History Trivia / TheLordOfTheRings

** Hippies and students first discovered the book via the unauthorized, inexpensive Ace paperback edition, and there were apparently other pulp bootleg editions as well,[[note]]Inexpensive photocopying was just starting to become available and it's possible that photocopies of LOTR were being passed around as well[[/note]] which spread like wildfire on college campuses: then the authorized [[http://lotrscrapbook.bookloaf.net/gallery/bookcovers/pages/04.htm Ballantine paperback edition]] came out. All these things created the massive "psychedelic fandom" for the book in TheSixties[[note]]Frodo Lives! Gandalf for President![[/note]] (see MemeticMutation). JRRT loathed paperbacks, and in fact was quite unsettled to learn that American counter-culture was embracing his work. But he took advantage of the young people's devotion to compose his own bit of CreatorBacklash for the authorized Ballantine edition, in the form of a written TakeThat: "This edition, and no other, was authorized by me... those who approve of courtesy (at least) to living authors will purchase it, and no other."
** To their credit, the college students mounted a campaign of protest against the unauthorized editions after Tolkien made a point of mentioning, in his responses to fan mail, that he was being royally ripped off by the Ace publishers and did not receive a single cent in royalties from any American LOTR paperbacks other than the Ballantine edition. (Ace Books, the main offender among the pulp bootleggers, were harassed sufficiently by angry fans that they made a point of paying a massive royalty check to Tolkien and withdrawing their edition of ''LOTR'' from print.) [[https://www.kirkusreviews.com/features/unauthorized-lord-rings/ More on the unauthorized editions here.]]

* RealitySubtext: The story is not an allegory; Tolkien rebutted this by laying out what an allegory ''would'' have been. But there is a distinct tonal shift between ''The Hobbit'', which started as a story for his young children, and ''Lord of the Rings'', whose chapters he sometimes sent to his son Christopher while Christopher was serving as an [=RAF=] pilot in the African theater of UsefulNotes/WorldWarII. The influence of World War I on his creative mind is also easy to see.

* IndyPloy: Except for the climactic scene at the Cracks of Doom, Tolkien was pretty much [[WritingByTheSeatOfYourPants deciding how the story would go as he went along]], and often seemed to be as surprised by the plot twists as his characters were. Many chapters show frequent rewriting as new ideas came to the fore. (For example, he explicitly stated that meeting Faramir in Ithilien was as much a surprise to him as it was to Frodo and Sam.)

** Creator/ChristopherLee 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 ''Series/TheNewAdventuresOfRobinHood'' only in order to get the producers to notice him, and later sent Creator/PeterJackson a photo in wizard robes to suggest him the idea. When he finally entered negotiations with Jackson, however, Lee was dismayed to find out Creator/IanMcKellen 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.

* StarDerailingRole: John Hurt, Anthony Daniels, Simon Chandler and Philip Stone (Aragorn, Legolas, Merry and Theoden, respectively) were more or less the only actors in this movie who were still able to get good acting work after its release. The rest of the cast mostly all went on to play bit parts in low profile films or TV series (though others remained prominent on the radio). Most notable is Sam's voice actor, Michael Scholes, who, including this film, only has four acting credits to his name on [=IMDb=], all except one in 1978, meaning that his career only lasted roughly a year.

** Years later, [[https://www.syfy.com/syfywire/why-viggo-mortensen-says-the-lord-of-the-rings-trilogy-was-a-mess Viggo Mortensen]] would go on to describe the film series as a mess, citing that the only reason the later two films got theatrical releases is because the ''Fellowship of the Ring'' was a surprise hit, and that if not for it, the series would have gone straight to DVD instead of any theatrical releases. He also felt that the movies went too far into relying on CGI as they went on, citing that he felt things got too over the top, and that Peter Jackon's skills as a director weakened when he moved on to doing larger projects over smaller ones.

** The role of the CalvalryOfTheDead is considered by Peter Jackson to be this due to its StoryBreakerPower and "being unbelievable". If it had appeared any earlier, the Siege of Minas Tirith would have been one-sided and the Ride of the Rohirrim would have been unnecessary. Note however that this is after he simplified things and gave the ghosts a ''much'' bigger role by having them at the siege itself, instead of an offscreen battle (where it's strongly implied they scare away foes instead of physically fighting) in order to free up human reinforcements, who do go with Aragorn to the siege.

** Otherwise averted with Billy Boyd, who kept his natural Scottish accent as Pippin. WordOfGod is that his comic timing was better using his own accent, and they justified it by saying that Pippin's home was very similar to Scotland.

* FatalMethodActing: Averted twice, thankfully, but nonetheless some close calls for Viggo Mortensen, who was pulled under by a current and nearly drowned while filming the river scene in ''The Two Towers''. Then there was his fight with Lurtz in ''Fellowship''. Lurtz's actor mistakenly threw his real-sharp knife directly at Mortensen's face, and Mortensen managed to deflect the blade with his sword. The shot remains in the movie.

* LoopingLines:
** The entire trilogy was dubbed in post: the enormous noise of the on-set fans and the assorted background noise made it impossible to hear any of the dialogue spoken while recording.
** Notably averted with Bilbo's speech at the party, as Creator/IanHolm couldn't recreate the [[EnforcedMethodActing drunk tone]] while looping those lines sober. That gave the sound editors quite some work.

* TalkingToHimself:
** Lawrence Makoare has a scene between himself as Gothmog and himself as the Witch-King. Both of whom are voiced by Andy Serkis, making it two different versions of this trope.
** The Gollum & Sméagol conversations are InUniverse sort of this trope.

** Creator/SeanBean was best known for ''{{Series/Sharpe}}'' at the time. He soon started popping up in blockbusters such as ''{{Film/Troy}}'', ''Film/TheIsland'', ''Film/NationalTreasure'' and of course ''Series/GameOfThrones''.