Top 10 Things The Lord of the Rings Left Out

You'll be shocked when you see what was left out of this iconic film trilogy. For this list, we’ll be going over the characters, scenes, and concepts from “The Lord of the Rings” books that were completely omitted from the movie adaptations. Our countdown includes “The Hobbit” References, Battles All Over Middle-earth, Tom Bombadil, and more! If there’s “one thing to rule them all” in the books that didn’t appear in the movies, please tell us in the comments!

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[WatchMojo]

If there’s “one thing to rule them all” in the books that didn’t appear in the movies, please tell us in the comments!

[alexandercanella]

The Broken Sword and Nerd of the Rings make amazing videos about all things Tolkien. If you like the Hobbit and LoTR trilogies, you'll love their channel.

[hopegorman]

Other honorable mentions: Glorfindel, Erkenbrand, Prince Imrahil, and the warg attack on the fellowship after coming down off of Caradhras. Also never liked it that they didnt mention Boromir getting a gift from Galadriel.

[TimSnead]

I was sad that the Wild Men of the Woods were left out of ROTK, but I completely understand why they weren’t included. Always thought it was cool how they helped the Rohirrim reach Minas Tirith.

[Nick-K]

I've rewatched the hobbit films lately. They are a lot better than they used to be. Ofcourse LotR is still vastly superior.

[lp-xlld]

The LORD OF THE RINGS movies: too much stuff left out

The HOBBIT movies: too much stuff put in

[staceyrox]

I’ve literally just started reading the books and my favourite part so far is how Frodo keeps the ring secret from the other Hobbits but then they come forward basically like “yeah we know about the ring” haha made me laugh cause Frodo thought he was super secretive but nah they knew

[Rothiman]

I really disliked that Jackson did not include the return to shire. To me it's one of the most important parts of the story arc. Bringing the Hobbits from weaklings unable to do anything meaningful by themselfs to defending and freeing their home without outside help.

[AustoLaVista]

Even the Extended cuts left out stuff. These movies would have all been 4-5 hours long if everything was adapted.

[Rafaela_S.]

Another honorable mention I like is, when Sam has the ring he got the vision to use the rings power to overthrow sauron and claim his lands to make a garden out of mordor.

[angelcarretero]

They left Glorfindel out, and so did you. Counted among the mightiest of the Elves, he was entrusted by Elrond himself to look for the Hobbits and help them escape the Black Riders in "The Fellowship of the Ring". In the movies, his role was substituted by that of the Lady Arwen.

[JammastaJ]

The scouring of the Shire was an important element that I love in the books. It establishes Merry and Pippin as more heroic characters and gives them a nice finish to their arc, it gives a more satisfying ending for Saruman and Wormtongue, and it's an allegory that the world wars on the continent didn't happen in a vacuum and required death and sacrifice from countries outside of the main battlefields (e.g. the UK).

[TheKey]

Peter Jackson I thought made sense why they didn't include Tom Bombadil. Even though he IS of course in the original story, to have someone who's basically immune to the ring might've counteracted how big a deal it's supposed to be.

[Grizzlox]

Considering how much content is in the books, I consider it good fortune that the production company gave Jackson enough screen time to include what he did.

[paprika]

just can't believe it's been more than 20 years since i saw this on theaters.

[elvacoburg]

For me the main missing things were: The Old Forest, Tom Bombadil, The Barrow Downs (that is 3 consecutive chapters), plus the Scouring of the Shire.
I have heard a lot of people say that adding these might have made it too long, but my reply is that if they had not added all the extra bits, then there might have been time for the full story as Tolkien wrote it.

[Grimlock]

I think the character I missed the most is actually Imrahil. I would have loved to see the scene where the armies of Gondor arrive in Minas Tirith. The movie gives the impression that Gondor is weak and tiny compared to Rohan.
Others that would have been nice to see are Fatty bolger and the sons of Elrond.
I can totally understand why certain side-characters were left out, like Bombadil, Glorfindel and Ghan-Buri-Ghan.
On the other hand, the movie did right by expanding other characters that needed to be seen more than in the books, like Saruman and Arwen.

[Michael]

One thing they got SO wrong in The Return of the King was that the Witch King of Angmar never entered the White City. He met Gandalf the White at the entrance and was called away by something happening on the field of battle and he NEVER broke Gandalf's staff.

[keithdesautels]

So this was kind of mentioned in the video, I just think that this particular scene deserved more acknowledgment.

In The fellowship of the Ring, the scene where they go through moria, there are several things that the movie was very undescript about.

1) when they enter moria, escaping the watcher in the water, the big scary octopus monster by the door, which wasn't named in the movies, boromir made a comment saying this isn't a mine it's a tomb. They then pan to a bunch of dwarvish skeletons on the ground. One of those was Oin. At this point The Hobbit series was not released yet, so if you did not follow the books you really did not know who Oin was, also the fact that he was killed by The watcher in the water was not included in any movie.

When gimli runs into the chamber of Mazarbul and finds Balins coffin, at that point if you did not follow the books, you probably didn't even know who balin was. Also, much like Oin it was never portrayed in the movies but he was killed during a battle of orcs and dwarves in moria.

In the same scene gandalf finds a skeleton holding a book, that was detailing the attack by the orcs. At this time again if you did not follow the books, you probably did not realize that that skeleton holding the book was Ori, the youngest member of thorin's company in The Hobbit series. Once again he was killed in the war of Maria which was never portrayed in the movies.

[Marksman]

I can understand not including most of the sing-songy stuff. I feel that would’ve detracted too much from the serious tone that Jackson wanted to achieve for the films