Movie vs. Book: Fellowship of the Ring

The differences between J.R.R. Tolkien's book, The Fellowship of the Ring, and the Peter Jackson movie screenplay of the same name are fairly easy to document because in both book and movie, the story maintains a single thread from beginning to end. While there are some changes in sequence, the storyline is well aligned between the two sources. The differences between them are described here is considerable detail. The order is intended to be that of the movie, and it is also the intent that this article should eventually include all significant differences between the book and movie.


 * In the prologue to the movie, the defeat of Sauron was depicted as having been accomplished by Isildur when he took up the hilt-shard of Narsil, his father's sword, and cut the fingers, and hence the One RingRing, from Sauron's hand. This is somewhat unusual because the life of Sauron was not in the Ring.  Sauron was, like Gandalf, a Maia, but his body could be killed.  This would have required some conventional method of killing a person such as running him through or cutting off his head.  A person does not usually die, Ruling Ring or no, from having his fingers cut off.  Even considering the loss of the Ring by having his fingers suddenly separated from his hand, his body would not have been killed thereby.  In the book, Sauron was killed in battle through some unknown conventional means by the Elf-lord Gil-galad and Elendil, the king of Gondor and Isildur's father, but they were both killed in the deed.  (Narsil broke when Elendil fell and not because Sauron had stepped on it.)  Afterward, Isildur took up the shards of Narsil, which was in two pieces, and by it cut the ring from the hand of Sauron's lifeless body.
 * Also in the movie prologue, Elrond is shown leading Isildur into the fiery mountain, Orodruin, and bidding him throw the Ring into the Cracks of Doom. In the book, Elrond and the Elf-lord Círdan standing with Isildur beside their dead counseled him to take the Ring into the mountain and throw it into the Cracks of Doom near at hand, but Isildur refused and took the Ring instead as weregild for the death of his father.
 * In the movie, the mischief of Merry and Pippin in launching Gandalf's best rocket was a fabrication of the screenplay. This did not occur in the book.
 * We learn from the Director's Commentary of the movie that during Bilbo's speech at his birthday party, the plastic cake that was just off camera caught fire and became a raging inferno. This did not happen in the book. ; )  So far as we know, there was no cake at Bilbo's party.
 * In the movie, when Bilbo put on the Ring, he just vanished, much to the shock and dismay of the onlookers. In the book, this was to be a little joke of his of which Gandalf and Frodo were in the know.  Gandalf did not much approve of this because, "magic rings were not to be trifled with."  Without Bilbo's knowledge, Gandalf had prepared a trick of his own to provide an explanation for his disappearance.  At the moment he vanished, Gandalf threw a blinding flash.  In addition to scaring the wits out of Bilbo, who had not expected it, this gave the partygoers a "culprit", and Gandalf was blamed by many for spiriting Bilbo away.
 * In the movie, Gandalf bangs his head on the frame of a doorway in Bilbo's hole. (Note:  Ian McKellen really bumped his head on accident and just continued acting.)  So far as we know, Gandalf never bumped his head at Bag End.
 * In the movie, the time between Bilbo's departure from the Shire and Frodo's does not seem to have been more than a few months. The only clue that it might have been longer was the amount Bilbo seemed to have aged when Frodo next sees him in Rivendell, but that aging could have been attributable to his no longer possessing the Ring.  In the book, their respective departures were separated by a period of exactly seventeen years, and Bilbo did age much more in that time that he would have normally as a result of the loss of the Ring.
 * During the brief time between the departures of Bilbo and Frodo in the movie, Gandalf is shown riding to Minas Tirith and riding back to Hobbiton. While at Minas Tirith, he found the scroll written by Isildur that told him how he could learn whether Frodo's ring was the Ruling Ring.  He rushed back to the Shire in a great panic and conducted the "test".  This is all well enough, but it suggests that Hobbiton and Minas Tirith are just around the corner&mdash;perhaps no more than a few days' ride between them.  The fact is that the two are separated by road of over 1,300 miles.  A round trip by horseback of over 2,500 miles would have taken many months to complete, and there is also the time that it would have taken Gandalf to search the archives of the city to locate Isildur's scroll.  (It is worth noting that Gandalf learned of the existence of the scroll of Isildur from Saruman years before.)
 * In the movie, Gandalf's journey included only the trip to Minas Tirith. In the book, that journey was taken for the purpose of finding and capturing Gollum&mdash;a quest in which Aragorn aided him.  It was only when he despaired of doing so that Gandalf remembered the words of Saruman about the scroll of Isildur that might make the finding of Gollum unnecessary.  After Gandalf forsook the quest and turned toward the White City, Aragorn found Gollum and bestowed him into the keeping of the Wood-elves as had been agreed between him and Gandalf.  (Note:  Legolas was a Wood-elf.)  On his return from Minas Tirith, Gandalf came to the Woodland Realm and interrogated Gollum.  It was from this that Gandalf learned how the Ring had been found by Deagol, of the murder of Deagol by Smeagol (who is Gollum), of the turning out of Gollum by his kin, of Gollum's flight into the subterranean caves below the Misty Mountains, and of his account of his loss of the Ring.  From the many things that were said and known, Gandalf also inferred the distant relationship between Gollum's people and the hobbits.  This journey by Gandalf took a period of about nine years after which time he returned unexpectedly to Hobbiton to make that final "test" to prove what he already knew&mdash;that the hobbit's ring was the Ruling Ring.
 * In the movie, Gandalf is shown initially relieved that the writing did not appear on the Ring and then afterward resigned when the writing does appear to bear witness that it is the Ruling Ring. In the book, Gandalf already knew it was and returned to make the final test to validate that knowledge.  He would have been surprised if it had not been, but of course, that was not the story.
 * In the movie, Gandalf openly tells Saruman that the Ruling Ring has been found in possession of the hobbits in the Shire. In the book, Gandalf never reveals this information to him.  Saruman must deduce it based on information that he obtains from various sources, and he is never able to find out anything in detail about where, exactly, the Ring might be or in whose possession.
 * A total of four chapters and parts of a fifth are completely missing from the screenplay. The chapters are, 'A Short Cut to Mushrooms', 'A Conspiracy Unmasked', 'The Old Forest', 'In the House of Tom Bombadil', and 'Fog on the Barrow-downs'.  These chapters relate the adventures of the hobbits on their journey through the woods and fields of the Eastfarthing to their eventual return to the main road near the village of Bree.  They include the dinner at the house of Farmer Maggot, the revealing of the conspiracy of the hobbits to prevent Frodo from leaving on his own, their adventures in the Old Forest including their encounter with Old Man Willow, their brief stay with Tom Bombadil and Goldberry, and their capture by the Barrow-wight and subsequent rescue by Tom.  Although these chapters are some of the most fanciful, their inclusion in the screenplay was not necessary to the story and would have extended the length of an already very long movie.
 * In the movie at Bree, Strider is shown drawing a sword that is in one piece. In the book, he bore the shards of Narsil that had been broken when Sauron had been defeated at the end of the Second Age.  That sword was in two pieces.
 * Having not been captured by the Barrow-wight in the movie, where they had obtained their weapons in the book, some means of arming the hobbits had to be devised. This was accomplished by Aragorn suddenly appearing without explanation with four, conveniently hobbit-sized blades that were given them at Amon Sûl (Weathertop).
 * In the movie, the sword Narsil, which is first shown at Rivendell instead of Bree, was in six pieces. In the book, the sword had been broken into two pieces.
 * In the movie, Boromir was slain with three arrows. In the book, he is "pierced by many arrows".
 * The movie character Lurtz who kills Boromir and is killed by Aragorn does not exist in the book.