10 Problems Nobody Wants To Admit About The Lord Of The Rings Movies

7. Legolas & Gimli Are Thinly-Realised

Whilst many of the characters in Jackson's trilogy left audiences feeling like fully-fledged, three-dimensional individuals, there were others who didn't leave such a mark. Two such instances: Legolas and Gimli, who are - for all intents and purposes - two central characters who feature prominently in all three movies, totalling more than nine hours. And yet despite their prominence, Legolas is a blank canvas. He has very little personality, we never learn how he feels about anything, and he - for the most part - spends the entire trilogy either staring at stuff or shooting orcs with arrows. He has lots of "cool" moments, but for a character featured in three very long films, you might have expected Jackson to have given him at least one big "personality" scene. He only speaks in bland exposition. Gimli, on the other hand, is a comic relief character, and that's it. He's not really developed past the point of being happy or sad at any given time. There are a few nods to Legolas and Gimli's growing respect for one another, but it's handled in the laziest way; the characters bond over time because they're supposed to. There's no real development. Interestingly, Legolas only has thirty-seven lines of dialogue across the whole of the trilogy - and he only ever speaks one line to Frodo, the main character. Somehow, we've all been duped into thinking that Legolas and Gimli were portrayed and depicted brilliantly, but their characterisation is incredibly thin and lackluster when you take a proper look.