7. Restraint
You couldn't tell from watching An Unexpected Journey, but The Lord of the Rings were extremely good at restraining themselves as much as possible from throwing too much at the screen. Even though all the movies run for more than three hours, they could have been much longer and Jackson had the good sense to keep much of it for the extended editions. The story is stripped down to its bare bones, focusing squarely on the members of the Fellowship and generally not veering too far from any of them. The focus stays on two primary episodes: the main quest to destroy the ring and the war to keep Sauron from destroying Middle-Earth before it doesn't matter anyway. Jackson wisely avoids passages including Tom Bombadil, Barrel-Wights, and the anti-climactic Scourging of the Shire section, keeping the meat of the narrative front and center.