The shrieks of winged death, the siren song of destiny, and a hell of a lot of walking.
Forget the One Ring.
These are the elements that bind "The Lord of the Rings" together across all three films.
Every Lord of the Rings film is filled with a lot of traveling in one form or another.
Fan site TheOneRing.net estimates that Frodo walks a painstaking 1,800 miles from his front
doorstep at Bag End to the fires of Mount Doom.
And that doesn't even factor in the part where the Fellowship splits up and we start tracking
each offshoot.
We watch our heroes boat down the Great River Anduin, ride across the plains of Rohan, fly
on the backs of Eagles, and otherwise walk, climb, and scramble across dozens of other
Middle-earth landscapes.
"Mordor.
The one place in Middle-earth that we don't want to see any closer.
The one place we're trying to get to."
Getting from point A to point B isn't just something that happens a lot — it's a central
part of the story.
In The Fellowship of the Ring, the first primary objective of our heroes is to get Frodo to
Rivendell.
From there, the poor Hobbit and his friends are tasked with the even longer journey of
getting to Mount Doom.
No matter what way you slice it, traveling is a huge part of every installment of this
story.
The Lord of the Rings is overloaded with epic moments.
These might be a gigantic dragon-shaped firework, or Black Riders chasing Hobbits throughout
the Shire.
At other times, the scale increases, like when Pippin lights the beacons of Gondor,
or the Ents attack Isengard.
Epic battles are also scattered throughout the story, from Helm's Deep to the Pelennor
Fields to the Black Gates of Mordor.
Though, if there's one element that truly sums up the epicness of Peter Jackson's movies,
it has to be the New Zealand landscapes.
All three films are filled with gorgeous panoramic shots from the Land of the Long White Cloud.
The Fellowship of the Ring features a number of mesmerizing visuals as the Fellowship travels
south from Rivendell.
The Two Towers opens with the stunning peaks of the Misty Mountains.
Minas Tirith is shown nestled into a similar southern edifice in The Return of the King.
Couple these shots with the right music and you can count on feeling emotional no matter
which of the three movies you're watching.
It doesn't take long for the emotional roller coaster that is The Lord of the Rings to start
pulling on everyone's heart strings.
The emotional beats run throughout the story in many different forms, starting with the
warm and fuzzy sentiment of the Shire.
"Sam, we're still in the Shire.
What could possibly go wrong?"
"Frodo!"
From there, the comforts of the Hobbit homeland are quickly replaced by the thrill of a high-speed
chase to Bree, where soggy, gloomy danger continues to lurk.
Before the Ring is whisked away toward Mordor, spirits are lifted again when we get a short
rest in Rivendell.
When Gandalf falls in battle with the Balrog, everyone's spirits are crushed.
A visit to Lothlorien arguably rehabilitates those happy feelings again, only for the audience
to witness Boromir's death and the breaking of the Fellowship — and that's just the
first movie.
Every Lord of the Rings entry is riddled with epic highs and devastating lows.
It's part of the Tolkien experience.
Howard Shore's score for The Lord of the Rings is rightly considered one of the greatest
elements of the films.
The revered composer received not one — not two — but three Academy Awards, not to mention
three Grammys, and two BAFTA nominations.
Shore's Middle-earth soundtrack is one of the essential ingredients that tie the Lord
of the Rings trilogy together.
It knits together the three-part Lord of the Rings story into a single, emotionally-uniform
experience.
The soundtrack is also one of the few stand-out elements in the less-loved Hobbit trilogy.
The score of a film is always important.
But there are few greater examples of this than Shore's soundtrack for The Lord of the
Rings.
It is an iconic part of all three movies that moves us to tears, sparks joy, and consistently
brings fans to the edge of their seats.
The Lord of the Rings may be a story filled with never-ending traveling, but the Fellowship's
collective Middle-earth tour is consistently interrupted by one thing in particular: set
piece battles.
In the first movie there are multiple duels, like Aragorn's fight with the Ringwraiths
on Weathertop, the Fellowship's tussle with a troll in Moria, and Gandalf's downing of
the Balrog on the Bridge of Khazad-dûm.
In the second installment, we see epic clashes, like those at Helm's Deep and an Ent-ridden
Isengard.
In the third movie, the set pieces reach a fevered pitch as battles break out at Minas
Tirith, the Pelennor Fields, and even in front of Sauron's own Black Gates.
No matter which movie is in the queue, set piece conflicts are going to show up, and
the audience can plan on a steady dose of action as they work their way there and back
again across Middle-earth.
He may not look it at first glance — or even at second glance — but Frodo is one
of the strongest members of the Fellowship.
The little Halfling holds an inner strength of will that is unrivaled among Dwarves, Elves,
Men, and even Wizards.
It's an inner courage that prompts Gandalf to tell Frodo,
"But you have some strength in you, my dear Hobbit."
And this comes after Frodo arrives at Rivendell — after being chased, stabbed, and then
chased again by Black Riders.
While Frodo is a spunky little guy, that doesn't mean he's invulnerable.
On the contrary, he is steadily tempted by the Ring, and eventually becomes so consumed
by it that he is unable to willingly destroy it.
This inner struggle against the Ring drags throughout all three movies — which is why
one easy Lord of the Rings staple is seeing Frodo constantly struggling with the temptation
to put on the Ring.
"Noooo!"
In the source material, Tolkien makes it clear that Gandalf isn't interested in leading.
He prefers to orchestrate events from behind the scenes.
This prompts Saruman in The Fellowship of the Ring to belittle the Grey Wizard by saying,
"It has seldom been heard of that Gandalf the Grey sought for aid, one so cunning and
so wise, wandering about the lands, and concerning himself in every business, whether it belongs
to him or not."
In The Return of the King, Denethor harps on this, too, when he accuses Gandalf by saying,
"Thy hope is to rule in my stead, to stand behind every throne, north, south, or west."
While Gandalf's opponents may criticize his activities as backdoor politicking and king-making,
they kind of have a point.
He's the one that gets Frodo to leave the Shire.
He helps set the stage for the Council of Elrond to send the Ring to Mordor.
He saves Théoden.
He rides ahead to protect Minas Tirith.
He influences the decision to attack the Black Gate.
But the thing is, Gandalf doesn't actually make many of these decisions.
He provides information, offers nuggets of wisdom, and gently guides others toward making
the right decisions.
It's subtle, and always done in the name of good.
But it doesn't change the fact that Gandalf is tirelessly working behind the scenes throughout
all three movies.
One of the major changes that Peter Jackson made when adapting The Lord of the Rings books
to a shorter cinematic format was to make Aragorn's character a bit more accessible.
In the source material, the Ranger enters the story as a hero that is fully aware of
and laser-focused on his destiny.
In the movie version, Aragorn is anything but certain about his future.
He wrestles with his heritage and hesitates to step forward when the time comes.
This doesn't just happen in one movie, either.
It's an ongoing struggle throughout all three films.
We first realize he is the exiled Gondorian King when Arwen tries giving him a pep talk.
By The Two Towers, he's started to hesitantly step into the limelight, particularly when
he plays a key role in the defense of Helm's Deep.
By The Return of the King — as the title suggests — he finally accepts his role as
a defender of the West and one of the primary foes of Sauron.
When The Lord of the Rings begins, Saruman has already been walking around Middle-earth
in his shriveled Wizard body for thousands of years.
Even so, it appears that his long life and past experiences haven't toned him down much
— quite the opposite.
Saruman finds a way to get arrogant and uppity in all three Lord of the Rings movies.
In the first film, we see him disrespect Gandalf multiple times, including accusing him of
being a pipeweed addict.
"Your love for the halfling's leaf has clearly slowed your mind."
By the second film — in the extended edition — we see him insulting Wormtongue on a regular
basis.
And when he appears for the last time at the start of the extended edition of The Return
of the King, the Wizard starts hurling insults — and fireballs — from the top of his
tower.
Saruman is a powerful Wizard, he even creates a giant army of Uruk-hai to do his bidding.
But the power clearly goes straight to his head, making him predictably impudent pretty
much every time we see him.
There's a lot to love in Peter Jackson's Middle-earth.
The adaptation is moving, inspiring, and flat-out gorgeously produced.
However, even though all of the ingredients are present to make the recipe a success,
that doesn't mean every single element is praiseworthy.
On the contrary, there are plenty of nit-picky things to criticize, including some that show
up in every single movie.
Case in point: the Black Rider screech.
The bone-chilling sound was reportedly created with little more than a couple of plastic
cups being rubbed together, along with the real scream of producer and co-writer – and
Peter Jackson's wife – Fran Walsh.
"And she stood there and she kind of took a deep breath in…"
Nevertheless, the sound is terrifying, and sends shivers down the spine.
The Ringwraith screech is also terribly and overwhelmingly consistent throughout all three
movies.
The Ringwraiths show up early and often — hurting the ears of their enemies and audience alike.
It doesn't matter if you're watching Frodo flee from the Shire, Faramir drag his captured
Hobbits back to Gondor, or Minas Tirith coming under siege.
The Ringwraiths are always there — screaming and shrieking and screeching.
Gollum plays a critical role in the story.
He's equal parts necessary victim and active antagonist.
One somewhat odd piece of trivia is that in every Lord of the Rings movie, Gollum actively
tracks Frodo.
Yes, we see him doing it three separate times.
When Gollum is first revealed in The Fellowship of the Ring, it's in the Mines of Moria, where
he's quietly following the Fellowship.
In The Two Towers, the poor wretch is caught tracing Frodo and Sam through the labyrinth
of steep hills known as the Emyn Muil.
Once he's seemingly tamed, Gollum leads his captors straight to Shelob's lair.
In The Return of the King, he appears to have died, tumbling off a cliff.
But — presto! — he makes a comeback, and what is he doing?
Why, tracking down Frodo, of course.
The Lord of the Rings can be a sad story.
It focuses on the slow decline of the Elves and the end of an era that was once beautiful
and full of life.
And yet, Tolkien always wrote with a sense of hope, and with a dash of the unexpected.
This led to the author coining the word eucatastrophe, which he personally defined as,
"[...] 'the sudden happy turn in a story which pierces you with a joy that brings tears (which
I argued it is the highest function of fairy-stories to produce)."
The Lord of the Rings is riddled with eucatastrophes.
Gandalf's return as the White Wizard is one.
Reinforcements arriving as Helm's Deep is about to fall is another.
So is the charge of the Rohirrim at the Battle of the Pelennor Fields, and the arrival of
the Eagles at the Black Gate.
One could even argue that Boromir's repentance and heroic death are a form of eucatastrophe,
compared to the corruption he was caving into moments before.
"I do not know what strength is in my blood.
But I swear to you, I will not let the white city fall."
There are many predictable things that happen throughout The Lord of the Rings, and a eucatastrophe
of one form or another is definitely one of them.
It's a happy fact that collectively makes us glad and keeps everyone coming back for
more — as it should.