Useless Movie Trivia
The Lord of the Rings - The Fellowship of the Ring

The Lord of The Rings - The Fellowship of The Ring Poster
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The Lord of the Rings - The Fellowship of the Ring Poster
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Memorable Quotes

Sam: I made a promise, Mr Frodo. A promise. "Don't you leave him Samwise Gamgee." And I don't mean to. I don't mean to.

Elrond: Nine companions. So be it. You shall be the fellowship of the ring.

Gandalf: They are one; the ring and the Dark Lord. Frodo, he must never find it.

Galadriel: The one ring to rule them all.

Elrond: Strangers from distant lands, friends of old you have been summoned here to answer the threat of Mordor. Middle Earth stands upon the brink of destruction, none can escape it. You will unite or you will fall. We are all bound to this one fate, this one doom. Bring forth the ring Frodo.

Legolas: This is no mere ranger. He is Aragorn, son of Arathorn. You owe him your allegiance.

Gandalf: Always remember Frodo, the Ring is trying to get back to its master. It wants to be found.

Gandalf: A Balrog. A demon of the ancient world. This foe is beyond any of you. Run!

Bilbo: I'm old, Gandalf. I know I don't look it, but I'm beginning to feel it in my heart. I feel... thin. Sort of stretched, like... butter scraped over too much bread. I need a holiday. A very long holiday. And I don't expect I shall return. In fact I mean not to.

Gandalf: A wizard is never late, Frodo Baggins. Nor is he early. He arrives precisely when he means to.

Bilbo: I don't know half of you half as well as I should like, and I like less than half of you half as well as you deserve.

Sam: N-nothing important. That is, I heard a good deal about a ring, and a Dark Lord, and something about the end of the world, but... Please, Mr. Gandalf, sir, don't hurt me. Don't turn me into anything... unnatural.

Aragorn: We will not abandon Merry and Pippin to torment and death. Not while we have strength left. Leave all that can be spared behind. We travel light. Let's hunt some Orc.

Galadriel: The Quest stands upon the edge of a knife. Stray but a little, and it will fail, to the ruin of all. Yet hope remains while the Company is true.

Bilbo: I've thought of an ending for my book - "And he lived happily ever after... to the end of his days."

Gandalf: My dear Frodo. Hobbits really are amazing creatures. You can learn all there is to know about their ways in a month, and yet after a hundred years they can still surprise you.

Gandalf: You cannot pass! I am a servant of the Secret Fire, wielder of the Flame of Anor. The dark fire will not avail you, Flame of Udun! Go back to the shadow. You shall not pass!

Boromir: One does not simply walk into Mordor. Its black gates are guarded by more than just orcs. There is evil there that does not sleep, and the Great Eye is ever watchful. It is a barren wasteland, riddled with fire and ash and dust, the very air you breathe is a poisonous fume. Not with ten thousand men could you do this. It is folly.

Saruman: Do you know how the Orcs first came into being? They were elves once, taken by the dark powers, tortured and mutilated. A ruined and terrible form of life. Now... perfected. My fighting Uruk-Hai. Whom do you serve?

Bilbo: I am sorry I brought this upon you, my boy. I'm sorry that... you must carry this burden. I'm sorry for everything.

Trivia

Ian Holm, who plays Bilbo Baggins, was the voice of Frodo Baggins in the 1981 BBC Radio adaptation of "The Lord of The Rings".

Eight of the nine members of the Fellowship got a small tattoo, the Elvish symbol for "9" at a tattoo parlor in Wellington, New Zealand, to commemorate the experience of the movie. The ninth member, John Rhys-Davies, declined and sent his stunt double in his place. Elijah Wood's tattoo is on his lower stomach. Sean Astin and Billy Boyd have the tattoo on their ankles (to commemorate all those hours in the hobbit feet). Orlando Bloom, who plays the archer elf Legolas, has his on his forearm. His tattoo is visible during a fight scene in 'Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl' .Ian McKellen's is on his shoulder. Dominic Monaghan's is on his shoulder.

New Line insisted on a prologue of two minutes. What they got was one that lasts for seven and a half.

The two most renowned Tolkien artists are Alan Lee and John Howe, and so it was important to Peter Jackson to have those two on board. Lee was tracked down to a tiny little village in Dartmoor, England and was FedExed a package of Jackson's Heavenly Creatures (1994) and a letter outlining his intentions. They monitored the progress of the FedEx package every step of the way, but were somewhat surprised when Lee rang them only 3 hours after delivery to say he'd love to work with them. Howe meanwhile was living in Switzerland, and because someone hadn't worked out the time differences between Europe and New Zealand correctly, was rung about 2am. He says that the biggest frustration with that phone call was waiting for Jackson to finish his pitch before he could say yes.

The bridge in Hobbiton was built by the New Zealand army out of polystyrene.

Bilbo Baggins's birthday cake has 111 candles on it and they eventually set fire to the polystyrene cake.

Two sets of Bag End, Bilbo Baggins's home, were built. One to accommodate the Hobbits, the other 33% smaller for the full size Ian McKellen, right down to smaller versions of the books on the bookshelves.

Some of the customers in the Prancing Pony are walking around on stilts to emphasize the height disparity with the Hobbits.

Although Bill the pony is a feature of the novel, the writers initially decided not to include him as the Fellowship make their journey for the simple logistical reason of transporting a horse deep into the mountains. The problem was solved in the more difficult shots by using the classic pantomime trick of dressing two people up as a horse, one at the front and one at the back.

The big trees in Lothlorien forest are made of rubber.

The climactic fight scene was shot in the middle of a heatwave, with temperatures in excess of 100 degrees. Many of the actors playing the Uruk'hais had to be carried off the set with heat exhaustion.

Legolas's arrows in the final battle are computer generated. It would not have been physically possible for the most gifted archer to fire off so many arrows so quickly.

Security was tight on the set: at least 3 people were arrested for attempted break-ins.

The Tolkien estate was never in favor of Peter Jackson's film adaptation but seeing as J.R.R. Tolkien signed the rights away in 1968 for $15,000, there was nothing they could do about it. Tolkien's grandson Simon came out in support of the production and was disowned by his relatives. Tolkien's son Christopher later retracted any opposition.

It is estimated that filming of the trilogy pumped about $200,000,000 into the New Zealand economy. The New Zealand government even created a Minister for Lord of the Rings, whose remit was to exploit all the economic opportunities the films represented.

Fans were offered the chance to have their names in the special edition's hugely lengthy closing credits for $39.95.

The film stayed in the US top ten grossing films for 13 weeks.

In August 2002 the DVD/ video release set a UK record when it chalked up sales of 2.4 million.

Hobbiton was made a year before production began to make it look like it was a natural, lived-in place, complete with real vegetable patches. The greens department regulated the length of the grass by having sheep eat it.

The large tree that stands above Bag End was built especially by the production department. Every leaf had to be manually attached.

1800 Hobbit feet were made for the production.

29 Ring Wraith costumes were made in total.

During the Council of Elrond, leaves are continually falling in the background to suggest that this is a meeting that is taking place outside. This meant about half a dozen crew members were positioned above the set, dropping leaves at various intervals. This also meant that the production department had to collect sacks and sacks of leaves during autumn, and of course dead leaves turn brown fairly quickly. Which also meant that every single one of those leaves had to be individually painted.

A rubber puppet with a horrific face was superimposed over Ian Holm's face when Bilbo Baggins catches a glimpse of the ring again in Rivendell. Holm was so delighted with the puppet that the design team had a cast iron version of it made for his mantelpiece and gave it to him as a parting gift when Holm wrapped all his scenes on the film.

While the rest of the Fellowship struggle through snow drifts, Legolas walks on the top of the snow. This is in line with the information given in the novel, because Elves are so light-weighted that they are able to walk on top of snow.

The illuminated door that leads to the Mines of Moria was painted with the same substance that cats' eyes and road signs are made of.

Galadriel's home at Lothlorien was the largest miniature set built for the trilogy.

Large amounts of hair had to be imported into New Zealand for all the wigs. They found some women in Russia who were cutting their hair and selling it to make money for food.

Although Bilbo Baggins's opening scenes are in Hobbiton, Ian Holm never actually worked on the location. His scenes were all done against blue screen.

The nocturnal screams of possums were used for the screeches made by the Orcs in the mines of Moria.

The main sound elements for the cave troll were a walrus, a tiger and a horse.

The scripts were essentially being rewritten every day of the 15 month shoot, most of which with the added input from the actors who were all now heavily involved with their characters.

The Weta Workshop produced 58 miniatures which were so large and detailed they were nicknamed "bigatures".

John Howe, brought in to work on the production because of his longstanding reputation as being one of the great artists of J.R.R. Tolkien's work, was given the task of designing the Moria Orcs himself.

About 28 separate Hobbit holes had to be built for the Shire. Each one had to be different.

It's common practice with a high budget feature film to have more than one unit shooting at any one time, usually two or three. With "The Lord of the Rings", there were occasions when there would be between five and seven units shooting at any given time.

There are 47 chimneys in the Hobbiton location.

When Arwen escapes from the Black Riders through the river by flooding them, the spell she speaks isn't subtitled. According to the Encyclopedy of Arda, she says: "Nîn o Chithaeglir lasto beth daer; rimmo nín Bruinen dan in Ulaer", which means roughly "Waters of the Hithaeglir, hear the word of power, rush, waters of Bruinen, against the Ringwraiths"

During filming, most of the members of the Fellowship took up surfing in New Zealand in their spare time. Among them was Viggo Mortensen, who wiped out terribly one day, and bruised one whole side of his face. The next day, makeup tried to mask the bruising and swelling, but were unsuccessful. Instead, Peter Jackson opted to film Mortenson from one side for the entire scene. In the scene in the Mines of Moria when they find the grave of Gimli's relative, Aragorn is only seen from one side in the whole scene.

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 Hobbits are walking through the forest and see a man with a feathered cap dart through the trees, then they hear Tom singing and begin running through the forest, but ran out of time to film it.

When the trailer was released on Internet on 7 April 2001, it was downloaded 1.6 million times in the first 24 hours.

When Christopher Lee and J.R.R. Tolkien were in correspondence, Tolkien gave Lee his blessing to play Gandalf if there ever was a film version of Lord of the Rings. Years later, Lee campaigned for the part of Gandalf in this production, but was offered the part of Saurman instead. Lee, who wanted to participate in the project anyway he could, accepted the role of Saruman.

Christopher Lee reads "The Lord of the Rings" once a year and has done so since the year it was published, and is the only member of the cast and crew ever to have met J.R.R. Tolkien.

During the fight between Lurtz and Aragorn, Viggo Mortensen successfully parried the dagger thrown at him on his first attempt.

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.

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 Ian McKellen (Gandalf) consistently closer to the camera than Elijah Wood in order to trick the eye into thinking McKellen is towering.

Viggo Mortensen chipped a tooth while filming a fight sequence. He wanted Peter Jackson to superglue it back on so he could finish his scene, but the director took him to the dentist on his lunch break, had it patched up, and returned to the set that afternoon.

Sean Astin 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.

John Rhys-Davies (Gimli) developed an allergic reaction to his makeup.

While filming the scene where Sam rushes through the river after Frodo, Sean Astin 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".

As well as being the only member of the cast and crew to have met J.R.R. 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.

John Rhys-Davies, who plays Gimli the dwarf, is the tallest of the actors who play members of the Fellowship. He is 6' 1".

Peter Jackson gave one of the rings used in the movies to both Elijah Wood and Andy Serkis as gift when the shoot was finished. They both thought they had the only one.

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.

Peter Jackson's two children are listed in the end credits as "Cute Hobbit Children".

The original plan was to film the trilogy in two movies. Miramax said that it had to be done in one movie so the producers went to New Line Cinema. When their presentation was done, one of the people at New Line told them that they were crazy and that the film had to be done as a trilogy. This caused the producers to go back and rewrite the script.

Ian McKellen based Gandalf's accent on that of J.R.R. 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 Peter 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 J.R.R. 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.

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.

The portraits hanging above the fireplace in Bag End are based on the likenesses of director Peter Jackson and producer Fran 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 Fran 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.

At the birthday party, when Bilbo is naming various hobbit families, he says "Proudfoots" and a hobbit calls back "Proudfeet", with his large feet in the foreground. The shot was deliberately framed to imitate the shot used in The Lord of the Rings (1978), as an homage to the film that introduced Peter Jackson to Tolkien's works.

When Frodo is leafing through Bilbo's Book in Rivendell, a page with dwarven runes is shown. The runes translate thus: "Stand by the grey stone when the thrush knocks, and the setting sun with the last light of Durin's Day will shine upon the keyhole." This is a reference (actually a direct copy) to a map in the book "The Hobbit" and the runes tell of the secret entrance into The Lonely Mountain.

Sometimes when there is a close-up of the ring you can hear a gruff voice chanting. This is the voice of Sauron and the words he is chanting are, "One ring to rule them all, one ring to find them, one ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them," in the language of Mordor.

During Bilbo's party Pippin can be seen in the band playing a guitar.

The moth that Gandalf whispers to was born shortly before filming that day, and died soon after the scene was finished.

When Pippin is being hit with the apples after asking about second breakfast, it is Viggo Mortensen himself chucking the apple at his head. They had to shoot the scene 16 times to get it just right, and Billy Boyd says he believes Mortensen enjoyed himself immensely.

The voices of the Black Riders (Heard when they reach the shire, before Gandalf returns, and when Arwen carries Frodo across the river) were provided by Andy Serkis, the voice of Gollum.

Wherever possible, costume designer Ngila Dickson followed J.R.R. Tolkien's descriptions of the characters' clothing to the very letter. One such example is Bilbo Baggins's waistcoat which does indeed sport brass buttons, as referred to in "The Hobbit".

Peter Jackson has the entire Bag End set in storage, hopefully for future use.

Goofs

At the council of Lord Elrond, once the fellowship has been formed, in the close-ups of the hobbits you can see that they measure up above Gandalf's beard and Legolas's hair, almost up to their necks, but in the wide shots of the whole fellowship they are clearly smaller - only about waist height.

The main Ringwraith on Weathertop draws its sword twice as it approaches Frodo.

When the dragon-firework Merry and Pippin have stolen goes off, the fuse is still burning. Several inches of fuse clearly remain, yet it launches.

When the Ring Wraiths are at the river, they draw their swords left handed. In the very next shot, all nine swords are in Right hands.

When the company set out, they have a pony with them. In a later long shot, the pony is nowhere to be seen. In a shot after this, the pony is back with them.

As Gandalf and Bilbo smoke "the finest weed of the Southfarthing" Bilbo blows out a ring of smoke that Gandalf watches, after that we see Bilbo's mouth saying something, but there's no audio.

When Arwen first meets Strider she mentions that only 5 of the wraiths are behind them. When Arwen is being chased by them at an hour and 10 minutes and 55 seconds into the DVD there is a clear shot of the riders chasing them set in a v formation. There are clearly eight wraiths chasing them. Even if the other four showed up there should be nine.

When Legolas spots the crebain birds from Dunland and warns the fellowship to take cover, his eyes are brown. Yet as an elf and the rest of the movie his eyes are blue.

Box Office Info For The USA

Budget: $93,000,000

Opening Weekend: $66,114,741

Gross: $314,776,114

Rentals: $150,000,000

Filming Locations