneldil be allowed to sit on the throne. As someone who is only related to Meneldil through a female ancestor, Aragorn does not fulfill that criterion and cannot simply walk into Gondor demanding his kingship. The nobility can just refuse him on the spot like they did to one of his ancestors.

** The Uruk-hai army that attacks Helm's Deep definitely qualifies as a villainous version.

** Averted on one particularly instance in Helm's Deep. Theoden gets stabbed by an Uruk spear while holding the gate, but it doesn't manage to go all the way through his armour and only lightly wounds him.

** In the infamous surfboard sequence, the shield that Legolas uses as a surfing board manages to plant itself inside an Uruk even though he's wearing full plate armor. That would be hard to do even for a pike, let alone a shield.

** In the infamous surfboard sequence, the shield that Legolas uses as a surfing board manages to plant itself inside an Uruk even though he's wearing full plate armor.

** The issue of Aragorn as heir to the throne of Gondor. While the films play it off as Aragorn's own reluctance to rule, if Boromir can recognize the heir of Isildur simply from the name 'Aragorn', then why weren't his ancestors made kings long ago? In the books, the issue is far more complicated since although Isildur did rule Gondor at one point, he would later relinquished it to his nephew Meneldil, thereby removing any claim he and his descendants had over it. The Council of Gondor would later make this into law, demanding that only the direct male-line descendants of Meneldil be allowed to sit on the throne. As someone who is only related to Meneldil through a female ancestor, Aragorn does not fulfill that criterion and cannot simply walk into Gondor demanding his kingship. The nobility can just refuse him on the spot like they did to one of his ancestors.

** The issue of Aragorn as heir to the throne of Gondor. While the films play it off as Aragorn's own reluctance to rule, if Boromir can recognize the heir of Isildur simply from the name 'Aragorn', then why weren't his ancestors made kings long ago? In the books, the issue is far more complicated since although Aragorn is the only surviving heir of Isildur's father, TheHighKing Elendil, as a descendent of Isildur he's actually only distantly related to the old Kings of Gondor (descended from Isildur's brother) and from a lineage that'd previously been excluded from the Gondorian succession.

The theatrical versions were lengthy epics (all clocking around at 3-ish hours), and the "Extended Editions" (released before the succeeding movies) added at least another half-hour to each film's running time.[[note]]Around 12 minutes of that extra runtime is credits added for the fan community website.[[/note]] Unusual for such a thing, Peter Jackson has stated that the Extended Editions are not an actual DirectorsCut (feeling the term would unfairly imply that he was unsatisfied with the theatrical releases) but merely a fan-friendly extension to enlarge the world of Middle-earth and see what things they left out of the faster-paced theatrical versions.