The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers

Corrected entry: At the battle of Helm's Deep, Theoden, Aragorn, Legolas and the rest ride out of the Keep to meet the enemy, watch as the first men out of the gate kill all the Uruks on the bridge, yet the men riding behind them continue to hack and slash away at thin air. (02:38:30)

Correction: Not quite a mistake. These men most likely slashed at the air in order to scare the Orcs away or protect themselves from other kinds of danger, like Orc arrows. I saw a few movies where knights slashed their swords at the air in order to scare enemies away.

Corrected entry: At Henneth Annun, Sam suggests to Frodo to use the Ring to escape. Frodo and Sam are sitting in front of three barrels and also in the room are sacks, a crate and candles burning behind them. When Faramir arrives, Frodo and Sam are now sitting on blankets, there are no barrels in sight, the walls are different, there is an extra crate, with food on one and the candles are grouped differently. (01:52:45 - 01:53:45)

Correction: I think this is less an error but more of an intentional passage of time thing. These scenes take place at different times, as the light coming in behind them goes from yellowish-white (daytime) to blue (nighttime). Henneth Annun is an outpost and they could have cleared a room previously used for storage, hence the crates and barrels, to a place to keep prisoners, hence the blankets and lack of barrels.

Corrected entry: In the Oliphaunt scene, when the Oliphaunt starts going mad, you can see one of its feet pass right through a little group of Southrons. (01:44:45)

Correction: After reading this submission I watched this scene carefully a few times. The Mumak treads NEAR the Southrons, but at the range of the shot it is very difficult to tell if the creature steps on them or in front of them.

Corrected entry: Frodo and Sam are captured by Faramir's Rangers. Yet at Osgiliath Frodo draws Sting and threatens Sam with it. Didn't Faramir think to disarm his captives?

Correction: Why would Faramir do so? There is an army of men who stand by his side, and the hobbits are so small that they aren't really a danger. Faramir's choice is not a mistake and surely not a plot hole.

Corrected entry: As the Uruk-hai run along with Merry and Pippin on their backs, Merry pulls the Elven brooch from his cloak with his teeth and throws it to the ground, hoping Aragorn and anyone else tracking them will find it. In every subsequent scene with the Uruk-hai, into Fangorn Forest, and at the Entmoot, Merry still has his Elven brooch fastening his cloak at the throat.

Correction: Pippin is the one who removes his brooch, not Merry.

Corrected entry: In the scene where the Rohirrim have surrounded Aragorn, Legolas and Gimli, Aragorn has a ring on his right hand, but later in the movie when they are just outside Fangorn forest, Aragorn's ring is on his left hand.

Correction: He had time to move the ring to his other hand between those shots. One might ask why but people do move their rings from one hand to the other so it's not really a mistake.

Corrected entry: In Fellowship, we see that the boat carrying Boromir's body and weapons toppled on it's plunge over the falls of Rauros. In Two Towers, when Faramir gazed upon his brother's body, the boat appears to be intact, the sword and shield are still in the same position and Boromir seems more or less peaceful (despite his head facing a different way from the last film).

Correction: Faramir never sees Boromir's boat in real life, only in a dream. His only concrete evidence of his brother's death is the broken Horn of Gondor.

Corrected entry: In the opening scene where Gandalf is falling with the Balrog watch his hair; obviously, when falling at that speed, his hair should be pointing straight up for the whole scene (or behind him depending on his position) but for almost the whole falling scene, his hair is on his shoulders and not moving very much. (00:03:00)

Correction: True, but remember, this is all a dream that frodo has; the laws of physics do not have to apply.

Corrected entry: Gandalf, Aragorn, Legolas and Gimli first approach Edoras, and Gandalf talks about the king's mind being overthrown. It then cuts to inside the Golden Hall, where Eowyn is telling her uncle about his dead son. She is wearing a gray dress, and her hair is pulled back on the sides. Then it cuts back to Gandalf and Co. riding up to the town, then back to Eowyn tending to her dead cousin. This should only be a few minutes later, as the group is still riding up to Edoras, but now Eowyn has on a white dress, and all her hair is down. She then goes outside in her white dress, and sees the group approaching.

Krista

Correction: The scene with Eowyn telling Theoden of Theodred's death is a flashback scene. It does not take place concurrently with Gandalf's telling the Three Riders that Theoden's mind is overthrown. The footage of Eowyn talking to the dazed and muttering King is simply to add emphasis to Gandalf's words.

Phil C.

Corrected entry: When Faramir shows the hobbits and Gollum how they can leave Osgiliath, he says that the sewer "runs right under the river through to the edge of the city". Why would anyone bother to build a sewer under the river? Their job is to discharge waste into the river to be carried away. (01:37:40)

Correction: It makes perfect sense to build sewage tunnels under a river if the aim is to have a sewage system that discharges at a single point. Osgiliath was the capital city of Gondor at one point, it wouldn't look great to visiting dignitaries to have sewage floating about, so arranging a system with a single discharge point downstream of the city would be highly sensible.

Tailkinker

Corrected entry: In the scene which Saruman is giving the speech to the barbarian horde telling them to attack the village, they are in fact a barbarian horde. In the next scene, as they're attacking said village, they've somehow become Uruk-hai.

Correction: The Wild Men were joined by Uruk-Hai in their assaults on the Westfold, but there are plenty of them still present in the attacks. Look more closely.

Phil C.

Corrected entry: When Pippin and Merry are in Fangorn Forest trying to convince the Ent to join the war, their positions in relation to each other change from one camera shot to the next.

Correction: That is because Merry and Pippin are both moving about - you can see Merry pacing back and forth during several shots.

Phil C.

Corrected entry: Just before Legolas, Aragorn and Gimli meet Gandalf in the forest, Aragorn draws his sword and you see the symbol of the white tree on his sleeve. He is supposed to reject the fact that he could become king till the third movie.

Correction: Those are Boromir's bracers (or whatever the term is), which Aragorn took after Boromir's death to honour his fallen comrade. Consciously or unconsciously, he's beginning to accept the role that destiny has laid out for him.

Tailkinker

Corrected entry: In the battle involving the elephant, a man falls off the elephant and lands on the ground next to the hobbits. If you play it in slow motion, you can see the man change spinning directions in the air three times.

Sol Parker

Correction: It's because the man touches the Oliphant during his fall. He changes his direction only once.

Corrected entry: 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.

Correction: 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.

Super Grover

Corrected entry: In the scene when Gollum attacks Frodo and Sam, he jumps up on Sam. Play it in slow motion and you can see Sam's hands disappearing into Gollum several times.

Correction: According to the rules of the site, anything requiring slow-motion is NOT a mistake.

Corrected entry: At Helms Deep, just before the battle, they see the sun rising through the window. But in the next shots - from the outside - the castle is still in the shadow - and the sun only rises when Gandalf appears.

Jacob La Cour

Correction: The sunlight shines through the window of the keep because the sky lightens, not because the sun is shining directly at the castle window. When Gandalf arrives at the top of the hill, we see the keep is in a valley. The sunlight follows his arrival because it rises enough to crest the hilltop the Rohirrim are waiting atop, then gradually shines across the Uruk-Hai army below them.

Corrected entry: Aragorn is floating ashore, having fallen off the cliff during the Warg fight. You can see the hands of the production assistant who has him around the ankles, pushing him to shore. Extended edition DVD, Disc 2. (00:20:20)

Correction: There is no assistant. This is not a mistake.

Corrected entry: After the Entmoot, Pippin convinces Treebeard to take them south toward Isengard. Ents have long legs and can travel at a pace equivalent to a briskly walking human. The Entmoot was also obviously nowhere near Isengard, as some of the Ents would otherwise have blundered on to the destruction beforehand. So we can take it as written that Treebeard carried Merry and Pippin some distance south before finding the scene of destruction. In that time, all the other Ents would have been travelling back toward where they came from - ie, not in the same direction that Treebeard was moving. However, when Treebeard discovers what Saruman has been doing, he sends out the call to all the other Ents - and they immediately walk out of the forest.

Correction: Notice how there are much more Ents in this scene than at the Entmoot. The Entmoot only featured represants of different Ent groups, not each and every Ent. Therefore it's not illogical that several Ents were nearby when Treebeard called for them.

Corrected entry: When Sam pushes Frodo out of the way of the Nazgul in Osgiliath, Sam comes in from the left-hand side of the screen, Frodo's right. But when we see the Hobbits tumbling down the stairs, they are falling to their lefts. Surely they should be falling to the right?

Correction: Right and left change with perspective.

Phixius

The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers mistake picture

Continuity mistake: Merry and Pippin were bound when taken by the Uruk-hai, and the bonds weren't cut until after they managed to escape during the fight. Yet, when the horse almost crashed down on Pippin, he had his arms spread out up near his face, not bound, even though they weren't cut until later. In the next shot, his hands are bound again. (00:31:15)

More mistakes in The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers

Pippin: They think we have the Ring!
Merry: Shhhh! As soon as they find out we don't we're dead!

More quotes from The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers

Trivia: Many of the Wild Men in the film were portrayed by actual groups of bikers, motorcycling around New Zealand at the time. Commentary, extended DVD.

Super Grover

More trivia for The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers

Question: When Pippin and Merry are with the orcs (or uruk-hai or whatever they're called) one of the orcs keeps insisting on eating them. What does he mean when he says, "Do they give good sport?" And then he does this weird thing with his tongue to which Merry looks at him oddly. I don't know what he meant by that. (00:29:45)

Zinka17

Chosen answer: "Do they give good sport" is simply a way of asking whether they're being kept alive to provide later entertainment; could they be used in some sort of organised hunt, could they serve as gladiatorial fodder in an arena fight, that sort of thing. The weird thing with the tongue really just seems to be a sort of odd tic, designed to emphasise his rather disgusting nature.

Tailkinker

More questions & answers from The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers

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