Corrected entry: When Frodo and Sam are in the cave on Mt.Doom, after Gollum bites the ring off of Frodo's finger he takes the ring off the finger and the finger falls to the ground. In the next shot, however, when Gollum holds the ring up and the camera angle is straight above him, looking down, the finger is has mysteriously disappeared.
Corrected entry: When Faramir and his soldiers are riding to Minas Tirith, the Nazgul attack and dozens of riders are killed. Yet in the wideshots showing Gandalf's approach and the soldiers' advance, no bodies are left behind, they simply disappear.
Correction: If you look to the bottom left of the screen you can see that there are dead horses and men lying there.
Corrected entry: In the scene where Gollum has just blamed Sam for eating all the lembas and Frodo is convincing Sam to go back home, tear tracks are visible on Sam's face before he actually starts crying. The tracks are obvious, since his face is thoroughly dirty by this point and the tears have cleaned parts of his cheeks.
Correction: Actually, Sam's been leaking tears for some time before he breaks down.
Corrected entry: When Frodo has his arms around Sam when they are on the rock in the middle of the lava, his "missing" finger is tucked completely under his hand on Sam's shoulder. Usually there is a stub visible, about to the first knuckle, but in this shot, it is completely gone, down to the hand. There is also considerably less blood.
Corrected entry: One of the men riding with Faramir back to Osgiliath is the same man that we see a couple of close-ups of at the black gate near the end. Faramir was the only man to survive after riding back from Osgiliath.
Correction: It's hard to tell whether it's the exact same man or not. It could be his brother, we don't know.
Corrected entry: In the scene where the Rohirrim ride into the Pelennor Fields, there is a closeup shot of Eomer riding a horse with a spear in his left hand. It appears that Eomer is reaching offscreen for his spear.
Correction: Éomer does not reach off screen, he holds his own spear the entire time. He tosses it in the air while riding and turns his hand to grasp the spear differently.
Corrected entry: When Sam leaves Frodo to the orcs, he is still up to his neck in the web. Yet later Sam tells Frodo he has the ring and all. How could he get it off of Frodo without ripping the web?
Corrected entry: In the scene where Gandalf and Pippin are standing at a balcony in Minas Tirith before the battle, the actor playing Pippin is standing on his knees besides Gandalf to make proportions seem right. This makes it look like Pippin have extremely short legs.
Correction: This shot was most likely done as forced perspective, with two dimensioned split-sets lining up to look like one. Pippin looks completely to scale in that shot.
Corrected entry: In one scene in Rivendell, Liv Tyler is seen wearing a blue velvet dress. It then changes to red when she's reading the book. When she drops the book it falls onto the hem of a blue dress.
Correction: This segment isn't shot in realtime. She's wearing the blue dress (called the Requiem Dress) earlier, yes, but then she switches to the Blood Red Dress, which has a black skirt and might be mistaken for a dark, navy blue at first. But it's definitely the same dress.
Corrected entry: After the Rohirrim crush through the orcs and the huge elephants come from the direction of Osgiliath, there is a river going straight through the city and they come from the far South anyway, so why are they marching on Minas Tirith from the East? There is no way they came over the river, and I doubt they can fly.
Correction: There's no route from the far south to Minas Tirith that doesn't cross the river at some point, so there has to be some way for the Mumakil to cross - most likely they were simply taken upstream until the river was shallow enough, then they waded across, before being brought to join the attack force moving against Minas Tirith.
Corrected entry: In the scene where the beacons are being lit to call the Rohirrim to the aid of Gondor, no smoke is visible from the massive piles of burning wood.
Correction: Only wet wood will make much smoke. Wood that has been lying high and dry and protected for a long time will not.
Corrected entry: When Frodo is being held prisoner in the tower, Sam comes to rescue him & uses Sting to kill the orc that was there with Frodo. Sam stabs the orc with the sword & draws it back out, but no orc blood is ever seen on Sting. Often other scenes with orcs being stabbed show orc blood on the blades.
Correction: Except that Sting is an ancient blade of Gondolin, forged long ago in the First Age, and has been shown to have magical properties. As a matter of fact, there have never been any shots of Sting with blood on its blade, in ANY of the films. This is merely carrying on the tradition.
Corrected entry: When the Nazgul swoop in to attack the diversionary force at the Black Gate, several eagles intercept them and begin battling them in the air. When Frodo puts on the ring and Sauron becomes aware of him, the Nazgul ride their beasts directly towards Mount Doom. It's easy for them to do this, since there are suddenly no eagles anywhere to be seen. They didn't fly away and weren't killed by the Nazgul, since three of them assist in the rescue of Frodo and Sam following Mount Doom's eruption. So what happened to them?
Correction: The eagles don't follow the Nazgul into Mordor - they stay behind to help defend the Gondor and Rohan forces against the ground forces assaulting them. As such, the Nazgul are able to head for Mount Doom unopposed.
Corrected entry: When Aragorn, Legolas and Gimli are going to the Paths of the Dead, a wide shot reveals that the paths leading to it are too well trodden for a place that everyone avoids.
Correction: People did go there, only no one ever returned.
Corrected entry: You can see a severely wounded King Theoden lying partially under his horse on the Pelennor Fields after being attacked by the Witch King. The length of his legs are out of proportion, since you can see his waist above the horse's back, and a large part of his lower leg underneath the horse's belly.
Correction: Actually you can only see his feet and a bit of the lower leg, and the width of the horse's stomach was not that large, so it is most likely in proportion.
Corrected entry: Sam is shown as being as tall as Rosie. In Fellowship of the Ring Sam is a head shorter than her, which is especially obvious in the shot where Sam and Rosie are dancing.
Correction: This is an illusion. Sarah McLeod has played Rosie in all shots when she and Sam are seen together, and Sean Astin has always played Sam in the shots where he is with Rosie. Neither actor nor actress has changed their height that drastically, so any "obvious" differences in height are only illusory.
Corrected entry: After Merry stabs the Witch king, he falls backwards holding his arm. Though when Pippin finds him after the battle, Merry is lying next to an oliphaunt with an orc on top of him. How did Merry end up with an orc on top of him?
Corrected entry: When Frodo goes invisible in Mount Doom and is fighting with Gollum, why are footprints even made? His feet are not wet and the ground is hard rock - this is simply a cinematic effect to show where he is; there is no justification for the footprints other than this.
Corrected entry: When Frodo is stung by Shelob and wrapped up, Sam appears a good 20 feet away, ALREADY carrying Sting and the Phial of Galadriel. He couldn't have collected these items from Frodo's body. In the book, Frodo and Sam enter the cave together, and Frodo gives these items to Sam, but that wasn't possible here.
Corrected entry: Merry and Pippin drink Ent draughts in TTT and grow taller. At the end of ROTK when all the hobbits are standing together (Aragorn's crowning in Minas Tirith) Merry and Pippin are no taller than they were to start with (compare with the group shot at the Council of Elrond in FOTR as one example). Yes, Merry does say "everything's back to normal", but that's because they've had equal amounts of the draught so he's back to being the tallest. The book states the effect is the draught is permanent, and the film doesn't suggest otherwise.
Correction: I think they are, and are intended to be, taller than before, but not noticeably. The book implies they became considerably taller, but the movie specifically indicates only two inches. In the last scene, when Frodo is saying his final farewells, he is slightly shorter than either Merry or Pippin.
Correction: Gollum tosses the finger. It's most likely incinerated by that moment.