10 Mistakes Directors Hoped You'd Forget By The End Of The Movie

Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings films are some of the most mistake-filled productions of all time, but considering the unprecedented scope and ambition involved, it's incredibly easy to cut the director a ton of slack.

He did, however, let an inexcusable mistake sneak into the theatrical cut of The Fellowship of the Ring.

Just as Frodo (Elijah Wood) and Sam (Sean Astin) leave the Shire and Sam comments about being the farthest away from home he's ever been, a majorly anachronistic mistake is visible in the top-right side of the frame (0:10 in the clip below).

Just above the smoke in the background is the squint-or-you'll-miss-it glint of a car driving around, its windshield reflecting the sun back at the camera from a long distance away.

Given the detail-orientated nature of the movies, some dedicated fans caught the mistake during the theatrical release and posted about it online.

The hubbub was sufficient enough that Jackson, presumably hoping nobody would actually notice the gaffe, decided to digitally erase it from the DVD release.

As such, the unnatural camera glint is now only preserved on clips taken from a bootleg copy of the film before Jackson retouched it for home video. Of the mistake, Jackson himself said:

"We actually didn't know about the car until we were cutting the movie. The smoke [from the exhaust] and dust wasn't so bad because there was already lots of it around, but the bloody windshield was reflecting the sun back into the camera lens. So we erased it for the DVD. I think some people were upset because they tried to show it to their friends and it was gone."