Fact or Fiction: Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings Movies

Back in the early 2000s, filmmaker Peter Jackson and his wife, Fran Walsh, decided to take on a hugely ambitious project: adapting J.R.R. Tolkein’s Lord of the Rings trilogy for the silver screen. At first, the plan was to do two of the Lord of the Rings movies, but after the scripts were written, it grew into three films (The Fellowship of the Ring, The Two Towers, and Return of the King).

After Patrick Stewart suggested Sir Ian McKellen for the role of Gandalf, casting took off until all the characters were in place. Filming took place over a few years, and then the movies were released to the public, where they received very positive feedback from the audience and critics. After proving that he could do Middle Earth justice, Peter Jackson returned to Middle Earth a few years later to create a trilogy based on The Hobbit, the prequel to Lord of the Rings.

With so many movies from J.R.R. Tolkien’s Middle Earth, how many do you think you really know enough about to tell the difference between fact or fiction?

The Lord of the Rings Movies

The Lord of the Rings movies are fantasy adventure movies set in the fictional Middle Earth that tell the story of one hobbit's unexpected journey to save the world by preventing the Dark Lord Sauron from obtaining the One Ring. Award-winning director Peter Jackson worked hard to get these films made, including writing a script, directing them all, and doing the final edits in the movies.

Nine years after the Lord of the Rings movies were released, Peter Jackson began working on The Hobbit, creating three more films set in Middle Earth that would tell the rest of the story, including how the One Ring got into the hands of Bilbo Baggins to begin with.

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Question 1/10

Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (Choose the answer that is true.)

Andy Serkis was the first and only choice Peter Jackson had in mind when casting the role of Gollum.
After filming concluded, Peter Jackson sent a prop ring to both Andy Serkis and Elijah Wood, and both of them thought they had the only one of its kind.
The Return of the King is the first film that followed the book almost to the page and lines written by J.R.R. Tolkien.
The scene on Mumakil, where Legolas made his heroic last stand, was filmed over the course of a week because Orlando Bloom struggled to stay balanced on top of the pile of sandbags.

Question 2/10

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (Choose the answer that is true.)

Upon its release, The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey was the lowest-grossing film from the Lord of the Rings franchise.
Guillermo del Toro was fired shortly before filming began due to issues he was having with New Line executives over the film's final edits.
Unlike the original Lord of the Rings trilogy, when this film premiered in New Zealand, there were not very many people lining the streets.
Peter Jackson wanted Martin Freeman to play Bilbo Baggins so bad that he rescheduled filming of all three films so Martin would have no scheduling conflicts with filming Sherlock.

Question 3/10

Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (Choose the answer that is true.)

Helm's Deep was the last structure designed for the film, which took about a month to build.
Since they could not find enough six-foot-tall actors to play the Uruk-hai, they used CGI to fill in the majority of them.
Andy Serkis was so impressive during his audition for Gollum that Peter Jackson ended up using him in the film instead of creating a completely CGI character, which was his original plan.
The voice of Gollum was invented from watching classic horror films featuring aliens and monsters.

Question 4/10

The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies (Choose the answer that is true.)

Similar to Smaug and the Spiders, other animals including wolves, eagles, and ravens are given voices in the movie, just like in the book.
The Battle of the Five Armies became the sixth film from Middle Earth that was nominated for an Academy Award for visual effects.
This was the only time we see Legolas with an empty quiver after using all the arrows.
For the first time in Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings saga, the fourth wall was broken after a Siberian Husky looked right into the camera on a wide shot during this film.

Question 5/10

The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug (Choose the answer that is true.)

The Desolation of Smaug was the only film in The Hobbit trilogy that was not shot simultaneously and was filmed following the ending of the first two films.
Benedict Cumberbatch was cast to be the voice of Smaug after Alan Rickman passed away prior to filming.
Legolas blinks twice in the film, which fits his character since Elves only blink when injured or surprised.
Orlando Bloom wanted to perform his own stunts but was not allowed due to insurance purposes.

Question 6/10

Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (Choose the answer that is true.)

Peter Jackson used the same software from the film The Gladiator to create a fake battle scene featuring thousands of warriors.
Although the film had reshoots and edits to the script, Peter Jackson refused to use input from his actors because of how many he was working with.
Sean Connery wanted to play Gandalf so badly that he told Peter Jackson he would take a pay cut and do it for next to nothing.
The team from WETA Workshop that built the weapons for the film were actually in the movie, shown as Orc blacksmiths.

Question 7/10

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (Choose the answer that is true.)

All of the creative chapter titles from the book were purposely kept out of the film because Peter Jackson wanted to make sure the two were not one and the same.
The Goblin Town sequence was written as a much bloodier and gorier fight, but this was changed to keep the film's PG-13 rating.
Taron Egerton was hired and was planning on being Bilbo, but after costume and makeup sessions, Peter Jackson realized his mistake and recast the part.
Aragorn makes a return but only has one line in the movie, which was later cut from the film.

Question 8/10

Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (Choose the answer that is true.)

It took about 48 hours to render one frame of Treebeard. In contrast, it only took about eight hours to render a frame of Gollum.
Sir Christopher Lee helped provide a voice for an orc who was arguing with two other orcs over food.
Orlando Bloom originally auditioned for the role of Aragorn but was told he was not gritty enough to be believable.
Since all three films were being shot in order, The Two Towers ended up being the final one because of the Battle at Helm's Deep.

Question 9/10

Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (Choose the answer that is true.)

New Line Cinema ended up losing money on Return of the King after reaching a profit on the original two films.
After being nominated for 11 Academy Awards, Return of the King nearly had a perfect evening until losing Best Picture.
The only cast member from the original Lord of the Rings trilogy to have met J. R. R. Tolkien was Sir Christopher Lee.
While filming on a volcano named Ruapehu, which was Mt. Doom, the path was so steep that Elijah Wood and Sean Astin struggled to keep from falling down.

Question 10/10

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (Choose the answer that is true.)

James Horner took over for Howard Shore and wrote the entire score for the movie.
Cate Blanchett managed to film all her scenes for all three movies in just eight days.
They had to film a lot of the trilogy on a soundstage because the original farm used for Hobbiton was turned into a tourism spot.
Viggo Mortensen contacted Peter Jackson about reprising his role for the film but was turned down because the story did not fit.

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Fact or Fiction: Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings Movies