Trivia for
           The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers

                     From www.imdb.com

Stuart Townsend was fired shortly after shooting began due to
creative differences.

Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, The (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.

Several members of the cast returned to New Zealand as Peter
Jackson has thought of some more ideas for scenes.

The Orc battle cries for the Helm's Deep battle sequence were
provided by a stadium of 25,000 cricket fans, who screamed the war
chants, spelled out on the Diamond Vision screen, with Jackson
himself leading the crowd.

The theme to Requiem for a Dream (2000) by Clint Mansell was
re-orchestrated for the trailer.

Gollum/Smeagol is a CGI character, but Peter Jackson wanted the
character to be performer-oriented, so actor Andy Serkis, the
voice of Gollum, played the character in a motion capture suit.
Serkis also played scenes with Elijah Wood (Frodo) and Sean Astin
(Sam) on set to give the actors a focal point. On those occasions
when Serkis was actually in shot Gollum was composited over him in
post production.

The set for the Helm's Deep battle scene was built on location in
New Zealand over a period of seven months.

When arriving upon the set to film the scene in which Andy Serkis
(Gollum) has to catch a fish, they discovered that it had snowed
overnight. Peter Jackson had the snow cleared on the set (which
included defrosting the river as well as the land surrounding it)
by 1:00 PM.

The role of owyn, the White Lady of Rohan, was first offered to
Irish actress Alison Doody in December 1999, who had to decline
the part because she had just given birth to her second daughter.
Miranda Otto then auditioned for the same role.

Director Cameo: Peter Jackson wearing chainmail at Helm's Deep
throwing a spear.

John Rhys-Davies, also provided the voice for Treebeard.

Peter Jackson's children appear as "cute Rohan refugee children".

The map that Faramir and his aide look at is the map featured in
the books, drawn by Tolkien's son, Christopher.

The battle at Helm's Deep was edited down from twenty hours of
footage, shot over a three month period with the rain machine
battering down on the cast.

Viggo Mortensen broke a toe while kicking the steel helmet by the
orc pyre.

In the wide shots of Legolas, Aragorn and Gimli running after the
Orcs, all three performers are running injured.  Orlando Bloom had
a couple of broken ribs (from a fall off a horse); Aragorn had a
broken toe (from kicking the helmet in the Orcs' funeral pyre
scene); and Brett Beattie (Gimli's scale double) had a knee
injury. Peter Jackson said that all three were very dedicated and
continued to film the scene, often yelling "ouch" or "ow" after
"Cut" was called.

It was reported that Viggo Mortensen's son, Henry Mortensen,
appeared in some battle scenes during the shoot.

Billy Boyd and Dominic Monaghan spent so much time up the tree
(TreeBeard) during the making of the the film that they spent
their time between takes writing a screenplay.  Additionally, it
was so difficult to get up and down to their "perches" that they
were left there during breaks while the rest of the crew went off
to eat, though someone was kind enough to pass theirs up to them.

To make the many sparkling lights in Galadriel's eyes, the crew
put white Christmas lights behind the camera.

Cameo(Alan Lee): The Concept Designer can be seen as the Rohan
collecting weapons at Helm's Deep (to the left when Aragorn yell's
"Then I shall die as one of them!")

Gimli's armor weighed about 30kg (66lb).

A stuntman broke his back playing the soldier who is hit by the
"bolt" from the ballista type device used to hoist the ladders.

Movie theater prints of The Two Towers were labeled "Grand Tour"
on the film can and the actual reels.

Cameo: Dan Hennah the art director is getting suited up in the
armory at Helm's Deep. Look over Aragorn's right shoulder after
Legolas says "They're frightened - I can see it in their eyes."

The first sequel to be nominated for an Academy Award for Best
Picture when the original film did not win the award itself, and
the third sequel to be nominated for Best Picture.

There were so many extras used in the sequences at Helms Deep, and
the filming went for so many months that almost all the extras and
principle actors got tee-shirts reading "I survived Helms Deep".
There were so many of these shirts that extras would often meet
other extras in New Zealand's main cities because they would
recognize the shirts.

Viggo Mortensen was so impressed with the horse his character
rides that he purchased him from the owners.  The horse was
shipped back to New Zealand for the additional shots that were
filmed in 2002.

Sean Astin shot his short film The Long and Short of It during a
re-shoot in New Zealand. LucasFilm was demoing their new High
Definition Digital Video cameras (used on Star Wars: Episode II -
Attack of the Clones (2002)) for Peter Jackson, and Astin asked
the Lucas Film crew if they could stay an extra day so he could
use the camera to shoot his short film. They agreed, and Astin
shot the film in six hours.

General release prints of the film were made from a digital master
that has been digitally noise and grain reduced. As a result there
is less grain but also digital noise reduction artifacts in the
form of smearing of textures (the worst case is in a shot shortly
after Aragorn falls off the cliff).

Prior to Emiliana Torrini, Bj”rk was originally approached at
several stages of the production to both co-write and sing
"Gollum's Song". She refused them all due to her pregnancy.
Although she was not officially involved, producers did pick three
artists with a similar sound, and asked her to choose. Her pick
didn't work out, and after approaching her one final time to sing,
the song went to Emiliana Torrini.

Andy Serkis (Gollum) was ruled ineligible for a Best Supporting
Actor nomination at the 2003 Academy Awards because his character
onscreen was computer generated.

While filming the trilogy, Viggo Mortensen got so into character
that during a conversation, 'Peter Jackson' referred to him as
"Aragorn" for over half an hour without him realizing it.

Howard Shore's score was ruled out for the Academy Awards due to a
new rule that doesn't allow sequels to be nominated for Best
Score. However, he was told that if it wasn't for the new set of
rules his score would have been nominated.

When an Elven Warrior falls off the Deeping Wall, the scream is
the famous "Wilhelm Scream", commonly used in scenes where someone
is hit or is falling to their demise.





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