Lord of the Rings: Return of the King is arguably the best movie of the Lord of the Rings trilogy, wrapping up the story in the perfect way. The film is stuffed with action and emotion, all while telling the story in the right way, with Peter Jackson once again packing the film with details.
His decision to bring as much from the book into the film as possible to stay true to the source material, while also adding several details, proved to be a hit with everyone.
Spotting all of the hidden details and Easter eggs isn’t an easy thing to do when there is so much going on within the film, but this movie does have plenty of them. Here are 10 hidden details you may have missed within Return of the King.
Witch King
When The Return of the King was shown in test screenings, something that audience members all noticed was the design of the Witch King. Many viewers were confused, thinking that Sauron had joined the battle, which obviously wasn’t the case.
But not wanting to have people be confused, the decision was made to completely change the design of the character, to what it is seen as now. That meant that all of his scenes had to be totally reshot, adding a lot of extra work for all those involved.
Frodo Murdering
Peter Jackson admitted that he originally wanted to do something very different to finish off the storyline between Frodo and Gollum at the end of the movie. Originally, he had hoped for Frodo to straight-up murder Gollum and just push him off the ledge and into Mount Doom.
However, he felt it was very un-Tolkien, as it wasn’t how he wanted his heroes to act within his books. Despite the fact it would have made sense considering Gollum’s actions, the scene was re-shot to how it is now within the movie.
One-Year Shot
Speaking of Frodo and Gollum, one of the most emotional and impactful scenes of the movie comes when Frodo orders Sam to go home. Having been tricked by Gollum, the Hobbit turns his back on his best friend and demands he leaves, which leads to some truly emotional moments between the two of them.
Interestingly, this scene actually took an entire year to get filmed fully. Because the shoot wasn’t consecutive, they ended up doing this in different chunks, jumping back and forth on the scene throughout a year gap. While it certainly wasn’t the easiest way of doing it, this did create a fantastic scene.
Singing
The scene that sees Pippin sing in this movie is a fantastic one that really helps paint the picture of how depressing and difficult the situation is. With the blood squirting out of the meat being eaten as people are getting destroyed in the battle, the soft tons of Billy Boyd’s voice adds a lot to the situation.
His singing voice is of a very high quality, which is why the scene works so well, and this mainly took place because of a night out the staff had. Co-writer Philippa Boyens heard Billy singing at a karaoke bar and was shocked by how good it was, then deciding to fit it into the movie.
Shelob’s Shriek
The scariest moment of The Return of the King comes when Frodo enters Shelob’s lair. The giant spider looks incredibly realistic and it certainly provided fear to many viewers, especially with the spiders piercing shriek.
Of course, Peter Jackson had to make this sound up, and he used a lot of different elements to make that happen. A plastic alien toy, steam hisses, and even the shriek of a Tasmanian Devil were all brought into this moment in order to make it sound as fearsome as possible.
Aragorn Fighting Sauron
Within The Return of the King, we never actually see Aragorn go toe-to-toe with Sauron, which was something that fans thought might happen. Earlier in the franchise, a prologue scene is shown that saw Sauron battle Isildur, which many thought would be replicated with Aragorn.
While it was never shown, it was actually shot. Peter Jackson filmed the fight scene but felt that it no longer felt right in the movie, so it was cut. However, the work was kept in, as when Aragorn is fighting a cave troll in the final battle, that is the exact scene, just with the troll digitally superimposed over Sauron.
Battle At Black Gate
The Battle at the Black Gate is one of the most famous from the Lord of the Rings franchise, taking place on a huge scale. With countless main characters coming together to battle against the Orcs, Peter Jackson made sure there were tons of extras on hand.
However, in order to get enough, they actually brought in a few hundred members of the New Zealand Army in order to boost the numbers. They were apparently incredibly enthusiastic during the filming, breaking many of the wooden swords that they were using.
Cameo
There are many interesting cameos that can be found within the Lord of the Rings trilogy, and during The Return of the King, that is certainly the case. One of the most interesting ones happens to involve Viggo Mortensen, as his son Henry actually makes an appearance.
Of course, Henry’s appearance happens to be with his father, Aragorn, at the Battle of the Pelennor Fields. However, he doesn’t do it alongside him, instead, Henry works as an Orc and is actually the first one to be killed by Aragorn, giving them a fun moment together.
Oliphaunt Carcass
The dead oliphaunt carcass was an incredibly impressive visual within The Return of the King, and it is one that was actually built as a prop. Considering its size, it is actually quite surprising that this isn’t a CGI effect, but Peter Jackson wanted it to be built.
This was actually the largest prop ever built for a movie at this point in time, proving just how large it was in scale. However, Peter Jackson actually still thought this could have been even bigger!
Subtitle References
This is actually a hidden detail that runs through the entire trilogy and is something that few fans have picked up on. But the subtitle of the movie is actually said at one point in all three of the films, in order to give a subtle reference as to why they are named that way.
In Fellowship, during the council scene, Elrond refers to the group as “The Fellowship of the Ring”; in The Two Towers it’s Saruman who says “The Two Towers” during a voice-over; and finally in Return of the King, Gandalf tells the steward of Gondor that he cannot deny The Return of the King.
