Corrected entry: In the scene where the army is lining up in front of the Black Gate in preparation for the final battle, Aragorn, Legolas and Gimli are seen riding on Arod and Brego. This is very convenient considering these horses fled in terror from their masters at the Door of the Dead.
Tailkinker
8th May 2006
The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003)
25th Jan 2006
The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003)
Corrected entry: One look at the palantÃr is enough to make Pippin irresistibly drawn to it. When he steals it from Gandalf Merry takes quite a good look at it to and even looks into it while Pippin does. Merry should have been drawn to it just the same as Pippin, it's not something they could control.
Correction: Actually, it is something that can be controlled - it's down to strength of will and personality. Pippin is younger and less experienced than Merry, plus, as Merry comments on at least one occasion, his curiosity is near legendary. All of which combines to make him considerably more susceptible to the palantÃr than Merry is.
18th Dec 2003
The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003)
Corrected entry: In the final battle scene, when Aragorn and crew are creating a "diversion" outside the gates of Mordor, everyone is on horseback. Later in the scene, when Aragorn and the other warriors charge the enemy, they are on foot. Even if they did dismount, where are the horses? (02:32:00)
Correction: In close combat with no room to manoeuvre, being on horseback can be a serious liability - the possibility of being pulled off and then killed before getting up is too high, so it makes sense to dismount. The Host would not want riderless horses around - the likelihood is that they'd spook and prove a danger to the soldiers around them - so they simply designated a couple of riders to lead the horses out of the combat zone. It would have taken some considerable time for the Mordor forces to surround them, so there was plenty of time for this to happen.
6th Jul 2005
The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003)
Corrected entry: When Aragorn, Legolas, Gimli, Pippin, Merry, Eomer, and Gandalf (pardon me if I have missed anyone) ride up to the Black Gate they are on horses, when they come back they are on horses, but when they charge to meet the orcs, trolls and Southerners the horses have vanished.
Correction: There's a long time between these events - more than enough time for them to have dismounted, as horses are a liability in close combat, then the horses were led away from the battlefield before they were surrounded.
17th Apr 2005
The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003)
Corrected entry: The Kingdom of the Dead fled before the battle between Isildur and Sauron. They hid in the mountains and they never saw or spoke to anyone after that. So how is it that they are instantly able to recognize Aragorn's sword and know that it was broken?
Correction: Narsil, Elendil's sword, was legendary even at the time of the War of the Last Alliance - it was over three thousand years old at that point. Even with the alterations made by the reforging, it would be recognisable. The Dead didn't retreat to their subterranean realm immediately after their curse, making it highly likely that they would have encountered others at some point. At that point in history, only shortly after the fall of Sauron, the tale of Elendil's fall would be widely known, making it highly unlikely that they wouldn't have been made aware of the details, including the breaking of Narsil.
20th Jan 2005
The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003)
Corrected entry: Sam tells Frodo that Sauron's eye passed on towards the north. But Sauron's eye passed on towards the south.
27th Dec 2004
The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003)
Corrected entry: The first or second time you see a Nazgul riding the winged beast (in Osgiliath), the winged beast's mouth is big enough to fit a person in whole. Later on when Eowyn cuts the winged beast's head off (just before she fights the witch king), the winged beast's mouth is a lot smaller.
Correction: Not the case - when the Fell Beast attacked Theoden, it takes a sizable amount of his horse into its mouth. The size of the creature doesn't alter between that moment and when Eowyn fights it. The mouth of the Fell Beast is quite long, allowing it to open much wider than the size of the head would suggest, but it doesn't change.
27th Dec 2004
The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003)
Corrected entry: The Ringwraiths can feel the presence of the Ring at all times as stated by Gandalf, but the Witch King is unable to feel the Ring's presence at its front door or even when he flies right over Frodo in Minas Morgul.
Correction: They can feel the presence of the Ring, yes, but that doesn't mean that they can zero in on it - it doesn't work like a homing beacon unless somebody's actually wearing it. A Nazgul can be within feet of the Ring and be unaware of it, as we see on at least one occasion during the film. The Witch-King can feel the Ring, but he has no way of knowing how close it is.
8th Jul 2004
The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003)
Corrected entry: In the scene where Theoden rides into Dunharrow, he asks "Where are the riders from Snowborn?" the answer is "None have come, my lord"; this is impossible, since Snowborn is a river or stream passing right next to the Rohirrim encampment. What this means is that they cannot come since they would have already been there.
Correction: It doesn't mean anything of the sort. The Snowbourn River does indeed run past Dunharrow, but it then runs north and east across Rohan, past Edoras, until it finally meets up with the Entwash. The Snowbourn that Theoden refers to, which is presumably a settlement of some description that takes its name from the river on which it lies, could be anywhere along the route.
26th Jul 2004
The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003)
Corrected entry: In the book The Hobbit, the three trolls that captured the dwarves are turned to stone by being exposed to daylight. The extended DVD of FOTR has a scene which touches on this. However, there are plenty of trolls fighting in the daylight battles in ROTK.
Correction: Different types of troll - the ones seen towards the end are Olog-Hai, a special breed of troll created by Sauron. They're stronger, more intelligent, and can survive in sunlight, unlike the common trolls of the type encountered in the Hobbit.
21st Jun 2004
The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003)
Corrected entry: On all the closeups of the Ring in Mount Doom, there are numerous flashes in the chamber that look like lightning flashes, or some other form of "blue" light. There wouldn't be any light of that color in the chamber because it is all fire and lava.
Correction: It's a chamber that has seen substantial amounts of magic used there - namely the forging of the Ring itself. Who's to say what sort of odd discharges there might be, particularly as we're focusing on the Ring - the target of all that magic power.
9th Jun 2004
The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003)
Corrected entry: When Faramir and his men are overwhelmed by Orcs, they retreat to Minas Tirith. Gandalf, with Pippin astride, gallops out from Minas Tirith on Shadowfax and drives off the Nazgul and the fell beasts. There is no reason for Gandalf to have ridden out with Pippin.
20th May 2004
The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003)
Corrected entry: Watch Gollum's fingers, they change in number from six to five, on the same hand, several times.
Correction: The Gollum construct has a specific bone structure, musculature and skin setup. The number of fingers is set by this construct, which would not be changed at any point - any apparent deviation can only be an illusion.
26th May 2004
The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003)
Corrected entry: The journey from Osgiliath to Minas Tirith is about 15-20 miles. Faramir and his men were able to make the journey within a couple of minutes. This would be physically impossible for horses to do (even Shadowfax couldn't make the journey within a couple of minutes.)
Correction: Their journey is shown using an absolutely standard cinematic technique of time compression, intercut with Pippin singing for dramatic effect - it's not meant to imply that the journey takes that length of time.
22nd Jan 2004
The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003)
Corrected entry: After the Rohirrim crush through the orcs and the huge elephants come from the direction of Osgiliath, there is a river going straight through the city and they come from the far South anyway, so why are they marching on Minas Tirith from the East? There is no way they came over the river, and I doubt they can fly.
Correction: There's no route from the far south to Minas Tirith that doesn't cross the river at some point, so there has to be some way for the Mumakil to cross - most likely they were simply taken upstream until the river was shallow enough, then they waded across, before being brought to join the attack force moving against Minas Tirith.
22nd Jan 2004
The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003)
Corrected entry: When the Nazgul swoop in to attack the diversionary force at the Black Gate, several eagles intercept them and begin battling them in the air. When Frodo puts on the ring and Sauron becomes aware of him, the Nazgul ride their beasts directly towards Mount Doom. It's easy for them to do this, since there are suddenly no eagles anywhere to be seen. They didn't fly away and weren't killed by the Nazgul, since three of them assist in the rescue of Frodo and Sam following Mount Doom's eruption. So what happened to them?
Correction: The eagles don't follow the Nazgul into Mordor - they stay behind to help defend the Gondor and Rohan forces against the ground forces assaulting them. As such, the Nazgul are able to head for Mount Doom unopposed.
6th Jan 2004
The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003)
Corrected entry: When Aragorn, Gandalf, Legolas etc. are approaching the Black Gate, you can see Gimli on the back of Eomer's horse. Yet when Gimli speaks his line you can see part of Legolas' arm and chest in front of him. In the next (wide) shot Gimli is on Eomer's horse again.
Correction: That's Merry on Eomer's horse.
2nd Jan 2004
The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003)
Corrected entry: In the first movie, it is established that hobbit children have pointed ears. Yet Elanor, whom we see at the very end, does not have them.
Correction: Elanor does have pointed ears - visible when being carried by her father.
19th Dec 2003
The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003)
Corrected entry: In the Two Towers Faramir is shown holding Boromir's broken horn. In Return of the King their father has it despite the fact that Faramir is still in Osgiliath.
Correction: A day or two has passed at this point - Faramir could have sent the horn to his father in the interim.
Join the mailing list
Separate from membership, this is to get updates about mistakes in recent releases. Addresses are not passed on to any third party, and are used solely for direct communication from this site. You can unsubscribe at any time.
Check out the mistake & trivia books, on Kindle and in paperback.
Correction: Arod and Brego fled back to the Rohirrim encampment, then were taken to Minas Tirith - on a long high-speed journey, a number of spare horses would have been taken along to act as replacements in the highly likely situation that some horses could become injured en route. Once the siege was lifted and the Mordor army defeated, they were reunited with their normal riders.
Tailkinker ★