Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings film trilogy featured countless iconic characters, ranging from brave and noble heroes like Aragorn to charismatic villains like Saruman. If one were to ask several The Lord of the Rings fans to name their favorite inhabitants of Middle-earth, there would probably be a wide variety of answers, but one of the rarer options would be that chosen by Jackson himself. In the director’s commentary track for The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, Jackson stated,
I like the pedantic nature of Treebeard. He is probably my favorite character. I mean, Gollum, obviously, is pretty amazing, but as a sort of a fantasy character, I just like the fact that he’s so pedantic, and he’s rather bureaucratic, and he’s kind of dull, and his dullness I find really humorous and funny. He’s a rather self-important character.
Introduced in The Two Towers, Treebeard was one of the Ents, treelike giants who protected the plant life of Fangorn Forest. The hobbits Meriadoc “Merry” Brandybuck and Peregrin “Pippin” Took encountered Treebeard after escaping from their Uruk-hai captors. Though he mistook them for Orcs at first, he soon realized that they had a mutual friend in Gandalf, and he promised to keep the pair of hobbits safe in Fangorn while Gandalf dealt with the trouble in Rohan. Merry and Pippin eventually convinced Treebeard and his fellow Ents to march to war against Saruman, leading to the White Wizard’s defeat in the War of the Ring. Jackson reiterated his love of the Ents later in The Two Towers’ commentary track, even bringing up the possibility of creating a spin-off television series about Treebeard. That part was a joke, but Jackson’s fondness for Treebeard was very real. He outlined two main reasons for enjoying the character so much.
Treebeard Provided Comic Relief in The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers
Image via New Line Cinema
As indicated by the earlier quote, Jackson was greatly amused by Treebeard’s fussy personality, especially the way in which it contrasted with his role as an ancient guardian of nature. Environmentalist themes were integral to J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings novel, and Treebeard was able to communicate them with “an unexpected humorous slant.” Treebeard’s excellent comedic timing should come as no surprise since he was voiced by John Rhys-Davies, who also played Gimli. Treebeard was one of Middle-earth’s oldest beings, and his incredible lifespan meant that he could afford to do things at a pace that seemed glacial to the hobbits. Jackson wanted to portray Treebeard as a slow and somewhat boring character, both for the sake of humor and to derive some tension from his indecision on important matters like whether to fight Saruman.
Jackson may have been too successful in that regard, because he mentioned that many viewers were critical of Treebeard for that very reason. The extended edition of The Two Towers included a scene in which Treebeard recited a lengthy poem to Merry and Pippin, who struggled to stay awake. Jackson called this moment “the one thing” he wished he could have kept in the theatrical cut, as it would have helped the audience understand that Treebeard’s sedate personality was intentional. He said that the scene “celebrates the fact that he’s slow and boring.” In total, there were 24 minutes of additional footage in the extended edition, so Jackson’s desire to include a Treebeard scene most of all speaks to his love of the character.
Treebeard Was a Difficult Character to Portray in The Lord of the Rings Films
Jackson’s first reason for liking Treebeard was one to which viewers could relate, but the other was more personal to Jackson. Treebeard represented a major challenge that he and his team overcame. They knew that it would be difficult to convincingly pull off walking, talking trees in a live-action film, so the creation of the Ents was one of the first tasks assigned to the artists at Wētā Workshop. Since the Ents’ faces were made of inelastic materials like bark, it was difficult for them to subtly emote. Wētā broke Treebeard’s face into a few separate pieces that could move independently, but his range of expressions was still more limited than a human’s. Much of his emotion instead needed to be communicated through his eyes and voice.
Of all the CGI characters who appeared in The Lord of the Rings, Jackson thought that the Ents most closely resembled the “whimsical” sketches of concept artist Alan Lee. Before Jackson’s films, adaptations of The Lord of the Rings tended to have wildly varying depictions of Ents, but ever since, most have followed Wētā’s lead. For example, the Ents that appeared in the second season of Prime Video’s The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power would not have seemed out of place in The Two Towers. Jackson was proud of how well the Ents turned out, which added to his positive feelings towards Treebeard. Growing up, Jackson was enamored by films like King Kong and Jason and the Argonauts, which brought giant creatures to life through the use of animatronics or claymation, and Treebeard was one of Jackson’s own contributions to that filmmaking tradition.
Frodo, Sam, Gollum, Aragorn, Gandalf, Eowyn and Arwen are surrounding the title on The Lord of the Rings Franchise Poster.
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The Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring
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The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies
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The Lord of the Rings The Rings of Power