Lord os the rings fun facts

Fun Facts

The Long Expected Party, Fangorn Forest, and the Paths of the Dead were all shot in studios indoors.

Millions of silk leaves were imported from China for the trilogy.

Lord of the Rings was known to be hot property in Hollywood for decades. Many different producers and directors asked Saul Zaentz about the possibility of making films based off the books. One of those requests came from a young Mark Ordesky. (Like all the rest before Peter, he was turned down.)

The majority of LOTR's soundtrack was mixed at Abbey Road Studios.

After 18 months of hard work, Peter had four weeks to save LOTR. Almost every studio refused to even hear a proposal during that time.

George Lucas has cited LOTR as a major influence for Star Wars.

Shooting for LOTR took place at over 100 locations and on more than 350 sets all in New Zealand.

Edoras was completely built and required no matte paintings or miniatures. "Consider the facts," says Richard Taylor. "I'm working with a director who wants to be able to film a full 360 degrees from the highest point and, somehow, I've got to locate three acres of tents, two acres of trucks, and stabling for 200 horses without their getting into any shots!" Dan Hennah came up with the solution: he created a large rock with a hidden corridor inside.

Galadriel's Glade, Elrond's Chamber at Rivendell, and the interior of Orthanc were all filmed in the same place (Studio A). Minas Tirith and Helm's Deep were built at the same location.

The design team had their worst problems envisioning how Elves should look, redesigning them hundreds of times. The hobbits, by contrast, were the easiest to design.

100,000,000 people world-wide have read the books

The face of the fell beast was based on that of a salmon.

The dress and props for Legolas are Celtic and whimsical. Gimli's are Teutonic and Norse inspired, with sharp edges and more of an architectural feel. This shows the cultural division between elves and dwarves.

John (Gimli) is actually the tallest of the Fellowship actors. He also voices the tallest character in the movie, Treebeard.

Weta's John Harding was going to play Radagast the Brown in the background of a scene, but those plans were scrapped. Years later, the costume was pulled out of storage and John was photographed as the wizard for a trading card

Ian McKellen's first day of shooting on the trilogy was Gandalf's first scene, arriving in Hobbiton. His second day of shooting was Gandalf's final scene of the film, at the Grey Havens. "I scarcely knew Frodo from Merry," Ian says, "and adopted the safest course of expressing very little as I said goodbye to them."

Sean Astin gained 30 pounds for his role as Samwise.

In the scene where the Hobbits finally return to Hobbiton, Elijah Wood had a hard time controlling his pony, Sean Astin was allergic to the ponies, and Dominic Monaghan was in a bad mood because of technical aspects revolving around the scene. Billy Boyd, meanwhile, was "in stitches".

Frodo's mithril shirt proved to be more than just a prop. When the Witch King (played by Ben Price at the time) was filmed stabbing Elijah Wood at Weathertop, Elijah wore the chain mail shirt under his costume for protection.

The actors who played the Riders of Rohan may surprise you. "Ideally, we wanted guys who were six feet tall with long hair and long beards to ride the horses," says Steve Old, head the Horse Department. "On New Zealand's South Island, though, it's mostly females who ride horses. In the end, we probably had five guys and the remaining 250 or so riders were women dressed as men! And the average age of the women was about 50." The women also played the Ringwraith riders.

Over 6 million feet of film shot during production.

In a 1999 interview that touched on Gollum, Peter Jackson said, "Throw out any thoughts or concerns you have about CG creatures you've seen. This is gonna be different. Gollum's going to be cool!"

Andy's first scene was confronting the Hobbits at Mount Doom.

Liv Tyler's father (rock legend Steven Tyler of Aerosmith) fell asleep when he saw FOTR.

The One Ring was made by Jens Hansen, a renowned jewellery designer. (Actually many "one" rings were made.) Sadly, Hansen passed away prior to the start of principal photography. Elijah was given the main Ring at the end of the shoot.

The "short" versions of the films have a total running time of 9 hours and 17 minutes.

When the mountains of Mordor are shown early in the movie, you can see Osgiliath just beside them.

The infamous car scene was digitally taken out of the DVD and home video version of the film, but it can still be seen in the Appendices and the National Geographic special. (There's not much to see, and this was blown way out of proportion.)

When Saruman says "Rip them all down!" to the orcs, one of them (lower left) is tugging so hard on a tree that when it's uprooted he falls over backwards onto his butt.

There are whip scars on Gollum's back from when he was captured by Sauron.

The tapestry in Arwen's room shows the Two Trees and a ship.

Faramir needs to talk to his cartographer. His map has several typos: "Black Gates", "Helms Deep", and "Dagorland"

When Théoden's saying, "Who will come? Elves? Dwarves? We are not so lucky in our friends as you!" there's a young mother on the wall behind him playing patty-cake with a toddler.

When the men are retreating into the halls of Helm's Deep, an archer in the bottom right corner repeatedly shoots his bow without an arrow on the string.

Gandalf never addresses a hobbit by his shortened name. He does only uses a shortened name when talking to others: "Sam has hardly left your side." "Merry and Pippin are quite safe." "There was no lie in Pippin's eyes.")

When Frodo slides down the little tunnel that Shelob can't fit through, he drops the Phial of Galadriel.

Aragorn gives a speech to the men of Gondor and Rohan on his horse Then in the next scene his horse is gone.

The Grey Havens scene includes Cirdan, last seen in the prologue of FOTR

Number Tolkien chapter titles referenced in the dialogue -- 18

Number of times Frodo falls down -- 34

Number of times Sam eavesdrops -- 7

Number of times Aragorn tosses somebody -- 3

Number of times we see food -- 36

Number of times they play the old "he's dead! No wait, he isn't" trick -- 15

Number of times a hobbit says, "What are you doing?" -- 7

Characters accused of being late-- 4

Number of times a character sings -- 10