Nothing says timeless like J.R.R. Tolkien's classic creation of The Lord of the Rings. This book laid the foundation for future fantasy works, from video games to fantasy books. This movie was adapted multiple times and each adaptation took some creative liberties. So it is only natural for The Lord of the Rings facts to get a bit murky and distorted. After all, each of the movies attempted to attract new audiences. Sometimes, the book fans and movie fans butt heads on facts that are a little bit, or severely conflicting. So why are fans so heavily sided on facts about Lord of the Rings and which The Lord of the Rings facts are actually true?
As far as lore goes, J.R.R Tolkien didn’t miss a step to present a lot of it in The Lord of the Rings books. Everything seems to be planned out hundreds of pages away and logically explained. It’s left up to the reader's creativity to imagine how the creatures will look. On the other hand, we have the trilogy of The Lord of the Rings directed by Peter Jackson. A certain vision was presented, and the viewer only had to sit back and enjoy it. The biggest difference was felt in The Lord of the Rings characters, especially with the character of Legolas. It’s obvious that Peter Jackson took a lot of liberties to present his interpretation of the books. However, while quite different from the source material, Jackson’s adaptations turned out to be a great success nonetheless.
With so many facts flying around the internet, mixing movie facts with book ones might lead you to a confrontation with a hard-headed LOTR fan. So if you are out on an adventure, looking for some The Lord of the Rings fun facts, look no further than the list below. If a fact was interesting and opened an all-seeing eye in you — upvote it. Otherwise, if you know a bit more about the stated fact and would like to share, comment down below.
#1
Nothing says dedication like learning a fictional language, created by J.R.R. Tolkien himself. Viggo Mortensen, who can dominate any role he takes, learned the Elvish language for his role of Aragorn. This was done to create the most believable performance in a fantasy, make-believe world.
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#2
It’s not unusual to “borrow” a few things from a set to have a small memento of the movie you made. To remember the filming process, when he was finished playing Gandalf, Ian McKellen preserved the original wizard’s staff and wizard's hat.
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#3
Sean Bean, the immortal one, portrays the character Boromir in the movies and has quite a severe phobia that wouldn’t allow him to go to set in a helicopter. So when it was his time to film a scene, Sean Bean had to climb tall mountains daily to get to the set. If dedication was a human, Sean Bean would be the best example of it.
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#4
While actors got hurt and had a few stitches to remind them of the movie's production, the animals were safe from it. Throughout the three movies, 300 horses were used for a variety of scenes. Out of the 300 horses, not one was harmed. With such a large production, we can only be glad that the production team took all the precautions for safety.
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#5
The group of creatures that saw a lot of changes were the elves. In the books, they are described as being more cheerful and lively, while in the movies, they were changed. They were presented in a darker tone, perhaps to fit in the darker tone of the movie. They were also more grim and serious.
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#6
The original trilogy movies are long. Like, very long. Several hours each, with the last movie being three hours long. But do you know how long Frodo took to complete his legendary adventure? After inheriting the ring, in the books it took Frodo 17 years to start his adventure.
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#7
The filming of the original trilogy took more than a year to complete. With a lot of focus given to the costumes and uniforms of the characters, it was necessary to keep them in the needed shape. So it’s not strange to learn that during the production, some costumes had to be replicated 40 times.
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20points
#8
When you love books, high chances are you will do your best to appear in an adaptation. Before landing the role of Saruman, Christopher Lee had read "The Lord of the Rings" books yearly for more than 40 years.
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19points
#9
Love is a powerful thing. We can see it around us and even in books of fiction. J.R.R. Tolkien and his wife have the names Luthien and Beren engraved on their gravestones. These two characters are shown in the books as loving each other very deeply. But while the man was a mortal one, the woman was immortal.
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#10
Viggo Mortensen is the source for many “The Lord of the Rings” facts. He took that extra step for better effects and performed stunts himself. He also used a real steel sword. While this all sounds tiring and hard to imagine, other actors of the trilogy claim that Viggo Mortensen liked the whole process, even with so many hardships.
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#11
Even the smallest person can be the tallest one in a room. Literally. John Rhys-Davies, an actor who played Gimli, the smallest of the fellowship, is quite tall. He was the tallest among the actors. He is 1.85 m (6.07 ft) tall, while his character was 1.68 m (5.52 ft) tall. This just proves how incredible the camera work was.
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19points
#12
To capture the image of the helmet flying toward the camera, the director had Mortensen repeat the helmet-kicking scene several times. On the fifth take, Mortensen shouted in agony before tumbling to his knees, brilliantly portraying his character's suffering. He had broken two toes with that final kick, which the creative team was unaware of until much later.
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#13
After the filming was over and it was time to part ways, each actor got a gift related to the character they played. Liv Tyler received Arwen's "death dress," Orlando Bloom received one of Legolas' bows, and Miranda Otto received one of Eowyn's skirts and her sword. A nice gesture that other movies should follow.
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#14
Gollum in the movies is one of the most memorable characters from the original and sequel trilogy. The way he moves, speaks, and acts all around is just horrific. The Gollum Effect, a.k.a his movements and so on, was based on drug addicts. The whole character is just a shell of the former hobbit.
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#15
Nothing says dedication like becoming an awesome swordsman for the sake of authenticity. Throughout the trilogy, Viggo Mortensen improved tremendously as a swordsman. Instead of the much lighter aluminum swords or the more secure rubber swords that were designed for fight sequences and acrobatics, Mortensen insisted on just using a real steel sword.
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16points
#16
Alka-Seltzers played a big role in helping Elijah Wood spit white foam out of his mouth during the Shelob scene. Elijah Wood had two Alka-Seltzers hidden beneath his tongue, which he chewed up to produce white foam for the scene in which Frodo is wounded by Shelob.
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#17
When there are a lot of characters in the movies, the costume department must use a lot of costumes to dress them up. For the filming of all three original trilogy films, more than 19,000 costumes were created.
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#18
If there is a battle scene to remember from the trilogy that all of us can say is epic, it is the battle of Helm’s Deep. In fact, its filming took four months to finish, due to the simple reason that the majority of scenes had to be filmed at night. When you think about how long the whole production lasted, this battle might have taken the longest time to finish overall.
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#19
Music does wonders for movies. It can elevate a scene to the top, if it's right, or sink it to the very bottom if the score is poorly selected. The rhythm of the music sets up the flow of a scene. For “The Lord Of The Rings”, Howard Shore was able to compose a fantastic soundtrack, setting the tone for the many heroic and sad scenes.
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#20
The first of the trilogy, “The Fellowship of the Ring,” set the stage for the trilogy and pushed the idea that fantasy movies are worth the time to watch. Overall, “The Fellowship of the Ring” was able to reach box office sales of $891,216,824 and was nominated for 14 categories. While it only won four, it created a great start for the franchise.
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15points