50 Facts You Didn't Know About The Lord of the Rings

do all who live to see such times but that is not for them to decide all we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us what's up everybody it's ryan here from the y and today i'm bringing you a video on the best movie trilogy of all time the lord of the rings i don't even really remember when i first discovered these beautiful films but all these years later and they still hold up to the test of time so damn well i've wanted to make this for a while and with the 20-year anniversary of the fellowship of the ring coming up and amazon's new tv show on middle earth second age i thought what better time than now so here you go 50 facts you didn't know about the lord of the rings [Music] in 2021 a live action soviet play adaptation of the fellowship of the ring was rediscovered after having thought to been lost chronotelli was produced back in 1991 and with the extremely low budget and awful green screen effects it is comical ridiculous and all-around confusing one comment described the whole thing as if frodo had dropped a bunch of acid before leaving the shire and honestly that's not too far from the truth [Applause] [Music] harvey weinstein is a horrible person for reasons that we all know but he also almost ruined the lord of the rings peter jackson had always wanted to adapt a trilogy from the books but when the idea was brought to mirror maxim weinstein he rejected the proposal outright and jackson was forced to condense his dream into two films and that was only the beginning for a year and a half weinstein hid the budget which turned out to be only 75 million for two films and even became annoyed with jackson for supposedly wasting 12 million during scripting two things happened at this point weinstein becoming increasingly frustrated contacted the team and said they had to streamline their approach and make the lord of the rings into a single movie around the same time jackson and the production team also extremely annoyed leaked the script drew mcweeney who worked for ain at cool news at the time hoping to create buzz for the project and possibly even attract the attention of another studio and thank god the tactic worked new line cinema came into the picture and even pushed for the trilogy when peter jackson came in and thought he could only sell them on two movies bob looked at peter and said now peter why would anybody in their right mind make two movies he said this is three films weinstein also very likely screwed over ashley judd and mira sorino from getting parts in the lord of the rings peter jackson said there was a meeting with judd to discuss two possible roles in the film but later heard from weinstein to steer clear of both her and servino because of bad past experiences jackson hated working with weinstein and called him and his brother second-rate mafia bullies and even put them begrudgingly in the credits as two trolls showing us what they really are [Music] many of the scenes in the fellowship of the ring were set up to accomplish multiple things as there is of course limited time in a film one of these scenes was mary and pippin lighting off the dragon firework at bilbo's birthday party which didn't happen at all in the book they inserted the scene into the movie as a way to lightheartedly introduce to us mary and pippen while at the same time saying something about their mischievous nature as well as providing some comic relief before things get a lot darker lastly it does reference the fact that in the books gandalf had a firework that turned into smog the dragon the movie just showed it in a different way peter jackson was a huge fan of storyboards and spent a massive portion of time drawing up basically every frame of the entire adventure this allowed peter and the crew to get a good feel for which parts worked and which didn't that way there was less wasted money on shoots the storyboarding process began before the script was even finished and jackson described it as a cheap way to make the movie without actually making it the production team also made an animatic with the storyboards and got local new zealand actors to voice act the scenes to make a sort of mini comic book movie then jackson got all the cast together at his house and screened the animatic for them what are you doing fried eggs sausages and nice crispy bacon i've saved some for you mr frodo you idiots put this out the most difficult part of the book to adapt over to film was the prologue which had to provide background information on the characters and setting of the story originally they had elijah wood reading the intro but then realized that his character had no attachment to the events described then sir ian mckellen recorded the take but again the production team felt he wasn't best suited for the part and finally they landed on cape blancha to narrate the prologue for two major reasons for one her powerful voice undoubtedly added to the epic feeling of the story and because she plays galadriel having her narrate the events of the past exemplified the timelessness of the elves [Music] john reese davies who played gimli had the most demanding prosthetics procedure out of all the cast members it took over four and a half hours every day to get him ready to shoot but that's not even the worst of it the prosthetics gave him a topical eczema which he had to deal with daily which just sounds downright terrible and it was itchy and painful and one felt very very self-conscious pre-visualization was another technique the team used to conceptualize certain scenes without incurring massive production costs george lucas and rick mccallum two of the pioneers of previz provided a ton of help to the lord of the rings team and using this new piece of technology and that's what previous is for to help peter create his vision the orc blacksmiths underneath eisenguard were actually the weta workshop team who created all the armor and weapons for the movie 48 000 individual prop pieces were made by the department which is insane so it's very cool to see jackson paying homage to those people by giving them a role in the movie in this classic scene if i take one more step it'll be the farthest away from home i've ever been there was actually a car driving in the background in the upper right corner this was only visible on the theatrical release as they fixed the mistake before it went to dvd some people argued that it was smoke from a chimney but i think it's clear as day that there was a car and they cut it out in subsequent versions [Music] a month prior to filming peter jackson got members of the crew together to do a mock shoot of the scenes in bag end peter jackson starred as bilbo baggins and i would definitely pay good money to see a whole movie shot in this fashion i didn't feel like why should i what business is yours anyway it's mine i found it it came to me there's no need to get angry well i'm angry it's your fault it's a little late to be gardening samwise game g i heard mr frodo cry out i was worried please mr ganaf don't hurt me don't turn me into anything unnatural the artwork of alan lee and john howe inspired the look and feel of many of the scenes in the lord of the rings so inspirational were their works that they had them pinned all over the office for the entire time they worked on the screenplay and even hired them as conceptual artists to help flesh out the world of middle earth [Music] the building of hobbiton was a crazy work intensive process it included shipping in 5 000 cubic meters of dirt draining a swamp filling it in and making a paddy field over it and creating the fake oak tree which meant that every leaf had to be individually painted and attached one by one the final stage of creating hobbiton of course centered on creating the hobbit holes and then planting hundreds of plants around them to complete that natural organic feel if you ever wondered where gandalf keeps his pipe there is actually a special slot for it right in his staff although it is known as the one ring they made around 40 different versions of it in various sizes this allowed the production team to always have the best shot of the ring no matter the distance it was filmed at the largest ring seen here named the gigaring was used for the close-up shot during the prologue of the fellowship of the ring during bilbo's birthday party when he is recounting tales of his past adventures you can see peter jackson's kids billy and katie billy was actually the only hobbit not to have to wear a wig as peter noted he already had perfect hobbit hair [Music] the scene where the hobbits hide from the black rider was actually filmed right in the middle of wellington on mount victoria the forest pathway is all there and exactly how it looked in the movie but the large tree they hide under is not as it was a prop that was created and transported to the site quite a few animals were used to create the sounds of creatures in lord of the rings baby elephant seals were used for the sound of the morya orcs while uruks were much larger and more brutal so their pain sounds were that of sea lions while their attack noises came from tigers and panthers and the wargs was actually the sound designer and a pack of dogs maurya's meaning changes when you look at what language it is in in ancient greek it means foolishness in italian it's translated as a blight or the plague in elvish it simply means black chasm and in dwarvish it's kaza doom or house of the dwarves [Music] viggo mortensen didn't want to go anywhere without his sword that meant he took it with him to restaurants in the car and i wouldn't even be surprised if he slept with it in his bed he additionally insisted on using a real sword and not a lighter aluminum or rubber one all for the sake of authenticity one battle sequence never made it into the fellowship of the ring this was the ambush at the rapids of sam gabir and jackson explained we had all kinds of action planned with boats flipping over and lost his boat afloat as it bucks and tosses while the elf standing with a foot on each of the gun whales would be firing arrows at the attackers sadly the scene was lost forever when torrential rains and 20-foot high flood waters washed the entire set away [Music] so as many of you are probably aware sean bean used to be terrified of flying in helicopters and dominic monaghan and billy boyd made that fear so much worse as the story goes sean did actually go up in the helicopter for their first ride but monahan and boyd knowing about his phobia told the pilot to show them what the helicopter could really do and we were saying to the guy could you you know could you try and flip over or could you do some banks or you know because how close could you get to that mountain and that was the last helicopter sean beam would take while filming the lord of the rings and probably for many years after opting instead to take a ski lift up and then hike the final few miles all while wearing his boromir outfit filming the battle of helms deep was a long and arduous process it took 120 days to film with 90 of them being at night in the cold rain on warm nights with no rain the crew poured thousands of gallons of water on the extras and speaking of extras over 20 000 of them came to film the battle when all was said and done they had shot 20 hours of footage and only 40 minutes of that made it into the movie the secret to telling smeagle apart from gollum is in his eyes if you look closely gollum's pupils are always very tiny compared to smeagols this is most obvious in scenes where he changes back and forth between his two personalities a special lighting rig was used for galadriel's eyes so they would appear to reflect starlight the lore behind this is that galadriel was the last elf alive in middle earth who had seen the light of the tree of valinor as she was born in valinor before the first age had even begun [Music] [Applause] [Music] the dead marshes and the gates of moria were both filmed in the same location a parking lot initially jackson considered using real marshes near tayanau on new zealand's south island but they soon discovered if you took one wrong step you would instantly sink up to your waste so that idea was quickly abandoned instead they opted for a flooded car park that was dressed up by the art department with moss and vegetation from the real marshlands the first appearance of gandalf the white was made intentionally confusing they put the eyes of sir christopher lee onto the face of sir ian mckellen and mixed their two voices together all to add to the confusion one of the things that most disappointed peter jackson was that andy circus was never even nominated for an oscar the academy said circus's performance was ineligible because it technically wasn't the actor being nominated for the role but rather the character the good news is that in recent years the academy has become much more open to considering motion capture performances because of the recent focus on equality [Music] vigo mortensen bought three horses that were used in the filming of the movies uras or brego the main horse he rides in the films kenny the horse he rides at the beginning of the two towers and finally he bought the white horse that arwin rides in the fellowship of the ring for a stunt woman who couldn't afford it [Music] andy serkis came up with the voice for gollum after watching his cat cough up a furball as you can imagine making that sound all the time would mess your throat up bad so to soothe the pain circus would drink what he'd like to call gollum juice a mixture of honey lemon and ginger here's some more proof that viggo mortensen is an absolute badass bob anderson a sword instructor who worked on various films such as star wars the princess bride the mask of zorro and the three musketeers said that viggo was the best swordsman he'd ever trained he also did almost all his own stunts and currently speaks around six or seven languages in this shot following the battle of helm's deep when gandalf is giving his speech if you look closely that is not eomer peter jackson said they filmed this scene with a stand-in as carl urban was not available and simply forgot to digitally replace his head in post-production the world premiere of the return of the king was a huge event in the city of wellington new zealand some a hundred thousand fans lined the streets and watched as the actors and actresses paraded down the road [Music] peter jackson had three cameos in the trilogy one for each movie in the fellowship of the ring he appeared as albert dreary a man eating a carrot in the village of bree in the two towers jackson cameoed as a rohan soldier during the battle of helm's deep and in the final movie he played a corsair of umbar who gets killed by legolas as a warning shot in the extended edition [Music] christopher lee was understandably very upset when he learned about being cut from the return of the king jackson explained by saying it feels like the first scenes are wrapping last year's movie instead of starting the new one so we reluctantly made the decision to save this sequence for the dvd christopher lee was hearing none of it and ended up boycotting the premiere but time heals all wounds and with the inclusion of saruman in the hobbit films all was well between lee and jackson the steps of cyrith ungall were not only extremely difficult for sam and frodo to climb up but they were also exceptionally problematic for the crew to film the steps themselves were very steep and fragile sometimes breaking and because they were made out of polystyrene and sprayed down with water their hobbit feet would constantly get stuck and need to be pulled off one of the more memorable moments in return of the king has to be pippin singing edge of the night over the backdrop of faramir's charge the whole idea for it came about one karaoke night when billy boyd belted out the song delilah by tom jones which made writer felipe boyans take immediate notice only two days later the edge of the night was fully finished and the rest is history elijah wood has a special knack for being able to stare for long periods of time without blinking this talent came in handy for when it gets stung by she-love and put into a coma also when frodo gets poisoned two alka-seltzers were used to create the foaming mouth effect in the first version of return of the king they had aragon actually fighting a physical manifestation of sauron at the black gate but when the footage was looked at it was deemed too far off from tolkien's original idea and in addition would have taken away from the main storyline of frodo and sam so instead the producers imposed a large troll over sauron and had aragon duel him in his place at the end of the trilogy as frodo is finishing his book you can see that sam has been elected mayor of hobbiton and later he eventually gets re-elected for seven consecutive seven-year terms sam ends up having 13 children and then when his wife passes away sam leaves his home to finally rejoin frodo in the undying lands return of the king set a record for the largest clean sweep at the oscars with 11 nominations and 11 wins this tied the highest number of oscars alongside ben hur and titanic truly amazing and something we may never see again i can't carry it for you but i can't carry you the beatles wanted to star in a live adaptation of the lord of the rings which would have seen paul mccartney as frodo john lennon playing gollum george harrison as gandalf and ringo starr appearing as sam their version of the film would have been a musical and all signs pointed to them wanting stanley kubrick as the director but kubrick was skeptical about the feasibility of being able to bring the lord of the rings to life in the 1960s and tolkien was not about to let a bunch of musicians adapt his life's work not too surprising is that many of the cast members took home props to commemorate their time working on the films sir ian mckellen took home the front door key to back end which he says peter jackson is looking for but will never find liv tyler was able to snag her elvish ears alongside arwen sword both elijah wood and andy circus received prop replicas of the one ring and sean aston got his hobbit feet [Music] over 12 and a half million plastic rings were made in order to fabricate chain mail armor two crew members spent the entirety of the shoot linking each of the 12.5 million rings by hand and by the end of it their fingerprints on their index and thumb fingers were totally gone i would not have traded this experience for the world it's been the most amazing time of my life the tolkien estate and more specifically j.r.r son christopher was not pleased with the direction peter jackson had gone with the films giving his first interview in over 40 years since his father's death he explained how they eviscerated the book by making it an action movie for young people aged 15 to 25 and it seems that the hobbit will be the same kind of film [Music] as you can imagine the lord of the rings trilogy had a wondrous effect on new zealand tourism there's even a wiki page on it called token tourism in the five years after the release of the fellowship of the ring there was a 40 increase in tourism to new zealand and two decades later one in five still cite the movies as a reason for visiting the country eight of the nine main cast members got matching tattoos to celebrate their time filming the trilogy they all got the number nine in elvish written on their bodies except john reese davies who opted to send his double to get it instead of him he explained that the elvish tattoo was designed but as i am a professional actor whenever there's anything dangerous or that involves blood i sent my stunt double to do it feeling left out peter jackson got a tattoo of the number 10 in elvish orlando bloom found out just two days before he graduated from the guild hall school of music and drama that peter jackson wanted to cast him as legolas he trained for two months to learn how to use a bow properly and was amazingly only paid 175 thousand dollars for all three movies although he of course would do it all again in a heartbeat bean boy so threatened these humans honestly so threatened by the arts sir christopher lee read the lord of the rings once every year until his death in 2015 and was the only member of the cast to have actually met tolkien also sir ian mckellen based gandalf's voice on that of j.r.r tolkien's in a hole in the ground delivered a hobbit so you mean to go through with your plan then yes amazon is making a television adaptation of tolkien's second age era and the show is already the most expensive season of television ever produced coming in at a whopping 465 million dollars a second season has already been ordered and is in the works meaning there will be a shorter wait time between seasons which sounds a lot like how the movies played out areas of interest in the lord of the rings show include numenor the misty mountains and the elvish realm of lindon with something like this you just hope they're faithful to the source material and put the same kind of effort and attention to detail that the original trilogy did so well but we will all have to wait and see till late 2021 when the show is set to be released thank you all so much for watching i really hope you enjoyed it i had a lot of fun making this one how could i not it's the lord of the rings so if you could give me a like that'd be awesome and i plan on posting a lot more content this summer so so make sure to subscribe alright till next time everyone peace

Channel: The Why

Views: 1,720,093

Keywords:

Id: o_8ZLMMfFIk

Length: 26min 13sec (1573 seconds)

Published: Wed Jun 02 2021