The Movie and the Book

The Shadow Of The Past

Most of this chapter was left the same in the film as it was in the book, except that Gandalf's conversation with Frodo about the ring was a lot longer. Some elements of what Gandalf told Frodo about the ring's history were shown in the introduction at the beginning of the film. Part of the conversation took place in Moria in the film.

When Gandalf returned to Bag-end in the book it was 17 years after Bilbo's party. Also, he didn't return in a panic the way he appeared in the film. He stayed the night and the discussion about the ring with Frodo didn't take place until the next morning after breakfast. In that conversation, when he told Frodo to leave the shire, he also advised him to travel under the name Underhill. That name wasn't mentioned in the film until Frodo introduced himself in Bree.

The movie also has a short scene where black riders are scene riding up to the borders of The Shire and apparently killing a hobbit. There was never any indication in the book that they did anything more than speak to hobbits in The Shire (even if they did scare the ones they spoke to). One of the remarkable things about the way the books ended with the scouring of the shire (which was removed from the films) was that it was the first time anything resembling combat had hapenned for several centuries.