Movies - The Lord of the Rings

Home > Listing Index > Movies > The Lord of the Rings

	Movies - The Lord of the Rings

For the movie trilogy by Peter Jackson, see The Lord of the Rings film trilogy.

The Lord of the Rings is an epic high fantasy saga by the British author J. R. R. Tolkien, his most popular work and a sequel to his popular fantasy novel The Hobbit. The Lord of the Rings was written during World War II and originally published in three volumes in 1954 and 1955.

Three film adaptations have been made of the story told by the books: the first, by animator Ralph Bakshi, was released in 1978 (as the first part of what was originally intended to be a two-part adaptation of the story); the second, a 1980 television special; and the third, director Peter Jackson's epic film trilogy, released in three installments in 2001, 2002, and 2003, which starred Elijah Wood as the main character of Frodo. There are also two Collectible Card Games that take place in the book's setting of Middle-earth.

For more information regarding the fictional universe in which the story takes place, including lists of characters and locations, see Middle-earth.

Synopsis

Although a major work in itself, The Lord of the Rings is merely the last movement of a larger mythological cycle which Tolkien called his legendarium. The action is mainly set in what is conceived to be the lands of the real Earth inhabited by humanity but placed in a fictional time. Tolkien called this setting by a modern English rendering of the Old English Middangeard: Middle-earth.

The back story begins thousands of years before the action in the trilogy, with the rise of the eponymous Lord of the Rings, the Dark Lord Sauron, a malevolent incarnated spiritual being who possesses great supernatural powers and is the ruler of the dreaded realm of Mordor.

At the end of the First Age of Middle-earth, Sauron survives the catastrophic defeat and exile of his master, the diabolos figure Morgoth. During the Second Age, Sauron schemes to gain dominion over Middle-earth. In disguise as "Annatar", or Lord of Gifts, he aids Celebrimbor and the other Elven-smiths of Eregion in the forging of the Rings of Power, but then secretly forges the One Ring by which he could enslave their wearers. This plan fails when the Elves become aware of him and take off their rings. Sauron then launches a military campaign during which he captures the Seven Rings and the Nine Rings and distributes them to lords of the Dwarves and Men respectively. The Dwarves prove too tough to enslave, but the Men who possess the Nine become the Nazgûl, his most feared servants. The Three he fails to capture, and they remain in the possession of the Elves.

The king of Númenor, Ar-Pharazôn, arrives with overwhelming force and takes Sauron prisoner. After Sauron sets into motion the events that bring about Númenor's destruction he returns in spirit to Mordor, assumes a new form, and launches an attack against the Númenorean exiles led by Elendil and his sons Isildur and Anárion. However, the exiles have time to prepare, and forming the Last Alliance of Elves and Men with the king of the Eldar Gil-galad they march against Mordor and besiege Barad-dûr, at which time Anárion is slain. Sauron himself is ultimately forced to engage in single combat with the leaders. Gil-galad and Elendil perish as they defeat Sauron, and Elendil's sword Narsil breaks beneath him. Isildur cuts the One Ring from Sauron's hand with the hilt-shard of Narsil, and at this Sauron's spirit flees and does not reappear for many centuries.

So begins the Third Age of Middle-earth. A short time later while journeying to Rivendell, Isildur is ambushed by a band of Orcs and killed. The Ring slips from his finger into the Great River Anduin and is lost for millennia.

In The Hobbit, the precursor to the saga, Tolkien relates the story of the seemingly accidental finding of the Ring by the hobbit Bilbo Baggins .

The Lord of the Rings takes up the story a few years after the end of The Hobbit. It follows the adventures of an alliance of the various 'races' of Middle-Earth, including Elves, Dwarves, Hobbits and Men, a coalition that hopes to destroy the dreaded Ring of Power, which has come into their possession at the very time Sauron once again threatens conquest.

[ Visit the complete Wikipedia entry for The Lord of the Rings ]

This page is based on the copyrighted Wikipedia article The Lord of the Rings; it is used under the GNU Free Documentation License. You may redistribute it, verbatim or modified, providing that you comply with the terms of the GFDL.

Movies - The Lord of the Rings

Synopsis

Searches on eBay

Related searches on eBay