Super Grover

Deliberate mistake: On the Wall of the Hornburg, in the close-up of Aragorn, he dramatically draws his sword with his left gloved hand. In the next close-up of Aragorn, when he yells, "Hold!" he raises his left hand with the ring on his index finger. In editing, they wanted to have the Elves on the left of the screen and Uruk-hai on the right, so they flipped the first shot. (01:02:45)

Super Grover ★

Continuity mistake: After Legolas yells, "A scout!" Aragorn runs back towards the Rohirrim to warn them. In the first shot, he's running down the hill, straight ahead of him, is Theoden on his horse, Éowyn leading two horses on foot and people to her left. In the next shot, Éowyn's two horses are pointed to her right, there aren't any people to her left, and now standing between Theoden and Éowyn is Gimli with Arod. (00:09:15)

Super Grover ★

Continuity mistake: When Legolas places the Evenstar into the palm of Aragorn's hand, the chain is all coiled up. Yet when Aragorn opens up his hand, the Evenstar and the chain are lying in his palm neatly and flat. Some of these shots with Aragorn and Legolas were filmed over two and half years apart. (00:45:40)

Super Grover ★

Trivia: When Legolas is on the Troll, only some shots of the lower part of his body are CG, the rest of him is real. Whereas, when Merry and Pippin are seen on the Troll, they are entirely CG. Commentaries, extended DVD. (00:30:55 - 00:32:30)

Super Grover ★

Trivia: When running away from the Balrog, Boromir is the first to reach the bottomless stairs and Legolas pulls him back to safety. When this piece was shot, there were many retakes, and each time Sean Bean would get pulled back by Orlando Bloom, Bean would land back onto Bloom's soft lap, while Bloom would slam back onto the hard steps with the full weight of the two of them. As a result, Bloom had bruising on his backside and legs, for some time. Bloom joked, "I gave Sean a few beatings for that, I can tell ya." Cast commentary, extended DVD. (00:36:40)

Super Grover ★

Continuity mistake: The hand of Saruman that is painted on the face of Lurtz is shaped differently in some scenes. The handprint changes throughout these shots. (01:08:00 - 01:25:50)

Super Grover ★

Trivia: There were days where Orlando Bloom (Legolas) was unable to wear his blue contact lenses, because they scratched his eyes. For those scenes his eyes were digitally colorized.

Super Grover ★

Trivia: Gimli's prosthetic forehead had become detached by the time they were to shoot him in this scene. The senior prosthetics supervisor got on his stomach behind Gimli and pulled on a rope that was attached to the back of the prosthetic in order to pull the wrinkles out of Gimli's forehead and keep it in place. Art Director Ben Price is the very dead twitchy Uruk-hai that Gimli is sitting on. Commentary, extended DVD. (01:38:50)

Super Grover ★

Continuity mistake: In the opening shot of the stable scene, there is a saddle in the stall next to Brego. A few shots later, you see a man lifting that saddle and start to walk away. There is no saddle in the next few shots. Then the saddle is back again, for Éowyn to pick up. (Extended DVD.) (01:30:35 - 01:31:40)

Super Grover ★

Continuity mistake: Faramir and his men, along with Frodo and Sam, are looking out towards Osgiliath, when someone says, "Osgiliath burns, Mordor has come." Originally, Minas Tirith is seen as well, as it should be, at the base of the mountains behind Osgiliath, which is geographically correct. However, Peter Jackson was forced by studio heads to edit it out of the theatrical version, because it was felt that seeing Minas Tirith then would confuse some viewers, who would think that Minas Tirith was Helm's Deep. In the extended DVD, much to the satisfaction of PJ, Minas Tirith was put back in order to be geographically correct. As heard on Commentary, extended DVD. (01:20:40)

Super Grover ★

Continuity mistake: Near the Black Gate, when two of the men from the marching army are walking towards Frodo and Sam, the decorative scarves at their necks change positions and are hanging differently, than when they turn and walk away from the 'rock'. It is not windblown. (01:05:05)

Super Grover ★

Trivia: Many of the major shots depicted in the movie are duplicates of Alan Lee's illustrations, in the LotR books, that had been published years before. In many shots, the actors were positioned in the same poses, as the drawings in the books. One example is, when Frodo pulls Gollum's head back and holds Sting up to his throat. (00:10:40)

Super Grover ★

Continuity mistake: Legolas throws down the rope to Aragorn to help he and Gimli escape. Aragorn then grabs the rope with his left hand and holds onto Gimli and his sword with his right hand, plus Gimli's head is lower than Aragorn's. Legolas starts to hoist them up and in the next shot, Aragorn is holding onto the rope with his right hand and Gimli and the sword with his left. In the next shot of them, it's vice versa again. As they're reaching the top, Gimli's head is higher than Aragorn's. Nothing to do with spinning around - just look at the hands. (01:18:00)

Super Grover ★

Continuity mistake: When Sam (in voice over) says, "But in the end, it's only a passing thing..." we see Gandalf's hair down and messy, during the battle. Just as Éomer is riding past Gandalf and the others, shouting, "Stay out of the forest!" notice Gandalf's hair in the side shot, it is neat, and pulled back. In the next close-up of Gandalf, looking at the Uruk-hai running into the forest, his hair is down again. (01:38:00)

Super Grover ★

Continuity mistake: When Faramir and his Lieutenant are looking at the map, just after it's been unfolded, the Lieutenant puts his right hand out and points on the map with his right hand. In the following close-up, his left hand is doing the pointing on the map. All the close-up shots of the map were added later during pickups, to show more clearly where various characters are. (00:27:55)

Super Grover ★

Continuity mistake: At the beginning of the scene, Sam is cooking the rabbits. Behind Gollum, Frodo's coat and pack lay on the left side of the overturned stone carving. In the following close-up, when Frodo goes over to his pack to take out plates and spoons, his coat is now on the right of the overturned carving. In the next wide shot, it's on the left again. (01:41:50)

Super Grover ★

Trivia: Parts of the Rivendell scenes were shot as pickups, after filming was done. Sam in those shots is a much thinner hobbit, because after the final wrap, Sean Astin lost the weight he had gained to play Samwise Gamgee. (01:28:45)

Super Grover ★

Revealing mistake: In the two scenes, when Frodo and Sam are both up on the rocks and later, down below, hiding out of view, the Black Gate is in front of them. Earlier, is the view inside the gate. The two Trolls are pulling and pushing the wood 'pulley', to open the gate, while walking on the tall ramp that curves around. When the gate is open, that ramp should be in full view, from the angle that Frodo and Sam are positioned, but it is not. (01:03:55 - 01:05:55)

Super Grover ★

Other mistake: Just as Gandalf and the Rohirrim are riding into the Uruk-hai and they clash, go slowly, frame by frame. Legolas will be on the right of the screen. Keep going frame by frame. You'll soon see a few pretty clear frames of Arwen with her sword, on her white horse. She's sitting to the right of Legolas. Her long hair is pulled back into a braid. She's wearing pink sleeves. She's the only one on the screen with that color, so you can't miss it (slow motion can be helpful but is unnecessary). The official reason for editing out Arwen (given on the DVD extras) was that during filming Peter Jackson intentionally leaked an image of Arwen at Helm's Deep online to gauge fan reactions, then backpedalled over her presence after overwhelmingly negative fan reactions. (01:30:40)

Super Grover ★

Continuity mistake: When Legolas and another Elf are dragging Gimli back to the Keep, in the front view the Elf's quiver is empty. Yet in the next shot from behind, the Elf has many arrows in the quiver on his back. The arrows would be seen from the front, because they are way above his shoulder in the back shot. (01:13:40)

Super Grover ★