24 years later, fans are still spotting the incredible, "unmatched" attention to detail in Lord of the Rings

Frodo and Sam in The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring
(Image credit: New Line Cinema)

24 years after it premiered, Lord of the Rings fans are still spotting incredible background details in The Fellowship of the Ring.

"The details in this trilogy never cease to amaze me: there's a quarry next to Isildur statue in the Argonath!" said one fan on Reddit, accompanied by a picture of the quarry besides the statue.

lotr from r/lotr/comments/1ij71dr/the_details_in_this_trilogy_never_cease_to_amaze

"Yes, and those parts of the statues that are above the height of the cliff-face were visibly made with bricks," points out someone else.

"Just shows the amount of thought, love, and imagination that so many people put into these films. I hope we get to see their like again some day" says another fan.

"Wēta Workshops world building is unmatched," says someone else.

"The concept behind them is that they're carved out of the cliff faces of the river, but we theorized that probably there wasn't the necessary rock to be able to carve the whole figure," explained Richard Taylor, Weta Workshop Creative Supervisor, in a behind the scenes featurette for the movie.

"So what we're saying is that they were able to carve to about this level [below the arm], but then had to construct this massive quarry to mine the rock, lifting with massive gantries and lifting equipment, up onto the upper surfaces of these huge, 300 foot tall sculptures, to place and place these huge granite blocks into which they could continue to carve and create the final look of the characters," he continued.

You can return to Middle-earth with The Rings of Power season 3, which will be headed to Prime Video sometime soon – though there's no release window just yet.

In the meantime, check out our guide to the best shows on Prime Video to fill out your watchlist.

Molly Edwards
Senior Entertainment Writer

I'm a Senior Entertainment Writer here at GamesRadar+, covering all things film and TV for the site's Total Film and SFX sections. I previously worked on the Disney magazines team at Immediate Media, and also wrote on the CBeebies, MEGA!, and Star Wars Galaxy titles after graduating with a BA in English. 

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