The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King

Corrected entry: At the harbour Pippin shouldn't be wearing a leaf pin, as he dropped his to help Aragon and the others to track him and Merry.

Correction: In The Two Towers, Aragorn found and picked up Pippin's brooch, then he says, "Not idly do the leaves of Lórien fall." So Aragorn returned Pippin's Lórien brooch when finally reunited.

Super Grover

Correction: The elves could have given him a replacement to honor his role in the Fellowship. Frodo's departure is several years after the One Ring is destroyed, so there is plenty of time for Pippin to have received a replacement.

Phaneron

Corrected entry: Pippin finds the Palantir buried in the water. But how did he end up there? The globe never leaves the tower and is out of reach of the ents.

Tuch75

Correction: The Palantir rolls out of Saruman's robes as he is killed and rolls off the tower and into the water in front of the group. This scene may be have been cut from the theatrical version.

lionhead

Corrected entry: During the movie, Pippin is wearing his Elven cloak with the brooch. This doesn't make any sense, because in The Two Towers, he left his brooch as a clue for Aragorn when Pippin and Merry had been taken captive by the Uruks.

Correction: In The Two Towers Aragorn finds Pippin's Elvin brooch, just as the Hobbit intended. At the start of Return of the King Aragorn sees Pippin and Merry again at Isengard and gives Pip back his brooch.

Super Grover

Corrected entry: After Frodo is paralyzed by the spider and taken captive, his captors take some of his personal effects - clothing, chain mail, and, of course, THE RING. Whoever took that ring should have been compelled to put it on (at which point Sauron would have seen it and sent his minions to recover it), and would not have just left it lying around somewhere for Sam to find later.

Correction: The orcs never took the ring. Sam did, as we discover later.

Chimera

Corrected entry: In the extended version, when Pippin is searching for Merry after the battle of the Pelennor fields, he finds Merry's elven cloak. However, Merry is wearing the cloak when Pippin finds him.

Correction: Merry wears a long grey Rohan garment under his chest armor, but this is not his distinctive Elvin cloak. When Pippin asks, "Are you going to leave me?" it is very clear that Merry is not wearing the Elvin cloak, then in the last shot Pippin lays the cloak on Merry.

Super Grover

Corrected entry: When Sam is fighting Shelob, at the start of the fight Sam appears to be using his own sword. Later in the fight, when Sam's sword is grabbed by the mouth of Shelob, when the sword comes back out it appears as if he is using Frodo's Sting sword. (02:20:00)

Correction: Sam is using Sting through the entire battle with Shelob. He is holding Sting from the very beginning, and his own sword remains in its scabbard the whole time.

Aerinah

Corrected entry: In the scene of Sam and Frodo on the slopes of Mount Doom, the entire scene has been flipped. Peter Jackson wanted the Hobbits to travel from left to right across the screen for all three movies, so the editors had to flip this scene to achieve that. This is also why any cuts/dirt smudges on their faces seem to change sides. Only when Frodo and Sam return to the Shire and go to the Grey Havens, do we see them traveling right to left.

Correction: This is incorrect. While in Emyn Muil Sam and Frodo travel from the right to the left, when they are encased in fog.

Corrected entry: When Theoden forbids Merry to go to war with the Rohirrim, Merry is with his white pony. In the wider shot of Merry watching Theoden ride off, his pony suddenly disappears. (01:50:10)

Correction: When Theoden rides away from Merry, in the next shot as Merry turns to look at Theoden, note that the pony is several feet behind the Hobbit, as it turns away to its right. It then cuts to a shot of Theoden, Eomer and others riding off. It isn't until the third shot that we see Merry standing towards the right of the screen without the pony. There is enough time between the first and third shots for the pony to simply walk away from the commotion of all the riders.

Super Grover

Corrected entry: In the finale battle at the Black Gates, the good army is in a tight group surrounded by 10,000 orcs. If just 1/3 of those orcs had bows (which we never see in the final battle), and they volleyed into the group, 3000 men would have died right there (if not everyone, including Aragorn, Gandalf, the hobbits, etc). In all three films, the evil side has some sort of bowmen, but for some magical reason the army protecting the great eye and the orcs' leader, seems to have conveniently forgotten their bows. (Regardless of anyone's feelings, its a logical winning move for the orc, one that someone (PJ) left out, and no trees in Mordor to make bows is not a correction.)

Correction: Sauron is arrogant. He assumes there is no need for bows. He takes pleasure in causing suffering and so do the orcs. The orcs would have preferred to kill the intruders in combat rather than at range, Sauron would rather watch them be killed by ravaging orcs instead of an arrow, and "10,000" orcs should be more than enough to easily kill each and every one of these intruders. And, indeed, they would have been if the Ring had not been destroyed in time.

Phixius

Corrected entry: Along with Titanic, this is the only movie to gross $1 billion worldwide and, according to Guinness World Records 2005 edition, it took nine weeks to achieve this as opposed to Titanic's 11 weeks. Therefore, it's the fastest to gross $1 billion ever.

Sam Johnson

Correction: Since Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest now reached $1 billion worldwide at a faster time, this is no longer valid.

Corrected entry: Sean Bean's contract was for all three films. That is why we see flashbacks of Boromir in this movie (Pippin remembering Boromir's death in Denethor's hall) and 'The Two Towers' (Boromir restraining Frodo at the Bridge of Khazad-Dum). In the Extended Editions, new footage of Boromir is seen in both films (Denethor hallucinating a vision of Boromir in this film and Boromir commanding his troops at Osgiliath in 'The Two Towers').

Blibbetyblip

Correction: The scenes had nothing to do with Sean Bean's contract. An actor's contract specifies that he will be paid for the work he does, not that the footage will be used in the final film. An example is Christopher Lee, whose contract was for all three films, but who was cut out of the third film entirely.

Corrected entry: When Eowyn faces the Nazgul in combat, he once swings his morning-star horizontally. In the instant where the scene is shown from behind the Witch King, Eowyn dodges the weapon's had by leaning backwards; but then, as the same scene is shown from behind Eowyn, she suddenly ducks low to avoid it.

Correction: I just watched this several times, and what she does is take a tiny step backwards and then ducks straight down, in both shots.

Twotall

Corrected entry: As Pippin is searching for Merry on the field of Pellenor, he spots something, looking down within a few feet of him. The scene cuts to a longer shot, and Pippen must run fifteen or twenty feet to get to Merry.

scwilliam

Correction: He does not look directly down on the ground. He seems to be looking in the right direction/height to me.

Corrected entry: The captain of Sauron's army, the deformed orc Gothmog, bears more than a passing similarity to the aliens in Peter Jackson's earlier film "Bad Taste" (1987).

Correction: This is not correct, nose, ears, basic jaw and cheek structure are all different.

Corrected entry: In the scene where the army is lining up in front of the Black Gate in preparation for the final battle, Aragorn, Legolas and Gimli are seen riding on Arod and Brego. This is very convenient considering these horses fled in terror from their masters at the Door of the Dead.

Correction: Arod and Brego fled back to the Rohirrim encampment, then were taken to Minas Tirith - on a long high-speed journey, a number of spare horses would have been taken along to act as replacements in the highly likely situation that some horses could become injured en route. Once the siege was lifted and the Mordor army defeated, they were reunited with their normal riders.

Tailkinker

Corrected entry: Before the charge of the Rohirrim, we see that Merry and Eowyn are near the middle of the group, but when we see Merry during the charge look behind him. There are about five horsemen but behind them there are just empty fields.

Correction: During a charge people might be moving sideways if there's an opening for them to advance. They won't stay in perfect formation.

Corrected entry: One look at the palantír is enough to make Pippin irresistibly drawn to it. When he steals it from Gandalf Merry takes quite a good look at it to and even looks into it while Pippin does. Merry should have been drawn to it just the same as Pippin, it's not something they could control.

Correction: Actually, it is something that can be controlled - it's down to strength of will and personality. Pippin is younger and less experienced than Merry, plus, as Merry comments on at least one occasion, his curiosity is near legendary. All of which combines to make him considerably more susceptible to the palantír than Merry is.

Tailkinker

Corrected entry: The parting of Merry and Pippin takes place within two or three days after the Isengard battle. In the aftermath of Isengard they find one barrel each filled with pipeweed, yet when Merry says goodbye to Pippin all that is left is a small pouch. There is no way they could have smoked all that pipe weed in just a few days; it was month's worth.

Correction: Pipe weed from the Shire was lauded to be the best, and most coveted, so quite realistically Merry and Pip shared their good fortune with Gandalf (even Saruman confirms Gandalf's desire in FOTR), Gimli, Aragorn and the rest. Aside from that, those two Halflings could indeed have smoked non-stop after having gone without for a long time; Hobbits are known for their predilection for the pipe weed.

Super Grover

Corrected entry: At the very end, Aragorn is crowned king while still in Minas Tirith. He goes on to tell the people that 'we will re-build our land.' But why would he have to stay in Minas Tirith if he is actually heir to be king in Gondor? There would be no immediate need for him to do so.

Correction: Minas Tirith had become the capial city of Gondor when Osgiliath failed in the Third Age. Minas Tirith was the site of Aragorn Elessar's throne. He need not have left but he did travel throughout the ancient kingdoms.

scwilliam

Corrected entry: When the title shows, we see a shot moving to a flooded Isengard. If you look closely, you can see Merry and Pippin sitting on the wall; Pippin on the left and Merry on the right. But when in the close-up of the two of them, Merry is now on the left and Pippin is on the right. (00:10:00)

Correction: The sequence is not in real time. They had enough time to switch places with each other.

The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King mistake picture

Continuity mistake: Legolas sends an arrow directly to Grima atop Orthanc, and as Grima starts to fall back the arrow is quite visibly well below the coat's fur. However, when Grima actually hits the ground, the arrow is now higher up, protruding from the fur. (Extended Edition.) (00:16:35)

Super Grover

More mistakes in The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King

[After Legolas single-handedly takes out an Oliphant and its drivers.]
Gimli: That still only counts as one.

More quotes from The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King

Trivia: At the end of the film, young Elanor Gamgee is played by none other than Sean Astin's own daughter in a cameo. Not only that, but Frodo Gamgee (the baby) is played by Maisie McLeod-Riera, the daughter of Sarah McLeod, who plays Sam's wife, Rosie.

More trivia for The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King

Question: Where were the other Wizards during the fight for Middle-Earth?

Answer: There are only five wizards. Saruman and Gandalf are heavily involved, as we see. Radagast, while not mentioned in the film, has a particular affinity with the birds and animals - it is he who sends the Eagles to the last battle, and to rescue Gandalf from Isengard. The final two, Alatar and Pallando, known as the Blue Wizards, went into the far eastern regions of Middle-Earth and never returned. Tolkien felt that they would ultimately have fallen from grace, much as Saruman did.

Tailkinker

More questions & answers from The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King

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