The greatest shots in film history

There’s a scene in “The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers”, whereby two characters named Merry and Pippin get caught in the middle of a battle. Halfway through the fighting, they manage to escape into the nearby forest, so they stay alive.

During this time, a guy named Aragorn has been trying to find Merry and Pippin and has been following them for days. A few days after the battle, Aragorn has tracked Merry and Pippin down to near the forest, when he hears that there’s been a fight up ahead.

Dang, he thinks. Merry and Pippin might be dead. They were in that battle.

So he asks if anyone saw Merry and Pippin on the battlefield, hoping that they’re still alive, only to be told that all the bodies on the field were burned upon the conclusion of the fight. Aragorn, who can only hope that Merry and Pippin escaped the burning, rushes to the scene.

He then sees the pyre, and when his friend Gimli pulls Merry’s burned sword scabbard out of the pile, it seems like there’s no doubt that Merry and Pip are dead.

As you can guess, Aragorn’s rightfully pissed.

In the scene, Viggo Mortensen, the guy who plays Aragorn, was supposed to find a battle helm on the ground and kick it out of fustration.

He actually kicked it well enough, but Peter Jackson, the film’s director, thought it might be better if Viggo kicked the helmet so that it flew right in front of the camera.

Viggo said he’d try.

With each take, he actually got closer and closer to the camera.

Peter Jackson, who noticed the progress, thought he’d give Viggo one more shot to see if he could get the helmet as close to the camera as possible.

So Viggo tried one more time.

And suddenly, just on that last take, just as Viggo kicked the helmet, he let out this marvellous roar.

“RAAAAAAAARRRRGGGGHHHHH!”

Fists clenched, he collapsed to his knees.

He hadn’t done that on any of the previous takes, but that roar was just so emotional, Peter decided to keep that last scene.

It was only once the scene had wrapped up that they found out that Viggo hadn’t screamed because of his acting.

He’d actually broken his toes. Two of them.

Most people would just tell a medic that they were in pain and stop the scene altogether, but not Viggo Mortensen.

Believe it or not, he went right on acting, straight until the end of that scene. Without one word of complaint.

If you watch the scene again, you’ll realize that the scene that was kept in the movie was the one where Viggo broke his toes.

That roar was just way too brilliant to leave out.