Facts about The Lord of the Rings

The Fellowship of the Ring

        The film begins with a summary of the prehistory of the ring of power. Long ago, twenty rings existed: three for elves, seven for dwarves, nine for men, and one made by the Dark Lord Sauron, in Mordor, which would rule all the others. Sauron poured all his evil and his will to dominate into this ring. An alliance of elves and humans resisted Sauron’s ring and fought against Mordor. They won the battle and the ring fell to Isildur, the son of the king of Gondor, but just as he was about to destroy the ring in Mount Doom, he changed his mind and held on to it for himself. Later he was killed, and the ring fell to the bottom of the sea. The creature Gollum discovered it and brought it to his cave. Then he lost it to the hobbit Bilbo Baggins.

 The Two Towers

        The movie begins with Gandalf falling into the mine with the Balrog. As he falls, he catches his sword, which is dropping beside him, and stabs the Balrog. Then he lands in a body of water. This vision is just a dream of Frodo’s, however, not reality. Frodo and Sam seem to be going in circles, not making any progress on their way to Mordor. Frodo has a vision of Sauron’s fiery eye—the ring is beginning to take hold of him. Frodo and Sam smell something swampy, then stumble upon Gollum, a pale, hunched creature who used to be a hobbit. Gollum calls the hobbits thieves and accuses them of stealing his ring from him. After a brief fight, the hobbits subdue Gollum and place a leash around his neck. Sam doesn’t trust him, but Frodo pities him. In exchange for Gollum’s leading them to Mordor, they agree to remove the leash from his neck.
  

The Return of the King

       In a flashback, we see Sméagol, a hobbit, happily fishing with a friend. The friend falls into the water and reemerges holding a ring. Sméagol wants the ring and strangles his friend to death. After this, Sméagol slowly decays into the dirty, green, raw-fish-eating swamp creature Gollum. He says he forgot what life was like outside his cave. He even forgot his own name. Back in the present, Gollum awakens Frodo and Sam and hurries them along. Sam says he’s begun to ration the little food they have left.