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Well, I guess this should fit here. Its part of the trivia stuff in the extended DVD release I found at amazon.com. Those LOTR book and movie freak fans that bought it should know it. Those even freakier like myself waiting to buy the three extended movie DVD will enjoy it.
It has just put Christopher Lee in the pantheon of my personal earthly gods. I don’t know what to say about Mortensen, but well, it was a long job.
Trivia about The Lord of the Rings - The Fellowship of the Ring (Platinum Series Extended Edition):
Townsend, Stuart. was originally cast as Aragorn, but was replaced by Mortensen, Viggo after four days of shooting due to creative differences.
Although Bowie, David was said to be keen on playing Elf Lord Elrond, the part went instead to Weaving, Hugo.
Bloom, Orlando originally auditioned for the part of Faramir. He was called back and subsequently cast, instead, as Legolas.
New Zealand's army was cast as extras for large battle scenes in the film, but was forced to back out due to having to serve as peacekeepers in East Timor.
The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001), Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, The (2002), and Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, The (2003) were filmed simultaneously. The back-to-back shoot lasted a record-equaling 274 days, in 16 months - exactly the same time as taken for the principal photography of Apocalypse Now (1979).
Hobbiton was filmed in the Hinuera Valley near Matamata, New Zealand. The village was constructed and plants and trees were planted a year before filming so the set had an aged look as though Hobbits had lived there for hundreds of years.
For high-tech tasks, a computer program called MASSIVE made armies of CG orcs, elves, and humans. These digital creations could 'think' and battle independently - identifying friend or foe - thanks to individual fields of vision. Jackson's team could click on one creature in a crowd scene of 20,000 and see through his "eyes". Different species even boast unique fighting styles.
It is reported that on the first run of the fight sequences using the MASSIVE Artificial Intelligence program, the intelligent fighters - programmed to fight in the most efficient manner possible - all turned and ran away. The WETA staff joked that they were the "smart fighters".
The original cut ran four hours and thirty minutes.
The hobbits needed to appear about three to four feet tall - tiny compared with the seven-foot Gandalf. This was often accomplished using forced perspective, placing McKellen, Ian (Gandalf) consistently closer to the camera than Elijah Wood in order to trick the eye into thinking McKellen is towering.
In order to make "forced perspective" a bit more interesting, the filmmakers devised a totally new system consisting of a pulley and a platform. When the camera moved (which is normally impossible as the forced perspective would become obvious) the actor(s) also moved, and the perspective (7-foot Gandalf - 4-foot hobbits) would always be okay. They also used three differently sized props (large, medium, small) to interact with the different sized characters
Viggo Mortensen lost a tooth while filming a fight sequence. He went to the dentist on his lunch break, had it patched up, and returned to the set that afternoon.
More than 1,600 pairs of latex ears and feet were used during the shoot, each "cooked" in a special oven running 24 hours a day, seven days a week. There was no way of removing the feet at the end of the day without damaging them and so each pair could only be used once. The used feet were shredded to prevent a black market in stolen hobbit feet but apparently Monaghan, Dominic (Merry) kept a pair.
During filming, Tyler, Liv left her pair of prosthetic ears on the dashboard of her car. When she returned they had melted.
Dominic Monaghan (Merry), wore a fat suit made of foam. He drank three liters of water a day so he would not dehydrate.
Astin, Sean gained 30 pounds for his role as Samwise.
Viggo Mortensen did his own stunts. He also insisted on using only the real steel sword, instead of significantly lighter aluminum sword or safer rubber sword which were manufactured for battle scenes and stunts.
Orlando Bloom (Legolas) did most of his own stunts and broke a rib in the process.
Rhys-Davies, John (Gimli) developed an allergic reaction to his makeup.
While filming the scene where Sam rushes through the river after Frodo, Astin, Sean stepped on a shard of glass that was sticking up from the riverbed. It pierced his foot, even through the prosthetic foot, which bled so much he had to be airlifted to hospital.
The map Gandalf picks up in Bilbo's study is a reproduction of the map Tolkien drew for the book "The Hobbit".
Lee, Christopher reads "The Lord of the Rings" once a year and is the only member of the cast and crew ever to have met Tolkien.
As well as being the only member of the cast and crew to have met Tolkien face to face, Christopher Lee was also the first person to be cast in the trilogy because of his extensive knowledge of the books. He frequently visited the makeup department and often gave tips about the facial design of the monsters.
Peter Jackson gave the ring used in the movies to Elijah Wood as gift when the shoot was finished.
The three trolls which were turned to stone in "The Hobbit" are in the background during the scene where Frodo, Sam, Merry, Pippin, and Strider/Aragorn are resting after fleeing from Weathertop/Amon Sul.
This film was the first recipient of The American Film Institute's Movie of the Year Award.
Peter Jackson's two children are listed in the end credits as "Cute Hobbit Children".
The original plan was to film "The Hobbit" starring Warwick Davis. But when Miramax balked at the $75 million dollar price tag Peter Jackson took it to New Line which gave him nearly $300 million to make the trilogy
Ian McKellen based Gandalf's accent on that of Tolkien himself.
Gandalf's painful encounter with a ceiling beam in Bilbo's hobbit-hole was not in the script--Ian McKellen banged his forehead against the beam accidentally, not on purpose. But Jackson thought McKellen did a great job "acting through" the mistake, and so kept it in.
Viggo Mortensen (Aragorn), who is trilingual in English, Spanish, and Danish, requested the script be revised to let Aragorn speak more of his lines in Elvish.
The Orc blacksmiths shown beneath Isengard are actually the WETA Workshop staff who made the weapons used in the film.
The Elvish language lines spoken in the film are not just quotes from the book, they were derived from Tolkien's own limited dictionary of that language. Dialect coach Andrew Jack used actual recordings of Tolkien reading his books to guide the actors' pronunciation.
Cameo (Lee, Alan (II)): Eighth of the human kings that receives a ring of power.
The different colors of blue for the elves' eyes revealed what race they were. The Lothlorien elves had light blue eyes, and the Rivendell elves were dark blue.
About 3,100 shots (78% of the Super 35 film) were color graded at Colorfront in Wellington, NZ using 5D Colossus software after being scanned by an Imagica XE scanner full 2K resolution (2048*1536). The color-graded shots were then recorded on Kodak 5242 intermediate film by two Arri Laser film recorders at 10 bits per channel. Because only 78% of the film was digital, a digitally squeezed anamorphic print could not be made for the whole movie. Instead, the digital shots were recorded on an inter-negative hardmatted at 1.77:1, intercut with the non-digital original negative (which had been color timed by The Film Unit, NZ), and printed to 2.39:1 anamorphic Kodak film using an optical printer at Deluxe, LA. Fuji 3519-D was used for release prints.
On the film's first theatrical release, a story circulated (and was reported in the goofs section) that when Sam tells Frodo that he is now the farthest he has ever been from home, a car is visible driving by in the background (top-right corner of the screen). Arguments ensued. Some said it was smoke from a chimney, others said they saw the glint of sunlight reflected from the windscreen of a fast moving vehicle. In the version of the film released on DVD there is definitely *no* car, only chimney smoke and a one-frame flash of light which *could* conceivably be a car, but not in any sense that could be considered a goof. Jackson says (in the commentary track on the Extended DVD) that he looked at every frame on a computer and has never seen anything resembling a car and claims that it's nonsense (and certainly the original sighting remains unconfirmed by IMDb goof spotters). In the documentary of extended DVD version, John Gilbert, the editor, says that there was a car in the background, but they thought no-one would notice it. They got rid of it in the DVD version.
Bilbo's cake caught fire as he was about to leave the party, but Ian Holm gamely finished the scene.
Over 12.5 million plastic rings were made for the chain mail armors in the movie.
Twenty of the 30 minutes of the unusually long credits at the end of the Extended Edition, are dedicated to listing the Charter Members of the Official Lord of the Rings Fan Club.
The portraits hanging above the fireplace in Bag End are based on the likenesses of director Peter Jackson and producer Frances Walsh.
Viggo Mortensen kept his sword with him at all times off set so that he could remain in character. He was questioned several times by police after reviewing his training sessions with the sword and being spotted by members of the public.
When Frodo falls on the snow and loses the ring, a close-up of the ring with Frodo in the background is shown. In order to keep both the subjects focused, a giant ring (6 inches of diameter) was used.
The scream of the Ringwraiths is actually Frances Walsh, the co-writer and co-producer of the film.
One of the indistinct words that Gandalf whispers to the moth when he is trapped by Saruman is "Gwaihir", the name of the eagle that later rescues him from the tower.
The cast often had to fly to remote shoot locations by helicopter. Sean Bean (Boromir) was afraid of flying and would only do it when absolutely necessary. When they were shooting the scenes of the Fellowship crossing the snowy mountains, he'd spend two hours every morning climbing from the base of the mountain to the set near the top, already dressed as Boromir. The crew being flown up could see him from their helicopters.
Whilst filming the scenes on the River Anduin, Orlando Bloom and Viggo Mortensen were swept out of their boats.
Peter Jackson originally contemplated having the character of Tom Bombadil, a character that was in the book but never made it to the movie, incorporated into a cameo scene in which the Hobbit's are walking through the forest and see a man with a feathered cap dart through the tree's, then they hear Tom singing and begin running through the forest, but ran out of time to film it
Peter Jackson's original plan was to exclusively hire British actors for the roles of the hobbits. As it turned out, Billy Boyd and Dominic Monaghan were the only ones, and one of the tasks he charged them with was to coach Elijah Wood and Sean Astin in the ways of British pub culture.
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