Trivia for
       Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring

Stuart Townsend. was originally cast as Aragorn, but was replaced
by Viggo Mortensen after four days of shooting due to creative
differences.

Ian Holm, who plays Bilbo Baggins, was the voice of 'Frodo
Baggins' in the classic BBC Radio adaptation of "The Lord of The
Rings" in the 1970s.

Producer Tim Sanders left the project after principal photography
had commenced.

Elijah Wood dressed up in breeches and a flowing shirt and went
out into the hills to shoot his audition tape. His friend George
Huang, directed the video.

Although David Bowie was said to be keen on playing Elf Lord
Elrond, the part went instead to Hugo Weaving.

Daniel Day-Lewis turned down the role of Aragorn.

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.

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

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 Ian McKellen (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.

1,460 eggs were served to the cast and crew for breakfast for
every day of shooting.

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 Dominic Monaghan
(Merry) kept a pair.

During filming, Liv Tyler 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.

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".

Sean Bean starred in a UK TV series as a soldier during the
Napoleonic wars by the name of Richard Sharpe. He subsequently
appeared in a series of commercials where he would allude to his
earlier role, saying things like, "Sharpe idea". In this movie he
continues the joke: after touching the Sword of Elendil he says,
"Still Sharpe.''

Christopher Lee 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.

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. Two of
the other hobbits 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. Ian McKellen's is on
his shoulder.

After the New Zealand premiere, director Peter Jackson joined the
actors who played the nine members of the Fellowship by getting a
commemorative tattoo of his own. While their tattoos were the
Elvish symbol for "9", Jackson received an Elvish "10".

The chapter titles "A Long-expected Party", "A Short Cut to
Mushrooms", "The Bridge of Khazad-dum", "Lothlorien", and "The
Breaking of the Fellowship" from "The Fellowship of The Ring" are
spoken lines at their respective points in the storyline with the
exception of "The Breaking of The Fellowship" which is
foreshadowed during the scene at "The Mirror of Galadriel".
"Riddles In The Dark" is also mentioned - the name of a chapter
from "The Hobbit".

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.

During the 2001 Cannes Film Festival, twenty minutes of the film
was shown to a crowd at a nearby castle, including members of the
production - the first time the film's actors had seen any
completed footage.

Wellington, the capital of New Zealand, changed its name to Middle
Earth for the film's opening.

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

Cate Blanchett joked that she took the role of Galadriel because,
"I've always wanted pointy ears".

Director Cameo: [Peter Jackson] As the belching peasant, outside
the Prancing Pony Inn in Bree.

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 (Alan Lee): 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.

From the Internet Movie Database www.imdb.com







                              - o -