10 Movie Mistakes They Hoped You Missed In Lord Of The Rings
You'd have to have the eyes of a hawk to notice some of these.
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00:00 Filming the Lord of the Rings was a mammoth undertaking.
00:03 No expense was spared to bring Tolkien's world to life,
00:06 and every attention to detail was paid to make the films
00:09 feel as authentic as possible.
00:11 Well, almost.
00:12 And so, with that in mind then, I'm Ellie with WhatCulture,
00:15 and here are 10 Movie Mistakes They Hoped You Missed
00:18 in Lord of the Rings.
00:20 Number 10.
00:21 Eomyr's sword falls out.
00:23 One reason this movie felt so authentic was that many of the
00:27 props looked real, and that's because in many cases,
00:29 they were real.
00:30 Although many of the actors used safety swords for the fight
00:33 scenes, each major character was given a version dubbed
00:36 the "hero sword."
00:37 These were real steel weapons forged by a master armorer.
00:40 It would take about a week to craft just one, and if you think
00:43 about how many significant characters have swords, that's a lot
00:46 of hammer-striking steel.
00:47 Viggo Mortensen would try to use his hero sword as often as
00:51 possible, knowing the feel and the weight of the weapon would
00:54 cause him to tire over time, and therefore sell his performance.
00:57 And it certainly worked; any close-ups of those weapons were
01:00 flawless.
01:01 Well, all except one.
01:03 In the scene when Aragorn, Gimli, and Legolas meet Eomyr,
01:06 it's painfully obvious that something odd is happening with
01:09 Eomyr's weapon.
01:10 As he mounts his horse, the camera pans up, catching his sword
01:13 sliding from its sheath.
01:14 What's worse, the camera seems to linger on the error, almost
01:18 rubbing it in your face.
01:19 Number 9.
01:21 Pippin reties his bonds.
01:23 Although we are constantly told Aragorn is a ranger during
01:27 the Fellowship of the Ring, it isn't until The Two Towers that
01:30 we really see him putting those Dunedain skills into practice.
01:33 During the early stages of the second movie, Aragorn, Legolas,
01:37 and Gimli are forced to run day and night in hopes of tracking
01:40 down the party of Uruk-hai who captured Merry and Pippin.
01:43 After their encounter with Eomyr, the three hunters are driven
01:46 almost to despair when they believe the hobbits perished along
01:49 with their captors.
01:50 That is until Aragorn spots something, and the viewer is taken
01:53 on a step-by-step account of how those intuitive little hobbits
01:57 made their escape.
01:58 Pippin is shown narrowly avoiding the pounding hooves of a
02:01 warhorse. Aragorn then exclaims the hobbits' hands were bound
02:04 before finding evidence that they freed themselves.
02:06 Both hobbits are then shown frantically cutting their bonds on
02:10 an orc blade before heading into the forest.
02:12 The only thing is, in the earlier scene of Pippin rolling away
02:15 from the horse, his hands are already freed.
02:17 Now, either this indicates that Aragorn got the sequencing
02:20 wrong in his head, or it was a simple case of the editor
02:23 overlooking a key detail in the scene.
02:26 8. Legolas' Arrows Change Colour
02:30 When it comes to great archers in Middle-earth, no one is as
02:33 skilled or deadly with a bow as Legolas.
02:35 In The Fellowship, he defeated a cave troll, utilising his
02:39 inhuman acrobatic abilities.
02:40 In The Two Towers, he used an orc shield as a makeshift
02:43 skateboard while firing arrows with a deadly accuracy.
02:46 And then in The Return of the King, he managed to take down
02:49 a mummakhill single-handedly.
02:51 But in one scene during The Two Towers, Legolas manages
02:54 to do something that defies even his elven ability.
02:57 We all remember that tense moment when the Uruk-hai berserker,
03:00 bearing a flaming torch, sprints into the tunnel beneath
03:03 a deepening wall to blast a hole in the defences.
03:05 As Aragorn screams for Legolas to bring him down, we see
03:09 several shots of the elf prince drawing his bow before losing
03:12 arrows into the orc.
03:13 But the feathers used to fletch Legolas' arrows appear to
03:16 change from brown-yellow to white between shots.
03:19 What's more, the feathers are a completely different shape.
03:22 Number 7. Furthest Away From Home - By Car
03:27 One of the biggest, metaphorically speaking, heroes in the
03:30 trilogy was the somewhat simple-minded but ever-faithful
03:34 hobbit Samwise Gamgee.
03:35 Despite having little life experience outside his comfortable
03:39 existence in the Shire, Sam proved to be Frodo's most valuable
03:42 companion.
03:43 In an early scene, we get a touching moment when Sam pauses,
03:46 noting to Frodo that if he takes one more step, it will be the
03:49 furthest away from home he's ever been.
03:51 But in the original theatrical cut, some viewers were distracted
03:55 from the moving scene by a car trundling over the hill in the
03:58 background.
03:58 This was eventually spotted by the filmmakers and removed
04:01 from the extended and Blu-ray editions.
04:04 Number 6. Arwen Can Be Spotted At Helm's Deep
04:08 The script for The Lord of the Rings was changed almost on a
04:11 daily basis, and even during the editing process, Peter Jackson
04:14 still didn't have his narrative nailed down.
04:17 Whole sequences that had been filmed were removed, but every
04:20 so often, evidence of those sequences made their way into the
04:23 final cut.
04:24 Early on in the production process, Peter Jackson realized it
04:27 would be difficult to sell the love between Aragorn and Arwen
04:30 if they didn't interact for the entire second movie.
04:33 The decision was taken to have Arwen accompany the small elf
04:36 army to Helm's Deep.
04:37 Liv Tyler filmed entire sequences at Helm's Deep, showing off
04:41 her elf and blade skills.
04:42 Ultimately, however, it was decided this was too much of a departure
04:46 from Tolkien's original work.
04:47 Jackson devised the dream flashback sequence of the two characters
04:51 instead, to remind viewers of their relationship.
04:53 The footage of Arwen at Helm's Deep was cut, except for one
04:57 subtle shot.
04:57 After Eyimir arrives to the rescue of the king, we see Aragorn
05:01 and the rest doing battle outside the Hornburg.
05:04 And for a split second, you can see Arwen upon her horse chopping
05:08 down with her sword.
05:09 Number 5 - Aragorn loses his sword twice
05:13 Throughout the trilogy, our main heroes make mincemeat out of
05:17 the orcs they come up against.
05:18 If it hadn't been for that troll in Moria, the Fellowship would
05:21 have seen off those pesky little goblins with ease.
05:24 And even when they went up against the Uruk-hai, they seemed to
05:27 have a pretty easy time of it.
05:28 Sure, Boromir died at their hands, but he took down dozens before
05:31 he finally succumbed to their arrows.
05:33 One-on-one, the orcs pretty much had no chance.
05:36 So when Lurtz, the snarling brute who killed Boromir, was able
05:39 to hold his own against Aragorn, we actually felt a little
05:42 fearful for our main characters.
05:44 Of course, Aragorn eventually won his duel, but not before a
05:47 few tense moments.
05:48 He's thrown against a tree before being pinned by the orc's spiked
05:52 shield and almost losing his head.
05:53 The force of the initial impact caused Aragorn's sword to fly
05:57 from his hand, but less than a second later, he's shown with
06:00 his sword again.
06:01 As Lurtz throws his shield, Aragorn is then pinned against the
06:04 tree, and we see his sword once more go spinning out of frame.
06:08 Number 4 - Frodo's Changing Scar
06:11 Continuity can be a bitch.
06:14 On huge productions like this, it's someone's job to look out
06:17 for continuity issues.
06:18 This might extend to making sure a character has the same costume
06:22 on from scene to scene, or might just be making sure actors hit
06:24 the correct mark during each retake.
06:26 But inevitably, things slip through.
06:28 During the final showdown on Mount Doom, Frodo gets a giant
06:32 cut on the side of his face.
06:33 But when he enters the mountain, the cut changes cheeks.
06:36 The explanations for this is most likely down to the mixed
06:39 shooting schedule.
06:40 It was often the case that scenes from the same sequence were
06:43 filmed at different times over the course of production, and in
06:46 that time, the makeup team simply forgot which cheek Frodo had
06:49 injured. Seems like a rookie error, though.
06:51 Number 3 - Aemir Got Lost and Sent His Double
06:55 Throughout the trilogy, dozens of stunt and scale doubles were
06:58 used as stand-ins.
06:59 When it came to capturing the difference in size of certain
07:02 characters, people of shorter stature were used in wide shots
07:05 to sell the scene.
07:06 But even characters of standard size were required to use doubles
07:09 in particularly dangerous stunts.
07:11 It's understandable, right?
07:12 You couldn't have an untrained actor galloping on a horse at
07:15 high speed. Insurance would cost a bomb.
07:17 But every now and then, the stunt doubles were used in scenes
07:20 where it didn't necessarily make sense.
07:22 After the Battle of Helm's Deep, the surviving defenders
07:25 climbed to the top of a hill in order to survey the distant
07:27 mountains of Mordor.
07:28 But the scene is somewhat undercut by the very visible
07:31 inclusion of Aemir's stunt double.
07:33 During the director's commentary, Peter Jackson admits that
07:36 they simply never got round to pasting Karl Urban's head
07:39 into the shot.
07:40 Jackson then joked that in his mind, this is just a generic
07:43 commander of Rohan called George.
07:45 Number 2 - The Lothlorien Tree Has No Top
07:49 During the Fellowship of the Ring, Frodo and his companions
07:52 enter the mysterious land of Lorien.
07:54 It was one of the most enchanting and idyllic-looking spots
07:57 in all of Middle-earth.
07:58 If you're going to pick somewhere to go for a little Middle-earth
08:01 R&R, Lorien would be the place.
08:03 It was home to the Malorn, huge and ancient trees with silver
08:07 grey bark that stretch high into the sky.
08:10 Obviously, New Zealand doesn't have Malorn trees dotted
08:13 about the place, nor did they have big enough trees to act
08:15 as stand-ins.
08:16 Instead, the crew constructed huge, realistic-looking bases
08:20 that stretched a mere six feet high, but would be extended
08:23 with the use of CGI.
08:24 During the Fellowship's departure scene, you can see this
08:27 impressive tree in all its glory.
08:29 But in an earlier wide shot, the editor forgot to extend
08:33 it. You can clearly see a constructed tree base that barely
08:36 reaches the height of the puny trees around it.
08:38 Number 1 - During the Edoras Wide Shot, Smoke Goes Backwards
08:44 In order to create the land and cityscapes of Middle-earth,
08:47 Peter Jackson used a number of techniques.
08:49 Keen to use CGI as little as possible, he instructed Weta
08:53 Workshop to create vast, detailed miniatures of the key
08:56 location.
08:57 They were built with such attention to detail that a camera
09:00 could sweep over them, and they would appear as the real
09:02 thing.
09:03 But Jackson also built many sets on location.
09:06 The capital of Rohan, Edoras, was partially constructed
09:09 in the windy Rangitata Valley in the South Island.
09:12 The Golden Hall of Theoden was built on top of a huge,
09:16 rocky hill, and portions of the wall and many houses were
09:19 constructed around it.
09:20 Jackson wanted a sense of authenticity for the huge, sweeping
09:24 helicopter shots, so he even lit fires in the chimneys to
09:27 create the sense of a lived-in city.
09:28 When it came to editing the film together, however, the
09:31 decision was made to reverse several shots to give some
09:34 variety to the camera movements.
09:36 But it seems someone forgot about the smoke.
09:38 If you look closely in the extended version of the film, an
09:42 early shot of Edoras shows the chimney sucking in smoke
09:45 rather than expelling it.
09:47 And that concludes our list.
09:50 If you can think of any other examples, then please do let
09:52 us know in the comments below.
09:54 And while you're there, don't forget to like and subscribe
09:56 and tap that notification bell.
09:58 Also, head over to Twitter and follow us there, and I can be
10:01 found across various social medias just by searching
10:04 Ellie Littlechild.
10:05 I've been Ellie with WhatCulture, I hope you have a magical
10:08 day, and I'll see you real soon.
10:10 [BLANK_AUDIO]