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There’s a reason Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings trilogy turned out as well as it did. We can point to Peter Jackson’s expert directing, the groundbreaking motion capture work with Gollum, and the amazing performances from the cast. All of those things played a role, but when you come down to it, it’s because of the love everyone had for the source material. Peter Jackson and the cast were huge fans of the J.R.R Tolkien books and were passionate about doing them justice.

“If you grow up in the UK, you’re kind of born into those books,” Legolas actor Orlando Bloom says during a panel at Fan Expo Dallas. “I had read The Hobbit. It’s a great book to start with. If you’ve got kids, it’s a great way in. I think I picked up The Lord of the Rings, but I was maybe not the right age and got distracted. But I obviously read the books prior to filming a couple of times.”

Bloom went on to say that the actors all carried the books around on set. In fact, Bloom would ask Peter Jackson and screenwriter Fran Walsh about including specific moments from the books.

“For everyone, the books were like a bible on set. We would all kind of walk around with our books. At that time, there wasn’t really emails. I remember I would fax message Peter and Fran. I would say, ‘You know at the Council of Elrond, Legolas is bringing really important information about Gollum. Are we including that.’ And they’re like, ‘It’s okay Orlando. We’ve got other ideas, but you’re going to have a great scene.’ I think we felt the weight of responsibility for lovers of the books and what that meant.”

Whether you're Shirefolk, Elven, Dwarven, or something else, there's a good reason to love Lord of the Rings. We do! With that in mind, we have a dragon's horde of goodies for you from a Lord of the Rings reading guide, a Lord of the Rings watch guide, details on the upcoming animated film Lord of the Rings: The War of Rohirrim, a full the Lord of the Rings reunion panel you can watch, how the OG Hobbit actors stay in touch every day on a groupchat, and the true message of the Lord of the Rings film trilogy, according to Gimli himself - John Rhys-Davies.