The Lord of the Rings movie trivia every fan should know but not repeat – Polygon

How do you share your love of all things Lord of the Rings? You could gently entice your friends and loved ones to watch the films with you, or read aloud the books. You could schedule cozy marathons with friends who are already hooked on the story of Frodo Baggins and the One Ring.

But even then ... how will you ever know that theyre enjoying the movies on the same level that you are? Will they know how much Sean Bean hated helicopters? Will they know how long it took to film the scene where all the hobbits say goodbye? I ask you, will they know that Viggo Mortensen really broke his real toe kicking that helmet for real?

They will if you are constantly spouting facts about the movies during their runtime. This is Polygons Guide to being a very annoying person to watch The Lord of the Rings trilogy with, compiled by Polygons Toussaint Egan, Austen Goslin, and Susana Polo, all of whom admit to occasionally being very annoying to watch The Lord of the Rings trilogy with.

Weve arranged our facts in the order they come up in the movies, and even provided suggestions of things to say for maximum annoyance. Frankly, we annoyed even ourselves putting this together, and were not proud. This article is a cursed object, and should be handled with care.

In conclusion: If this is how you watch the Lord of the Rings, thats fine. But you should probably only watch it with people who are also like this.

People like us.

The first good example is Frodo sitting on the cart with Gandalf, but you can bring up this up almost anytime a short-looking person is on screen with a tall-looking person.

Those are Peter Jacksons kids.

Ian McKellen actually hit his head on the ceiling beam

Christopher Lee was the only member of the cast who had personally met J.R.R. Tolkien, and he could recite the Ring poem from memory in the Black Speech of Mordor, just so you know.

The guy in streets of Bree with the carrot is Peter Jackson.

When Aragorn shows up in the Prancing Pony, well that could have been Daniel Day Lewis.

Viggo was actually the one throwing apples at Billy Boyds head.

The Weathertop Battle against the the Ringwraiths was the first thing Viggo filmed.

Arwens riding double loved that horse so much that Viggo Mortensen bought him for her at the end of production so she could keep him. Liv Tyler also accidentally stabbed herself during this scene in one of the outtakes.

John Rhys Davis is so tall and all the hobbit actors are so short that they didnt need size doubles or CGI in shots of Gimli and the hobbits.

Elrond says the Fellowship of the Ring.

Leitmotif, or the use of specific musical phrases to accompany recurring characters or themes, was popularized by the composer Wagner, which is ironic because Tolkien hated Wagner for Nazi-ing up one of his favorite subjects, Norse mythology.

When theyre crossing the Pass of Caradhras, Legolas walks on top of the snow while everyone else is in it.

Sean Bean hated riding in a helicopter so much that he would get up extra early to go through makeup and costuming and then hike to mountain locations every day in his full Boromir getup.

They set up a special light rig just for Cate Blanchetts closeups to give her the appearance of having stars reflected in her eyes.

Viggo Mortensen and Sean Bean filmed Beans death scene twice, to catch each side of their closeups, with a lunch break in between.

The knife that Lurtz throws at Viggo is real and Viggo really deflected it with his sword. Viggo wore his sword with him everywhere during filming and was apparently one of the best people the movies sword master ever trained.

When they filmed the shots of Aragorn, Legolas, and Gimli chasing the orc company, Orlando Bloom had a broken rib, Viggo Mortenson had a broken toe, and Gimlis size double Brett Beattie had chronic knee problems.

Brad Dourif had to shave his eyebrows and he hated it.

When the production put out a call for extras who could bring their own horses, the majority of the applicants they got were women, so most of the Rohirrim in any given scene are actually ladies with spirit gum beards.

Viggo Mortensen broke his toe filming this scene. Peter Jackson wanted him to kick the helmet close to the camera, but he kept missing. In the final shot he kicked a real metal helmet instead of the prop one and fell over screaming. Peter Jackson was like Wow, Viggo really got into that one but hed actually broken his toe. The shot was so good they kept it in the movie. We just watched Viggo Mortensen break his toe for real.

Bring up a characters age that isnt stated in the movie. Denethor is only one year older than Aragorn. Boromir is 41. Frodo is 51, Sam is 39, and Merry is 37. Hobbits come of age at 33, so Pippin, at 29, is technically a teenager. Gimli is 140. Eomer and Eowyn are 28 and 24 respectively.

Orlando Bloom fell off a horse and cracked a rib, and was unable to perform a stunt of leaping onto a running horse, so the production substituted a CGI double doing a bizarre flip.

John Rhys-Davies voices Treebeard. Treebeard says lots of Tom Bombadil lines from the books.

When Aragorn tells that blonde kid that he has a good sword? Thats Philippa Boyens kid.

Arwen was originally going to lead the elf forces at Helms Deep, not Haldir.

That kid in the Helms Deep caves who looks just like one of those hobbits played by Peter Jacksons kids? Thats Peter Jacksons kid.

Peter Jackson asked Christopher Lee to yell when Wormtongue stabbed him, and Lee explained that when you stab a man in the lungs he cannot scream.

When Arwen has a vision of her and Aragorns son, hes played by the kid of orc-stuntman (and the dwarf Nori in the Hobbit films) Jed Brophy.

The sad kids watching Faramir leave who look just like the hobbit kids in Fellowship are Peter Jacksons kids.

The pirate that Legolas shoots is Peter Jackson.

Peter Jackson is terrified of spiders and disliked having to design Shelob.

The destruction of Barad-dr, the sick-lookin fortress of the dark lord Sauron with the giant honkin fireball eye at the top, was deliberately designed to not invoke comparisons to 9/11, going so far as to have the tower being destroyed by a magical shockwave from the middle of the tower instead from the top down and simulating the sound of the towers destruction with broken glass.

The lyrics are a quote from Elendil, the first king of Gondor, that Tolkien wrote in The Lord of the Rings, but Mortensen set it to music himself for Aragorns coronation scene.

Because of on-set accidents (cameras going unfocused for a whole shoot and Sean Astin forgetting to put his waistcoat back on after a lunch break), the hobbit actors had to film their entire goodbye scene three times three straight days of crying for the camera.

Sam and Rosies oldest kid is played by Sean Astins daughter.

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The Lord of the Rings movie trivia every fan should know but not repeat - Polygon