There was a sequel planned with the Working Title of The New Shadow, set more than 100 years after the events of LOTR, well into the Fourth Age, involving an evil cult and boys playing at being orcs. Tolkien got about 13 pages in before deciding that the story was uninteresting and not worth telling.
In Unfinished Tales, it's shown that Tolkien considered making Celeborn a Telerin elf rather than a Sindarin elf, and changing his name to the Telerin form: Teleporno. Imagine the consequences if he had gone with that name...
When Tolkien began thinking on the sequel to The Hobbit, he mentioned that this story would have a giant instead of a dragon as the antagonist. His early outlines have a "Giant Tree Beard" imprisoning Gandalf much like Saruman does in the final story.
It also would have been about Bilbo going on another quest for treasure, since he used up his share from the first story. This story would have shared the same comical tone as the first one. But soon Tolkien thought of making it Darker and Edgier, which would evolve into The Lord of the Rings, and as a result Bilbo was Demoted to Extra.
It would also have Bilbo return the ring to Gollum.
Perhaps the most radical is that Tol Eressëa was going to be England, setting the story clearly in this world. This can be seen in the original edition of the The Hobbit, which included mention of things from our world such as police, all of which were removed and rewritten to better fit the LOTR.
From two to five hobbits were going to set out on the quest instead of four. After he settled down on a quartet, the original hobbit names were Bingo (Frodo), Odo (Sam), Marmaduke (Merry), and Frodo/Faramond Took (Pippin).
Back when he was named Bingo, Frodo was originally intended to be Bilbo's son. But Tolkien thought that Bilbo wouldn't have allowed his son to face such danger, and would have difficulty explaining where he was (as well as Bilbo's wife) during The Hobbit. So he made Frodo Bilbo's nephew instead, inspired by legends and tales of famous uncles and nephews.
Aragorn was conceived as a ranger hobbit named Peregrin "Trotter" Boffin who had been tortured in Mordor. He wore shoes, very unusual for a hobbit, and one proposed explanation was that he had wooden feet as a result of his real feet having been sawn off by his tormentors. At some point, he was replaced by a Future Badass version of Bilbo himself. Later, he was a man whose name kept changing back and forth between Trotter, Elfstone and Aragorn.
Farmer Maggott and Treebeard were initially villains.
The Fellowship initially consisted of seven instead of nine members. Legolas and Gimli were later additions. At one point, another elf was supposed to go as well.
The character of Arwen was introduced very late. Originally, Aragorn was to marry Éowyn, then Tolkien decided Éowyn should die and Aragorn never marry because he didn't get over his grief. Tolkien's wife convinced him not to kill Éowyn, so Arwen came into being (this is part of why her and Aragorn's story is included in the Appendices rather than the book itself). This created a fair amount of Fan Wank even when the books first came out, with some wishing he'd married Éowyn as originally planned.
Tolkien entertained Boromir surviving the Breaking of the Fellowship, but then doing a Face–Heel Turn and joining Saruman in the attack on Minas Tirith. This was before the Rohan subplot was conceived.
Denethor originally was less harsh towards Faramir — in fact, in the first draft, it was Faramir's idea to retake Osgiliath, and Denethor reluctantly agreeing. Tolkien eventually switched this around to make Faramir more sympathetic.
The forces of Mordor were originally going to have high technology, and the Siege of Minas Tirith was supposed to have tanks.
Éowyn died on the battlefield defending Théoden and not getting to kill the Witch-King.
Denethor survived the siege of Minas Tirith, but was still suspicious of Aragorn.
Treebeard and the Ents appeared at the last battle in front of the Black Gate, and this is after they act as The Cavalry for Lothlórien.
Pippin was originally supposed to die. It was C. S. Lewis, who read the manuscript before the book was published, who objected and insisted that Tolkien let him live. So instead of being crushed to death by the troll at the Black Gates, he just gets a little squished and is saved by Gimli.
There were originally going to be good orcs! Frodo would've met them on the road, but Tolkien couldn't fit them into the story. The reason he wanted these orcs in the story was because, as a Catholic, he couldn't see a whole species as 'irredeemably evil'. This scene was later in the Rankin-Bass adaptation of The Return of the King as a dream sequence.
A study of the original drafts of Tolkien reveals that the character we know today as the Witch-King was going to be called the "Wizard-King": originally, Gandalf explained his great fear of the leader of the Nazgûl by the fact that he used to be of the same order of wizards as himself, but fell completely under the corruption of Sauron. Tolkien however decided to change the character's nature as he decided the Istari would be inhuman of origin - hence the change from "Wizard-King" to "Witch-King", to better differentiate him from the Istari. Here is a video on the subject, for those interested.
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In Tolkien's lifetime he rejected a proposal from Forest Ackerman and Al Brodax for an Animated Adaptation. This was unconnected to Ralph Bakshi's project which was after his death. It was supposed to involve animation, miniature work, and live action, and Tolkien really liked this and the Arthur Rackhamish concept art. What he didn't like was the script. Unnecessary plot changes, a hamhanded approach to magic, misportrayals of characters and an emphasis on attacks and fights. He wrote a detailed criticism of it, which is in Carpenter's Letters.
In the 1970s John Boorman was contracted by United Artists to direct an adaptation that would have collapsed the entire story into one long epic movie. However, the project ultimately proved too expensive to finance at that time and fell through. Among the many, many changes of his vision were:
Huge chunks of the story, mostly from the second and third books, would have been cut. This included Tom Bombadil, Bree, several elven characters, the Watcher in the Water, Lórien (Galadriel and her people would appear in a tent by a lake), the Ents, all which happens in Rohan and Isengard save for Edoras (with Saruman appearing in another place), Faramir, a lot of the Battle of the Pelennor, Minas Morgul, Cirith Ungol (Shelob would appear in Barad-Dur), the Eagles and the Scourge.
The film would have opened with the camera disturbing J. R. R. Tolkien in his study. The title would appear over a scale model of Middle-Earth.
The Council in Rivendell would have included a sort of stage peformance to explain the story of Sauron and the rings, all complete with kabuki puppetry and medieval circus act. Essentially, a Rock Opera.
Elrond would have had a beard, while Legolas wore an attire with leaves and feathers.
Arwen would have become a 13 years old spiritual guide, with her role as Aragorn's love interest transferred to Éowyn. In her first appearance, Arwen would have healed Frodo's shoulder from the Nazgul wound, though Elrond would have got Gimli ready to chop Frodo's arm to stop the black magic from spreading should Arwen fail.
The Nazgul had blind, skull-like faces, and the Witch King's flying steed was replaced by a zombie horse.
There was a bounty placed upon the Hobbits, which forced Frodo to use the ring to escape some paupers.
Passing through the snowy mountains the Fellowship is attacked by Wargs, interpreted as Beast Men.
Gimli would have been put in a hole and beaten in order to retrieve the password to Moria from his ancestral memory. Apparently, Boorman and his scriptwriter wrote this part because they loved Gimli, which makes one wonder what would have they come up with on the opposite case.
During the trek through Moria, the fellowship would pass hibernating orcs lying around, and not realizing what they are, they walk on them and their footsteps restart the orcs' hearts. Orcs are described as having lizard and avian features with scaly natural armor.
Aragorn uses both halves of Narsil with the hiltless half having a makeshift leather handle. Later he comes to blows with Boromir over the pieces of Narsil, but a vision of Arwen stops them to make them share the sword, performing a magic ritual with her blood and thus making them blood brothers. Boromir weeps and kisses Aragorn. After Boromir's death the sword remains unfixed through the film until by the end where Aragorn fuses them together with his hands in Gondor.
Aragorn summons an army of the dead from an ancient battlefield, Legolas summons an army of Wood-elves from the forests and Gimli an army of dwarves from the mountains, and they all go to Gondor.
After Pippin pledges service to Denethor he is made to dress up in a jester's outfit which is bloodstained and has arrow holes.
Aragorn embraces Denethor after declaring himself to be Boromir's blood brother, but Denethor has a dagger pointed at his own heart and dies as a result.
Gandalf and Saruman (the Mouth of Sauron) would have fought a duel of verbal magic portrayed solely with wordplay in the manner of African shamans. Gandalf started shouting "I am the snake about to strike!", Saruman replied "I am the staff that crushes the snake!" and so on.
Frodo and Galadriel would have had sexual intercourse in order for him to gaze into her mirror, as Celeborn didn't exist here. Both Legolas and Boromir would have attempted to seduce Galadriel too, the former by doing a tribal dance and the latter by flexing his muscles.
There would have been a scene where, after eating some strange mushrooms, the hobbits started having hallucinations, including golden flowers, naked children running around and sinister living scarecrows.
Theoden is the father of Eomer and Eowyn rather than their uncle.
Aragorn's healing of Éowyn would have taken place on the battlefield of Pelennor and given sexual overtones as he gets on top of her.
Legolas and Gimli would have been present during the final scene at the Grey Havens. Legolas would spot a rainbow and deliver the last line of the film:
Legolas: Look, only seven colours. Indeed the world is failing.
After the fall of his project, Boorman made the Arthurian epic Excalibur, where he used special effects techniques, locations, and plot "embellishments" intended for the Tolkien film. However, Boorman revisited the idea in the mid-1990s, though it fell through again due to legal issues between producer Saul Zaentz and Tristar Pictures. A last appeal to Tri-Star Pictures fell apart too due to conflicts about the merchandising rights.
When looking to branch out into fantasy comics, Marvel Comics originally considered making Lord of the Rings comics before settling on adapting Conan the Barbarian instead.
Ralph Bakshi version
The second part of this was planned. However, the first part received mixed reviews and the producers refused to fund Part II.
All of the live action parts were supposed to be rotoscoped, which is why the costumes are so basic. The movie as released is largely incomplete.
In the animated adaption, Ralph Bakshi originally wanted to include music by Led Zeppelin. Unfortunately, Saul Zaentz insisted he use an orchestral score because he wouldn't be able to release the band's music on his Fantasy Records label. Bakshi later said that he hated the final orchestral score, as he found it too cliche.
Peter Jackson films
When Miramax was unable to finance the original two films, they tried to get them meshed into one two-hour movie. Thankfully, Jackson understandably considered this to be "cutting out half the good stuff." Apparently, it was suggested that they:
Shorten Rivendell and Moria.
Cut Bree and the Battle of Helm's Deep.note Tolkien's idea, believe it or not. In his letter to Morton Zimmerman and Forest Ackerman about their proposed live action/animated film, he suggested cutting Helm's Deep so they wouldn't have two huge battle sequences and the battle of the Pelennor Fields would be more impressive.
"Lose or use" Saruman.
Merge Rohan and Gondor with Éowyn as Boromir's sister.
Having Ents prevent the Uruk-hai from kidnapping Merry and Pippin.
Ashley Judd and Mira Sorvino were considered for the film, but Miramax executives warned Jackson against casting them, claiming they were difficult to work with. In reality, however, this was Malicious Slander spread by Harvey Weinstein because both women had rejected his sexual advances, which Jackson only realized after Weinstein's fall from grace.
Later, when Jackson took the film to New Line Cinema to get funding, he planned on only asking for enough to make two films, thinking nobody would go for a full trilogy. Jackson thought the whole project was going to be torpedoed when Robert Shaye expressed doubts, but after viewing Jackson's behind the scenes documentary, he asked "Why would anyone want moviegoers to pay $18 when they can pay $27"?", stating that he wanted to make a full trilogy.
According to Viggo Mortensen, the movies were never really expected to be huge hits, and it was assumed that they were going to go straight to DVD after the first movie. The surprise success of the first film changed the direction of the trilogy, so all three ended up being released in theaters.
Jake Gyllenhaal was a frontrunner for Frodo, and he was even asked to do a private audition for Jackson. However, according to Gyllenhaal, he went in without having been properly explained what he was supposed to do, which caused him to unknowingly blow it. In particular, he had not been warned beforehand that he would need to learn to feign a believable British accent for the role, and his resultant attempts to improvise one were so bad that he got rejected right there. Jackson even showed sympathy and told Jake to fire his agent as soon as possible. To further rub salt, Gyllenhaal later heard he had become a sort of Memetic Loser among the crewmen as a consequence of this.
James Corden revealed that his first audition was for Sam.
Daniel Day-Lewis was offered the role of Aragorn back in 1997, when production was in its earliest stages. Day-Lewis was not interested, but as he was Jackson's first choice for the character, he got approached over and over with increasing payments until the director gave up.
While Jackson chased Day-Lewis, the studio offered Russell Crowe the role of Aragorn. Crowe was interested on the part, but scheduling troubles with his role in A Beautiful Mind impeded it, and he decided the salary was not enough to ditch the latter (the studio offered Crowe 10% percent of the film's profits, but he didn't think the film would be really successful). Crowe later stated how huge of a mistake this was. He also reportedly auditioned for Boromir.
Nicolas Cage was next approached, both by Jackson and the executives, but he turned it down due to the time commitment. Stuart Townsend was finally cast, only to be replaced by Viggo Mortensen two days before shooting because Jackson decided he was just too young for the character. Photos of Townsend dressed as Aragorn still exist.
Being a massive Tolkien fan, Vin Diesel auditioned for the role and was heartbroken at being rejected. He is still in contact with several members of the cast and has stated he would love to play the role of Melkor if The Silmarillion ever gets to the big screen.
The executives wanted someone big for Gandalf and offered the character to Sean Connery. The latter turned it down because he hadn't read the novel and didn't understand the story (Connery famously disliked the fantasy genre, having also rejected the role of Dumbledore in Harry Potter), and later said McKellen had been the perfect option for Gandalf. Notably, the executives were so insistent with Connery that they offered him the 15% of the trilogy's total box office receipts - which later turned out to be $400 million, more than any other actor has ever been paid for a single role ever.
Patrick Stewart was in talks with Jackson, who wanted him to play Gandalf. Stewart was annoyed by the conditions, as he was not fond of the script and also wanted a different role (he has not revealed which, so speculation abounds, with a particularly crazy rumor that he wanted Aragorn), and ultimately turned down the offer. Negotiations weren't a waste, though, as it was through him that Philippa Boyens noticed Ian McKellen as a possible candidate after watching them together in an acting course play. Stewart was also offered Théoden.
The retired Patrick McGoohan was the next option for Gandalf, reportedly due to his magnificent role in Braveheart, but he declined due to ill health. Others say, which is not necessarily incompatible with the previous, that at some point he was also Jackson's first choice for Denethor, only it fell down after Patrick proved to be "quite grumpy" during a meeting.
Rumoredly, Nigel Hawthorne was contacted after McGoohan, yet turned it down for similar health reasons.
Christopher Plummer, a life long Tolkien fan, was contacted next by the producers. He declined due to the long filming schedule, stating "there were other countries he he'd like to visit before he'd croak". He has revealed to feel a bit of regret about it, even jokingly claiming to hate Ian McKellen for taking the role.
Tom Baker was also offered the role of Gandalf, but he turned it down because he didn't want to be in New Zealand for 18 months at a time. Interestingly, Baker once implied the offer was not necessarily Gandalf, or perhaps that they also offered him a second role which he rejected too. Speculation still exists on what this character may have been, with some believing that it might have been Radagast the Brown (which eventually went to fellow Doctor Who alum Sylvester McCoy in The Hobbit) or even Tom Bombadil.
According to McKellen, Richard Harris lobbied heavily for the role of Gandalf and felt cheated when Ian was chosen over him, which was either the origin or the breaking point of their notorious one-sided enmity (which saw Harris repeatedly calling McKellen a passionless actor).
Max von Sydow was considered, but New Line wanted an English actor.
Even after being contacted, Ian McKellen almost ended up not playing Gandalf, given that John Woo also wanted him to play Swanbeck in Mission: Impossible II. McKellen was not a Tolkien fan, as he hadn't even read the books, and had no interest in one of the roles over the other; he only chose LOTR at the end because Woo wanted him to sign up without reading the script first, a practice that McKellen dislikes.
Around the time McKellen signed up, he heard Peter Jackson had previously offered the role to Anthony Hopkins. Coincidentally or not, Hopkins replaced McKellen in Mission: Impossible II. Hopkins was also reportedly considered for Bilbo.
Paul Scofield was also a candidate for Gandalf, and was proposed to Jackson in case McKellen couldn't make it. Jackson reportedly didn't like him for the role, considering he would make a better Saruman if anything, but McKellen himself later stated Scofield would have been his own choice for Gandalf had he been directing.
Other candidates sought by the producers, though not by Jackson, rumoredly included Morgan Freeman and Peter O'Toole.
Christopher Lee was a great fan of the books who even knew Tolkien personally, and he had always wanted to play Gandalf in a film adaptation. He took the role of a wizard in The New Adventures of Robin Hood only in order to get the producers to notice him, and later sent Peter Jackson a photo in wizard robes to suggest him the idea. When he finally entered negotiations with Jackson, however, Lee was dismayed to find out McKellen had been already cast for that role. Eventually, although Lee was famously sick of playing villains, Jackson managed to convince him that he would make an excellent Saruman instead. According to rumors, another factor was Lee finding out how physical would be the role of Gandalf in comparison, which would be a problem due to his age.
According to Christopher Lee, he was Jackson's only choice for Saruman, but rumors claim Jackson had also considered Tim Curry, Jeremy Irons and Malcolm McDowell in case Lee refused or was unavailable.
Liam Neeson was Jackson's first choice for Boromir, but he turned it down, not wanting to play another character who died in the first part of a trilogy like Qui-Gon Jinn.
Bruce Willis, another fan of the books, lobbied for the part of Boromir.
Bill Bailey, Warwick Davis, Ian McShane and Timothy Spall auditioned for Gimli. Davis even got the wrong impression that Spall had been finally chosen over him. For his part, Bailey later auditioned for Gimli's father Gloin in The Hobbit.
Sylvester McCoy auditioned for Bilbo, and Jackson liked him so much that it was a tough decision to choose between him and Ian Holm, who finally landed the part (and even so, McCoy stayed in case Holm rejected the role or had to drop out). Sylvester was later cast as Radagast the Brown in The Hobbit.
Kevin Conway was initially cast as Théoden in early stages, but he dropped out in favor of Gods and Generals. Amusingly, Conway acknowledged at the time that he was taking a terrible career decision by doing this, but he admitted he simply didn't want to be an entire year in New Zealand for a few scenes while the rest of his job was done by a stunt double.
Tom Wilkinson was approached for availability to play a role to be determined, but he declined, not being keen on the idea of spending a year away while shooting. Rumors claim they were considering him for either Théoden or Gandalf.
Jackson also approached Kate Winslet for Éowyn, but Winslet declined. The official reasons were that she was unavailable, though it was rumored she did it in order to distance herself from blockbusters after the fame brought by Titanic (1997).
Uma Thurman was offered the role of Arwen, but she had to turn down due to pregnancy. After she gave birth, she and her then husband Ethan Hawke were next considered for Faramir and Éowyn. Thurman had to decline regretfully due to her recent motherhood, while Hawke initially accepted the role but ended up dropping out as well.
Sam Neill was offered a role in the films, but despite he was eager to work with Jackson, he had to turn it down due to his commitment with Jurassic Park III. Neill has refused to reveal the exact role out of respect for the chosen actor, only confirming that it was not the popular fancasting of him as Elrond (he added that people routinely mistakes him by Hugo Weaving for some reason), but rumors have that it was Gandalf.
David Bowie actively campaigned to be in the films, and right since the time of their release there were wild rumors that he had auditioned for a role, most popularly suspected to be Elrond (though others say he tried for Gandalf instead, or possibly both). After Bowie's death, it was revealed the story was true and he had been in talks with the team, though at this point the story gets blurred: casting director Amy Hubbard claims Bowie discovered he was unavailable and therefore never auditioned for any role, while Dominic Monaghan recalls he and Bowie actually ran into each other in the auditions, although he never found out which character Bowie had gone to try for (he personally believes it should be Gandalf). Reasons why Bowie was not chosen remain unclear too, but given that Jackson was strong on the idea of casting unknowns, noting that "to have a famous, beloved character and a famous star colliding is slightly uncomfortable", it is assumed he simply did not want Bowie's sheer star power to overshadow the character and the rest of the cast. Philippa Boyens also stated that the producers initially regarded Bowie as the perfect choice for Elrond, only to change their minds upon remembering Bowie's memetic role as Jareth in the fantasy film Labyrinth.
Jackson wanted Lucy Lawless of all people to play Galadriel, but she had to turn it down due to her pregnancy at the time (yet another choice foiled by this) and her tight television schedule. Lawless has stated that she really wanted that role too and it broke her heart not to be able to accept it.
Jeffrey Combs (with whom Peter Jackson had worked on The Frighteners) auditioned for the role of Gríma Wormtongue. Combs contends that he lost the role due to a less-than-stellar British accent, which did not sound credible when opposite the likes of Ian McKellen.
James Horner was contacted to compose the music, but he was unavailable because of his work on A Beautiful Mind.
Earlier versions of the script included additional characters like Fatty Bolger, Glorfindel, Elladan, Elrohir, Erkenbrand, Imrahil and Forlong. At one point, Jackson even considered reintroducing Tom Bombadil in a cameo. Gimli was also going to swear throughout the films (he only does so once, in elvish, in the Extended Edition of Fellowship).
New Line originally pushed for Fellowship of the Ring to have no prologue at all, but the writers knew that the Ring needed all the lore backup it could get while also establishing how old Middle-earth is as a setting.
The narration in the prologue for Fellowship by Galadriel was originally intended to be spoken by Frodo — Elijah Wood even did a recording, but the filmmakers felt that not only did the information in the prologue have little bearing on Frodo's character, but there was also the Fridge Logic of him knowing that information — and if he did know all of that, he would have had to have learned it during the trilogy and it would have been a bit of a spoiler alert to the fact that he survives. So then they got Ian McKellen as Gandalf to do a recording of the narration, but decided again that he wasn't the right person to be saying this. They eventually picked Cate Blanchett as Galadriel to speak these lines, emphasizing the timelessness of the elves. (And in Elvish - the first voice you hear, while the screen's still dark, is speaking the language to which Tolkien devoted his life and for which he created the Elves and Middle-earth. In the beginning was the word.)
The use of Galadriel as the opening narrator allowed them to use her and Elrond to have the "prologue scene in the middle" of Two Towers where they sum up the situation at hand and ask if they leave Middle-earth to its fate.
Prolific Tolkien illustrators John Howe and Alan Lee (who also worked as concept artists for the films) cameo as two of the nine Kings of Men in the prologue. According to some accounts, Jackson also tried to get the other most notable Tolkien illustrator, Ted Nasmith, involved, but he had some personal business at the time that prevented him from taking part. Scenes clearly inspired by some of his paintings appear in the films.
The wobbling stairs sequence as the fellowship escape the Balrog was never intended to be in the film, the script simply reading "the fellowship ran down some stairs''. However some concept art of these stairs, looking very close to what we see in the final movie, got Peter Jackson's mind whirring, and he devised the iconic sequence we know today.
There was going to be a river rapids scene in the first film when the Fellowship was traveling by boat. However, real life wrote the plot when the equipment the crew was going to use was washed away or ruined by flood waters.
In an inverse situation to Fellowship, New Line were quite adamant that The Two Towers start with a prologue that sums up the first movie. Peter Jackson disagreed and felt the audience should pay a few bucks to see the first film before jumping into the middle of the story. Instead of a prologue, the film opens with a familiar event told from a gripping new perspective: Gandalf falling and fighting the Balrog, to put audience back into the story quickly.
The Balrog was going to be shown after falling in the water with its fire gone out and covered in slime, but was removed because it would have been far too expensive and time-consuming to pull off the slime effect. Also, his fall would scare away several tentacled monsters similar to the Watcher in the Water.
Gollum was originally going to be portrayed soley as a voice, with the character having no on-set representation. However Peter Jackson was so impressed with the physical performance Andy Serkis made in the process of making the voice that he felt this should be represented somehow during filming. Thus the Serkis Folk trope was born, with Andy also portraying Gollum in front of the camera to be digitally replaced later.
Smegol's flashback was originally to be placed in The Two Towers, right after Frodo calls him by his real name for the first time in the Dead Marshes. The flashback would have likely ended abruptly when he puts on the Ring for the first time, by the screech of the Nazgul. It was ultimately decided it would serve better as the opening to Return of the King instead, which results in a notable lighting shift going from night to dawn.
During the scene where Gollum leads Frodo and Sam to the gates, there was to be a flashback of Gollum being tortured from the first film while he fears getting caught.
The tenor of the times in 2002 compelled them to cut out a lot of material that mostly served to humanize the other races, such as the bit with the Southron or the conversations with orcs. The musings on the Southron soldier are in the Extended Edition of The Two Towers, though it's Faramir who delivers the musings (in the book, it was Sam).
During the scene in Ithilien when Faramir attempted to take the Ring from Frodo (only to be stopped by Sam), the original intention was to have Frodo have a moment where he changed into a hideous Gollum-like appearance, as Bilbo did in Rivendell. Although this was cut, you can still see traces of it in the moment where Frodo, face hidden from the camera, cowers against the rock, as well as the greatly disturbed look on Faramir's face afterwards. Images of Elijah's makeup tests of this scene can be found here.
During the battle of Helm's Deep a few orcs were going to get through, only to caught and defeated by Éowyn who was helping a pregnant woman give birth.
You know that song at the end of The Two Towers that's sung by someone who sounds an awful lot like Björk? Well, the original idea was for her to sing it, but she was pregnant at the time (by this point it looks like an Overly Long Gag in this page, doesn't?) and declined the invitation. They used another Icelandic singer, Emilíana Torrini, instead.
The flooded Isengard and the death of Saruman was originally meant to be part of the ending of The Two Towers, but similar to the Gollum origins it was moved to the opening of Return of the King (much to the chagrin of that film's editor). The scene was still rather lengthy, so Saruman's on-screen death was removed from the Theatrical cut, which prompted Christopher Lee to not appear at the premieres and press tours for the third movie.
Reportedly, the Wood Woses originally appeared in The Return of the King, with Maori actor Wu Kuki Kaa playing their chieftain Ghan-Buri-Ghan, but all of their scenes were cut. The films' trading card game produced a card of him, though.
For the scene where Frodo tells Sam to "go home", the initial approach was for Frodo to say it very venomously to portray how deeply the Ring is affecting him. This was deemed too intense during editing, but luckily the much more restrained take seen in the movie had also been filmed on the day and was used instead.
At the Black Gates, Aragorn was originally going to see a vision of Sauron as his beautiful Annatar form that he used to trick the elves into forging the Rings (played by Kate Winslet), before transforming into the armoured Sauron from the prologue to fight Aragorn personally. However in editing this was deemed to detract from Aragorn's ploy of distracting Sauron to give Frodo and Sam passage to Mount Doom, so it was changed in two ways:
The Annatar vision was changed to Sauron's eye "flaring" to Aragorn, making it look like he's being affected much as the One Ring does, before he turns around and instead says the iconic "For Frodo" line and charging in. This was Viggo Mortenson's suggestion.
Still wanting Aragorn to have something significant to fight, the Sauron fight footage was reused but with the armored troll replacing him.
The filmmakers tried to make the "Gollum into the lava" scene true to the book, but the take with Gollum simply falling into the lava while celebrating was deemed too anticlimactic. So they tried again, filming a scene where Frodo deliberately pushes Gollum and the Ring into the lava. That was basically murder, so they filmed a third take where Frodo still goes after him but instead tries to retake the Ring, but they both slip over the edge in the scuffle, which is the one we see in the final product. This further put Frodo in a position where heseriously considers letting go and ending it all, but decides to take Sam's hand instead.
, set more than 100 years after the events of LOTR, well into the Fourth Age, involving an evil cult and boys playing at being orcs. Tolkien got about 13 pages in before deciding that the story was uninteresting and not worth telling.