Lord Of The Rings & Hobbit: 12 BIGGEST Mistakes We Have To Live With

No series is perfect - not even Lord of the Rings.

lord of the rings saruman
New Line Cinema

Perhaps the most anticipated TV event right now is Amazon's Lord of the Rings TV show, which will probably become one of the biggest TV hits of all time. Hopefully it will live up to the hype.

In order to avoid disappointing viewers, the TV show's creative team has hopefully looked to Peter Jackson's films for inspiration. Not only do these movies provide superb groundwork for the next venture into J.R.R. Tolkien's Middle-Earth, but they also contain a few mistakes which should be avoided in the TV show.

Of course, The Lord of the Rings films are masterpieces, and arguably the best blockbuster series of all time, while the Hobbit films, though considerably more flawed, are still perfectly solid blockbusters with some fantastic material. Nonetheless, there were definitely several things the films could've done a lot better.

As you'd expect, most of those apply more to The Hobbit films (since they were letdown by a troubled production) but The Lord of the Rings movies aren't exempt either, as close-to-perfect as they are. The following are arguably the biggest mistakes this largely excellent franchise made.

And no, I'm not including the Eagles.

12. Gandalf & Saruman's (Unintentionally) Hilarious Fight

lord of the rings saruman
New Line Cinema

As you'd expect, bad scenes are very hard to find in The Lord of the Rings trilogy, but there are a couple here and there. This fight scene between Gandalf (Ian McKellen) and Saruman (Christopher Lee), which occurs as Saruman reveals he has joined Sauron, is one of them.

This is supposed to be an intense scene in which Gandalf discovers an old friend has betrayed him, but instead it's more likely to have viewers howling with laughter.

The sight of these two old men, with their long hair and cloaks, flying and spinning through the air is unintentionally hilarious and meme-worthy, to the point where it's impossible to take seriously.

And yes, it is very entertaining as a result, but in entirely the wrong way and certainly not what Peter Jackson was aiming for.

Contributor

Film Studies graduate, aspiring screenwriter and all-around nerd who, despite being a pretentious cinephile who loves art-house movies, also loves modern blockbusters and would rather watch superhero movies than classic Hollywood films. Once met Tommy Wiseau.