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 Gandalf faces the Balrog |  Théoden King |  Minas Tirith |
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The material is presented in lossy JPEG format at less than half of its original resolution. No more than 4 screenshots (1 title card, 3 stills) are displayed on the page. Due to this media's non-episodic nature, the title card and one still both originated from the same installment. No more than 1 non-title still originated from a single installment.
| Elijah Wood | as | Frodo Baggins |
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| Sean Astin | as | Samwise Gamgee |
| Billy Boyd | as | Peregrin Took |
| Dominic Monaghan | as | Meriadoc Brandybuck |
| Ian McKellen | as | Gandalf the Grey / the White |
| Viggo Mortensen | as | Aragorn |
| Sean Bean | as | Boromir |
| Orlando Bloom | as | Legolas |
| John Rhys-Davies | as | Gimli / Treebeard |
| Ian Holm | as | Bilbo Baggins |
| Andy Serkis | as | Gollum / Sméagol |
| Christopher Lee | as | Saruman the White |
| Bernard Hill | as | Théoden, King of Rohan |
| Miranda Otto | as | Éowyn |
| Karl Urban | as | Éomer |
| Bruce Hopkins | as | Gamling |
| David Wenham | as | Faramir |
| John Noble | as | Denethor, Steward of Gondor |
| Brad Dourif | as | Gríma Wormtongue |
| Liv Tyler | as | Arwen |
| Hugo Weaving | as | Elrond |
| Cate Blanchett | as | Galadriel |
| Craig Parker | as | Haldir |
A pair of Hobbits take the Ring of Power to Mt. Doom, while the heir to the throne of Gondor leads armies against the orc hordes from Mordor and Isengard.
People either love this series or hate it. Peter Jackson took some liberties with the source material in order to make some things longer and simplify others. While this offended Tolkien superfans, these 3 films comprised the greatest film epic since Star Wars. Contemporaneously having to compete for market share with Harry Potter, I feel pretty lucky in that I always prefered Lord of the Rings. So, fortunately, I don't have to deal with my favourite childhood films being inextricably linked to transphobia and racism.
Talking of Star Wars, LOTR was filmed and edited in such a way that it could take advantage of the lengthy delay between installments in the Star Wars prequel trilogy. The only film in that trilogy that it intersected with was Episode II: Attack of the Clones.
I'll watch these films with very little prompting. Sometimes I'll watch all 3 several times a year. I usually wrap back round to The Hobbit after Return of the King. I like the way The Hobbit trilogy is structured so that you can watch both trilogies one after the other on basically infinite loop if you want. Once, during COVID lockdown, after I'd coronaquit my job, I watched all 6 films in a single day. Don't do that. It seems like a good idea, but it's not.
As of the time of writing (12 September 2025), I've watched LOTR 1 & 2. I'll probably watch LOTR 3 this weekend sometime. It's just... ugh... Return of the King is SO FUCKING LONG. Like, if your film is so long that you feel the need to use the Wilhelm Scream twice? It's too long. Cut it down. Revise. Make another film if you need to.
Incidentally, since 2024, the simbelmyne scene in The Two Towers consistently makes me cry. The reason why is kind of too personal for a video log page, but Théoden's line, "No parent should have to bury their child," always hits me like a train. Anyway, that isn't going to affect the star rating.
1: Fellowship of the Ring
2: The Two Towers
3: Return of the King