Unknown "The Lord of the Rings": facts about the film (33 photos)

Time flies very quickly. 20 years ago, Putin was only in his first term, the new century had just begun, the Internet was not yet in every home, and the grass was greener. And 20 years ago, the first part of the Lord of the Rings trilogy came out on the silver screen. We'll tell you what you might not know about the franchise based on Tolkien's novels.





Cinema is a large-scale process



As a rule, in a typical feature film production, 2-2.5 minutes of material are shot per day. In The Lord of the Rings, everything was different: during production, they filmed as many as 4 minutes. This is because the filming was approached thoroughly.





At least 3 thousand people were involved in the filming process, and the process itself took place in several places at once. The art department employed 300 people. Of course, all these people had to be fed. Therefore, every day 1,460 eggs were prepared for just one film crew.

Army



New Zealand soldiers were supposed to appear in some of the battle scenes. But everything was decided by chance: at some point, the military was sent to extinguish the unrest in East Timor. They had to hire extras as extras, who were urgently trained to walk in formation.



And these are new expenses. The creators of the trilogy had to shell out 200 thousand dollars more than originally planned. To save money, only 100 hobbits were “invited” to Bilbo’s birthday, whereas in the book there were 144.

Props



Ten thousand arrows, 500 bows and 48 thousand pieces of armor were made for the film. 19 thousand costumes were made and aged.

As for the body parts, they were also specially prepared. Thus, about 1,800 pairs of latex ears and feet were made for the main hobbit characters. So much because latex products are disposable. They cannot be removed without ruining the material. But each pair of ears and feet was prepared to order.



A lot of money was also spent on hairstyles. And hair. So, in New Zealand, wigs were sewn right on the spot, including for elves.

Leaf fall



During Elrond's council scene, the leaves are falling. This, of course, is not a natural desire of nature. Again, 50 workers were hired for filming. They scattered leaves at regular intervals.



To do this, a large number of fallen leaves were collected in advance, and each of them was repainted by hand. All because the leaves turned black very quickly.

Height

Filming at the Prancing Pony Tavern was particularly challenging: it was necessary to clearly show the difference in height between hobbits and people. Therefore, some extras had to walk around the tavern on stilts.

But Gimli’s height had to be hidden: actor John Rhys-Davies, who played the hot-tempered dwarf, was the tallest of the brotherhood. His height is 185 cm.

Guest star

David Bowie was originally supposed to play Elrond the Elf. But it didn’t work out, and so Hugo Weaving played the elf.

It's also interesting that Vin Diesel, Russell Crowe and Stuart Townsend were considered for the role of Aragorn, Jake Gyllenhaal for the role of Frodo, and Warwick Davis could become the very same Gimli. Sean Connery, Patrick Stewart and Christopher Plummer were offered the role of Gandalf. Also among the actors who could appear in the saga were Liam Neeson, Daniel Day-Lewis, Ethan Hawke, Uma Thurman, Lucy Lawless and David Bowie.

Not in chronology



Often in films it turns out that filming does not take place in chronological order. This is what happened in this case: at the time of filming the death of Gandalf, none of the actors of the brotherhood had yet worked with Ian McKellen. And no one has ever seen him in the guise of Gandalf.



Apples

In the first part of the trilogy, the hobbit Pippin asks about Aragorn's second breakfast, for which he receives an apple in the face. It took 16 takes to shoot just this shot because Viggo Mortensen was “enjoying himself immensely,” according to Billy Boyd.



Independent



Orlando Bloom, who played Legolas, performed all the stunts himself, and in one of the scenes he was injured - he broke his rib. By the way, Viggo Mortensen also performed all the stunts himself, and received much more injuries. Even a broken finger shows this.

In one scene, he kicks a helmet lying on the ground. Here we see Aragorn screaming in pain and despair. It was all because of that same finger: the helmet turned out to be heavy, and the actor broke a bone. Well, at least we have a very natural shot.



Viggo was also filming a fight scene, and at one point his tooth was knocked out. Mortensen himself wanted to glue the shard in place, but Peter Jackson sent him to the dentist during lunch instead.

It is also interesting that during breaks between filming the actors went surfing. And there the performer of the role of Aragorn received serious bruises and abrasions that even the make-up artists could not cover. In the caves of Moria, the cameras had to be urgently rearranged, and the actor himself was filmed only from one side.



Height



There is a scene at the beginning of the first film where Gandalf hits his head on the ceiling in Bilbo's house. Initially, this scene did not exist: McKellen accidentally hit the scenery, but did not break out of character and continued to play.

Hands



There are two scenes in the film where there is a close-up of the hands of the hobbit Frodo fingering the ring. But these are just different hands: some with bitten nails, and others with a perfect manicure. And all because Elijah Wood suffered for a long time from his bad habit of biting his nails.

Tattoos



Perhaps the most famous fact was that eight of the nine actors-members of the Brotherhood got tattoos with the elven number “9” as a souvenir. Ian McKellen, Viggo Mortensen, Dominic Monaghan and Sean Bean did it on the shoulder, Sean Astin and Billy Boyd on the ankle, Orlando Bloom on the forearm, and Elijah Wood on the lower abdomen. Tattoos can be seen, for example, on Dominic Monaghan in the TV series Lost. The elven symbol "10" was tattooed on himself by the director of the film, Peter Jackson.



Director



Peter Jackson not only directed, but also starred in the film. For example, he appears at the Prancing Pony Tavern as an onlooker nibbling on a carrot. In the second part, he throws a spear at the orc as a defender of Helm's Deep, and in the third, Legolas shoots him as a pirate.

Children



Jackson's children also took part in the filming process. In the first part, they sit as little hobbits and listen to Bilbo's story about trolls. After that, they played the inhabitants of Rohan, who were hiding in Helm's Deep, and then - as the natives of Minas Tirith in the scene where Faramir rides to storm Osgiliath.

Earnings



It wasn't just the filmmakers who scored big in theaters after the premiere. The state of New Zealand earned $200 million from the filming. The Lord of the Rings Ministry was even created under Parliament, whose officials calculated what could be gained from the production of the film.

Another film adaptation



Back in the mid-20th century, the famous British from The Beatles wanted to make their own version based on Tolkien's novel. John Lennon was cast as Gollum, Paul McCartney as Frodo, George Harrison as Gandalf, and Ringo Starr as Sam. The star four saw Stanley Kubrick as the director. True, he refused, and the world never saw this film adaptation.

Tolkienists



Of course, fans of Tolkien’s work could not help but be on the set. For example, Sir Christopher Lee, who eventually played Saruman, could have been cast as Gandalf. He was the only member of the film crew who met Tolkien in person. Sir Lee first read the saga immediately after its first publication in 1954 and called it the highest literary achievement: he reread it every year.



One part



The producers believed that The Lord of the Rings could be made in one film. So, Bob Weinstein, due to the high cost of film production, was going to compress three novels into two hours and remove many characters and events from it. Including the Battle of Helm's Deep.



Later, when the rights passed from Miramax to New Line Cinema, the studio agreed to make a trilogy, guided, among other things, by financial considerations. Why charge money for one ticket when you can get three? True, there were also savings: all three films were shot as a single picture in New Zealand.

Oscars



The series has become one of the most successful in history in terms of both revenue and awards.

In total, The Lord of the Rings has 475 wins and a total of 800 nominations for various film awards - a record for any franchise. Particularly notable are the 17 Oscar statuettes, 11 of which went to The Return of the King. No one else has conquered, and only two films in history have achieved the same amount - Titanic and Ben-Hur.

Hatred



Tolkien's son Christopher, who spent years working on his drafts, thought the films were terrible.

“The gulf between the beauty, the seriousness of my father’s books and what they were turned into staggers me. In the pursuit of profit, the aesthetics of the works and their philosophical impact were simply destroyed. I see only one way out for myself: to forget about these films forever.”

Sound solution



Due to the fact that the world of Middle-earth is populated by various fantastic creatures, many of them had to be sound engineers to come up with their own sound.

For example, walruses “gave” their voices to the Water Guardian and the cave trolls.

Soundtrack



In 2015, listeners voted the soundtrack to the films the best in history. It was composed by Howard Shore, and the work turned out to be titanic. He also received three Oscars.

Aerophobia



Actor Sean Bean suffers from aerophobia, as actors Billy Boyd and Dominic Monaghan found out. They decided to play a joke on their colleague and during one of the flights they asked the pilot to show what the helicopter was capable of. Since then, Sean Bean went to all locations on foot: to do this, he got up earlier than everyone else, put on armor and walked through the mountains in armor and with weapons.

A pub



Sir Ian McKellen has his own pub where he keeps souvenirs from the filming, including Gandalf's outfit and weapons. And from the filming of The Hobbit, he took coins from Smaug’s lair and the key to Bilbo Baggins’ house.

What do you think about the legendary saga?