The Lord of the Rings (film)/Trivia

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


  • Actor Allusion: In the first movie, Elrond sure liked expressing his disgust of the human race.
  • All-Star Cast: A staggering list of recognizable names in the cast, not to mention that these movies made recognizable the names of every actor in them whose names hadn't been beforehand.
  • Author Phobia: Peter Jackson actually used his own phobia of spiders to measure the effectiveness of Shelob's design and animations.
  • Backed by the Pentagon: The New Zealand army in this case. Heck, parts of Mordor were from old mine fields (that were swept beforehand), since they had enough ash to make the look needed.
  • Beam Me Up, Scotty: People often don't remember Aragorn's speech before the Black Gates quite right--possibly they're remembering the version in the trailer, which was from a different take. Théoden's speeches get this too, to a lesser extent.
  • Cast the Expert:
    • In addition to the lead actors who were trained on horses, and numerous digital extras, the Riders of Rohan were portrayed by regular horse riders from all across New Zealand who came with their own horses to act as extras.
    • For The Return of the King, The New Zealand Army provided extras for the final battle in front of the Black Gate. Behind the scenes commentary on the DVD's makes note of how good they were as following directions and setting up formations, as well as how much enthusiasm they brought to the combat scenes.
  • Cowboy Bebop at His Computer: Nazgûls = flying reptiles? So say every popular media on the subject. So distressingly common that Peter Jackson and many cast and crew bought into it. No wonder the Witch-King's dialogue with Eowyn was omitted... it makes no sense under this interpretation.
    • Nazgûls are the Ring Wraiths themselves, the flying reptiles are their mounts/steeds, described as "Fell Beasts".
    • The "bow guy" is something else, too.
    • A distressing amount of people seem to believe that the Witch-King of Angmar is Sauron himself. Must be the helmet he wore at Pelennor Fields.
      • His helmet was actually changed to the one seen in the movie, since his original helmet was even more similar in design to Sauron's, and they were afraid people would get confused. You can still see the original helmet in the video game, though.
  • Dawson Casting: In the Prologue, Sir Ian Holm is very briefly seen wearing a dark, curly wig, as Bilbo 50 years younger. The effect is, unfortunately, that of a 60-ish actor wearing a dark, curly wig. Mercifully, the shot is only a few seconds long.
  • Deleted Scene: Many put back in the extended editions, but some were still left out.
  • Executive Meddling: Subverted. Jackson anticipated only being able to greenlight one or two movies so his writing team wrote the initial treatment accordingly. When the producers saw it they said "What are you doing? This is three movies." And this before Hollywood was obsessed with cranking out trilogies.
  • Fatal Method Acting: Averted, thankfully, but nonetheless a close call for Viggo Mortensen, who was pulled under by a current and nearly drowned while filming the river scene in TTT.
  • Hey, It's That Guy!: Welcome to Rivendell, Mr. Anderson Baggins. And yes, he's wearing a dress again. Sort of, anyway.
  • Life Imitates Art: According to behind the scenes material, Viggo Mortensen was a natural leader of the actors and film crew. Sean Astin also ended up more or less taking care of Elijah Wood during filming.
  • The Other Darrin: A very odd instance of this trope, as Andy Serkis plays Gollum in all three films, but the CG model used for the first film has quite a different face from that used in the other two. As Gollum is only seen in long shots (and very dark lighting) in the first film, it's not glaringly obvious, but it is noticeable.
  • The Other Marty: Stuart Townsend was cast as Aragorn, but was replaced by Viggo Mortensen a few days before filming supposedly for being too young.
  • Talking to Himself: John Rhys-Davis plays Gimli and voices Treebeard.
    • Lawrence Makoare has a scene between himself as Gothmog and himself as the Witch King.
    • The Gollum & Smeagol conversations are sort of this trope.
  • Throw It In: Viggo Mortenson couldn't get the cry of grief and anger right at the scene when the trio think Merry and Pippin were killed. One shot he kicked a helmet and broke his toe. The scream actually fit the mood perfectly, and was used in the final cut.
    • In a scene at the beginning of the first movie, when Gandalf visits Bilbo at Bag End, Ian McKellen inadvertently bumps his head against a wooden beam in the low ceiling. Although unintentional, the actor managed to make the little accident look perfectly natural and very funny, and so it was kept in the final cut.
      • And then in Helm's Deep, the army of orcs stomping their feet and weapons before battle was entirely unscripted. It all happened because one of the actors playing the orcs got bored and began stomping his feet and weapons. Then other orc-actors took notice and began to do the same thing. Before long, they all did it, which led to Peter Jackson throwing it in.
    • According the the wiki, the scene where Aragorn deflects Lurtz's thrown knife was an accident. Lurtz was apparently scripted to miss, but the actor accidentally threw the knife right at Viggo, who managed to deflect it with his sword.
      • That whole fight scene is an instance of this trope. That headbutt? Completely real. Aragorn getting punched in the ribs? That punch wasn't pulled. Aside from any stab wounds incurred, Lawrence Makaore and Viggo Mortensen were actually beating the crap out of each other. It was mainly because the make-up Makaore was wearing obscured his vision, and the punches that were supposed to be pulled ended up actually connecting. Mortensen just figured that it would be best if he just fought back just as hard rather than yelling cut.
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