Lord Of The Rings: 10 Amusing Goofs & Mistakes That Made It Into Return Of The King

From small moments to bigger fails in logic, these mistakes should never have made it in to Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King.

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Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings trilogy was filmed in one tremendously long shooting block that took years to complete. The sheer scale and ambition of the series can’t be overstated, and the logistical challenges involved in crafting such a masterpiece trilogy must have been nightmarish, to say the least.

Yet, the cast and crew managed to pull it off, and audiences around the world were given a new Star Wars-esque epic for the new generation. It wasn’t perfect, however. Lots of goofs made it into the trilogy, including the final chapter, The Return of the King. Here are ten of the most amusing.

10 The Falling Armor

Wind machines can be a little chaotic on the set of a film, and that means mistakes are bound to happen. One occurs in a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it moment during the scene when Elrond visits Aragorn at the encampment near the White Mountains. He tells Aragorn of Sauron’s second army that would leave them outnumbered.

He then suggests that Aragorn recruit the Army of the Dead dwelling underneath the mountain. Aragorn has a quick vision of the King of the Dead before it cuts to a wide shot of Aragorn and Elrond. To the left, a gust of wind knocks over a suit of armor which seems unintentional. Worse, there’s no sound to match up with the impact.

9 The Disappearing Pitcher

Someone wasn’t paying attention on the day of shooting the scene where Pippin steals the palantir from a sleeping Gandalf and replaces it with a pitcher for him to cling to. It’s a comical scene that quickly becomes terrifying when Sauron seizes control of Pippin’s mind and begins trying to extract information out of him.

Merry calls out for help which awakens Gandalf, who springs into action. As he gets up, however, a quick shot reveals that the pitcher is nowhere to be found. Perhaps this had to do with the logistics of leaping up off the floor for the sake of the shot, but it’s a funny omission nonetheless.

8 Frodo’s Face Wound

Frodo suffers a wound to his face which is shown on his left cheek, from the audience’s perspective. This wound is present for a large chunk of the film, but it suddenly changes location near the end when Sam and Frodo are making their exhausting journey up the side of Mount Doom.

Suddenly, the wound switches to the right cheek instead, which is probably due to a horizontal flipping of the picture. Perhaps this was done due to the angle of approach to Mount Doom, but the face wound’s location ended up going unnoticed during the shoot.

7 Treebeard’s Absence

A major fan complaint was the lack of Saruman’s presence in the theatrical cut of the film which was later rectified in the Extended Edition. The amazing and iconic Christopher Lee returned for one final go as the white wizard before suffering his fate at the hand of Grima Wormtongue.

The scene begins with Treebeard escorting Gandalf and company to the front door of Orthanc where the confrontation takes place. However, he disappears completely thereafter. As Saruman’s body plummets to the foot of Orthanc below, Treebeard is missing from the shot, only to re-emerge moments later. This was obviously an editing issue based on the differences between theatrical and Extended cuts.

6 Magical Lembas Bread

Gollum’s plan to get rid of Sam involves throwing out cold-blooded murder in favor of character assassination. He preys upon Frodo’s fragile psychological state as the One Ring begins to take hold of his mind and drive him to increased levels of paranoia. The final stroke in his plan is to steal the lembas bread from their pouch and throw it off the cliff after sprinkling a few crumbs on Sam’s body.

Later in the film, Sam loses his footing and falls a few meters down the mountain side before landing in front of the lembas bread. In contrast to the shot showing it scattering every which way during the drop, the bread is shown to be rather neatly found in one particular spot.

5 Denethor’s Death

A pivotal moment in the film occurs when Denethor attempts to burn Faramir after believing he’s been slain in battle. Gandalf and Pippin show up to stop him, with the former rearing up Shadowfax and kicking him onto the burning funeral pyre. Covered in oil, Denethor lights up like a roman candle before running out of the Hallows.

He meets his final end after plummeting off the edge of Minas Tirith’s prow whilst still on fire. This is profound, seeing as how there’s almost a mile’s distance between the two locations. Even director Peter Jackson was forced to admit this in the behind the scenes commentary for the film. Undoubtedly there would have been little left of Denethor besides bone at that point.

4 Cool Lava

The semi-final act of the film is an emotional rollercoaster as Sam and Frodo make their way to the Cracks of Doom and emerge just in time to avoid being covered in a torrential lava flow. They end up leaping to safety on a flat-surface rock just as the lava pours in around them, effectively trapping them.

One would think the lava of Mount Doom would be far worse than a typical volcano, yet somehow the two manage to lay there without suffering so much as heatstroke. The type of lava portrayed in this scene can burn as high as 2900 degrees Fahrenheit (1200C), which would cook them both from the inside out.

3 The Roof Of Orthanc

A small plot problem first glimpsed in The Fellowship of the Ring came back to haunt the filmmakers in Return of the King, as well. In the former film, Gandalf was imprisoned at the very top of the Tower of Orthanc by Saruman the White after a heated battle. In Return of the King, Saruman stands directly at the top of Orthanc along with Grima Wormtongue.

Once again, no discernible traditional method of reaching the top of Orthanc has ever been revealed. Even the Tolkien novel only goes so far as to reference a few thousand steps, with no mention of a secret hatch or a trap door. The smooth and polished rooftop surface suggests no mechanism exists, which damns this scene to goof-status.

2 Reversing Chimneys

There are times when playing footage in reverse can yield some excellent on-screen results, most notably when filming action or stunt sequences. In terms of straight-up “normal” shots, however, one has to keep a keen eye on the details, lest mistakes slip through.

This occurs in the first act of Return of the King after Gandalf and company leave Orthanc and return home to Rohan. As they ride towards the city, the camera switches to a sweeping shot showing chimneys sucking in smoke, rather than letting it out. This is one example of reversing footage that ended up causing one comical goof.

1 The Disappearing Quill

Near the end of the film, Frodo Baggins can be seen finishing the book first started by his Uncle Bilbo. He adds the new material “The Lord of the Rings” as a continuation and tribute to the adventures shared by both he and Bilbo. Sam arrives to talk to him and sees Frodo clutching the chest wound he suffered at Weathertop.

At first, Frodo clutches the wound with his writing quill still in his fingers. In the very next shot, he’s holding his chest without the quill anywhere in the shot. This was obviously an error incurred during a pickup shot when somebody wasn’t paying attention.

Link Source : https://screenrant.com/lord-of-the-rings-return-of-the-king-goofs-mistakes/