The Lord of the Rings is one of the most celebrated fantasy epics of all time and Peter Jackson’s three-film adaptation is often regarded as a cinematic achievement. The trilogy was a near-faithful adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkien’s epic novels which were considered unadaptable at the time.
However, a project as big as the trilogy, which was shot back-to-back and cost $281 million at the time, obviously had some goof-ups and mistakes. One glaring error was actor Karl Urban’s Éomer being briefly replaced by his body double in a shot after the battle at Helm’s Deep. Jackson mentioned that they forgot to replace the double in post-production.
Karl Urban Goes Missing In A Shot In The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers
Karl Urban’s Éomer is one of the most important characters in J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings trilogy. The actor has a better and more fleshed-out role in Peter Jackson’s trilogy than in the animated version of the books. Éomer starts off as the leader of King Theoden’s armed forces and then is eventually crowned king.
While Peter Jackson crafted the trilogy with painstaking detail, there are multiple goofs that have been discovered upon multiple rewatches by fans. Be it the beginning of The Two Towers with Gandalf and the Balrog or the Room of Two Barrells when Faramir kidnaps Frodo, there are multiple continuity errors in the three-part epic.
One such goof is Karl Urban’s disappearance in one shot in The Two Towers. The shot sees Gandalf, Theoden, Legolas, and Éomer look toward Mordor from their horses after the Battle at Helm’s Deep. However, fans were quick to notice that instead of Urban, it was a body double.
wow. just watched this last night and didn’t notice.
-space_monkey00
lmao, I just watched this again recently and noticed this too, I was like who tf is that guy??
-Xenomorphasaurus
Stand-ins are frequently used when the actor is unavailable or needed for something else. If it’s the back of their head we see, the actor could be off getting prepped for another shot while they get this shot with a stand-in, for example. Even the TV show The Office used stand-ins. Not replacing his head was apparently just them forgetting in post-production.
-arealhumannotabot
On the DVD audio commentary, Peter Jackson says that they planned to digitally replace the head of the stand-in with Urban’s, but they simply forgot to do that during post-production.
-TooShiftyForYou
This is just one of the many continuity errors in the films and it still managed to be considered a classic.
Peter Jackson Admitted He Forgot To Replace Karl Urban’s Double In The Shot
Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings trilogy had an extensive filming schedule and all three films (whose theatrical cuts run up to 558 minutes combined) were shot back-to-back. Hence, a few mistakes and continuity errors are a given for a project of that scale and so many moving parts.
One of the blatantly obvious errors was actor Karl Urban’s stand-in being in a shot that Urban’s Éomer is supposed to be in. Despite being on the far left of the image and other characters like Gandalf and Legolas taking up the frame, Urban’s absence is glaring.
Peter Jackson spoke about the shot in the director’s commentary for The Two Towers,
He is Urban’s double. And I think we were going to put Urban’s head on him at some stage and never got around to it. But now, he’s just a generic Rohan rider.
Jackson also went on to joke that he was the fourth lieutenant of the second Company of B-division of the Mark and even sarcastically mentioned that there would be a spinoff TV show on him.
The Lord of the Rings trilogy is available to stream on Max.
