Lord Of The Rings: 10 Movie Mistakes They Hoped You Missed
3. Éomer Got Lost And Sent His Double
Throughout the trilogy dozens of stunt and scale doubles were used as stand ins. When it came to capturing the difference in size of certain characters, people of shorter stature were used in wide shots to sell the scene. But even characters of standard size were required to use doubles for particularly dangerous stunts. It's understandable right, you couldn't have an untrained actor galloping on a horse at high speed; insurance would cost a bomb...
But every now and then the stunt doubles were used in scenes when it didn't necessarily make sense. After the Battle of Helm's Deep, the surviving defenders climb to the top of a hill in order to survey the distant Mountains of Mordor. We then get Gandalf delivering the iconic line "The battle of Helm's Deep is over the battle for Middle Earth is about to begin". It was stirring stuff, leaving the viewer with a sense of anticipation and dread for the coming climax of the trilogy.
But the scene is somewhat undercut by the very visible inclusion of Éomer's stunt double. During the director's commentary, Peter Jackson admits that they simply never got round to pasting Karl Urban's head into the shot. Jackson then joked that in his mind this is just a generic commander of Rohan called George...