The Lord of the ringS

In Review Trivia DocumenT

Welcome to The Lord of the Rings Trivia Document to Rule Them All! This document contains
supplementary information for Kinda Funny’s Lord of the Rings In Review series to provide
interesting facts and trivia. Information comes from various sources, primarily the Lord of the Rings
wiki and the Behind the Scenes material for the Extended Editions of the films. This document is split
up by the three films, with each having four sections.

Tolkien and the Book covers trivia relating to J.R.R. Tolkien and the writing of the novel itself. Film
and Book Differences goes over the important differences between the books and Peter Jackson’s
films, sourced from the Lord of the Rings wiki. Extended Edition Scenes and Additions list the major
additional content and changes made in the Extended Edition versions of the films. Film Facts
concerns trivia relating to Peter Jackson’s films, many of which are taken from the Behind the Scenes
documentaries of the Extended Editions. Yes, I watched them all again just for this document.

The Fellowship of the Ring

Essential Stats
Book release: July 29th, 1954
Book sales: Over 150 million copies (combined sales)
Book length: 520 pages (+21, see below)
Total book length: 1349 (+218 pages of Appendices)
Film release: December 19th, 2001
Film budget: $93m
Gross: $871m, the fifth highest-grossing film at the time
Runtime: 2 hours, 58 minutes
Extended Runtime: 3 hours 28 minutes (+30m)
Effects Shots: 540

The Extended Runtime does not account for the Fan Club credits, which add an additional 20
minutes.

The +21 on the Book length stat account for 17 prologue pages and four pages on Shire-records, and
explain how Tolkien “discovered” the history of Middle-earth.

The book length stat for all three books are taken from The Illustrated Lord of the Rings. The page
count tends to differ by edition and publisher; I simply used this one as it’s the only “The Hobbit +
The Lord of the Rings” unified edition I had on-hand.
Peter Jackson began his film-making career at age 9 with an attempt to remake King Kong. His
influences include Martin Scorsese, George Romero, Sam Raimi and special effects legend Ray
Harryhausen. Peter’s first feature film was a splatter movie named Bad Taste, which was followed by
Meet the Feebles, where he first met Richard Taylor and Tania Rodger, the future creators of Weta
Workshop. His third film was Braindead, released in the US as Dead Alive.

1994 marked Pete’s first “serious” film in Heavenly Creatures that got him his first Oscar nomination
and worldwide acclaim, followed by mockumentary Forgotten Silver and Michael J. Fox movie The
Frighteners, which saw the creation of Weta Digital. In 1997 Jackson started on a remake of King
Kong, but the release of Mighty Joe Young and Godzilla gave Universal cold feet and they shelved the
project. This would cause Peter and his writing team to pivot and adapt The Lord of the Rings.

Tolkien and the Book

 Middle-earth and its history began its development in Tolkien’s notebook while he was
recovering from illness during World War I, as a collection of stories he called “The Book of
Lost Tales”. He lamented England’s lack of authentic legends, as many of them are actually
cribbed from other countries such as France and Norway due to the Norman invasion
causing a vacuum in English culture.
 Tolkien struck up a friendship with fellow literary enthusiast C.S. Lewis, among other friends.
They were collectively known as the Inklings. Stay fresh!
 Tolkien primarily wrote his worlds and stories to be an expression of the languages he
devised for them. The two Elvish languages are similar to Finnish and Welsh, and Rohirrim is
much like Old English.
 The Hobbit was not originally written to be part of Tolkien’s Legendarium, instead taking
elements of it. It wasn’t until The Lord of the Rings that The Hobbit became a part of
Tolkien’s established world.
 Tolkien started writing The Lord of the Rings as a sequel to The Hobbit which, in his words,
“grew in the telling”, both in length and in its mature nature. He wrote it primarily for
himself, and it took him 18 years to finish.
 Tolkien notably wrote The Lord of the Rings linearly and with no idea as to where it was
going to go next. If he got stuck, he’d return to the first page and start writing it all over
again.
 Initially the villain of Lord of the Rings was a giant called “Tree Beard” to contrast The
Hobbit’s dragon, Smaug.
 The Lord of the Rings was written and conceived as a single book, but post-war printing costs
meant that it had to be released as three books, lest the book be priced so high nobody
would buy it. Each book is split into two volumes plus the Appendices at the very end,
totalling seven separate volumes.
o In The Two Towers and The Return of the King, Volume I covers Aragorn’s story while
Volume II covers Frodo’s story.
 The history of Tolkien’s Legendarium is divided into “Ages” of Arda, covering approximately
7,050 years (with an additional 45,000 years before that). There are four Ages in Tolkien’s
Legendarium:
 o The First Age is the creation of the elves, men and dwarves. It ends with the
conclusion of The War of the Jewels where Morgoth, Sauron’s master, is defeated.
This age is depicted in much of The Silmarillion; the Silmarils are the jewels in
question.
o The Second Age is where much of the ancient backstory to The Lord of the Rings
takes place. The men of Numenor are destroyed for their arrogance, with remnants
sailing to Middle-earth who would later ally with the elves to defeat Sauron (which
marks the end of this age).
o The Third Age is when The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit take place. It ends at the
conclusion of The Return of the King, where Gandalf and Frodo depart from The
Grey Havens to the Undying Lands.
o The Fourth Age is the “Age of Men”, where Middle-earth starts turning into history
as we know it today.
 The reason why Sauron cannot take a physical form is because of his defeats. Being a Maiar
(basically a god), he can initially take on any form he wants. But after each defeat he cannot
look as fair as he wants and can only make himself uglier and uglier, until eventually he’s
defeated by Isildur and cannot take any form at all.
 The Lord of the Rings became so successful that it was the second most-read book in the 20th
century, second only to the Bible.
 It would not be until 1968 that The Lord of the Rings would be published as a single book as
Tolkien intended.
 Tolkien always rejected the idea that The Lord of the Rings was based on World War II and
that the One Ring represents nuclear power (the story was conceived in 1937, before the
Manhattan Project).
 Famously Tolkien hated allegory, as it was something imposed by the author onto the
reader; he instead preferred the reader to find their own applicability in the story for
themselves. In the foreword to the book he declares that there is no meaning he gave to the
story, that it is neither allegorical nor topical.
 Frodo was originally meant to be Bilbo’s son, however Tolkien changed him into an adopted
nephew to solve logistical issues, such as Bilbo’s wife and where she and Frodo were during
The Hobbit.
 The original names for Frodo, Sam, Merry and Pippin were (in order) Bingo, Odo,
Marmaduke and Faramond. Aragorn was originally a ranger Hobbit named Trotter.
Film and Book Differences
 In the book, Isildur doesn’t have to take up his father Elendil’s sword: Elendil managed to kill
Sauron on his own but died in the process.
 In the novel, Gandalf and Frodo are in the know of Bilbo using the Ring to disappear at his
birthday party, although Gandalf still disapproves of it.
 In the book, the time between Bilbo’s birthday and Gandalf researching Bilbo’s ring was
seventeen years. This period is also when Gandalf tracks down and interrogates Gollum with
the help of Aragorn, after Sauron had already done so.
 In the novel, the journey out of the Shire to Bree takes five months, with Frodo moving out
of Bad End and the Hobbits having several encounters in the woods, including meeting Tom
Bombadil.
o Writer Phillipa Boyens has pointed out that in the film’s edit, there’s nothing to say
they didn’t meet Tom Bombadil and so on in the forest, and that it was simply “left
untold”.
 In the novel, it is an elf named Glorfindel who rescues Frodo and takes him to Rivendell
rather than Arwen. As well, the water horses were summoned by Elrond and Gandalf in the
book.
 The novel does not show Gandalf’s encounter with Saruman. Radagast the Brown is
removed from the film as well, who in the book is the one to summon the Eagle to Gandalf’s
rescue. Radagast would be much more prominent in The Hobbit films.
 You thought the Council of Elrond was long? The novel version also covered the entire
history of the One Ring.
 Boromir’s want for the Ring is emphasized and discussed much more prominently in the film
than in the novels.
 In the novel, the storm at Caradhras is not the work of Saruman but the mountain itself, as it
hates trespassers.
 Sauron does in fact have a physical form in the book, with the Eye being a representation of
his power.
 Boromir’s last stand and death was not in The Fellowship of the Ring portion of the novel: it
was instead in the first chapter of The Two Towers, due to the way the full Lord of the Rings
book was split into three.
Extended Edition Scenes and Additions
The Extended Edition of Fellowship is focused on expanding some of the lore and backstory,
connecting with The Hobbit story and next two films, and exploring more of Aragorn’s character and
Boromir’s seduction by The Ring. Fellowship of the Ring has the longest Extended Edition of any of
the Middle-earth films.

 In the prologue, Isildur uses the One Ring to escape into the river, where it slips from his
finger and gets him shot by Orcs.
 A new Title scene is added where Bilbo writes in the Red Book to introduce the audience to
the relaxed culture of Hobbits. This would later be used for The Hobbit films.
 After the party, there’s a scene at the Green Dragon showing Merry and Pippin singing, talk
of strange folk abroad and that they can avoid war if they keep their heads down. This scene
also shows how Sam feels about Rosie, which becomes relevant much, much later.
 Before Frodo and Sam bump into Merry and Pippin, they encounter Wood Elves in the night
making their way to the Grey Havens, foreshadowing the end of the story.
 After the Hobbits leave Bree with Aragorn, they trek through the Midgewater Marshes. At
night, Aragorn sings the song of Beren and Luthien, which is very similar to Aragorn’s
relationship with Arwen.
 Before the Council of Elrond, there’s a scene where Boromir examines Narsil, Isildur’s broken
sword. Aragorn also expresses fear of himself to Arwen over the coming journey, that he
could be tempted like Isildur was.
 After the Council of Elrond, there’s a scene with Aragorn at his mother’s grave. Elrond
explains that she left Aragorn in Rivendell because she knew he would be hunted. Elrond
asks him to take up Isildur’s sword, but Aragorn rejects the idea.
 The Fellowship’s departure from Rivendell has a dedicated scene, where Gandalf has to
quietly tell an insecure Frodo to go left at an early fork in the road.
 Early into the Mines of Moria, there’s a scene where Gandalf reveals a mithril mine, and
talks of Bilbo’s mithril vest that has more value than all of the Shire.
 The scene where the Fellowship “introduce” themselves to Haldir’s Lorien archers is longer
and happens at night in the Extended Edition. Emphasis is made that they shouldn’t bring
the One Ring into Lothlorien.
 The scene where the Fellowship observes the Lorien elves singing lamenting songs for
Gandalf is longer, and Sam tries to come up with his own based on Gandalf’s fireworks.
 As the Fellowship departs Lorien, there is a lengthy scene where they receive gifts, including
Lembas bread, the concealing cloaks, a bow for Legolas, daggers for Aragorn, Boromir,
Merry and Pippin, and elven rope for Sam. Gimli receives three hairs from Galadriel when he
asked for one, thus giving him respect for the Elves.
 As the Fellowship sail down the river, there’s a scene at night where Aragorn and Boromir
notice Gollum following them, as well as some drama between them, in addition to Frodo
and Sam.
 Many small moments were added to the climax fight at Amon Hen, including Merry and
Pippin fighting with Boromir and Legolas being a badass with his new bow. Lurtz also licks
the blood off Aragorn’s dagger after pulling it out of his leg.
Film Facts
 The reason why they have to walk everywhere is because Mordor is fucking far away, NICK.
o The given reason why the Fellowship couldn’t use the Eagles is because the Fell
Beats would have fought them, which aside from being dangerous would have also
given them away to Sauron.
 To make this clear early on, there is no single company known as “Weta”. There are two
companies, Weta Workshop and Weta Digital.
o Weta Workshop handled all the practical elements, including the concept art,
costumes/armour, weapons, set construction, miniatures and prosthetics, as well as
their on-set operation. Over 45,000 items were produced for Fellowship of the Ring
alone.
o Weta Digital meanwhile handled digital effects, including crowds/armies,
compositing, digital set additions, and of course characters and creatures like
Gollum and the Balrog. Today, the second-highest draw of power in New Zealand is
the Weta Digital render farms.
o The only digital effects that weren’t achieved by Weta Digital were the water horses
at the Ford of Bruinen, which was handled by Digital Domain due to Weta Digital’s
workload.
 When making the 1978 animated movie, Ralph Bakshi originally wanted Led Zepplin to
provide the music (they are known to insert Rings references into their songs). The producer
shot this idea down as he couldn’t sell the music on his record label.
 Pre-production history:
o Peter Jackson first expressed interest in adapting The Lord of the Rings in 1995 to be
filmed after doing The Hobbit first. Jackson met with Saul Zaentz, an American film
producer who bought the film rights to Tolkien’s books from MGM in the 70s.
However Jackson’s producer Harvey Weinstein (yes, that one) was frustrated when
he learnt that the distribution rights to The Hobbit specifically were held by United
Artists, so he advised Pete to adapt just The Lord of the Rings.
o The Lord of the Rings films would eventually be pitched to Miramax in 1998 as two
films, but Miramax wanted Jackson to tell it in one. Pete didn’t feel he could do the
story justice that way, so Miramax allowed him four weeks to look for another
production company. New Line Cinema accepted, after asking Peter to tell the story
in three films rather than two (sounds familiar…).
 A more malicious fact is that when Miramax was producing, Jackson was
told by his producer Weinstein that Ashley Judd and Mira Sorvino were
difficult to work with. Weinstein was slandering the two actresses because
they rejected his sexual advances: Jackson realized this after Harvey’s fall
from grace and explained it to the two actresses on Twitter, who were
grateful for his honesty. The move to New Line meant that Weinstein was
no longer involved.
 The screenplay starting being written in 1997. The writing style meant that Phillipa Boyens
and Fran Walsh would include passages like “Gil-Galad and Elendil fight like men” knowing
that Peter would do his thing for a 20 minute action sequence. Peter would do this himself
for the romance scenes.
 The concept art design team for The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit was led by Alan Lee
and John Howe, the two most famous Tolkien artists whose art has been used for the
author’s writings a great many times. They both have cameos as one of the Nine men in the
prologue.
 The Lord of the Rings was one of the first films to utilize pre-visualization, where scenes are
taken from storyboards and given very basic passes in CG. This helps figure out specific
issues with editing and camerawork before actual filming commences. This practice is now
incredibly common in the movie industry.
 Both The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit had a Tolkien linguistics expert in David Salo, who
made sure that all the fictional languages were spoken and pronounced with 100% accuracy.
 Principal photography on The Lord of the Rings trilogy was a 14 month shoot from October
11th 1999 to December 2000. Pick-ups were shot from 2001 to 2003 as each film’s edit came
together to help address issues and refine the films.
o Due to the number of filming units, the dailies would last about 2 and a half hours.
The longest session of dailies on the project was 8 hours long.
 The entirety of The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit was filmed in New Zealand. The
exception was Christopher Lee’s scenes in The Hobbit, which were filmed at Pinewood
Studios in the UK due to the fact he was 90 by then.
 The trilogy incorporated multiple filming units in order to meet the deadline. The shoot was
done roughly chronologically, so Fellowship came first, then Two Towers, then Return of the
King. After the Fellowship breaks at the end of the first film, the units followed along with a
specific storyline. A satellite array was used so that Peter Jackson could personally approve
shots from the various units he wasn’t attending.
 The average age of the Lord of the Rings shoot crew was 25.
 The Lord of the Rings is, alongside The Matrix, one of the earliest films to utilize digital
colour grading to push the mood of the scenes even further. In fact Rings and The Matrix
share the same colour grader, Peter Doyle.
 Composer Howard Shore was involved with composing music for the films two years before
Fellowship came out. Many of the songs and music were sung in Tolkien’s actual languages.
o The New Zealand band Plan 9 helped compose the songs for Bilbo’s party, the song
in the Green Dragon pub, and the song for the Green Dragon itself that Merry and
Pippin sing in Return of the King. They would later help with the Misty Mountain
song for the first Hobbit film.
 The correct spelling of Middle-earth does NOT have a capital e!
 The design for the elven armour in the prologue uses greens and yellows to indicate the
springtime of their years. When we next see an elven army, it’s in reds and bronzes for
autumn, as they are leaving Middle-earth.
 The design of The Ring came from Peter Jackson planning out a Bag End scene. Co-Producer
Rick Porras used his own wedding ring as a stand-in prop. Its appearance stood out from the
proposed designs, so the bulbous look of Rick’s ring became the basis for the One Ring.
 One of the most hard-working actors for all six films was Kiran Shah, being Frodo’s scale
double and returning on The Hobbit for the same task for many more characters, including
Bilbo.
 Hobbiton was originally built as a pure film set, and as such was deconstructed afterwards at
the request of the farm owner, meaning tours of the location were of white stand-ins for the
hobbit holes. For The Hobbit, it was rebuilt with authentic materials so it could be kept, and
even the Green Dragon pub serves food sourced from the vegetable gardens.
 Ian McKellen based his Gandalf voice off of recordings of Tolkien that Peter Jackson gave
him.
 The technical name for Gandalf’s race is Istari. He is one of five spirits sent to Middle-earth in
human form to aid the Free Peoples against the threat of Sauron. They are second in power
only to their Maiar creators, who are effectively gods. While they were created to oppose
Sauron, they were not allowed to do so by directly matching his power.
o Radagast the Brown appealed to nature, but became more and more forgetful. The
other two wizards are the Blue Wizards, disappeared, and nobody knows what
happened to them.
 The song that Gandalf and Bilbo sing as they enter/leave Hobbiton is The Road Goes Ever
On, which Bilbo thought up in The Hobbit. It was notably read by Sam Claiborne on Jared
Petty’s last day at IGN during Game Scoop.
 The hobbit actors had to get up at 4am each day because it took an hour and a half to apply
their prosthetic feet. Sean Astin counted 50 days where they did this and Pete didn’t actually
capture their feet on film!
 For a single design of a Hobbit costume, it was replicated ten times for safety, which was
then done three more times for the body doubles, stunt doubles and scale doubles. resulting
in 40 versions of a single costume.
 The oak tree atop Bag End is 100% fake.
 While Gandalf bumping into Bilbo’s chandelier was intended, knocking his head into the
beam was not.
 The little girl with the big eyes being told stories from Bilbo is in fact Peter Jackson’s
daughter, Katie, at age four. She would later cameo in all three Hobbit films at age 16.
 Sam is Frodo’s gardener because Hobbits grow their own food; Bag End is luxurious enough
that it requires a specific gardner!
 Christopher Lee’s casting in the role of Saruman fulfilled a lifelong dream of his to play a
character in The Lord of the Rings. He originally wanted to play Gandalf, but acknowledged
that this role was too physical for him at his age.
 Christopher Lee was notably the only actor in the cast to have met Tolkien himself.
 The bottom of Isengard’s design is taken straight from Alan Lee’s painting for an edition of
The Two Towers. Peter Jackson loved this design and was very excited to ask Alan to paint
the rest of the tower. The same is true for Barad-Dur, Sauron’s tower, which was based on
art by John Howe.
 Every exterior shot of the Isengard tower, Orthanc, was shot using a miniature.
 The miniatures were dubbed “Big-atures” by Weta Workshop because of how enormous
they were, often reaching 22 feet high or more.
 The scene with the hobbits on the wooded road with the Nazgul was the first scene shot for
the trilogy.
 Peter Jackson has a cameo in every Lord of the Rings film. In Fellowship, he plays a drunkard
in Bree with a carrot seen shortly before the Hobbits enter the Prancing Pony. He reprises
 the role in the opening of The Desolation of Smaug, where he exits the inn and very
obviously takes a bite out of the carrot right in front of the camera!
 The thing of Frodo playing with the Ring was conceived by Elijah Wood.
 Stuart Townsend was originally cast as Aragorn, however a few days into filming Peter
realized he had cast the role too young and replaced Townsend with Viggo Mortensen. A
picture of Townsend dressed in character exists, and it is quite something.
o Jackson originally wanted Russell Crowe or Daniel Day-Lewis for the part, and also
offered the role to Nicolas Cage. It gets weirder: Vin Diesel auditioned for Aragorn as
he’s a fan of the books (he had Melkor, the name of Sauron’s master and the
originator of evil, tattooed on his chest for the role of Xander Cage).
 Other casting preferences include Jeremy Irons as Saruman, Lucy Lawless as Galadriel, Liam
Neeson as Boromir and David Bowie as Elrond (a role Bruce Willis lobbied for).
 Peter Jackson credits Viggo’s acceptance of the role of Aragorn to his son Henry, who unlike
his father knew the story and urged him to accept the part.
 When Viggo was brought on he had only a week to learn his first fight sequence on
Weathertop.
 Viggo Mortensen was so dedicated to the role of Aragorn that he kept his sword on him at
all times, even when eating at restaurants or driving.
 In the Extended Edition scene where Aragorn talks about Beren and Luthien, you can hear
the call of a Morepork, a native New Zealand owl. The song itself was devised by Viggo
Mortensen.
 The scream of the Nazgul is a highly modified version of writer Fran Walsh screaming.
o The sound designers for The Lord of the Rings would later do the sound design for
the Transformers movies. Hi Chloe!
 There are several references in the film to Ralph Bakshi’s 1978 animated The Lord of the
Rings movie:
o The shot of the Hobbit in Bilbo’s birthday speech who says “Proudfeet!”
o The Hobbits hiding from the Black Rider under a tree root.
o The scene where the Nazgul find the empty beds in Bree.
o The circling shot of the Hobbits on Weathertop as the Nazgul approach.
 John Rhys-Davis, Gimli’s actor, was very allergic to his prosthetics.
 The other red-bearded dwarf that accompanies Gimli is his father, Gloin. Gloin is notable for
being part of the dwarf party with Bilbo and Gandalf in The Hobbit.
 Gimli’s armour, double-sided axe and “walking stick” axe all come from Gloin and are seen in
The Battle of the Five Armies. Gloin starts with the walking stick axe, then picks up the
double-sided axe and the armour once he makes it to Erebor and dresses for war.
 Sean Bean has a fear of flying in helicopters; after shooting his first scene at the top of some
mountains, he vowed to get to these locations climbing on foot, which he had to do in full
costume. This could sometimes take him up to two hours.
 The first piece of music recorded for Lord of the Rings was not done at Abbey Road but
instead by the NZ orchestra, for the Mines of Moria. It was recorded for the Cannes film
festival and was assumed to be a stand-in, but was so good it was kept.
o Polynesians were brought in to provide the unique vocal sound of the Moria scenes.
 Balin, the one whose tomb the Fellowship find, is the white-bearded Santa-like dwarf from
The Hobbit. Ori, the nervous mommy’s boy dwarf, is the one who wrote the book Gandalf
reads. He’s also dead.
 The difference between an orc and a goblin is that goblins live primarily underground.
 The wobbling stairs sequence just before the Bridge of Kazad-Dum was not originally part of
the script, and was developed afterwards based on some concept art. To this day the script
still reads “The Fellowship race down the stairway”.
 Similar to Isengard, the wobbly stair environment used practically no sets and no CG: it was
achieved entirely with miniatures, with the exception of when it fully falls over.
 To create all the chain mail in the trilogy, two men at Weta Workshop used a machine to cut
over 7 and a half miles of PVC tubing and connected all 12.5 million ring links by hand over
the course of three years (Gimli’s armour alone required 80,000 rings). By the end they had
worn away the fingerprints on their thumb and index fingers.
 Over 10,000 arrows were made for the trilogy.
 Gollum’s appearance in The Fellowship of the Ring is different from the later films, as his CG
design was finalized in 1998 long before Andy Serkis was cast. It wasn’t until post-production
on The Two Towers began that they found the puppet couldn’t match what Andy was doing,
and thus they redesigned the character.
 The blocking of the Cave Troll fight was done by rigging a wooden camera prop that moves a
virtual one. Peter Jackson would then operate this camera and look through what it saw
using a VR visor and “film” the preliminary animation to block out the scene.
o This innovative method of filming a digital scene in VR would become the basis for
Avatar and Tintin. Nowadays they use a tablet with handles on the sides acting as
both the camera and the display.
 The Mirror of Galadriel scenes were shot at a high frame rate so that, when played at 24fps,
they’d be given a slower, dream-like quality.
 The river departure from Lorien was originally to have orcs and elves fighting each other, but
a storm raised the water level and washed away the set. Peter Jackson would later use this
idea for the barrel escape in the second Hobbit movie.
 In the fight sequence between Aragorn and Lurtz (the Uruk commander), there’s a shot
where Lurtz throws Aragorn’s dagger back at him. Lurtz’ actor Lawrence Makoare
(pronounced “Ma-Corey”) accidentally threw the very real and very sharp Hero prop of the
dagger straight at Viggo when it was meant to be to his side. Viggo still deflected the dagger
by bashing it with his sword as practiced, unknowingly preventing severe harm to his face.
This take is the one used in the film.
 At the end of the film there’s a shot of Aragorn tightening his vambraces. These are actually
Boromir’s, and Aragorn taking them was Viggo’s idea so that Aragorn is reminded of the
promise he made to his fallen friend.
 The ending credits song, In Dreams, is sung by Edward Ross, age 12.
 Every film in the trilogy was reflected with a statue on the front of Wellington’s Embassy
theatre, made by Weta Workshop. For Fellowship, it was the cave troll with his hammer held
above his head.
 The reason why the Behind the Scenes of The Lord of the Rings Blu-Ray sets are on DVD is
because the cast and crew talking head portions were shot on DV tape, and thus were not in
HD to begin with. It was simply cheaper to reprint the old DVDs.
 All of the behind the scenes documentaries, including those for The Hobbit, were directed by
Michael Pellerin.
The Two Towers
Essential Stats
Book release: November 11th, 1954
Book length: 376 pages (+64, see below)
Film release: December 18th, 2002
Film budget: $94m
Gross: $921m, the fourth highest-grossing film at the time
Runtime: 2 hours 59 minutes
Extended Runtime: 3 hours 42 minutes (+44m)
Effects Shots: 799

The Extended Runtime does not account for the Fan Club credits, which add an additional 12
minutes.

The total page length of The Two Towers listed above actually covers everything up to the end of The
Forbidden Pool (the full length of the book is 440 pages). This is because the last four chapters
(Journey to the Cross-roads, The Stairs of Cirith Ungol, Shelob’s Lair and The Choices of Master
Samwise) actually take place during the time Aragorn and co. visit Isengard, return to Edoras and
make their way to Minas Tirith. The films aligned them, so these Chapters were depicted in The
Return of the King.

Tolkien and the Book

 The major structural difference between the book and film version of The Two Towers is that
the book covers Frodo’s story up to him escaping Shelob’s Lair and being captured by Orcs.
For the film adaptations the story was chronologically aligned with the Aragorn story, since
that just makes sense.
 The title The Two Towers is intended to refer to Orthanc, Saruman’s tower, and Minas
Morgul, the lair of the Nazgul. The film’s promotional material swaps Minas Morgul for
Barad-dur, Sauron’s tower, so that the title refers to both antagonists.
 Gollum’s addiction to the One Ring caused a contradiction with The Hobbit: in the original
version, Gollum lets Bilbo go after winning the Riddle game. Tolkien decided to rewrite this
chapter so that Gollum instead offers to show Bilbo the way out, and tries to kill him when
he realizes he has the Ring.
o The Hobbit book is meant to be Bilbo’s own writings about his adventure. Thus,
Tolkien decided that the First Edition of The Hobbit was the “censored” story Bilbo
told to Gandalf, while the Second Edition onwards are what actually happened.
o The Hobbit is still notably different from The Lord of the Rings in general however,
and Tolkien later expressed that he would have rather rewritten the entire book to
make it fit better.
 The Dead Marshes is directly influenced by Tolkien’s experiences fighting The Battle of the
Somme in World War I, where he saw many dead bodies strewn about in the mud, water
and shell holes.
  The flying beasts the Nazgul ride are never described by Tolkien in detail, or even given a
name. The name “fell beast” is simply the closest description Tolkien gives in his book.
 The mechanization of warfare as expressed with Sauron and Saruman also come from
Tolkien fighting in the Battle of the Somme, which is where tanks made their debut to the
world. He felt that the romance of battle was removed once you’re able to deal death at a
distance.
 The incorporation of horses for the Rohirrim stems from Tolkien’s job in World War I: he
broke in and trained new horses to be used in battle.
 The March of the Ents (as well as the Huron as seen in the Extended Edition) was put in
because Tolkien was very disgusted as a young schoolboy that the “moving wood” in
Macbeth turned out to be some guys with leaves in their hats.
 Tolkien also had a deep respect for trees: he often considered them on the same level as
one might animals.
 Tolkien’s depiction of elves is much closer to the origins of them in human literature, as
opposed to in his time where they’re basically fairies. This is also true of the dwarves, who at
the time were basically just Snow White garden gnomes.

Film and Book Differences

 Gandalf’s fight with the Balrog after being felled is not depicted at all in the book. Peter
Jackson was inspired to include it thanks to a painting made by John Howe.
 The entire subplot regarding Faramir being tempted to take the Ring isn’t in the book, and in
the novel he only takes them to the Forbidden Pool. Peter Jackson, Fran Walsh and Phillipa
Boyens added this subplot because if Faramir paid the Ring no mind as in the novels, it
undermined the Ring’s power.
o Faramir’s troupe is also presented much more negatively than in the book, where
they are kind even to Gollum.
 The subplots throughout the trilogy regarding Aragorn and Arwen do happen in the novels,
but Tolkien couldn’t find a good way to insert them into the story, so he added it to the
Appendices found at the end of the novel.
o That said, Elrond being almost antagonistic about their relationship and sending
Arwen to the Grey Havens doesn’t happen at all.
 Saruman’s role as a main antagonist and true ally of Sauron isn’t quite true to the books;
instead he allies with Sauron in the hopes of taking the One Ring for himself.
 Gollum has six teeth in the books, rather than nine as in the films.
 The minor plot of the boy being sent away on a horse to warn Edoras of the raids is not in
the novels.
 In the novel Theoden is only weak due to the words of Wormtongue: him being possessed
by Saruman is an invention of the film. As well, he isn’t initially hostile towards Wormtongue
in the books.
 Eowyn is given a more prominent role in the film with a kinder, more cheerful character.
 In the book Theoden sends his civilians to Dunharrow (a place seen in the third film) and
only goes to Helm’s Deep to support some of his men.
 Gandalf having to leave to get Eomer for reinforcements never happens in the book. Instead
the film lifts this from Ralph Bakshi’s 1978 animated The Lord of the Rings.
  The warg attack and Aragorn’s presumed death does not happen in the novel.
 Treebeard is fully aware of what is happening to Fangorn in the novels, compared to the film
where he has to be persuaded into action.
 The elven reinforcements at Helm’s Deep does not happen in the book: these elves instead
defend Lothlorien from Orcs.

Extended Edition Scenes and Additions

The Extended Edition of The Two Towers focuses on expanding several plot points, particularly of
Theoden’s character and explaining much of the motivations behind Faramir, Boromir and Denethor,
as well as giving the film a stronger conclusion. Several book scenes were included as well.

 A new Title scene is added with Frodo and Sam using the elven rope to climb down a cliff.
Frodo catches Sam’s box of seasoning and he laughs at the absurdity of even having it.
 The split personality of Gollum is introduced much earlier, in a short new scene as he leads
the Hobbits out of Emyn Muil.
 A scene is added where the Uruk Hai meet up with Saruman’s Orcs, and they argue over who
gets to deliver the Hobbits. Pippin tries to help Merry by asking for water, but they
practically drown him in the awful Uruk syrup from their leathery sacks (ooooooohhh
yeeeaaaahhhhhhh).
 A montage-like sequence is added where Saruman orders Fangorn Forest to be used as fuel
and recruiting the rouge Dunland men to his cause.
 A new scene is added after the above where Eomer finds the remains of an Orc skirmish, and
recovers the dying Theodred, son of Theoden.
 An additional scene is added to the Dead Marshes where Gollum chokes on the Lembas
bread and tries to sympathise with Frodo and the One Ring, but Frodo shoves him away.
 There’s an amusing scene in Fangorn Forest where Legolas and Gimli discuss trees that talk,
with Gimli scoffing at the idea.
 As Gimli walks with Gandalf out of Fangorn Forest, he accidentally offends the trees by
insulting the forest and comedically tries to appease them.
 A scene is added with Treebeard where he bores Merry and Pippin to sleep with his long,
drawn-out poetry. I think this scene is meant for Nick to relate to.
 A new scene is added where Aragorn and Gandalf discuss the state of affairs regarding the
War of the Ring: that Sauron is afraid, Theoden is under Saruman’s influence and Frodo is on
his way to Mordor with Sam.
 A new scene is added where Merry and Pippin awake in Fangorn and drink some water that
makes them slightly taller. They then get themselves stuck in the roots of a grumpy tree and
are saved be Treebeard. Both of these elements are lifted from the Tom Bombadil portion of
the book.
 After Theoden is released from Saruman’s spell, we have a scene of his son Theodred’s
funeral where Eowyn sings a mournful song.
 After Gandalf rides away to find Eomer, we have a scene in the stables where Aragorn calms
a mad horse named Brego by whispering Elvish to it. He decides to set the horse free, which
is important as it will save Aragorn after he falls later.
  The above scene transitions to Grima speaking with Saruman about Aragorn, where the
latter dismisses that Gandalf has found the heir to Gondor.
 Frodo and Sam being captured by Faramir is longer, where he expresses sympathy for one of
the dead enemies and if he would have rather stayed home in peace.
 As Theoden and co. ride to Helm’s Deep, Aragorn and Theoden discuss Eowyn’s improving
mood. There’s also a mealtime scene where Aragorn reveals that he’s 87, thanks to him
being a descendant of the long-lived Dunedain.
 An incredibly important scene is added with Faramir in the waterfall cave. Here he flashes
back to Boromir having just captured Osgiliath from the Orcs, before sharing a jolly hug and
drink with Faramir. Denethor then arrives (to Boromir’s awkwardness) who urges Boromir to
go to Rivendell and try to recover the One Ring so he can take it to Gondor. Faramir
proposes to go instead, but Denethor shoots him down in contempt.
o This scene is very important because it explains that Denethor is a terrible father,
and explains the motivations of his sons.
 A scene is added during the preparations at Helm’s Deep where Eowyn tells Aragorn that she
is to be sent to guard the women and children in the caves rather than fight, and
inadvertently confesses her love for Aragorn.
 After Treebeard discovers that Saruman has used Fangorn for fuel, Pippin notes that part of
the forest is moving. These “Hurons” are making their way to Helm’s Deep to take revenge
on the Uruks.
 The end of the film has a string of additional scenes:
o After Sam’s speech about what they’re fighting for, the Uruks flee Helm’s Deep and
run straight into the forest of Hurons, where they are all quickly slaughtered.
o After the above scene we have the conclusion of Legolas and Gimli’s kill contest,
with Gimli winning by one with 43. Legolas shoots the Uruk he’s sitting on and tries
to claim it as the tie kill.
o Yet another scene is added in Isengard where Merry figures he’s taller than Pippin
once again, and they discovers Saruman’s food store. They notably find Longbottom
Leaf, which is funny because in the previous film Saruman chastised Gandalf for
smoking it.
o Finally we have Faramir showing Frodo and Sam the old sewers that will safely lead
them out of Osgiliath. Faramir gives Gollum a very stern warning when he discovers
Gollum intends to lead them through Cirith Ungol.

Film Facts
 The original storyboard for The Two Towers had a prologue, which Peter fought hard with
New Line to cut as he felt you should have seen the previous film first. This is ironic because
he had fought hard on Fellowship to include a prologue!
 Peter Jackson edited each storyline first before figuring out how to intercut them. Pete
squabbled a bit over how much Treebeard should be included, always wanting to emphasise
his dreariness.
 When The Two Towers film was first advertised, an American threatened to sue the
production, thinking the title was offensive in the wake of 9/11. He backed down once it was
pointed out that it was the name of a 48 year old book the film is based on.
 The Balrog is falling so fast in the opening sequence that in one shot, he falls three whole
miles.
 The opening fight with the Balrog was originally going to be longer, with the Balrog bursting
out the water with its fire extinguished and his body melting. This was quickly nixed as it
would have been prohibitively expensive and time-consuming to do in CG at the time.
 The depiction of the Eye of Sauron changed for The Two Towers. In Fellowship it was a more
orb-like shape with a plasmic look, while in the next two films (and second and third Hobbit
films) it’s much more orange with some lightning elements and an overall more eyelid-like
shape.
 John Rhys-Davis is actually missing the end of his left middle finger, which was lengthened
with prosthetics. He once pranked Pete by pretending to have cut the end of his finger right
open with a pair of scissors under the fingernail in a gruesome fashion.
 Gollum facts:
o Gollum does not have Schizophrenia, which is in fact closer to the voices in Senua’s
Sacrifice. He instead has Dissociative Identity Disorder.
o New Line Cinema was originally very hesitant to let Weta Digital do Gollum, and the
studio had to prove to New Line that they could even do Gollum at all.
o Andy Serkis was originally cast to provide Gollum’s voice only for three weeks. It
wasn’t until Andy’s audition tape that Peter Jackson saw the energy and movement
Andy was putting into the performance that he should use him for a body
performance as well, rather than acting with nothing there.
o The “Gollum” part of Gollum’s speech was based on Serkis’ cats coughing up
furballs.
o Every shot where Serkis played Gollum was filmed three times: one with Serkis in
the scene and another without. Much later, Andy would record his performance
again in a motion capture suit, which would provide the basis for the CG puppet’s
performance. His finger and facial performances were done by hand later, as full
performance capture was not yet possible.
o To help Andy keep up the voice of Gollum, they concocted a Gollum Juice tea made
with honey, lemon and ginger.
o No performance of any performance capture character is ever truly re-created 1:1
unless it’s a very special circumstance. Often the animators will convey the “spirit”
of a performance, or mix and match the best of different takes in order to craft the
best performance.
o The reference for Gollum’s dirty, callous feet was Peter Jackson’s own feet, since
he’s famously barefoot almost all the time.
o It wasn’t until pickups for Return of the King that they were finally able to record
Andy’s motion capture on-set with Elijah Wood and Sean Astin on Mount Doom,
which would be the default method for live-action motion capture going forward,
such as with King Kong and Planet of the Apes.
 The shot where Gollum wraps his legs around Sam before Frodo pins him by the neck with
Sting is lifted directly from an Alan Lee painting.
 “Eo” is the Old English word for horse, which is why so many Rohan characters have it in
their names, such as Eowyn, Eomer, Theodred and Theoden.
 In the shot where Aragorn kicks the Uruk helmet thinking Merry and Pippin are dead, he
makes an unholy scream and collapses to the ground. This is because Viggo Mortensen
broke two toes kicking the helmet on the fifth take, and channelled his pain into the
performance.
 Viggo wasn’t the first to get an injury however because Orlando Bloom broke his ribs falling
off his horse. This was a problem because it was before they had to do the long Uruk chase
across Rohan: Orlando had a broken rib, Viggo broke both his toes and Gimli’s scale double
Brett Beaty had dislocated his knee. All three did the entire running sequence whilst
wounded.
 Fangorn Forest was achieved using a practical set utilizing real leaves taken in from outside
using black bin liners. When the studio lights were turned on, the heat was so intense the
studio was quickly overrun with weta insects fleeing out the building.
 For the scene where Gandalf the White first encounters Aragorn and co., Ian McKellen and
Christopher Lee both voiced his pre-reveal lines, with them overlapped. To help sell it, Ian
did a slight Christopher Lee impression.
o Andy will recognise the overlapping voice trick as what Dragon Ball Z uses for fusion
characters.
 Saruman’s descent into power-wanting evil is the reason why Gandalf was sent back as the
new White Wizard; he’s fulfilling the role Saruman was originally intended for. This is why he
says in the film “I am Saruman. Or rather Saruman as he should have been”.
 Treebeard’s head was initially done as a giant animatronic, but his facial movements were
very limited and so it was replaced with CG. His CG model was so complex that to render
one frame of his full body took 48 hours, compared to 8 minutes for Gollum.
o For Merry and Pippin’s actors, Treebeard’s hands had bicycle sets they could sit on,
but they had incredibly uncomfortable on their crotches. They would stay strapped
in during tea breaks.
 The texture of Treebeard is lifted directly from that of the native Pohutokawa tree right
outside the Weta Workshop.
 Edoras’ filming location, Mt. Sunday, had 100mph winds nearly every day of the year. In the
shot where the flag rips off the flagpole, Peter had originally planned to replace it in CGI, but
the wind was so strong it carried it over the hill as he wanted it to!
 The Edoras exterior set was only practically built as the upper buildings and a portion of the
lower wall, and was only there for a total of eight days an hour away from the nearest town.
 The Edoras set on Mt. Sunday doubled as the production facility: everybody had lunch inside
the Golden Hall, for example.
 The NZ government had a mandate that they had to leave Mt. Sunday the way it was found,
thus all the buildings and service roads built for the production were removed once the
shoot was done.
 The set for the Dead Marshes was also used for Osgiliath, was formerly used for the Gates of
Moria, and would later be used for the Minas Tirith courtyard.
 The moment where Frodo reminds Gollum of his real name was originally intended to
transition to the scene where Smeagol finds the One Ring. This scene was moved to the
opening of Return of the King, leaving a noticeable shift in lighting when they’re alerted by
the Nazgul scream.
 The sound of the Fell Beast’s vocals were taken from a donkey bellow, while the whishing of
its tail was a cheese grater being spun in the air on a string.
 The shot of Legolas grabbing a horse and swinging himself around onto it was in fact
rehearsed, but because Orlando broke his rib the action was achieved digitally.
 The actual Warg combat was not planned out until the day of shooting, thus Peter Jackson
and Christian Rivers planned out the sequence on the day.
 The actor for the Warg commander, Jed Brophy, would later play Nori in The Hobbit. He also
plays the “Mordor will pay for this!” Rohan Rider in an extended scene and Snaga, the Orc
who tries to eat Pippin before being killed for food.
 During the scene where Aragorn is floating in the river, Viggo drifted into the wrong place
and the current pushed him to the bottom of the river. He was able to free himself by
kicking off against the rock cliff wall, saying on the documentary “It was really scary, but the
doing it was interesting”.
 Aragorn’s horse, Brego, was played by a horse called Eureas, who was trained up as a last-
minute replacement similar to Viggo, and thus they had a strong emotional connection with
each other. Viggo would often gear up and saddle his horse in the early hours, and even
spend some nights sleeping in Eureas’ stable.
 The sound of the Uruk-Hai army when Saruman addresses them was recorded by the sound
team visiting the Wellington sports stadium, The Caketin, during a cricket match, asking
them to chant in Black Speech and stamp their feet. Since it was at half-time, not all the
sounds made by the crowd was appropriate due to the alcohol.
 The scene where Gollum chases a fish down a shallow river was done right after a snowfall,
so Andy chased after the fish in ice-cold water. The bit where he stops was at the top of a
waterfall, because of course it fucking was.
 Helm’s Deep had two miniatures: one was a quarter-scale of the building itself in the same
quarry as the full-scale sets, allowing it to be used as a forced perspective background. The
other was a 35th scale miniature of the whole valley that was 22 feet high and used to plan
the battle using 40,000 toy soldiers (which is why it was built at 35th scale). The toy soldiers
were one of the first things Peter uses Miramax’s money on.
 Arwen was famously originally written to appear in Helm’s Deep leading the elf
reinforcements, where she would give Aragorn Anduril and fight in the battle, stemming
from the original two-film script from the Miramax days. This was changed as it was felt it
turned her into a “Battle Maiden”, so she was replaced with Haldir from the first film and
the Anduril scene was moved to the third film. She is only visible in a few additional shots
during Helm’s Deep in the Extended Edition.
 There were 20,000 Uruk-Hai at Helm’s Deep.
 The Uruk Hai stamping their spears into the ground as a challenge originates from the actors
getting bored between takes.
 Many of the stunt performers (or stunties) had previously worked on Xena and Hercules,
many of them having black belts. Every stuntie had to learn 10 different fighting and
movement styles to portray the various races and cultures in the trilogy.
 The fight co-ordinator for the films was Bob Anderson, who worked on Princess Bride and
Zorro. He also played Darth Vader fighting Obi-Wan in the original Star Wars, and was Errol
Flynn’s stunt double.
 A humorous rivalry developed between the Uruk-Hai and Elven stunt performers during
filming, where the Uruks would taunt the Elven stunties with obscenities, banging of
weapons and eventually a full-blown haka like the All Blacks do, not realizing they were
being filmed!
 Viggo Mortensen actually broke his tooth whilst shooting some fighting when he was hit
with a sword. He initially offered to have it super-glued back on so they could continue
shooting, but was instead taken to Pete’s dentist during lunch.
 Peter Jackson’s cameo in The Two Towers is of a soldier at Helm’s Deep throwing a spear at
the Uruks with the battering ram as they go up the ramp. In the Lego The Lord of the Rings
game, he throws one of his Oscars.
 A minor edit is made in the theatrical version of the film when Faramir takes Frodo to
Osgiliath: Minas Tirith is painted out in the wide shot. This was done by request of New Line
Cinema as they felt audiences may confuse it for Helm’s Deep. Minas Tirith is restored in the
Extended Edition with a new background painting.
 For the battle sequences in The Lord of the Rings, Weta Digital created a crowd tool called
Massive, which allows hundreds of thousands of CG characters to be given AI behaviour tied
to motion capture animations that results in believable mass fighting and navigation, to the
extent that they could hear each other and react accordingly.
 As with all Lord of the Rings films, Wellington’s historic Embassy theatre was given a giant
sculpture for its front façade. In this case it was Gollum reaching over the edge of the roof
down to a giant rotating One Ring.
The Return of the King
Essential Stats
Book release: October 20th, 1955
Book length: 909 (+64, see below)
Film release: December 17th, 2003
Film budget: $94m
Gross: $1.119 billion, the second highest-grossing film at the time.
Runtime: 3 hours, 20 minutes
Extended Runtime: 4 hours, 11 minutes (+51m)
Effects Shots: 1,488 (more than Fellowship and Two Towers combined)

The Extended Runtime does not account for the Fan Club credits, which add an additional 12
minutes.

The additional 64 pages in the Book length stat are the final four chapters of The Two Towers, which
chronologically happen while Aragorn and co. visit Isengard, return to Edoras and make their way to
Minas Tirith (making the total there is 973). The third book also contains an additional 218 pages of
Appendices, which is why the third book is noticeably thicker than the previous two parts.

Tolkien and the Book

 Tolkien never liked The Return of the King as a title because he felt it gave too much of the
story away. He instead preferred the name of the central conflict, The War of the Ring. This
name would later be used for the 2003 RTS game.
 The Palantir are meant to be an expression of modern communication, where by seeing a
small sample you draw the wrong conclusion. For example, Denethor uses his and assumes
that Sauron is unbeatable and, later, that Sauron has captured Frodo and the Ring, so he
abandons all hope. Aragorn uses it to make Sauron think HE has the Ring and draw Sauron’s
forces out of Mordor.
 As alluded to by Legolas before he leaves Edoras, there is far more conflict against Sauron: in
the north Legolas’ father Thranduil hogties much of Sauron’s resources, while the dwarf king
Dain fights the rest from his throne in Erebor, the Lonely Mountain.
 Pippin was originally supposed to die at the Black Gates by being crushed under a troll he
was fighting. C.S. Lewis, author of The Chronicles of Narnia, convinced Tolkien to change it,
so Gimli helps get him out in the final version of the book.
 When Tolkien finished The Lord of the Rings there were many stories for it that he still
wanted to tell but hadn’t found space for. So he came up with the idea of adding Appendices
to The Return of the King. These contain information on Gondor and Rohan’s kings (as well
as the dwarves of Erebor in The Hobbit), the love story of Aragorn and Arwen, Hobbit family
trees, various calendar systems and their histories, plus the spelling and pronunciation of
Middle-earth’s words, AND as the various languages and how to translate them. And a full
index poems, foreign-language poems of Persons, Places and Things. It’s extensive.
  Tolkien initially did begin writing a possible storyline set after The Lord of the Rings titled
“The New Shadow”, set 105 years after Sauron’s defeat where Men become discontent in
times of peace and Aragorn’s descendants become like Denethor or worse. After writing
about 13 pages however, Tolkien abandoned the idea as he found it “sinister”, “depressing”
and “not worth doing”.
 Tolkien deplored becoming a cult-figure, especially as his books grew popular with the hippy
movement in the 60s.
 J.R.R. Tolkien died in 1973 at age 81, 21 months after his wide Edith.
 Tolkien’s death left his next book The Silmarillion unfinished, leaving his son Christopher
Tolkien as his literary executor: he edited and published many of his father’s works over the
next 50 years until his own death in January 2020.

Film and Book Differences

 After Aragorn returns to Edoras in the book, he gains an elite unit comprised of three elves
(one the son of Elrond) and thirty Dunedain men, who accompany him for the rest of the
story. They carried with them a banner woven by Arwen.
 Denethor does not lose his mind to despair in the novels, and his Palantir is directly shown
rather than being alluded to as in the film.
 Frodo and Sam never part ways on the Cirith Ungol stairs due to Gollum’s deceit in the
novel.
 Aragorn picking up Anduril occurred before leaving Rivendell in the books: he carried the
broken Narsil before that and it was reforged into Anduril before departure. It was moved to
here to complete Aragorn’s character arc devised for the films.
 In the book, Merry and the reader never realize that Dernhelm is actually Eowyn until she
takes her helmet off and says she is no man.
 In the novel the Army of the Dead only help Aragorn slaughter the Corsair ships; they never
appeared to fight at Minas Tirith and are replaced by living allies of Gondor.
o As well, Faramir’s initial retreat from Osgiliath is aided by Prince Imrahil and his
seven hundred Swan Knights (yes, really).
 In the novel, Aragorn makes a point to not enter Minas Tirith as he is not yet king.
 In the novel the Mouth of Sauron claims the right to not be assailed as an emissary, which
Gandalf grants. In the Extended Edition of the film Aragorn cuts his head off.
 In the book, it’s Pippin who fights a troll, AND HE WINS!
 In the novel, Frodo does not try to wrestle the ring back from Gollum in the Crack of Doom:
Gollum simply falls off the edge while celebrating.
 The major removal of novel material is the Scourging of the Shire. In this chapter the Hobbits
return home to find that Saruman has taken over their homeland, and they must assemble a
rebel militia to overthrow him. Peter, Fran and Phillipa decided to remove this portion as it
would be taxing on the audience to drive up the plot and drama once again.
Extended Edition Scenes and Additions
The Extended Edition of The Return of the King focuses on concluding Saruman’s story, giving more
backstory to Minas Tirith, showing more of Frodo and Sam’s journey through Mordor itself, and
restoring several scenes from the book.

 When Gandalf and co. arrive at Isengard, there’s a new scene where they confront Saruman.
Gandalf destroys Saruman’s staff and Theoden tries to appeal to Wormtongue. Wormtongue
is sympathetic but Saruman insults and slaps him. He retaliates by stabbing Saruman,
causing him to fall and land on a spiked wheel.
o The way Saruman dies here is an allusion to the cut Scourging of the Shire, where
Saruman is killed by the Hobbits he abused.
 At the party in Edoras, there’s an additional drinking game between Legolas and Gimli, in
which Gimli passes out just as Legolas feels slight tingling in his fingers.
 After the party, Eowyn describes to Aragorn a dream she had where she stood upon an
abyss of tidal waves engulfing green lands before her. This is a recurring nightmare Tolkien
used to have from childhood, which he incorporated as the downfall of Numenor. In the
books it was Faramir who had this dream.
 After Gandalf storms out of the throne room, there’s an additional scene where Gandalf
laments the situation and describes the fall of Gondor to Pippin as it passed from Kings to
Stewards.
 Before Frodo makes his way up the Stairs of Cirith Ungol, Sam pulls Gollum aside to give him
a stern warning as he has a very bad feeling about this. This sets up Gollum framing Sam
later.
 An additional scene is shown before Faramir’s departure where he confesses to Denethor
that he let Frodo go with the One Ring, which drives his father livid. There’s also another
scene where Faramir and Pippin discuss that Pippin is using Faramir’s childhood armour, as
well as of Denethor.
 Entering the Paths of the Dead is extended, where the trio face ghostly hands, skull
walkways, and escaping an avalanche of skulls on their way out. Once they escape, the King
of the Dead pledges his loyalty to Aragorn.
 A sequence is added where the Orcs cannot open Minas Tirith’s front gate because archers
keep killing the Orcs holding the battering ram. Gothmog, the Orc commander, declares that
Grond will break it.
 After this is a new scene where Aragorn encounters the Corsair ships. Gimli accidentally kills
Peter Jackson and the boats are swarmed by the Army of the Dead.
 A scene is added where Pippin sees Denethor taking Faramir to the tombs for them to burn
as the Tree of Gondor starts to bloom once again.
 Just before the Rohirrim arrive, Pippin warns Gandalf that Denethor is about to burn
Faramir, but are interrupted by the Witch King, who destroys Gandalf’s staff. He’s only saved
by the arrival of Theoden’s army.
 An extra scene is added where Eowyn saves Theoden from some Orcs and has an encounter
with Gothmog. Later, in the process of mowing down Orcs with the Army of the Dead,
Aragorn and Gimli cut down Gothmog, inadvertently saving Eowyn.
  A new scene is added in the aftermath of the battle where Eomer finds Eowyn’s body on the
battlefield and screams in despair. We then move to Minas Tirith at night where Aragorn is
able to heal her, and she meets an injured Faramir while recovering.
o Because of this, the scene where Pippin finds Merry on the battlefield had its colour
grade altered so that it takes place at night.
 An extra shot is added in the Cirith Ungol brawl where an Orc makes off with Frodo’s mithril
vest. This is due to the addition of a scene much later on.
 After Aragorn decides that they should march on the Black Gates, a new scene is added
where Aragorn uses the Palantir to challenge Sauron by presenting Anduril. Sauron responds
by showing the body of Arwen, causing Aragorn to flinch and drop the Evenstar Arwen gave
him, which hits the floor and shatters into dust as in his dream at Dunharrow.
 As Aragorn marches from Minas Tirith, there’s a new scene where Faramir and Eowyn have
a lovely “they’ll be a couple” conversation.
 Frodo and Sam’s journey through Mordor is extended. They are mistaken for soldiers and
taken into the ranks of Orcs marching to the Black Gates, and after escaping they decide to
discard everything they don’t need. There’s also a scene where Sam admits to Frodo that he
doesn’t think there’ll be a return journey anymore.
 When Aragorn approaches the Black Gates, in the Extended Edition he’s met by the Mouth
of Sauron, who reveals Frodo’s mithril vest and claims he is dead. Aragorn concludes
negotiations by cutting his head off in retaliation.
 Despite the length of the film’s ending, there are no extended scenes or additions to the film
after Frodo, Sam and Gollum fight on Mount Doom. So don’t even make that joke.

Film Facts
 The location of the worldwide premiere of Return of the King was revealed at the Wellington
premiere of The Two Towers. Pete called Mark Ordesky up to the stage to ask him where the
final film would premiere, and Ordesky knew where he meant and said: “Wellington, New
Zealand!!”. It was news to the NZ government and everyone else in the world.
 Over the course of the three films, Howard Shore designed over 100 different themes and
leitmotifs as part of the soundtrack. Not even counting The Hobbit’s 65 themes, this makes it
the largest collection of themes in the history of cinema.
 The first sequence filmed for Return of the King was actually the Frodo/Sam breakup scene
because flooding in Queenstown meant they couldn’t do any outdoor shoots during
Fellowship (the lake reached its highest point in 120 years). The set was built in a hotel
squash court, but because it was good weather the rest of the time the set stayed on the
court for an entire year, meaning the Frodo and Sam halves of the scene are a whole year
apart.
 The Return of the King opening on a close-up of a worm was a deliberate choice to contrast
The Two Towers opening on the Balrog fight.
 There were three scenes in Return of the King that were filmed to be part of The Two
Towers, but were moved to Return of the King for pacing reasons:
o Smeagol finding the ring and killing his brother Deagol
o Confronting Saruman and his death at Orthanc
o Arwen seeing the vision of her son and returning to confront her father
 Christopher Lee was originally meant to let out a yell when Grima stabs him in the back. Lee,
who had served in the British Secret Service during WWII, corrected Jackson and said “Have
you any idea what kind of noise happens when somebody’s stabbed in the back? Because I
do”. Jackson defaulted to Lee, so Saruman lets out a quiet gasp in the final film.
o Not Rings trivia but the crew of Attack of the Clones pranked Sir Lee by putting fangs
on the Yoda stand-in puppet while shooting his fight scene.
 Brad Dourif kept up his Upper English for the entirety of the shoot: Peter Jackson didn’t hear
his American one until they did the final take on his last shot. Bernard Hill, Theoden’s actor,
thought Brad’s American “accent” was atrociously fake.
 The high kicks Pippin makes while dancing on the table are a tribute to his girlfriend doing
high kicks as a kid doing ballet.
 Royd Tolkien, grand-son of J.R.R. Tolkien, cameos as a Gondorian soldier handing out
weapons in Osgiliash just before the Orcs attack.
 The un-named elf who talks with Arwen took on a meme-tastic life of his own due to his
striking appearance. His fan-name is Figwit, an acronym for Frodo Is Great, Who Is That?! He
was played by Bret McKenzie from Flight of the Conchords and would reprise his role in An
Unexpected Journey, where he got an official name: Lindir.
 The set of Minas Tirith was built in the same quarry as Helm’s Deep. Certain parts of Helm’s
Deep were redressed: for example Minas Tirith’s second gate was the front gate of Helm’s
Deep!
 The front gates to Minas Tirith were 20-26 feet high and built actual size. They were built so
that they could be opened by the actors, and even the locking mechanism worked.
 The miniature for Minas Tirith was 24 feet high at 72nd scale, not counting the spire which
had to be added later as that wouldn’t fit in the construction room.
 The Witch King’s helmet is actually a re-design made for pick-ups, as his original helmet
looked too similar to Sauron’s and even had some members of the crew convinced Sauron
showed up at Minas Tirith.
o His mace was redesigned into a morning star: The actor called it “damned heavy”,
and it was often done digitally because he couldn’t actually swing it.
 The horses were intelligent enough during the shoot that they picked up on the word Action
meaning that something was gonna happen and got antsy, so the production had to come
up with different phrases to prevent spooking the horses.
 In the shot where Aragorn looks down the chasm to the Paths of the Dead, the King of the
Dead is shown much more clearly in the Extended Edition.
 The Edge of Night, the song Pippin sings, came about when writer Phillipa Boyens heard Billy
Boyd sing Delilah for karaoke, and was inserted because Denethor asks Pippin if he can sing
in the book. It was written by Billy over the course of two days while shooting.
o Billy Boyd would also sing the song for the end credits of Battle of the Five Armies:
The Last Goodbye.
 The webs in Shelob’s lair were made from synthetic polymer that was cooked in a deep fryer
so it would turn into syrup, then strung into cold water where it’d cool. The problem was
that it had to be heated to 220 degrees, but if you heated it to 222 degrees it’d burst into
flames.
 The Dwimoberg Road to the Paths of the Dead was shot in a location just outside of
Wellington called The Pinnacles, which is made up of gravel and grit that has been eroded by
the weather. Peter Jackson previously shot there for Braindead, and originally intended to
use it for the dinosaur stampede in King Kong until he used it in Return of the King.
 Pelennor Fields was originally going to have 50,000 orc soldiers, which didn’t look impressive
enough, so it was increased to 350,000. For reference, there were 20,000 Uruk-Hai at Helm’s
Deep.
 Pelennor Fields as a full environment didn’t exist: it was some smaller fields, a lot of green
screen and a fully digital environment with the Minas Tirith miniature in it.
 The tumorous Orc commander was Gothmog, who was put in after Peter Jackson realized
that using the old squatting Orc style wasn’t going to work: he redesigned Sauron’s orc army
and added focal commander characters. He was played by Lawrence Makoare (pronounced
“Ma-Corey”), the actor who played the Witch King, as well as Lurtz from Fellowship whom
Aragorn fought at the end.
 80,000 miniature skulls were made for the Paths of the Dead escape sequence.
 Peter Jackson’s cameo in The Return of the King is only seen in the Extended Edition: he’s
the Corsair sailor who Legolas accidentally kills with a wayward arrow thanks to Gimli.
 Bernard Hill came up with the idea to tap his sword on the front line spears as he was giving
his speech.
 The design for Shelob was influenced by Peter’s genuine arachnaphobia, particularly the
tunnelwebs that were underneath his childhood home. The face however was difficult to
nail down, and was ultimately chosen by Pete’s kids.
 In the shot where Sam’s arm comes into frame holding Sting, Sam is actually played by Peter
Jackson.
 Denethor’s burning pyre was achieved using a mirror trick for the flames, to prevent scaring
Gandalf’s horse.
 The shot of the two Mumakil colliding took Weta Digital six months to animate. However the
angle wasn’t what Peter pre-vizzed, so due to the limitations of the live-action plate the shot
was re-worked to be completely CG with only two days left on the schedule.
 Gandalf’s description to Pippin of the world beyond is lifted from Tolkien’s description of the
Undying Lands at the end of the book.
 The song that plays over the Houses of Healing scene in the Extended Edition is sung by Liv
Tyler and was originally for the scene where she sees the vision of her son. It was moved
because it was considered odd to hear her own voice as a backing song.
 The Black Gates were filmed in the only place in New Zealand that looked desert-like: the NZ
Army’s bomb range, with uncleared areas cordoned off with tape. Viggo asked “Does that
mean that inside this tape we’re fine? and got a reply of “No, but there’s less bombs where
you are than on the other side”.
o It was also the only time the extras were actual trained military, so it was the only
time getting the soldiers into formation was easy.
 Aragorn’s look for the Black Gates was originally to be fully armoured as the King of Gondor,
however Viggo appealed strongly to this idea feeling that it wasn’t in keeping for Aragorn at
that point in the story. The compromise was for Aragorn to wear the leather vest rather than
the full chest armour, saving that until his coronation.
 o Aragorn’s coronation armour is in fact the same armour worn by Elendil in the
prologue.
 The actor for the Mouth of Sauron was Bruce Spencer, the helicopter pilot from Mad Max.
His mouth was increased in size by 50% to give him that creepy look.
 Aragorn’s final sword, Anduril, was so long that it couldn’t be unsheathed one-handed: at
the Black Gates Aragorn takes his sword out off-screen while the edit cuts to Frodo.
 Aragorn’s horse Brego rears up at the climax of his big speech at the Black Gates. This was
not intentional, the horse did it of its own accord and it was kept in the movie.
 In the climax of the film, Aragorn was originally intended to fight Sauron himself. However
during editing it was realized that it demeaned Aragorn’s reason for being there: a diversion
for Frodo. Thus Sauron was painted out and replaced with the towering troll that appears in
the final film.
 The final effects shot that was finished was the One Ring melting into the lava.
 While filming the scene where Sam kisses Rosie at the wedding, Viggo and Billy Boyd were
there in the crowd for Sean Astin’s shots. During one of the takes, Viggo surprised Billy by
kissing him square on the lips. Dominic Monaghan, the cheeky prankster of the group, didn’t
find out about it until he was doing the interviews for the DVDs.
 The Grey Havens scene had to be reshot twice. The first reshoot was because Sean Astin
forgot to put on Sam’s vest, causing a big continuity error. The second time was because all
the film was completely out of focus.
 Frodo does not depart for the Grey Havens; that’s the city-harbour where he gets onto the
boats. He’s instead sailing for the Undying Lands, which is often seen as a metaphor for
heaven.
 The use of sketches and artwork to end the film is to help the credits stand out from that of
the previous two films, using concept art made for the film as well as new sketches just for
the credits. This would be repeated for The Battle of the Five Armies.
 The first song composed for the end credits was called Use Well the Days. Peter Jackson
didn’t emotionally connect with it, so they tried brainstorming a new one. At this time up-
and-coming kiwi filmmaker Cameron Duncan, who was a friend of Peter Jackson, died of
relapsed Osteosarcoma in 2003 at age 17. His passing would inspire the writing of Into the
West.
 The pickups for Return of the King were all shot in Stone Street studios (formerly an
abandoned paint factory) in Wellington as a backlot. It meant that this one location felt like a
theme park with places like Edoras, Orthanc, the Golden Hall, the Green Dragon, Pelennor
Fields, Minas Tirith and Mount Doom all shoved together. Peter would travel between them
on a bicycle with a Paths of the Dead skull on it.
o The pickups were meant to go for 6 weeks. They went for 22.
 Orlando Bloom’s bow broke on the second-to-last shot he recorded for the film.
 The actors all received gifts in the form of props and costumes associated with their
characters. Theoden and Eomer got their helmets, Saruman his staff, Arwen the red-and-
blue dress, Gollum the One Ring, Frodo getting Sting and his last pair of prosthetic feet,
Eowyn got a silver belt and her sword and Gandalf got Glamdring.
 John Rhys-Davis, who of course was hugely allergic to his prosthetic makeup, got a special
present. On his last day he was presented with the final makeup he wore and given
permission to throw it into a nearby fire, which he did with extreme pleasure and haste.
 It takes nine hours, 56 minutes and nine seconds to play all the music that’s in The Lord of
the Rings trilogy, going by The Complete Recordings soundtracks.
 The miniatures unit on The Lord of the Rings had over 1,000 shoot days.
 At the end of filming the horses were sold off on bids. Joan, the rider for Arwen’s horse
Florian, desperately wanted Florian but couldn’t afford him, being a stallion. Viggo
Mortensen heard about this and put in Florian’s winning bid, and then gave him to Jane.
 The end of Return of the King’s post-production was particularly fraught and dramatic, as all
departments were still working while Pete was editing the film.
o It got to the point where Weta Digital would final 100 shots in a week, but they
made no progress because Pete would turn over 200 new shots. In the last two
months they had more shots than the first two films combined yet to do.
o The last shot was finished five days before the world premiere.
o The premiere of the film was the first time Peter Jackson saw the entirety of Return
of the King’s final cut.
 The Return of the King made its worldwide premiere in Wellington, New Zealand with a
parade from parliament building, the Beehive, through the city to the historic Embassy
theatre. I, KBABZ, was there, age 13.
o The Embassy sculpture for Return of the King was the Witch King on his Fell Beast
reaching down to the street.
 The Return of the King won many accolades, most notably being nominated for 11 Oscars
and winning all of them, tying the record with Titanic and Ben-Hur for most Oscars won. In
total Return of the King won 258 awards out of 337 nominations, a 77% win rate. It is the
only fantasy film in history to win a Best Picture Oscar.
o The Oscars The Return of the King won include: Art Direction, Costume Design,
Visual Effects, Makeup, Sound Mixing, Original Score, Film Editing, Original Song,
Adapted Screenplay, Directing, and Best Motion Picture.
o Amusingly, three weeks later Peter filmed a shot for the Extended Edition that he
intended to be in the theatrical cut but forgot about: a Paths of the Dead skull rolling
into shot. While shooting it he joked that he was the first director to win an Oscar
before finishing the movie.