Between Tolkien’s immense novel and Peter Jackson’s incredible adaptation, The Lord of the Rings has more interesting little tidbits than every novel I’ve read from the list combined.
I found this exhaustive list of “facts you never knew” on Empire Online, so I thought I’d share 10 of my favorites with you.
- While writing the screenplay, Peter Jackson used 27 copies of the novel, highlighting, note-taking and page-tearing in each copy.
- Sauron has a more powerful boss called Morgoth, but you would only know that if you read The Silmarilion. I haven’t.
- To counter the famous meme about why the eagles don’t just simply fly everyone to Mt. Doom (which I questioned in my LOTR meme post), Tolkien’s answer: “The eagles are their own race and do things for their own reasons.” And they also aren’t “Middle Earth taxis.”
- You remember that amazing shot in the first movie of the fellowship mourning the loss of Gandalf outside of Moria? That happened before Ian McKellen had even arrived at the set. Ah, the beauties of Hollywood.
- During the shooting of the Uruk-hai battle, Viggo Mortenson broke his toe while kicking a helmet, which is the main reason he falls down and cries out on film.
- According to Empire Online, “20,000 cricket fans provided the voices of Uruk-hai in Helm’s Deep.” I assume they are talking about fans of the sport known as “Cricket,” as opposed to some apparatus that swats the noisy bugs known by the same name.
- For the adaptation of Return of the King, Howard Shore had to compose 7 minutes of music a day to keep pace with the film’s shooting.
- Elijah Wood use Alka Seltzer to cause the foam that came from his mouth when Shelob stabbed him.
- When the first LOTR trailer was released for Fellowship of the Ring in 2001, it was viewed by 1.7 million people in 24 hours, a record at the time.
- The Lord of the Rings films are the sixth highest grossing franchise in film history, trailing only Harry Potter, James Bond, Star Wars, Pirates of the Caribbean (really?), and Shrek.
You can see 90 more facts you might not know over at Empire Online.
This is another reason why I love The Lord of the Rings—both the novel and the films. So many quirky little facts out there!
