Corrected entry: At the end of the film, after the battle of Helm's Deep, Gandalf, Aragorn, Legolas, Gimli and the king ride their horses to the top of the hill to look at the lightning over Mordor. However, earlier in the film when they had been on the hill there was no sign of Mordor in the distance.
Corrected entry: 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?
Correction: 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.
Corrected entry: In any shots of Fangorn Forest from a distance it is an evergreen forest. However, when it is seen from close up or inside it is a deciduous forest.
Correction: The native beech forest of New Zealand where these scenes were filmed ARE evergreen and will look that way from distance. However they aren't coniferous forests (ie pines, firs etc) and the beech trees have actual leaves rather than needles, so I guess if you didn't know them you could mistake them for deciduous in a close-up shot. Just to avoid any confusion these trees aren't any relation to northern hemisphere beeches, they only grow in NZ.
Corrected entry: 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.
Correction: 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.
Corrected entry: After Sam slides down the hill in front of the gate to Mordor, he ends up half-buried. Frodo goes and pulls him almost all the way out, but in the next shot, Sam is still buried.
Corrected entry: In the scene when Frodo and Sam hide from a Mordor soldier by making the cape look like a rock, the surroundings change after the soldier is gone. When they take the cape off there is a large rock nearby that was not there. When the soldier was looking at them, the only large rock visible was the cape itself.
Correction: Yes, because when the soldier was looking at them it was a closeup shot that showed the cape taking up almost the entire width of the screen. The large rock is not visible at this time because it is off the screen to the right.
Corrected entry: 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?
Correction: 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.
Corrected entry: 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.
Correction: No, actually, they're not. You can see faint tear tracks and the slight reddening that the tears left behind.
Corrected entry: 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. (01:44:10)
Correction: 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.
Corrected entry: Whilst Aragorn, Gimli and Legolas are on the trail of Merry and Pippin at the beginning of the film there is a panning shot beside a mountain, when they are seen running. If you watch Orlando Bloom he slips on a rock and skids slightly before recovering his balance and running on. Surely Legolas, a member of the most graceful creatures on Middle-Earth, would be able to run over some rocks without slipping?
Correction: As Gimli says, the three companions had been traveling for THREE DAYS without food, or rest, or sign of their quarry. Even an Elf's stamina would be tested by something like that, and although Elves are indeed graceful, they are not utterly infallible. A small slip is not outside the realm of possibility.
Corrected entry: 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.
Correction: 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.
Corrected entry: When Aragorn, Legolas and Gimli are chasing the Uruk-hai just before the Rohan riders appear, they run between two rocky outcrops over a ridge. Aragorn signals to hide, and almost at once the riders appear. Strangely Aragorn can hear Uruk-hai on foot 1 day's march away, but not a group of riders 30 seconds ride away. Legolas, famous for his eyesight, obviously forgot to have a look over the ridge where he might have spotted the riders.
Correction: In order to hear the Uruk-hai, Aragorn had to lie down in perfect stillness and put his ear to rocky ground, which transmits sound much better. Remarks that he couldn't hear "a group of riders 30 seconds away" are ridiculous, as he DOES obviously react to the Riders' approach. As for Legolas not looking over the ridge, the Rohirrim came upon the three companions from *behind* them. The terrain in Rohan is so varied and the Rohirrim travel so swiftly that they could have easily appeared from out of virtually nowhere and caught the Companions by surprise.
Corrected entry: When one of the Uruk-hai captured hobbits drops his leaf brooch it gets stepped on and we can see it in a clear patch of mud. Later when Aragorn picks it up it's resting on fresh grass.
Correction: Aragorn had previously said that the Uruk-hai were a day's march ahead of them. Any mud would have been dried up in the bright sunlight that was shining overhead. This is also assuming that the brooch hadn't been kicked or stepped on or moved *again*; it's easily possible that one or more of the other dozens of Uruk-hai in the column kicked it or shuffled it out of the mud to a more grassy place.
Corrected entry: 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.
Correction: 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.
Corrected entry: When Aragorn, Legolas and Gimli meet Eomer and the Riders of Rohan, Eomer says that they burnt all the bodies of the Orc company. He points towards where they Orcs are piled and from a distance there is a shot of smoke rising from a fire. There is no forest nearby. When the travellers reach the pile of dead Orcs they are only yards from the eaves Fangorn Forest, which is vast and would surely have been visible even from a distance.
Correction: The pile of corpses is actually far to the left of where the smoke is "appearing" over the obscuring hill -- the wind is blowing the smoke way off to one side. The next scene where Aragorn and company come upon the corpses bears this out, as the smoke isn't rising straight up in that scene either. Thus, when Eomer gestures towards the smoke, Fangorn is not visible because it's off the screen to the left.
Corrected entry: During the castle siege, the orcs place a few containers of explosive in the sewer outlet. As the carriers leave the tunnel, you can see multiple orcs in the immediate area with torches that would be able to ignite it right away with nearly no chance of being stopped rather than an orc running in like an Olympic torch carrier, drawing extra attention which catches Aragon's attention to try bringing him down. It of course is much more visually entertaining this way, but made no practical sense when there were already torch bearers right there.
Correction: Thermite cannot be ignited with a simple match or lighter. Something that burns much hotter, such as magnesium, is required in order to start thermite burning. In a similar manner, these bombs were very likely made with a material that couldn't be ignited with a mere torch in order to avoid an accidental premature detonation. This torchbearer therefore likely had the one and only torch which was burning whatever was necessary to light the bombs up.
Corrected entry: After the battle at Helms Deep some of the main characters, including Gandalf, Aragorn, Legolas and Gimli, ride a short distance away from Helms Deep, looking directly away from the city and out towards Mordor. That is impossible, because Helms Deep faces North, which is the way they are facing, and Mordor is to the East. Even if the group did look to the East it would be highly unlikely that they would see Mordor even then, as it is too far away.
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: When Pippin and Merry are on the backs of the Uruks, Pippin takes off his brooch with his teeth, leaving his cloak untied. In subsequent shots, however, the robe is tied; this is impossible, as his arms were tied around the front of the Uruk, while his cloak was on the back of the Uruk.
Correction: The brooch is purely decorative - the cloak was always fastened by the strings.
Corrected entry: When Saruman is speaking to the "tens of thousands" of Orcs from atop the tower, watch the shots closely that were taken from behind Saruman. If you watch his head and the side of his face, you can see his head moving like he's talking, but all you hear at that point is Orcs yelling, obviously alluding to the fact that he was saying a line when that shot was filmed, but it was edited out.
Correction: People's voices get drowned by a yelling crowd all the time, both in real life and in movies. Just because he is a main character in a movie, it does not mean everything he says will be heard.
Correction: It is not the same hill and they are not looking in the same direction. Mordor would only be visible when seen from a particular viewpoint, which the earlier shots did not use.