Corrected entry: In every shot of Minas Tirith, a city which faces east, with mountains behind it to the west, the sun is shining onto the City from the north. Now this is possible, in very early morning and evening, from May to early August in the Northern Hemisphere...but not at noon-time, and NOT in March (the Ring is destroyed just after equinox, March 25th). We know Middle-earth is Northern Hemisphere since the warmer lands are further south (and Tolkien states in the book that it lay approximately where Northwest Europe is now). In winter, the sun moves southerly and low in the sky. But this was filmed in New Zealand, where winter sunlight comes from the north, not the south, hence so does the sunlight at Minas Tirith in the movie. There's the reason, but still a mistake.
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Correction: The Earth has not always been tilted on its axis roughly 23 degrees. The angle of tilt does change approximately every 20,000 years. In the time of the Pharaohs, Sirius was the north star and now it is Polaris. The Earth's rotation has also slowed down thoughout history as did the orbit around the sun. This error is correct if this movie took place in our lifetimes or even in the last 2000 years. But the problem is, it is a mythlogical world on a mythological timeline. We cannot determine what century it took place. Pre-dinosaur, post-dinsaur, pre-Egyptian, pre-Sumarian? Not knowing at what point in Earth's history the movie is set makes it impossible to guess exactly how the sun would shine down on any given spot.
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