10 Movie Mistakes They Hoped You Missed In Lord Of The Rings

Australian Cinephile

You'd have to have the eyes of a hawk to notice some of these.

Transcript

00:00Filming The Lord of the Rings was a mammoth undertaking.

00:03No expense was spared to bring Tolkien's world to life,

00:06and every attention to detail was paid to make the films feel as authentic as possible.

00:11Well, almost.

00:13And so, with that in mind then, I'm Ellie with WhatCulture,

00:15and here are 10 movie mistakes they hoped you missed in Lord of the Rings.

00:21Number 10. Eamir's Sword Falls Out

00:23One reason this movie felt so authentic was that many of the props looked real,

00:28and that's because in many cases they were real.

00:30Although many of the actors used safety swords for the fight scenes,

00:33each major character was given a version dubbed the Hero Sword.

00:37These were real steel weapons forged by a master armourer.

00:40It would take about a week to craft just one,

00:42and if you think about how many significant characters have swords,

00:46that's a lot of hammer striking steel.

00:48Viggo Mortensen would try to use his Hero Sword as often as possible,

00:52knowing the feel and the weight of the weapon would cause him to tire over time,

00:55and therefore sell his performance.

00:57And it certainly worked.

00:58Any close-ups of those weapons were flawless.

01:01Well, all except one.

01:03In the scene when Aragorn, Gimli, and Legolas meet Eamir,

01:06it's painfully obvious that something odd is happening with Eamir's weapon.

01:10As he mounts his horse, the camera pounds up,

01:12catching his sword sliding from its sheath.

01:15What's worse, the camera seems to linger on the error,

01:17almost rubbing it in your face.

01:20Number 9. Pippin Reties His Bonds

01:23Although we are constantly told Aragorn is a ranger during the Fellowship of the Ring,

01:28it isn't until the Two Towers that we really see him putting those Dunedain skills into practice.

01:34During the early stages of the second movie,

01:36Aragorn, Legolas, and Gimli are forced to run day and night

01:39in hopes of tracking down the party of Uruk-hai who captured Merry and Pippin.

01:43After their encounter with Eamir, the three hunters are driven almost to despair

01:47when they believe the hobbits perished along with their captors.

01:50That is until Aragorn spots something,

01:52and the viewer is taken on a step-by-step account of how those intuitive little hobbits made their escape.

01:58Pippin is shown narrowly avoiding the pounding hooves of a warhorse.

02:02Aragorn then exclaims the hobbits' hands were bound before finding evidence that they freed themselves.

02:07Both hobbits are then shown frantically cutting their bonds on an orc blade before heading into the forest.

02:12The only thing is, in the earlier scene of Pippin rolling away from the horse, his hands are already freed.

02:18Now, either this indicates that Aragorn got the sequencing wrong in his head,

02:21or it was a simple case of the editor overlooking a key detail in the scene.

02:27Number 8. Legolas' Arrows Change Colour

02:30When it comes to great archers in Middle-earth, no one is as skilled or deadly with a bow as Legolas.

02:35In the Fellowship, he defeated a cave troll, utilising his inhuman acrobatic abilities.

02:40In the Two Towers, he used an orc shield as a makeshift skateboard while firing arrows with a deadly accuracy.

02:46And then, in The Return of the King, he managed to take down a Moomakill single-handedly.

02:51But in one scene, during the Two Towers, Legolas manages to do something that defies even his elven ability.

02:57We all remember that tense moment when the Uruk-hai Berserker, bearing a flaming torch,

03:02sprints into the tunnel beneath a deeping wall to blast a hole in the defences.

03:05As Aragorn screams for Legolas to bring him down, we see several shots of the elf prince drawing his bow

03:11before losing arrows into the orc.

03:13But the feathers used to fletch Legolas' arrows appear to change from brown-yellow to white between shots.

03:19What's more, the feathers are a completely different shape.

03:23Number 7. Furthest Away From Home By Car

03:26One of the biggest, metaphorically speaking, heroes in the trilogy

03:31was the somewhat simple-minded but ever-faithful hobbit Samwise Gamgee.

03:35Despite having little life experience outside his comfortable existence in the Shire,

03:40Sam proved to be Frodo's most valuable companion.

03:43In an early scene, we get a touching moment when Sam pauses,

03:46noting to Frodo that if he takes one more step,

03:49it will be the furthest away from home he's ever been.

03:52But in the original theatrical cut,

03:54some viewers were distracted from the moving scene by a car

03:56trundling over the hill in the background.

03:58This was eventually spotted by the filmmakers

04:01and removed from the extended and Blu-ray editions.

04:04Number 6. Arwen Can Be Spotted At Helm's Deep

04:08The script for The Lord of the Rings was changed almost on a daily basis,

04:12and even during the editing process,

04:14Peter Jackson still didn't have his narrative nailed down.

04:17Whole sequences that had been filmed were removed,

04:19but every so often, evidence of those sequences made their way into the final cut.

04:24Early on in the production process,

04:26Peter Jackson realized it would be difficult to sell the love between Aragorn and Arwen

04:30if they didn't interact for the entire second movie.

04:33The decision was taken to have Arwen accompany the small elf army to Helm's Deep.

04:38Liv Tyler filmed entire sequences at Helm's Deep,

04:40showing off her Elven Blade skills.

04:43Ultimately, however, it was decided this was too much of a departure from Tolkien's original work.

04:48Jackson devised the dream flashback sequence of the two characters instead,

04:51to remind viewers of their relationship.

04:53The footage of Arwen at Helm's Deep was cut, except for one subtle shot.

04:58After Eamir rides to the rescue of the king,

05:00we see Aragorn and the rest doing battle outside the Hornburg.

05:04And for a split second, you can see Arwen upon her horse chopping down with her sword.

05:11Number 5. Aragorn Loses His Sword Twice

05:13Throughout the trilogy, our main heroes make mincemeat out of the orcs they come up against.

05:18If it hadn't been for that troll in Moria, the fellowship would have seen off those pesky little goblins with ease.

05:24And even when they went up against the Uruk-hai, they seemed to have a pretty easy time of it.

05:28Sure, Boromir died at their hands, but he took down dozens before he finally succumbed to their arrows.

05:33One on one, the orcs pretty much had no chance.

05:36So when Lurtz, the snarling brute who killed Boromir, was able to hold his own against Aragorn,

05:41we actually felt a little fearful for our main characters.

05:44Of course, Aragorn eventually won his duel, but not before a few tense moments.

05:48He's thrown against a tree before being pinned by the orc's spiked shield and almost losing his head.

05:54The force of the initial impact caused Aragorn's sword to fly from his hand.

05:58But less than a second later, he's shown with his sword again.

06:01As Lurtz throws his shield, Aragorn is then pinned against the tree, and we see his sword once more go spinning out of frame.

06:09Number 4. Frodo's Changing Scar

06:11Continuity can be a bitch.

06:14On huge productions like this, it's someone's job to look out for continuity issues.

06:19This might extend to making sure a character has the same costume on from scene to scene,

06:23or might just be making sure actors hit the correct mark during each retake.

06:26But inevitably, things slip through.

06:28During the final showdown on Malt Doom, Frodo gets a giant cut on the side of his face.

06:34But when he enters the mountain, the cut changes cheeks.

06:37The explanations for this is most likely down to the mixed shooting schedule.

06:40It was often the case that scenes from the same sequence were filmed at different times over the course of production.

06:45And in that time, the makeup team simply forgot which cheek Frodo had injured.

06:50Seems like a rookie error, though.

06:52Number 3. Eamir Got Lost and Sent His Double

06:55Throughout the trilogy, dozens of stunt and scale doubles were used as stand-ins.

06:59When it came to capturing the difference in size of certain characters,

07:02people of shorter stature were used in wide shots to sell the scene.

07:06But even characters of standard size were required to use doubles in particularly dangerous stunts.

07:11It's understandable, right?

07:12You couldn't have an untrained actor galloping on a horse at high speed.

07:15Insurance would cost a bomb.

07:17But every now and then, the stunt doubles were used in scenes where it didn't necessarily make sense.

07:22After the Battle of Helm's Deep, the surviving defenders climb to the top of a hill

07:26in order to survey the distant mountains of Mordor.

07:29But the scene is somewhat undercut by the very visible inclusion of Eamir's stunt double.

07:34During the director's commentary, Peter Jackson admits that they simply never got round to pasting

07:38Karl Urban's head into the shot.

07:40Jackson then joked that in his mind, this is just a generic commander of Rohan called George.

07:46Number 2. The Lothlorian Tree Has No Top

07:49During the Fellowship of the Ring, Frodo and his companions enter the mysterious land of Lorien.

07:54It was one of the most enchanting and idyllic looking spots in all of Middle Earth.

07:59If you're going to pick somewhere to go for a little Middle Earth R&R, Lorien would be the place.

08:03It was home to the Milorn, huge and ancient trees with silver grey bark that stretch high into the sky.

08:10Obviously, New Zealand doesn't have Milorn trees dotted about the place,

08:13nor did they have big enough trees to act as stand-ins.

08:16Instead, the crew constructed huge, realistic-looking bases that stretched a mere six feet high,

08:22but would be extended with the use of CGI.

08:25During the Fellowship's departure scene, you can see this impressive tree in all its glory.

08:29But in an earlier wide shot, the editor forgot to extend it.

08:33You can clearly see a constructed tree base that barely reaches the height of the puny trees around it.

08:39Number 1. During the Edoras wide shot, Smoke Goes Backwards

08:44In order to create the land and cityscapes of Middle Earth, Peter Jackson used a number of techniques.

08:49Keen to use CGI as little as possible, he instructed Weta Workshop to create vast, detailed miniatures of the key location.

08:57They were built with such attention to detail that a camera could sweep over them, and they would appear as the real thing.

09:03But Jackson also built many sets on location.

09:06The capital of Rohan Edoras was partially constructed in the windy Rangitata Valley in the South Island.

09:13The Golden Hall of Theoden was built on top of a huge rocky hill, and portions of the wall and many houses were constructed around it.

09:20Jackson wanted a sense of authenticity for the huge sweeping helicopter shots,

09:25so he even lit fires in the chimneys to create the sense of a lived-in city.

09:29When it came to editing the film together, however, the decision was made to reverse several shots to give some variety to the camera movements.

09:35But it seems someone forgot about the smoke.

09:39If you look closely in the extended version of the film, an early shot of Edoras shows the chimney sucking in smoke rather than expelling it.

09:48And that concludes our list.

09:50If you can think of any other examples, then please do let us know in the comments below.

09:54And while you're there, don't forget to like and subscribe and tap that notification bell.

09:59Also, head over to Twitter and follow us there, and I can be found across various social medias just by searching Ellie Littlechild.

10:05I've been Ellie with WhatCulture, I hope you have a magical day, and I'll see you real soon.

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