The Movie and the Book

Movie Introduction

The beginning of the movie is quite different from the beginning of the book for good reason. The beginning of the book was in the form of a prologue, which described hobbits, their origins and the land they lived in (called The Shire). A description like this was not necessary in the film. For example, the prologue told us that Hobbits were generally no more than 3ft tall, with curly hair and hairy feet and rarely wore shoes. This much was obvious from seeing the hobbits in the film. The film did such a good job of portraying Hobbits and the Shire that the content of the prologue was pretty much shown visually.

What the film did show as an introduction was a brief account of Sauron's ring and how it was lost. This summarised account covered events that were mostly described at different points in Lord of the Rings and in other books. It was kept brief out of necessity but was enough to give people new to the story a bit of background. Below is a summary of a few things relevant to the story that weren't covered in the film's introduction. Most of this is covered in Lord of the Rings but some of it comes from The Hobbit and The Silmarillion.

The Great Battle

The introduction portrayed a battle between the forces of Sauron and a combined elf/human force, often referred to as The Last Alliance since it was the last time those two races fought together as a combined army. So what was the battle about and who was involved?

Sauron for many ages had been attempting to conquer the lands of Middle Earth and was once the lieutenant of the Dark Lord Morgoth (the main enemy in The Silmarillion). At the end of the second age of Middle earth an alliance was formed between elves and men in a last effort to stop him. This alliance was formed between Gil Galad and Elendil The Tall. Gil Galad was the high king of the elves in Middle Earth and was descended from some of the great elves spoken of in The Silmarillion. Elendil was a descendant of the kings of the island of Numenor, a kindom which had been destroyed only a short time before, leaving Elendil as king of the high race of men in Middle Earth (Numenorians).

Gil-Galad and Elendil weren't mentioned in the introduction but Elrond and Isildur were. Elrond was the herald of Gil Galad and also a distant relative of Elendil. Isildur was one of the sons of Elendil. Gil Galad, Elendil and Elendil's other son Anarion were all killed in the battle. In the film we saw Isildur take Narsil, his father's sword and cut the ring from the finger of Sauron. This war ended the second age of Middle Earth.

Later in the movie we see Elrond giving his account of what followed. The only significant part of that changed from the book was that in the book it was both Elrond and another elf - Cirdan the ship wright who tried to convince Isildur to destroy the ring. Since Cirdan played only a minor role it wasn't surprising that he wasn't included. The only other time he was in Lord of the Rings was at the end of the final book when the other boarded his ship to leave middle earth. He was also missing from that scene in the film.

Loss of the Ring

In the book, what hapenned next was explained by Gandalf to Frodo before Frodo left the Shire and was briefly covered in the film. Isildur and a company of his soldiers were returning home to the northern Kingdom or Arnor and were travelling beside the Anduin river. They didn't expect any attack after Sauron's defeat but they were surprised by a force of orcs. Isildur put on the ring to escape since it could make the wearer invisible. The ring betrayed him and slipped off his finger as he was swiming across the river. The orcs who could now see him shot him with arrows and killed him. One of Isildur's servants managed to escape with the pieces of Elendil's sword which was how the story of what hapenned was known. The sword (seen later in the film) was brought to Isildur's only surviving son who was too young to go to the war.

Sméagol and the Ring

When Aragorn tracked and captured Gollum, Gandalf was able to learn how he found the ring. The movie gave a brief account. The rest of this part of the story was covered in detail in the Return of the King film.

Gollum was originally known as Sméagol. He was of a race that was probably originally related to the Hobbits of the Shire, though years of wearing the ring twisted him in to a creature that no longer looked like a hobbit. Sméagol and a friend Deagol were by the river when Deagol swam in to the water after something he saw shining below the surface. What he saw and found was the ring. He showed it to Sméagol, Sméagol wanted it and after an argument, Sméagol killed Deagol and took the ring. Sméagol then began getting up to mischief while wearing this ring which made him invisible. This soon lead to him being cast out from his village since his kin no loger trusted him. These events would have taken place over 500 years before the main events covered in the Lord of the Rings. In time Sméagol wandered to the dark places beneath the Misty Mountains where he met Bilbo.

The story of his encounter with Bilbo is described most fully in The Hobbit (at the time J. R. R. Tolkien wrote the Hobbit, he hadn't planned on the ring being anything more than a convenient item for avoiding being seen). Bilbo found the ring which had slipped away from Gollum. He then barely escaped from Gollum who believed Bilbo had stolen his precious.

The Ring

The Lord of the Rings revolves around a particular ring. A summary of the history of that ring is presented in the film.

Before the time of Elendil, Sauron was trying to conquer Middle Earth in much more subtle ways. For a long time he pretended to be a friend to the elves and men and taught them, referring to himself as Annatar or Lord of Gifts. One elf that he tried especially hard to befriend was Celebrimbor, the greatest smith and craftsman of the time. With Sauron's help, he and other elves forged many rings. The greatest of all were the rings of power. Three of these were given to Elven lords. Seven were given to Dwarf kings. Nine were given to kings of men.

Sauron secretly made one ring to rule over all the others. He made it in Orodruin, the mountain of fire and much of his own power was put in to the ring. While he wore it he could see all that was done with the others and could exercise power over those who wore them.

The men who wore the nine rings were quickly enslaved by the will of Sauron and became the ring wraiths, or the Nazgûl. The dwarven rings corrupted those who wore them so that they became obsessed with gathering gold and treasure. Some of those rings were recovered by Sauron. Some were lost or consumed by dragon fire.

The wearers of the three elven rings were the only ones to escape Sauron's intentions, since Celebrimbor had made them alone and they were untouched by Sauron. Even though Sauron had no direct control over them their power was still closely connected with the one ring. The three elven rings were Narya, the ring of fire; Nenya, the ring of water; Vilya the ring of air.

Later in the Lord of the Rings books (and possibly in the later movies), it is revealed who had the elven rings.

The writing in the elven script above is the writing that Gandalf found written on the inner part of the ring. It says:

One ring to rule them all, one Ring to find them
One ring to bring them all, and in the darkness bind them

This was part of a longer rhyme which follows in full below:

Three rings for the Elven-kings under the sky,
Seven for the Dwarf-lords in their halls of stone,
Nine for Mortal Men doomed to die,
One for the Dark Lord on his dark throne
   In the Land of Mor-dor where the shadows lie.
One ring to rule them all, one Ring to find them
One ring to bring them all, and in the darkness bind them
   In the Land of Mor-dor where the shadows lie.