Before we embark on a most unexpected journey with The Hobbit, it's worth remembering just how momentous the Lord Of The Rings trilogy was, and the lasting effect Peter Jackson's first Tolkien trilogy had on the entertainment industry. Between them, The Fellowship Of The Ring, The Two Towers and The Return Of The King amount to three incredible movies and 558 minutes of spectacular entertainment, but they also kickstarted an evolution of the movies that we can really only truly appreciate with the benefit of hindsight. Take a bow, Frodo and co...

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1. It Paved The Way For The Return Of Big-Screen Fantasy

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2. It Gave The World Performance Capture

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3. It Reintroduced The Epic Trilogy

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4. It Showed That ALL Effects Were Special

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5. It Gave An Entire Generation Their 'Star Wars'

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6. It Made Hollywood Realise Nothing Was 'Unfilmable'

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7. It Extended The Movie Experience Beyond The Cinema

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8. It Set The Standard For DVD Boxsets

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9. It Was Almost Single-Handedly Responsible For 'Fantasy Violence'

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10. It Strengthened The Bond Between Filmmaker And Fans

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Prior to 2001, professing a public desire to paint tiny Orcs and engage in dice-based role-playing games would have probably seen you wedgied and hung on the nearest coat hook. However, Peter Jackson's Tolkien trilogy brought epic fantasy back into cinemas and the mainstream in a major way. Suddenly, Orcs were in vogue. Wizards were significantly less lame. It was cool to know what Mithril was. Huge box-office figures meant studios had to take the D&D audience seriously and rushed to greenlight the next big thing in dragon-slaying – the resulting properties haven't always been as satisfying (Dungeon Siege, anyone?), but the humble dice-roller will never again be ignored at the movies.Motion capture was still in its infancy at the turn of the millennium: aside from one straight-to-video Sinbad movie, CG mega-flop Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within and some Star Wars shenanigans, the method was still untested. But from the first second Gollum appeared in The Two Towers, it quickly became clear that mocap was going to revolutionise modern digital effects. In the last decade, motion capture evolved to become performance capture, graduating from a few ping pong balls stuck on a black leotard to a bona fide method of capturing an actor's entire performance. Nowadays, actors can play apes, nine-foot tall blue aliens and even dragons without the need for prosthetics, and Andy Serkis need never show his face on screen again if he so wishes.When it came to pitching Lord Of The Rings to studios, Peter Jackson was originally planning on shooting two movies – it was actually New Line President Bob Shaye that suggested he craft a trilogy and make one film per book. It seems like an obvious move now, but back in the 20th century, studios were reluctant to plough funding into more than one movie, in case the first one flopped. The industrious director completed principal photography on all three Rings movies in one go (not counting reshoots), saving the studio heaps of money and ensuring that, from then on, if you couldn't stretch your screenplay into a potential trilogy, it wouldn't even be read.Debate still rages over whether CG effects are better than practical ones, or if you can ever truly beat the real thing, but Jackson's Lord Of The Rings trilogy proved that there was room for all manner of special effects in cinema. Combining cutting-edge digital graphics from New Zealand effects house Weta (who went on to create the world of Avatar), miniatures, prosthetics and plain old visual trickery (forced perspective for the tiny Hobbits), The Lord Of The Rings trilogy was an equal opportunities special effects event. If it looked magical, it went in the film, whether it sprang forth from a hard drive or took a team of dedicated artists months to create.For a generation of moviegoers who were too young to have experienced Star Wars first hand at the cinema (having recently been soured by the Special Editions and The Phantom Menace), the Rings trilogy represented a major cinematic event: something they'd eventually tell their kids about in revered tones. An epic, critically-acclaimed fantasy trilogy that actually lived up to the hype? It's a rarity that comes along perhaps once or twice in a lifetime. Now, 11 years since the first movie's release, a new generation of young filmmakers will soon cite Jackson's trilogy as the movies that shaped their cinematic upbringing, in the same way we all worshipped the adventures of Luke Skywalker.For years, filmmakers broke out in hives at the thought of adapting JRR Tolkien's sprawling works of fiction for the screen – it was one of many literary works deemed 'unfilmable' and best left in print. Through a whole lot of hard graft and an unparalleled creative vision, Peter Jackson – together with co-writers Fran Walsh and Phillipa Boyens – proved everyone wrong. With technology now able to visualise almost anything one can imagine, and with the Rings trilogy available as a blueprint of what's possible if you think big enough, we've seen movie adaptations of 'unfilmable' works like Watchmen, Cloud Atlas, Life Of Pi and – coming soon – Ender's Game.One month after The Return Of The King won Best Picture at the 2004 Academy Awards, Peter Jackson finally finished shooting it. How so? He was committed to filming his entire vision of the trilogy, not just the bits deemed suitable for theatrical consumption. In later releasing the far superior – and far, far longer – Extended Editions on DVD, Jackson displayed a slavish dedication to Tolkien's work and fans thereof. Today, every time you see an 'Extended Edition' DVD or Blu-ray, know that you've got Lord Of The Rings to thank for the insertion of those formerly deleted scenes that would have otherwise been deemed surplus to requirements. Hey, we didn't say they'd all be positives.DVD had been around long before production started on the trilogy, but few would disagree that the Lord Of The Rings boxset was one of the best examples of what could be achieved with the format – all 15 discs of it. The Making Ofs contained almost as much drama as the films themselves; the production materials were a goldmine for film fans; the infamous Costa Botes documentaries featured unprecedented on-set access. Bigger, bulkier boxsets have since been and gone, but with 26 HOURS of additional footage, the complete Lord Of The Rings package set a high benchmark for home entertainment.Decapitations. Man-eating creatures. Fire-spewing monsters getting stabbed in the head. It defies belief that some people think the Rings trilogy is "just for kids." The intermittently violent Fellowship was rated PG by the BBFC, while The Two Towers (one giant bloody siege) and The Return Of The King (too many heads separated from shoulders to count) were only rated 12. Shock! Outrage! Etc! But because the violence was being inflicted on fantasy creatures – obvious evildoers like Orcs and Goblins – apparently that made it okay. Now, you can cut off as many of your villain's limbs as you like in your teen movie, as long as it has green blood.Amateur film blogs had just started to become credible around the time The Fellowship Of The Ring started shooting, but Jackson and New Line embraced internet journalism like no other. Spy reporters from Tolkien fan site TheOneRing.net were initially ejected from the New Zealand set, but later invited back once the penny dropped as to just how useful their input could be. By the time The Return Of The King had won its 11 Oscars, the relationship between studio and fan was so great that Peter Jackson ended up ditching the official after-party to attend the one held by TheOneRing.net instead. With more influential bloggers online than ever before, studios have no choice but to hold fans in the highest esteem.