From the printed page to the silver screen, J.R.R. Tolkien's monumental trilogy The Lord of the Rings has long held a special place in the hearts of old and young alike. The epic three-part fantasy, brimming with goblins, elves, dwarves, and, of course, hobbits, has become a common part of the modern vernacular, sparking the imagination with its vivid imagery, moving readers with its deep character development, and providing a blast from the past with its overall archaic voice and style.

It's no surprise that a work of this magnitude involved years and even decades of Tolkien's life — and decades later, a massive commitment from director Peter Jackson and his cast and crew. The backstory of the novels as well as their cinematic counterparts are riddled with a plethora of exciting factoids that make the entire Middle-earth experience that much better. From the books that revolutionized the modern fantasy landscape to the films that followed, here are some of the best pieces of trivia to ever surface from Tolkien's beloved literary classics and their adaptations. This is the untold truth of The Lord of the Rings.

As Tolkien explained in his foreword to The Fellowship of the Ring, the tale of The Lord of the Rings "grew in the telling," with the author discovering it as he went along. This was largely due to the fact that the story found its beginnings as a sequel to Tolkien's previously published book The Hobbit. The thing is, The Hobbit was initially supposed to be a one-off event. In a letter to his publisher, he discussed how he was struggling with "the sequel," and it was only connected to his other Middle-earth writings by virtue of an occasional name-dropping or character crossover like Elrond, the son of Earendil the Mariner.

However, the success of The Hobbit made the demand for more adventures so loud that a sequel was inevitable. Even as the new book slowly took shape, though, it continued to be seen as a sequel to The Hobbit rather than its own story. For example, Tolkien's close friend and literary sounding board, C.S. Lewis, was known to refer to the work simply as the "new Hobbit." Once Tolkien settled on making Bilbo's ring the connection point from one book to the other, the "new Hobbit" grew into a massive story that stood on its own.

It didn't take long before The Fellowship of the Ring alone dwarfed The Hobbit in size. It turns out, though, that the very length of the story was actually one of Tolkien's main challenges that he set himself in its composition. The author pointed out in the foreword that his "prime motive was the desire of a tale-teller to try his hand at a really long story that would hold the attention of the readers," adding that some readers considered his work "boring, absurd, or contemptible." However, he followed this up by explaining that the most critical defect of the whole story, in his opinion as well as others', is the simple fact that "the book is too short."

Tolkien didn't always feel that way about the story, though. In a letter to his editor in December of 1939, he wrote that he feared that the story was "growing too large." It wasn't a temporary feeling, either. In a letter to his son five years later, he reiterated, "I'm afraid I have made a great mistake in making my sequel too long and complicated." Fortunately for his readers, he didn't let the desire for brevity diminish the growing size and scope of the story.

Middle-earth wasn't built in a day. In fact, Tolkien started creating his world in 1917, when he composed early drafts of The Fall of Gondolin and continued until his death over half a century later. During that time, The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings were published (the former in 1938 and the latter over 15 years later), but Tolkien's lifelong labor also yielded a treasure trove of other stories. Many of these were collected into his epic The Silmarillion, while some found their way into other publications, including Unfinished Tales. This collection of literally "unfinished stories" filled in many of the gaps of knowledge that had been left out of The Lord of the Rings.

While many scenes, particularly from the extended versions of Jackson's films, come across as invented elaborations of the original manuscripts, it turns out that many of them find their origin in Unfinished Tales. From Isildur being ambushed by orcs and losing the ring in the Anduin to an account of the death of Theodin's son Theodred at the Battles of the Fords of Isen and the story of the Black Riders' hunt for the ring, Unfinished Tales was doubtless a huge factor in helping to round out a great deal of the story as it was translated from book to script.

While the world at large may see The Lord of the Rings as the pinnacle of Tolkien's writing, in many ways the story ended up being more of a bother than anything else to the busy Oxford don. In a letter to his publisher in February of 1938 he explained that "for the moment the story is not unfolding," blaming the issue largely on "squandering" too much material on The Hobbit. In his foreword to The Fellowship of the Ring, he explained, "I had many duties that I did not neglect, and many other interests as a learner and teacher that often absorbed me." And then, of course, there was the rather hefty distraction of World War II, which happened to overlap neatly with the period of time that he wrote The Lord of the Rings (1936-1949). 

But even when war, work, and family didn't call him away, Tolkien's greatest passion was still reserved for other works. In another letter to his publisher later in 1938 he said his mind was "really preoccupied with the... The Silmarillion." While the world clamored for more adventures with Hobbits, Tolkien's mind swirled with events like the epic Tale of Tinuviel, the fall of the elvish city of Gondolin, and the foundation of Middle-earth itself by Illuvatar and his mighty Valar. In many ways, The Lord of the Rings seemed to be little more than a tangential story to what really mattered to the author.

From countless acting accolades to an epic military career in World War II, to his passion for heavy metal music, Christopher Lee was extraordinary — and also head over heels about all things Middle-earth. Lee read Tolkien's books every year, and was so passionate about the story that when he heard Peter Jackson was putting together a film adaptation, he wanted in.

Unfortunately for the esteemed Englishman, his greatest desire wasn't to play Saruman the White, but rather Gandalf the Grey. While he didn't get to fulfill that particular goal, his presence as a seasoned Tolkien aficionado was invaluable. While some actors came into the project still playing catchup with the source material, Lee's annual return to Middle-earth ensured that he knew exactly where the story was going at all times. He also had the distinguished honor of being the only person on the entire set that actually had met Tolkien in person. And we're not talking about some rabid fan surprise visit to the professor's home: He accidentally ran into the author when visiting the Eagle and Child, one of Tolkien's favorite watering holes because.

While Viggo Mortensen's portrayal of Aragorn has been stamped on the hearts and minds of Middle-earth fans, it turns out Mortensen was nowhere to be seen when the cameras started rolling. Instead, it was none other than Stuart Townsend who initially donned the Strider persona. However, a mere three days into filming, Townsend left the project and Mortensen was tapped to jump into the role. That's right: Mortensen wasn't officially brought in to play Aragorn until three days after filming started.

As the dust settled, it became clear that the switch simply came about because Townsend ended up coming across as too young for the virile yet aged king in exile — a feeling that, according to Jackson, Townsend shared. That didn't make matters easy for the incoming Mortensen, though. He had never read the books before that point, not to mention the fact that he was jumping into a key role next to actors that had been prepping for months. One thing he had going in his favor, though, was that he was already familiar with many of the old Nordic sagas that had originally inspired Tolkien.

John Rhys-Davies played a very memorable Gimli the dwarf, rife with humor and heartwarming brotherly love. However, it may come as a surprise that the actor was hardly the best fit to play the diminutive character — physically speaking, anyway. Davies wasn't just a big guy, he was also tall. In fact, he was the tallest member of all the fellowship actors. Any time he was next to a Hobbit actor, the height difference was actually quite appropriate, but it was tricky business filming many of the scenes that involved taller characters.  

Not only was his height an issue, Davies' presence on the set in the first place was questionable. The man seriously debated getting involved in the project at all, stating in an interview with Digital Spy that he "didn't want to spend three years in prosthetic and make-up on a film that was going to fail." It was Peter Jackson's skill as a director that convinced him that the project was actually worth getting involved in. While Davies may have initially waffled over the decision, in retrospect, it's hard to imagine any other grizzled face in the role.

While Ian Holm is lovingly remembered for his portrayal of Bilbo in both The Lord of the Rings as well as a reprised role in the later Hobbit trilogy, it turns out that playing hobbits was old hat for the veteran actor before he ever stepped foot on any of Jackson's sets. We all remember him playing the old bachelor of Bag End, but his Middle-earth debut actually came in the form of a much younger character — none other than Bilbo's younger cousin, Frodo.

Holm was cast as the ring bearer in a BBC radio broadcast of The Lord of the Rings in 1981. You can actually hear him singing the Man in the Moon drinking song in the Prancing Pony before accidentally slipping the ring on his finger here. While the radio broadcast was a nice way to get his oversized, hairy hobbit feet wet, there's no doubt that he ratcheted things up a notch when he joined Jackson's mammoth cinematic production.

While we're all familiar with Peter Jackson's monumental trilogy, savvy fans know that they aren't the first film adaptation of Tolkien's saga. In 1978, animator Ralph Bakshi directed a Lord of the Rings that brought The Fellowship of the Ring and part of The Two Towers to life on the big screen. While the film did quite well, bringing in tens of millions of dollars, in the grand scheme of things it didn't capture the saga quite as thrillingly as the Jackson films that followed two decades later.

Bakshi, however, disagrees. In a 2002 interview, he scoffed at the idea of watching Jackson's adaptation, wondering "Who needs the aggravation." Jackson clearly used Bakshi's animation as inspiration for many shots in his own film — and Bakshi wasn't happy about this either, pointing out that it wasn't properly acknowledged while Jackson denied it had any bearing on the issue until "very late in the game."

One thing the two directors had in common? A love of the source material. "The books are absolutely perfect," said Bakshi. "There isn't a sellout moment in them. The characters and setting, are staggering. Nothing like it in fantasy can touch it."

In an era when motion-capture characters have become as commonplace as they are breathtakingly realistic, it's easy to forget one of the greatest breakthroughs in mo-cap history: Gollum. Peter Jackson and company faced a challenge when it came to adapting Smeagol to the silver screen. He was integral to the storyline, required a lot of close-up screen time, and was practically buck naked, so you couldn't settle for good facial expressions and throw an overcoat over the character to hide the rest.

Weta Digital, the New Zealand-based company co-founded by Jackson, brought Gollum to life in the Lord of the Rings trilogy as well as the Hobbit films that followed. But while they were focused on the technical aspects of the job, what they really needed was an actor brilliant enough to play the character on the set. Enter Andy Serkis, whose performance was one for the ages as he acted out many of Gollum's scenes while covered from head to toe in motion capture gear.

The mingling of Weta Digital and Serkis was magical, to say the least, delivering one of the first truly believable motion capture performances in cinema history. It was a benchmark and an inspiration that spurred the development of countless other characters, like Marvel's Thanos and Caesar from Rise of the Planet of the Apes. The only question is, why is it still so difficult to nominate Serkis for an Oscar? The man has to have earned one by now.

Peter Jackson is inextricably linked to The Lord of the Rings for the long haul. Even Amazon's grand plans for a series set in Middle-earth couldn't get started without an effort to incorporate Jackson's vision into their new project. However, before Jackson, there were the Beatles. According to Peter Jackson, who was filled in by none other than Paul McCartney at the 2002 Academy Awards, the Beatles actually tried to get the rights to make The Lord of the Rings films themselves. And they didn't just want to produce them, they wanted to star in them as well.

Picture this: the wise wizard George Harrison the Grey steps into the scene to tell Frodo McCartney that he must go with his faithful gardener, Ringo Starr, to the Crack of Doom, all the while keeping a sharp eye out for that villainous rogue John "Gollum" Lennon. No joke. (Okay, the names wouldn't have been changed, but they really did want the roles.) The icing on top? According to some rumors, they wanted it to be a Stanley Kubrick production. Not surprisingly, Tolkien shot the rather wild idea down.

Tolkien's writings went through massive revisions over the course of his life. While this is especially true for many of the stories that ended up in The Silmarillion, it also affected The Lord of the Rings as it unfolded. One of the most entertaining examples is the short-lived character of Bingo Baggins.

According to David R. Collins' J.R.R. Tolkien Master of Fantasy, when Tolkien initially began to write what eventually became The Fellowship of the Ring, he created the character of Bilbo's son Bingo to carry on the story. However, this wasn't much to his liking, so he changed the character to Bingo Bolger Baggins, the nephew of the hero of The Hobbit. The thought was initially that Bingo would find a ring as his father/uncle had beforehand. As the story grew and became more serious, Tolkien eventually decided to change the name to the familiar Frodo that we all know and love.

In an era when everything can be done with CGI, it's hard to remember that movies, especially fantasy movies, have historically needed a boatload of costume designers and make-up specialists in order to bring everything together in a believable way — and the sheer scale of the workload shouldered by the crew for the Lord of the Rings films bordered on ridiculous. It's estimated that a whopping 1,800 pairs of prosthetic Hobbit feet were created throughout the course of filming for the four main characters alone.

And the fun doesn't stop there, either. In addition to the footwear, swordsmiths (yes, those still exist) were hired to create real swords for the set, while 10,000 arrows were made for The Fellowship of the Ring alone. The piece de resistance comes in the form of 12 kilometers of pipe that were sliced up into 12.5 million rings in order to create the chainmail pieces that so many characters sported throughout the saga. Creating the armor literally rubbed the fingerprints off the designers tasked with the job.

The debate over whether Tolkien's infernal monsters come equipped with a set of wings has raged for years. The films depict the fiery demon with large leathery wings that tower menacingly, adding to an overall fearful demeanor. However, in the book, all that is said is that "His enemy halted again, facing him, and the shadow about it reached out like two vast wings." The use of the word "like" implies that the description is referring to the general darkness that the creature is wreathed in. Not actual wings.

In addition to this, when Gandalf finally defeats the Balrog, he knocks him off the mountainside. The same event takes place in The Silmarillion when the hero Glorfindel duels a Balrog on a mountain and both are destroyed in a fall. If they had wings, the clear solution should have been a quick, winged flight to safety. On the contrary, whenever Balrogs are mentioned as "flying" or having "wings" it is used as a form of imagery, which is Tolkien's bread and butter. At the end of the day, the thought of Balrogs having wings is pretty sweet, but the desire for wings can't trump the fact that nowhere in Tolkien's writings does it explicitly state that they exist.

The Lord of the Rings, Peter Jackson's film trilogy adapting the classic fantasy novels by J.R.R. Tolkien, were a high watermark for fantasy cinema. The Fellowship of the Ring, The Two Towers, and The Return of the King's theatrical releases each came to about three hours, and the extended home video versions (which we're defaulting to for this list) are more like four hours apiece. 

In other words, there's a whole lot going on in these movies. They tell the story of Frodo Baggins, a hobbit from the Shire, and his quest to take the evil One Ring that was forged by the Dark Lord Sauron to the volcano where it was forged and can be destroyed. Along the way he finds many allies and enemies. There are huge epic battles, wizards, orcs, all that stuff. When you see the movies as a child, the magic and suspense sweeps you away into the fantasy, but when you rewatch as an adult, different things stand out. In some places, the movies show their cracks—and in others, they show surprising depth and complexity. Here are some of the things about the Lord of the Rings movies that it takes an adult viewer to notice.

At first glance, the Shire seems idyllic. It's incredibly beautiful, peaceful, and lacking in the kind of monsters that seem to crowd the rest of Middle-earth. But what do you do if you're a hobbit living in the Shire? If you're rich like Bilbo and Frodo, you sit around reading or writing books. You go to parties, eat dinners, or go down to the Green Dragon Inn to hang out with your friends. If you're poor, you spend your days tending crops or raising farm animals. You milk cows that seem gigantic to a hobbit, and occasionally sneak a nap in the mud next to your pig.

In short, the Shire seems about as boring as it possibly could be. And worse, if you're a hobbit with a reputation for having fun and seeking out adventures, like the Bagginses, your social standing will suffer. Hobbits are nosy neighbors, and they look down judgmentally on anyone who's less than content with a life of doing basically nothing. As beautiful as it might be, the Shire is a place where there's not much to do—and if you look for more, everyone will think you're terrible. Not exactly paradise.

So what do Hobbits do to compensate for the boredom of living in the Shire? Well, they like to eat. But they really, really like to drink. And as we see at Bilbo's birthday party and in the Green Dragon, moderation isn't necessarily a part of their drinking culture—hobbits seem to get drunk a lot. Anytime they gather, many cups of ale will be poured and consumed. There will be excessive laughter, off-key singing, and dancing. Since this is a fantasy world, it's nice to assume that hobbits are immune to hangovers, as well as the life-ruining effects of alcoholism. But even if that's the case, the constant drunkenness kind of takes the shine off the purity and virtuousness of hobbits.

Here's the thing about Merry and Pippin, which is more clear in the novels but still obvious in the movies if you pay attention: they're rich. Richer than Frodo, who's already rich enough not to work, and much much wealthier than working class Sam. Merry is Meriadoc Brandybuck, the son of the Master of Buckland, and Pippin is Peregrin Took, the son of the Thain of the Shire. In other words, Merry and Pippin are literal Shire nobility, and in line to inherit their fathers' titles. The two of them wear the nicest, most ornately designed clothing of any hobbits in the movies.

So when Frodo and Sam run into them on the way out of the Shire in Fellowship of the Ring, why are they stealing food from Farmer Maggot's crops? It's not because they're hungry—they could afford to buy whatever they might want, and both of their homes are probably stocked with delicious foods and cooks to prepare them. No, they're stealing from poor Farmer Maggot for the same reason they stole and set off that dragon firework at Bilbo's party—for the thrill. And while it's easy to dislike Maggot for his gross name and the the fact that he pointed that Ringwraith toward Frodo, he's just an honest working hobbit who needs his crops to make money and feed his family.

Once their quest gets going, Merry and Pippin are the ones who complain about not stopping for Second Breakfast, and who attract the Ringwraiths to Weathertop by starting a fire to cook bacon and sausage. They come off as callow, pampered rich kids who've never needed to take anything seriously in their lives. Fortunately they learn and mature over the course of the series, but in the beginning, they're the worst.

Tolkien surely meant for pipe-weed to represent tobacco. And when you see a barrel of it in Saruman's stores in The Two Towers, it looks like tobacco. But when characters are smoking it in the movies, it seems more like...something else. This is first evident in Fellowship of the Ring, when Bilbo and Gandalf sit on a hill before the party and smoke. They're just two friends chilling out, taking long drags, and then making fancy shapes out of the smoke. Later in the movie, Saruman judges Gandalf for all that smoking, saying, "Your love of the halflings' leaf has clearly slowed your mind." Nobody has ever accused anyone of smoking so much tobacco that they've become stupid, but that accusation is leveled at marijuana smokers every day.

But the true nature of pipe-weed is never clearer than in the scene at the beginning of Return of the King, when Merry and Pippin are relaxing on the outskirts of a flooded Isengard. They've smoked so much that they're squinty-eyed and giggling, and stuffing their faces with food. They're also drinking a bit, but they're not particularly acting drunk. They're acting very stoned, which means that at least the actors who play them have a pretty clear idea about the effects of pipe-weed.

There's only one truly dangerous drug in Middle-earth, however, and that's the One Ring. The Nine Rings given to men were similarly dangerous, but they long ago claimed their only victims. The One Ring, on the other hand, tempts every character it's near, and those who hold it can't get enough of it. Gollum is the worst junkie of all, of course. The ring takes over his life, just like addictive drugs do in the real world, until he can think of nothing else. It has horrible physical effects as well: his body becomes grossly emaciated and he loses most of his hair and teeth. Anyone who's ever met someone addicted to heroin or crystal meth will find Gollum's appearance and behavior disturbingly familiar.

Gollum kept the ring for hundreds of years, but Bilbo, who only held it for a few decades, suffers effects as well. With Gandalf's help, he's able to beat his addiction—to give up the ring—but he never stops thinking about it. The next time he sees it, he nearly attacks Frodo to get at it. Even in his advanced old age, after the ring has been destroyed, he still asks to see it one more time. Frodo only had the ring for a much shorter time, but even he ultimately can't let it go, and it ultimately costs him the finger he wore it on.

When The Two Towers was released in 2002, everyone was amazed by the motion-captured spectacle of Gollum, and the performance of Andy Serkis as the character. And we weren't wrong—it was an achievement unlike any before in film, and the visuals still look great. But rewatching as an adult who has seen many other movies with mo-cap characters, something else is inescapable about Gollum: he's one of the most annoying movie characters of all time.

All he does is whine and shriek and yell and flail around. He's a constant hindrance to Frodo and Sam throughout the last two movies, while being too sad and pitiable to be a fun character to watch. He's not even evil—he's just a gross, pathetic junkie who never shuts up. He's essential to the plot, especially at the end of the trilogy, and he's portrayed very accurately to the books. It's just really exhausting having to put up with him for so long.

"Frodo's been stabbed by the Witch King with a blade poisoned with evil! Is he dead?" No, medical care from the elves of Rivendell will heal him. "Frodo's been speared by a cave troll! Is he dead?" No, he's wearing an undershirt of magical elvish armor. "Frodo's been stung by a giant spider and taken away by orcs! Is he dead?" No, the spider just temporarily paralyzed him and Sam saves him from the incompetent orcs. "Gollum knocked Frodo into a volcano! Is he dead?" No! He's just hanging on the edge, waiting for Sam to pull him up.

Kids watching Lord of the Rings might be a little freaked out by these fakeouts, but as an adult you just want to yell at the screen, "Stop trying to make us think Frodo is dead! He's the hero, and this isn't Game of Thrones! He's not going to die!" Every action epic has one or two moments where they make you think the hero might be dead, but these movies just keep returning to that well, long after it's dry of any suspense.

Uruk-hai are the huge muscular orcs that make up most of Saruman's army in the movies. Unlike regular orcs, who are a bit smaller than humans and tend to slouch and skitter around, Uruk-hai stand at least six feet tall and walk like men. They have reddish brown skin, in contrast to the grays and greens of the smaller orcs. But what exactly are Uruk-hai, and how does the Wizard Saruman create them? Gandalf tells Elrond that Saruman "has been breeding orcs with goblin men." But that doesn't make much sense, because orcs and goblins are the same thing, and this is literally the only mention of "goblin men." Are they a crossbreed of goblins and men, and wouldn't that just mean that Uruk-hai are three-quarters orc? It's never explained.

But when we actually see an Uruk-hai being born, it makes even less sense. A bunch of regular orcs dig a shapeless mass out of the mud under Isengard, which then turns out to be a fully-grown Uruk-hai inside a translucent membrane, which he immediately breaks through and starts killing. Are we to believe that Saruman is farming Uruk-hai? What did he plant in the ground to make one grow? A regular orc with a spell cast on it? A goblin man, whatever that is? It's never explained at all, and you just have to accept the Uruk-hai and move on.

Most of the drama in Lord of the Rings is magical and world-spanning in nature: all about the Dark Lord who wants to rule Middle-earth and the various creatures and devices that help him work toward that goal. But watching as an adult, what's going on with the first family of Gondor can be almost too relatable. When we meet Boromir in Fellowship of the Ring, he's basically a good man but a little too desperate to be seen as a hero to his homeland. After he dies, we meet his young brother Faramir in The Two Towers, who's more thoughtful and sensitive but has a similar drive to prove himself to Gondor. Finally, in Return of the King we get to know their father Denethor, and everything suddenly makes sense.

The Steward of Gondor, Denethor is overbearing, judgmental, and more than a little unhinged. He praises Boromir for being a great warrior, while still holding him to exacting standards. He disparages Faramir for being scholarly and interested in dreams, even though Faramir in his own way can be just as effective in war as his brother. It's no wonder both brothers are so driven by insecurities and a need to show their worth. That's what having a toxic and demanding parent does to you. This bit of realistic family turmoil in the midst of a fantasy world is actually very effective in grounding the story, and Denethor's ineffectiveness as a ruler underlines the need for the exiled Aragorn to return and become King of Gondor.

In the Lord of the Rings novels, the Eye of Sauron is a symbol of the Dark Lord, who actually has no corporeal form. The eye is glimpsed in visions, but it's not an actual, physical thing. In the movies, Peter Jackson changed that—Sauron appears as an actual eye made of flame, suspended on top of the dark tower of Barad-dûr in Sauron's kingdom of Mordor. The Eye is seen constantly watching everything, casting light where its gaze falls like some kind of evil sentient lighthouse. It's creepy to look at, probably even scary for a child, but for adult viewers it just raises questions. Is that Eye all there is to Sauron, or does he have more of a form inside the tower, and the Eye is just a projection? Is the tower itself his body? Sauron seems to be aware of things happening all over Middle-arth, so why does the Eye seem to be trapped between those two spikes on Barad-dûr? And most of all, why should we be so afraid of a villain who does nothing but look?

This portrayal of Sauron is symbolic of a lot of things going on in Jackson's Lord of the Rings movies. In adapting such a long and complex story for the screen, many things have to be simplified and made more visual. Inevitably that leads to some aspects that don't make much sense, and some things that just look silly. So while these movies still have plenty for adults to enjoy, the best way to approach them is with one's childlike sense of wonder firmly intact.