In the scene where Gandalf and company arrives at The Golden Hall in Edoras and Gandalf prepares to end Saruman's hold on Theoden, Gandalf can be seen wearing the leaf brooch on his cloak, keeping it intact, like the rest of the now split up fellowship. But then the wizard discards the cloak to reveal his white robe as if nothing held it in place. [When the group approaches the gates of Edoras, you can already see that Gandalf is wrapped in his cloak without the Lorien brooch. Gandalf simply prepared for his surprise emergence as Gandalf the White. He knew that he would have to shed his grey cloak quickly in the Golden Hall, so he removed the Lorien brooch.]

When Legolas is getting onto the horse with one hand during the small battle with the wolves, Legolas is behind Gimli. In the next shot with the two, Legolas is in front of Gimli. [If you look closely with the scene in slow-motion you can see that a part of Legolas' body passes in-front of Gimli meaning that Legolas lands at the front.]

When Gandalf, Aragorn, Legolas and Gimli enter the King of Rohan's chamber, Aragorn, Legolas and Gimli start knocking down soldiers to protect Gandalf. When they have finished, there is a shot taken from behind and one of the beaten soldiers is lying on the floor playing with his hair, curling it around his finger. [I watched this carefully. He is only slightly moving a couple of fingers up and down, as if he is trying to muster the strength to get up but can't.]

It's the scene where the mother is telling her kids to get on the horse. Towards the beginning of the scene there is a guy standing there holding the horse still but when the mother is putting her little kid on the horse, he disappears. [Frame-by-frame advance shows that the man holding the horse is still there just after the woman calls "Eothain. Eothain." Immediately after, Eothain climbs onto the horse, after which there would be no need for the man to remain. He would naturally have gotten out as quickly as possible.]

In the first film when the fellowship is attacked by Balrog, Gandalf says something like "Swords are no use here" to Aragorn who wanted to tackle it with his sword. But in the next film you see Gandalf stabbing Balrog with a sword. This makes no sense. [Gandalf can fight the Balrog with a sword because he is powerfully magical, and the Balrog is falling and at a disadvantage. The book tells a little of their long fight, from the chasms deep below Moria to the high mountains where the Balrog is finally beaten. If Aragorn had tried to attack the Balrog at the bridge, he wouldn't have got anywhere near it before being killed; Gandalf knows this.]

In the Helm's Deep scene when the orcs charge the castle and begin to prop up the first set of short ladders, Aragorn yells "Ladders." in Elvish. Gimli shouts in response, "Good." However, Gimli most certainly does not speak or understand Elvish. In the extended version of The Fellowship of the Ring, Gimli grows angry when those around him are speaking Elvish, and speaks Dwarfish to anger them in return. [While he may not be able to understand a great deal of Elvish, it is more than reasonable to think that he would have picked up a few words, especially as he has been travelling with, and becoming good friends with, an Elf.]

You'd think that in the Battle of Helm's Deep, where the defenders of a fortress are hopelessly outnumbered, one of the best hopes would be to take out as many of the enemy as possible before it came to hand-to-hand fighting ? ie, shoot as many as you could before they reach the walls. Certainly we see the Elves (and the Men) firing often. However, even at the end of the battle, most of the archers have quivers full of arrows. There are a number of shots where this can be seen but the most obvious is just after Haldir has been wounded ? there is a brief shot of the retreating soldiers (Elves and Men) and most, if not all of them, have quivers full of golden-fletched arrows. I know that Tolkien speaks of archers 'gleaning' arrows from among the dead, but so many, and in the middle of a huge battle? Plus the arrows are all clean and neat looking. [There is a brief overhead shot of Helm's Deep sometime during the day in a previous scene, before the battle, and if you look closely you can see a few soldiers placing quivers of arrows in barrels along the walls. It makes sense that once a quiver was empty, the archers would just pick up a new quiver from a barrel and keep shooting.]

When we first see Shadowfax, the horse, come into the film outside of Fangorn Forest, it has only a small amount of black on its muzzle. This remains the case when Gandalf is about to leave with Aragorn, Legolas and Gimli, as they set out for Helm's Deep. Yet, at the end of the film after the Helm's Deep battle, when we see Gandalf, Theoden and the others come over the hill, Shadowfax has a black muzzle which covers about half of it's face. [Although it is a fact that during filming there were two horses used for Shadowfax, we can forget about it in this case. Light grey horses like Shadowfax tend to turn much darker when sweating profusely, especially on the face. Since the shot is taken right after battle, we can consider that Shadowfax is just sweaty. If you look closely, you can see that all the horses are sweaty all over, so I wouldn't count it as a mistake.]

Right after the battle with the Wargs, we return to Eowin as she sees Helm's Deep from a distance, and we can see that she carries nothing, but in the next shot, as she enters the castle, she has a large basket tied on her back. [She was also leading a horse, but no longer is - she would have taken the horse to the stables, removed whatever was necessary to take into the fortress (ie the basket) and gone through the gates to the main part of Helm's Deep.]

In the scene where Legolas kills a warg that Gimli was about to kill, the warg falls behind Gimli. When Gimli kills a warg and it falls over him, Gimli should have fallen over the warg Legolas killed before, but it's nowhere to be seen. [You can't see it in the close-up shots, but when the camera is back a little you can see the dead warg lying on the ground, right where it should be.]

It makes an amusing scene when Saruman stops Wormtongue from putting his candle too near the explosives, but why is he walking round with a candle? He even takes it outside with him to view the army. No-one else seems to need extra light in Orthanc. [Grima Wormtongue is merely trying to make himself 'equal' to Saruman. In the scene Saruman is carrying a wizard's staff and Grima is holding the candlestick in the same manner. Even the way he walks is similar to Saruman.]

In the scene at Rohan where Legolas is giving the Evenstar pendent back to Aragorn, Aragorn's ring is on his finger in the shot where Legolas's hand passes it to him, and gone in the next, when he looks down at it. [In the second shot the view is lower so Aragorn's fingers are not so fully in frame - hence the ring is also not visible.]

In the shot of the orcs pouring into helms deep after Theoden orders the final retreat we see the main gate doors at the top the ramp pushed open by a mass of orcs. The previously smashed doors are completely intact. [This shot is from overhead and you mainly see the intact part above, but as they swing open you can see the ragged hole that has been broken in them. Look for the outline of the left gate against the inner wall.]

After the attack by the wargs and Aragorn has fallen off the cliff, we see him floating in the river. When he reaches the bank, we see his wound is on the left arm. When he arrives at Helm's Deep and talks to Gimli whilst on his horse, his wound is on his right arm. It changes between shots from the river scene to the scene at Helm's Deep. [Both shoulders have wounds].

In the scene where Frodo and Sam are captured by Faramir, it begins with Sam cooking rabbits in a pot. He realises that Frodo is missing, and he and Gollum rush to find him, leaving behind cooking equipment and backpack. All three are then captured. When released by Faramir however, Sam once again has his backpack, and proudly hitches it up when leaving. [Several minutes later, Faramir and his men are leading a blindfolded Sam and Frodo. The next soldier is shown carrying Sam's pack with cooking gear.]

In the scene when Frodo wakes from his dream and takes a drink from his canteen, you can see what looks like an electric cord and plug dangling from the bottom of the canteen. [Why would a canteen have an electric cord on it? It's the plug for the canteen and the string connecting them].

When Aragon convinces Theodin to ride out of Helm's Deep with him at the end of the battle to meet Gandalf, Legolas is the only rider with a white horse. Looking at the downward shot of them riding through the Uruk-hai on the bridge out of Helm's Deep, there are two riders on white horses, and both look suspiciously like Legolas. [They're two different people, but worth keeping an eye out anyway - the other character was originally Arwen, filmed as being in the battle, but removed/edited out later in the process.]

As Arwen's father describes his vision of her future with Aragorn, a few tears stream down Arwen's face. Seconds later, she lays her head on his shoulder, and her cheeks are dry. [No, actually, they're not. You can see faint tear tracks and the slight reddening that the tears left behind.]

At the very end of the movie, Gollum says he would bring Sam and Frodo to 'her' (if you don't want parts of the next film to be revealed, you should stop reading). 'She' is a monster that lives in the tunnels. Earlier in the movie Gollum said he knew about another way to Mordor through the same tunnels. However, at the time he was being faithful and helpful, before he turned evil/conflicted again. Was he planning to get them killed all along, even when being nice? [They would have to go through the tunnels anyways. In the book, (spoilers ahead) Gollum deserts the hobbits in the tunnels and awakes Shelob; At the point in time you're thinking about he was probably thinking he would lead the hobbits all the way through and protect them.]

When Shadowfax runs to Gandalf you can see two tyre tracks in the field. Were these caused by the horse trailer and truck that took Shadowfax to middle earth? [The action here takes place in Rohan, which is mostly settled farming country. There is no reason this could not be a cart track used by the people of the district].