Peter Jackson Film
- Actor Allusion: While examining the Shards of Narsil, Boromir (Sean Bean) cuts his finger on one and remarks, "Still sharp!"
- Actor-Inspired Element: In the book, Gandalf is pulled over the edge and screams "Fly, you fools!" as he falls. Ian McKellen told Peter Jackson that he wanted Frodo and Gandalf to look at each other one last time because Gandalf was a surrogate father to Frodo.
- Dawson Casting:
- In the Prologue, Sir Ian Holm is very briefly seen wearing a dark, curly wig, as Bilbo 60 years younger. While Gandalf does say that Bilbo "hasn't aged a day" since seeing him last, Holm is obviously too old to have such brown hair.
- In a bit of an ironic twist, the commentary reveals that Billy Boyd in his 30s was the oldest of the main four hobbit actors, where Pippin is the youngest of the four (he'd barely hit his coming of age in the novel). To cap it off, Elijah Wood was the youngest, turning 18 during filming, while playing the 40 to 50-year-old Frodo Baggins - the oldest of the four.
- Creator's Favorite Episode: Viggo Mortensen has said that he prefers The Fellowship Of The Ring over the second and third film due to the minimal usage of CGI, which is something he felt hurt the second and third film.
- On-Set Injury:
- Viggo Mortensen managed to get a black eye while surfing, so he had to be filmed in profile for many of the Moria scenes until the bruising healed.
- Sean Astin stepped on a piece of glass in a river that went right through his prosthetic and tore up his foot which required him to be airlifted to hospital.
- Real-Life Relative: Peter Jackson's son and daughter are seen listening wide-eyed to a tale told by Bilbo Baggins at his birthday party.
- Throw It In!:
- When Gandalf visits Bilbo at Bag End, Ian McKellen bumps into the low hanging lanterns, which was expected. Then he turns quickly, and whacks his head on a wooden beam in the low ceiling, which was not expected. Since it looked just fine and also pretty funny, it was kept as the final cut.
- Aragorn and Lurtz's fight is a lot more real than intended. Lurtz's actor threw the wrong knife instead of the safe prop, which made it quite lucky that Viggo Mortensen successfully deflected it. Lurtz's actor also could not see well in the costume, so many of his blows actually connected, which prompted Mortensen to go stiff on his own blows.
- Troubled Production: An entire action sequence
ended up getting scrapped due to torrential rains causing a massive flood that washed away the set where it would have been filmed.- Downplayed: Viggo Mortensen was not the first choice for Aragorn. With a mere one week left until filming began and most of the cast already on-site, Stuart Townsend was replaced because Peter Jackson thought he was too young. Russell Crowe and Daniel Day-Lewis were both contacted and denied for varying reasons, and even Mortensen himself had to take a day to think about it. Mortensen only said "yes" when his son - a fan of the book series - told him how cool it would be to see him play Aragorn, and they raced him to the site. Once Mortensen got to the site, however, he picked things up smoothly.
- Written-In Infirmity: Christopher Lee broke his left hand after he slammed it on his hotel door. The injury is obviously seen as Saruman jeers at the Fellowship's plight on Caradhras. It's also why he's sitting the way he is during the scene in Orthanc after contacting Sauron via the palantir: the damaged hand is hidden in his robes.
2002 Video Game
- Promoted Fanboy: While the PC and PlayStation 2 versions use Scott Menville, The Xbox version of the game instead features Cliff Broadway, known in the Tolkien fandom as TheOneRing.net staff member Quickbeam, as the voice of Samwise Gamgee.
- Stillborn Franchise: A sequel, titled The Treason of Isengard, was announced but cancelled when the project was not meeting Vivendi Universal's expectations.
