Watch a Video About 'The Lord of the Rings' That Could've Been

Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings saga ends this month with The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies, but getting there and back again was no easy task. In this video, Yahoo Movies explores the Middle-earth saga that could have been. It all began in the 1960s, when the Beatles’ plan to make a Lord of the Rings film featuring John Lennon as Gollum was quashed by author J.R.R. Tolkien. When Gollum finally did come to the big screen in The Fellowship of the Ring (2001), the character was supposed to be fully animated — until director Peter Jackson saw Andy Serkis’ performance, and decided to bring the creature to life via motion capture instead.

That wasn’t the only thing that Jackson changed over the course of making his film. A climactic scene was reshot, a major actor was fired after one day, and you won’t believe who was originally offered the role of Gandalf. (Hint: He would have requested his ale shaken, not stirred.)  The third and final  Hobbit movie opens on Dec. 17.