Corrected entry: 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.
Corrected entry: 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. (02:15:07)
Corrected entry: 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.
Correction: 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.
Corrected entry: When Frodo, Sam and Gollum reach the black gate of Mordor, there is an army of men marching towards the gate. According to most film books they are Easterlings, who are marching from the east to Mordor to help Sauron. However, if you check a map of Middle-Earth you will that they are marching from the west, not the east.
Correction: There's only one entry to go to Mordor: the Black Gate where we see the army of men going through. Even if they come from the east , they have to pass round the Ash Mountains.
Corrected entry: 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.
Correction: 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.
Corrected entry: When Gimli is talking to Eowyn about dwarf women, and his horse throws him, the axe in his hand goes flying. In the wide shot, the axe is shown going a fair distance from the horse, about 4 or 5 metres. In the shot of Gimli on the ground, the axe lands right next to him, only about 1 metre from where it flew out of his hand.
Correction: It has been shown numerous times before that Gimli carries multiple axes, strapped to his back and sides. The axe from his hand does fly off to the side; the axe that "lands right next to him" could easily be one of the other axes, dislodged during his fall.
Corrected entry: Just prior to the attack scene from the Orc riders you can see Aragon's horse changes from brown to white, then back to brown again.
Correction: There is one shot of Aragorn about to ride off where the main part of the horse you can see is the side of the saddle, and it's reflecting light and looks white, but the horse is definitely brown (you can see a bit of it at the edges of the shot).
Corrected entry: 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.
Correction: 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.
Corrected entry: Gandalf is walking out from Fangorn Forest with Legolas, Aragorn, and Gimli, and he stops to call Shadowfax. The shot where you can see his feet shows that he is wearing trainers/sneakers.
Correction: Gandalf the White wears white boots to match his new white robes. Understandably these look similar to sneakers, but aren't.
Corrected entry: 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.
Correction: Why would a canteen have an electric cord on it? It's the plug for the canteen and the string connecting them.
Corrected entry: When Gandalf first confronts Theoden, he throws his cloak off his shoulders and it can be seen falling to his feet, it then shows another full shot and the cloak is nowhere to be seen.
Correction: It's very brief, but you can see the cloak ? just after Gandalf says 'breathe the free air again' the camera moves up, and at the end of this overhead shot the cloak can be glimpsed, lying at the foot of the stairs up to the throne just where Gandalf dropped it.
Corrected entry: When Elrond is telling Arwen to not stay with Aragorn, they have a vision of Aragorn lying dead with his hands grasping his sword, but in one scrolling shot his hand clearly re-grips his sword.
Correction: Aragorn is not re-gripping his sword, nor is he moving his fingers. Arwen's hand is resting on top of Aragorn's, and it is her hand that moves, not his.
Corrected entry: After Merry and Pippin escape from the Uruk-Hai, Merry has a deep cut over his right eye. Very often the cut changes. It starts out over his right eye all bloody, then it changes to his left eye and it is still bloody. Then it goes back to his right eye but is clean, then it disappears entirely and comes back later to over his right eye and not bloody.
Correction: The cut is bloody at first because it is fresh. After Merry has had time to clean the blood away, the cut is less noticeable, but it never "disappears entirely". It *is* hidden from view or partially obscured by Merry's hair, hanging in his face, in a couple of scenes, but if you look closely the cut is still evident.
Corrected entry: 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.
Corrected entry: When Faramir is talking to his generals regarding battle plans he is informed that a very large army has emptied out of Orthanc. Later in the movie Aragorn arrives at Helm's Deep and tells Theoden the same. How can a small army near Mordor find out about the Orcish army before the Rohirrim, who are next door to Orthanc?
Correction: SPOILER: You have to remember that Denethor, Steward of Gondor, has his own personal Palantir at his service and likely was watching Isengard even before the troops spilled forth. Indeed, since Sauron was 'guiding' his searches, he probably would have drawn Denethor to the spot in order to deflate his morale.
Corrected entry: 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.
Correction: Both shoulders have wounds.
Corrected entry: When Treebeard, Merry and Pippin exit Fangorn Forest and they see Isengard, you see a shot of Isengard taken from where they are standing. But on Faramir's map you can see that Isengard is to the west of the Misty Mountains, not to the east as it was when Treebeard looked upon it. This brings up the idea that Treebeard was going north, and not south.
Correction: Actually, if you look at official maps of Middle Earth you'll find that Isengard lies in a valley at the south end of the Misty Mountains. In this valley it has mountains to the East and West.
Corrected entry: During one of the first movie shots of the outer wall of Helm's Deep, a voiceover of Grima Wormtongue (who is now back at Orthanc with Saruman) discusses that the barricade's one outside weakness is a 'drainpipe' that leads from inside the fortress to a nearby river. In this shot, the drainpipe cannot be more than a couple of feet high, as seen in comparison by the many rats running about inside of it. During the battle of Helm's Deep, however, when the Uruk-Hai are placing Saruman's explosives inside the pipe, and later when the Berserker Uruk is running in to light them, the pipe towers over the heads of all the enemy-much larger than the 'few feet' clearance seen earlier in the film.
Correction: In the first shot, the drainpipe is shown from inside the barricade, where the ground is higher than on the outside. During the "bomb" scene, the drainpipe is shown from the outside of the barricade, where the ground is "deeper" than inside, so the mouth of the pipe, which travels horizontally, is higher.
Corrected entry: Throughout the movie Gimli's axe keeps changing. It changes between a one-sided and double axe on several occasions.
Correction: He has two - there's at least one time when he's using his single-headed axe for something, and you see the double-headed one on his back.
Corrected entry: 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.
Correction: 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.
Correction: 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.
STP ★