Everyone knows Peter Jackson's adaptations of The Lord of the Rings, yet it's easy to forget that an animated movie released long before. With 1977's animated portrayal of The Hobbit, it was followed by an adaption of The Lord of the Rings, directed by filmmaker and animator Ralph Bakshi. The movies didn't share any continuity, but they were each the first attempts at bringing Tolkien's work to the screen. However, as with most adaptations, certain creative decisions had to be made to work with the new medium, one of which involved a change to Saruman's name.

When creating characters for any story, a common rule is to keep names sounding different. For example, if numerous people have a name beginning with the letter B, it's far easier to forget who is who. But with author J.R.R Tolkien's creation of Middle-earth, this rule is nowhere to be seen. Similar sounding names are frequent all throughout his work, with one of the stand-out examples being Sauron and Saruman.

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While long-time fans are familiar with the names, it's incredibly easy for them to confuse newer audiences. Not only do the names sound the same, but they're also the names of the two most prominent villains, which can make things unnecessarily complicated. And the creators of 1978's The Lord of the Rings were well aware of this, with the executives believing that one of their names should be changed. And so, with Sauron being the big bad, it was decided that Saruman's name should be changed to Aruman.

While the idea of changing a character's name can be blasphemous to some, the decision made sense for the time. They realized that for many people, the movie would be their first introduction to The Lord of the Rings, and so the changes wouldn't even be noticeable. Plus, the name Aruman is similar enough not to be insulting to the character. However, in the end, the director didn't want to go against Tolkien's work, so he returned to the name Saruman.

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This decision was made while the voice-over recording had already begun, meaning that the name Aruman can still be heard in some lines. And it wasn't the only change made to the character. Instead of having him wear his typical white robe, he was clothed with deep red colors. Although, this wasn't necessarily inaccurate to the novel, as the old wizard is also referred to as Saruman of Many Colors, which was used for inspiration for his design.

Unfortunately, the animated The Lord of the Rings movie ended up with mixed criticism, with audiences complaining about its incomplete story. And while it performed okay at the box office, it never received any sequels to finish off the trilogy. Still, the movie can offer a fun viewing, and even Peter Jackson has said he used the animation for inspiration when creating his blockbusters.