You'd have to have the eyes of a hawk to notice some of these.
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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
00:09feel 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
00:18in Lord of the Rings.
00:20Number 10.
00:21Eomir's sword falls out.
00:23One reason this movie felt so authentic was that many of the
00:27props looked real, and that's because in many cases,
00:29they were real.
00:30Although many of the actors used safety swords for the fight
00:33scenes, each major character was given a version dubbed
00:36the hero sword.
00:37These were real steel weapons forged by a master armorer.
00:40It would take about a week to craft just one, and if you think
00:43about how many significant characters have swords, that's a lot
00:46of hammer-striking steel.
00:47Viggo Mortensen would try to use his hero sword as often as
00:51possible, knowing the feel and the weight of the weapon would
00:54cause him to tire over time, and therefore sell his performance.
00:57And it certainly works.
00:58Any close-ups of those weapons were flawless.
01:01Well, all except one.
01:03In the scene when Aragorn, Gimli, and Legolas meet Eomir,
01:06it's painfully obvious that something odd is happening with
01:09Eomir's weapon.
01:10As he mounts his horse, the camera pans up, catching his sword
01:13sliding from its sheath.
01:14What's worse, the camera seems to linger on the error, almost
01:18rubbing it in your face.
01:19Number 9.
01:21Pippin reties his bonds.
01:23Although we are constantly told Aragorn is a ranger during
01:27The Fellowship of the Ring, it isn't until The Two Towers that
01:30we really see him putting those Dunedain skills into practice.
01:33During the early stages of the second movie, Aragorn, Legolas,
01:37and Gimli are forced to run day and night in hopes of tracking
01:40down the party of Uruk-hai who captured Merry and Pippin.
01:43After their encounter with Eomir, the three hunters are driven
01:46almost to despair when they believe the hobbits perished along
01:49with their captors.
01:50That is until Aragorn spots something, and the viewer is taken
01:54on a step-by-step account of how those intuitive little hobbits
01:57made their escape.
01:58Pippin is shown narrowly avoiding the pounding hooves of a
02:01warhorse. Aragorn then exclaims the hobbits' hands were bound
02:04before finding evidence that they freed themselves.
02:06Both hobbits are then shown frantically cutting their bonds on
02:10an orc blade before heading into the forest.
02:12The only thing is, in the earlier scene of Pippin rolling away
02:15from the horse, his hands are already freed.
02:17Now, either this indicates that Aragorn got the sequencing
02:20wrong in his head, or it was a simple case of the editor
02:23overlooking a key detail in the scene.
02:268. Legolas' Arrows Change Colour
02:30When it comes to great archers in Middle-earth, no one is as
02:33skilled or deadly with a bow as Legolas.
02:35In The Fellowship, he defeated a cave troll, utilising his
02:39inhuman acrobatic abilities.
02:40In The Two Towers, he used an orc shield as a makeshift
02:43skateboard while firing arrows with a deadly accuracy.
02:46And then, in The Return of the King, he managed to take down
02:49Umumakil single-handedly.
02:51But in one scene during The Two Towers, Legolas manages to
02:54do something that defies even his elven ability.
02:57We all remember that tense moment when the Uruk-hai berserker,
03:00bearing a flaming torch, sprints into the tunnel beneath a
03:03deepening wall to blast a hole in the defences.
03:06As Aragorn screams for Legolas to bring him down, we see several
03:09shots of the elf prince drawing his bow before losing arrows
03:12into the orc.
03:13But the feathers used to fletch Legolas' arrows appear to
03:16change from brown-yellow to white between shots.
03:19What's more, the feathers are a completely different shape.
03:22Number 7. Furthest Away From Home, By Car
03:27One of the biggest, metaphorically speaking, heroes in the
03:30trilogy was the somewhat simple-minded but ever-faithful
03:34hobbit, Samwise Gamgee.
03:35Despite having little life experience outside his comfortable
03:39existence in the Shire, Sam proved to be Frodo's most valuable
03:42companion.
03:43In an early scene, we get a touching moment when Sam pauses,
03:46noting to Frodo that if he takes one more step, it will be the
03:49furthest away from home he's ever been.
03:51But in the original theatrical cut, some viewers were distracted
03:55from the moving scene by a car trundling over the hill in the
03:58background.
03:58This was eventually spotted by the filmmakers and removed
04:01from the extended and Blu-ray editions.
04:03Number 6. Arwen Can Be Spotted At Helm's Deep
04:08The script for The Lord of the Rings was changed almost on a
04:11daily basis, and even during the editing process, Peter Jackson
04:14still didn't have his narrative nailed down.
04:16Whole sequences that had been filmed were removed, but every
04:20so often, evidence of those sequences made their way into the
04:23final cut.
04:24Early on in the production process, Peter Jackson realized it
04:27would 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
04:36army to Helm's Deep.
04:37Liv Tyler filmed entire sequences at Helm's Deep, showing off
04:41her elf and blade skills.
04:42Ultimately, however, it was decided this was too much of a departure
04:45from Tolkien's original work.
04:47Jackson devised the dream flashback sequence of the two characters
04:50instead, to remind viewers of their relationship.
04:53The footage of Arwen at Helm's Deep was cut, except for one
04:56subtle shot.
04:57After Aemir rides to the rescue of the king, we see Aragorn and
05:01the rest doing battle outside the Hornburg.
05:03And for a split second, you can see Arwen upon her horse,
05:07chopping down with her sword.
05:095. Aragorn Loses His Sword Twice
05:13Throughout the trilogy, our main heroes make mincemeat out of
05:17the orcs they come up against.
05:18If it hadn't been for that troll in Moria, the Fellowship would
05:21have seen off those pesky little goblins with ease.
05:23And even when they went up against the Uruk-hai, they seemed
05:26to have a pretty easy time of it.
05:28Sure, Boromir died at their hands, but he took down dozens
05:31before he finally succumbed to their arrows.
05:33One-on-one, the orcs pretty much had no chance.
05:35So when Lurtz, the snarling brute who killed Boromir, was able
05:39to hold his own against Aragorn, we actually felt a little
05:42fearful for our main characters.
05:43Of course, Aragorn eventually won his duel, but not before
05:47a few tense moments.
05:48He's thrown against a tree before being pinned by the orc's
05:51spiked shield and almost losing his head.
05:53The force of the initial impact caused Aragorn's sword to fly
05:57from his hand, but less than a second later, he's shown with
06:00his sword again.
06:01As Lurtz throws his shield, Aragorn is then pinned against
06:04the tree, and we see his sword once more go spinning
06:07out of frame.
06:084. Frodo's Changing Scar
06:11Continuity can be a bitch.
06:14On huge productions like this, it's someone's job to look
06:17out for continuity issues.
06:18This might extend to making sure a character has the same
06:21costume on from scene to scene, or might just be making sure
06:24actors 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
06:32cut on the side of his face.
06:33But when he enters the mountain, the cut changes cheeks.
06:36The explanations for this is most likely down to the
06:39mixed shooting schedule.
06:40It was often the case that scenes from the same sequence
06:42were filmed at different times over the course of production,
06:45and in that time, the makeup team simply forgot which
06:48cheek Frodo had injured.
06:49Seems like a rookie error, though.
06:513. Aemir Got Lost and Sent His Double
06:55Throughout the trilogy, dozens of stunt and scale doubles
06:58were used as stand-ins.
06:59When it came to capturing the difference in size of certain
07:02characters, people of shorter stature were used in wide shots
07:04to sell the scene.
07:05But even characters of standard size were required to use
07:08doubles in particularly dangerous stunts.
07:10It's understandable, right?
07:12You couldn't have an untrained actor galloping on a horse
07:14at high speed.
07:15Insurance would cost a bomb.
07:17But every now and then, the stunt doubles were used in
07:19scenes where it didn't necessarily make sense.
07:22After the Battle of Helm's Deep, the surviving defenders
07:24climb to the top of a hill in order to survey the distant
07:27mountains of Mordor.
07:28But the scene is somewhat undercut by the very visible
07:31inclusion of Aemir's stunt double.
07:33During the director's commentary, Peter Jackson admits
07:36that they simply never got round to pasting Karl Urban's
07:38head into the shot.
07:40Jackson then joked that in his mind, this is just a generic
07:43commander of Rohan called George.
07:452. The Lothlorien Tree Has No Top
07:49During the Fellowship of the Ring, Frodo and his companions
07:51enter the mysterious land of Lothlorien.
07:54It was one of the most enchanting and idyllic looking
07:56spots in all of Middle-earth.
07:58If you're going to pick somewhere to go for a little
08:00Middle-earth R&R, Lothlorien would be the place.
08:03It was home to the Malorn, huge and ancient trees with
08:06silver-grey bark that stretch high into the sky.
08:09Obviously, New Zealand doesn't have Malorn trees dotted
08:12about the place, nor did they have big enough trees to act
08:15as stand-ins.
08:16Instead, the crew constructed huge, realistic-looking bases
08:20that stretched a mere six feet high, but would be extended
08:23with the use of CGI.
08:25During the Fellowship's departure scene, you can see this
08:27impressive 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
08:36the height of the puny trees around it.
08:391. During the Edoras Wide Shot, Smoke Goes Backwards
08:44In order to create the land and cityscapes of Middle-earth,
08:47Peter Jackson used a number of techniques.
08:49Keen to use CGI as little as possible, he instructed Weta
08:53Workshop to create vast, detailed miniatures of the key location.
08:57They were built with such attention to detail that a camera
09:00could 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
09:09windy Rangitata Valley in the South Island.
09:12The Golden Hall of Faerden was built on top of a huge rocky
09:16hill, and portions of the wall and many houses were constructed
09:19around it.
09:20Jackson wanted a sense of authenticity for the huge sweeping
09:23helicopter shots, so he even lit fires in the chimneys to create
09:26the sense of a lived-in city.
09:28When it came to editing the film together, however, the decision
09:31was made to reverse several shots to give some variety to the
09:34camera movements.
09:35But it seems someone forgot about the smoke.
09:38If you look closely in the extended version of the film, an early
09:42shot of Edoras shows the chimneys sucking in smoke rather than
09:45expelling it.
09:46And that concludes our list.
09:49If you can think of any other examples, then please do let us
09:52know in the comments below.
09:53And while you're there, don't forget to like and subscribe,
09:56and tap that notification bell.
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10:01found across various social medias just by searching
10:04EllieLittleChild.
10:05I've been Ellie with WhatCulture, I hope you have a magical day,
10:08and I'll see you real soon.