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Ep 38- This Podcast Is A Gift
19 Plays1 month ago
A gift to the foes of Mordor. Why not listen? Long have Ryn and Sam, the hosts of this podcast, overanalyzed the Lord of The Rings series. We come to the last of the movies today, so join us as we ride for ruin and the story's ending through discussions of gravity-defying snakes, mutilated tomatoes, the neverending road to cavalry tactics, music, and much more!
Covers The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (Extended Edition) (2003)
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Transcript
Introduction to Noodle the Snake
00:00:00
Speaker
In addition to the sounds of our sneezing, it probably won't come through. But if there's random loud banging coming from my track, it is because we have finally brought home Miles' as snake, Noodle, who I think we've determined is 17 or 18 years old at this point.
00:00:20
Speaker
Old. Old lady. Miles has had her since they were a kid. We weren't allowed to have her in our last apartment. And for plausible deniability reasons, I will neither confirm nor deny if she's allowed in this apartment. But she is here.
00:00:35
Speaker
ah She has this nice big new tank and she's loving it. She's wiggling all around, being very cute and active. But she has decided that she wants to levitate.
00:00:46
Speaker
So multiple times a day, multiple times an hour, really, I will see her go to the corner of the tank. And she's a corn snake, by the way. So she's about and five feet long-ish. She'll go to the corner of the tank and wiggle her way all the way up to the top, doing good, doing good.
00:01:03
Speaker
Then make a right angle and have her head go across the long side of the tank while she's still going up and see how far she can reach. And what she wants to do is shove herself inside this tiny,
00:01:20
Speaker
half a centimeter lip that's on the inside of the lid of her tank and try to go all the way across. But unfortunately, that's not possible and gravity is not on her side.
00:01:34
Speaker
So when she gets...
00:01:37
Speaker
75% of her body across the tank supported by this little tiny bit of her tail she will crash super hard onto her logs and enrichment items and stuff and for ages we couldn't figure out what was causing this loud noise because we have upstairs neighbors but it was coming from inside our apartment and so we just see her fucking dash herself upon the rocks Multiple times a day. And she has not learned. It doesn't seem to be causing her pain or she presumably wouldn't do it.
00:02:07
Speaker
But if that happens, then that's why it's just the snake being
Sound Interruptions and Gardening
00:02:12
Speaker
ambitious. Let's call it ambitious. Speaking of things attempting to defy gravity, if we hear the sound of the fan in my computer at any point, hopefully that comes through his room tone because it's constant.
00:02:27
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. i went to the store before this and I got a lot of seeds for my little garden, which is thriving. I planted my radishes too close together.
00:02:38
Speaker
to have to thin them out a lot. But I hope Miles likes radishes because I'm going to grow a lot of radishes. And then I also got sunflower seeds for my sunflower plan.
00:02:50
Speaker
And I got a couple of mixed pollinator, mixed flower seeds that hopefully I can sprinkle. We have a lot of birds in our yard, but hopefully they're so used to the bird feeder, which is on the other end of the yard, that it won't occur to them to try to eat my flowers.
00:03:05
Speaker
Hopefully. Fingers crossed. You are just putting out new yeah new food items for them. Yeah, enrichment for their enclosure.
Work Day Anecdotes and Hadestown
00:03:19
Speaker
How are you doing, Boo? How was your day? It was fine. I was on my own and extractions. um Well, I was working with somebody from another team, which was good. He's quite competent.
00:03:31
Speaker
So that was nice. It's like you never if you don't work with someone fairly often, it's like, I don't know how this is going to go. Like, we don't know how each other works. And then but like, they just get shit done.
00:03:42
Speaker
It's like, ah, that's nice.
00:03:46
Speaker
Yeah, it was fine. It's fine. and i was But I was whistling the Gondor theme for most of the day either like Going back and forth between like Gondor, Rohan, Fellowship,
00:04:04
Speaker
isn um and then Hadestown some reason. of it The epic piece, the Hades-Persephone story.
00:04:18
Speaker
I got a passionate rendition of whatever is the first song from Hadestown from my 11-year-old cousin during a family vacation last weekend.
00:04:29
Speaker
And she is musically gifted. She has a wonderful voice, an excellent sense of rhythm, very good musician. But it was 8 eight a m in a hotel lobby and I was just not ready for that level of energy. She was bringing it and I respect that.
00:04:46
Speaker
But then I had to go back upstairs and pretend to go back to sleep because I just didn't, I was not ready to experience Hadestown in that moment.
Revisiting Lord of the Rings: Return of the King
00:04:57
Speaker
no that's, that's not a ah ah musical for first thing in the morning.
00:05:02
Speaker
Yeah. Have I listened to it on my drive into work? Yes, but I'm insane. Noncommittal shrug for the audience from me.
00:05:16
Speaker
Listen.
00:05:20
Speaker
I love you. and love you too. ah But whatever I think about Hadestown, I just remember what you told me about your beautiful moving experience and all of the beautiful art stuff. But mostly what immediately comes to mind is that everybody had those bands of fabric around their chests at that one point in the show. And you're an equal opportunity ogler.
00:05:41
Speaker
And so now I have that mental image. I could just Google it. I bet it's on Google images. Yeah. Note to self, for personal reasons, Google this later. We can also go see Hadestown at some point.
00:05:53
Speaker
Sure. Speaking of music and epic stories and things that make us emotional but also have equal opportunities for ogling, do you want to talk about Return of the King?
00:06:06
Speaker
No.
00:06:23
Speaker
Well, hello everyone. Hello. And welcome back to another episode of the fandom apprentice.
00:06:36
Speaker
I'm one of your hosts. My name is Rin. I grew up on Lord of the Rings and it's been a lot of fun to come back now as an adult, having studied some of the influences and just having a whole new background to revisit some of my childhood stories.
00:06:58
Speaker
And it's been also really fun to do that with my good friend, Sam. Hello, I'm Sam. I'm the other one. I've done it, y'all. I have now officially consumed all of the...
00:07:11
Speaker
Lord of the Rings original canon media. I have read the books. I have watched all three movies, the extended editions, of course. So I've done it. I officially get to have my card stamped. I'm a fan now.
00:07:24
Speaker
I don't know what privileges that entitles me to, but we can figure it out. But yeah, we've done it. We're here. It entitles you to have ah people who've read the Silmarillion talk down to you.
00:07:36
Speaker
ah They were going to do that anyway, so...
00:07:43
Speaker
But yeah, today we have watched the third of the three movies. And so we're going to finish out our coverage of those. It has been forever since we recorded, so it's going to be a little rocky.
00:07:58
Speaker
Please forgive us. I believe in us. Rocky like the giant rock piercing the city of Minas Tirith. Boo.
00:08:10
Speaker
I don't have a structure to my notes. I sort of kind of have like all mixed up together. Three main topics for the day.
00:08:24
Speaker
I've got like commentary on design choices, commentary on story choices, and commentary on musical choices. I have just kind of overall vibes, things that I did not vibe with, things that I did vibe with, and then some specific more things that i researched about visuals and special effects, and And my stuff goes vaguely in the order of the movie.
00:08:56
Speaker
But, i mean you know, it's just vibes. This is the catch-all. It's the Return of the King episode, but it's also the catch-all for everything. So, yeah. And I do actually have a piece that we'll be going back and deep diving into a piece from Fellowship.
00:09:09
Speaker
isn't Because this is our podcast and we can do what we want. Hell yeah. So, my feeling overall about the movie and I did have the privilege of getting to talk about this in person with one of my other friends also listener of the show hello and sort of verbally puzzle through my thoughts and the first thing I said to them was this was the hardest movie to watch for me it was challenging in terms of
00:09:41
Speaker
just like being kind of dark and bleak. There were things about it that I really didn't like and just found viscerally gross. And there were a lot of things that I felt like just didn't have the same payoff that we got in the book. So it's, it had its high points. It had its good points, but it's easily my least favorite of the three movies.
Critique on Character Depth and Sound Issues
00:10:05
Speaker
Fair. Fair. did Did you have more? No, i or a response to that I don't know if i I sort of struggle to place them. I think Return of the King is probably my favorite of the three books.
00:10:21
Speaker
Just because like this is when it becomes right that epic tale. And there are some incredible shots and some of my favorite pieces of orchestration in this movie.
00:10:32
Speaker
isn um And some of i think some of the more iconic shots from the series like come from this movie. But yeah, there were definitely pieces of it. First of all, we've we've noted on this podcast before that I am spider-averse.
00:10:51
Speaker
And i just... didn't watch the Shelob scene. That's fair. like You know what happens in it.
00:11:03
Speaker
I was there with y'all. I was just kind of like not paying attention to Madam Shelob. That's okay. That is your prerogative. I think the biggest piece that I really noticed though was I felt like I could see more of the effects isn he I also felt that way.
00:11:26
Speaker
I sort of had to wonder whether that's because we've specifically been paying attention to that. And now three movies in, we're kind of attuned to like, what's in effect. And also these movies are 20 years old.
00:11:43
Speaker
And so
Design Choices in Return of the King
00:11:44
Speaker
special effects have come so far. And while these were so movies were so cutting edge 20 years ago, they don't hold up to some modern standards.
00:11:56
Speaker
And other things, though, that do hold up really, really well. because they were using practical effects for it. Yes. And even some of the special effects we'll talk about later that I still noticed were still good. i was looking at it thinking, okay, I see a computer did that, but a computer did a good job.
00:12:18
Speaker
But to pull a little fact from later on in my special effects notes, part of the reason that you may have noticed more special effects in this movie is that according to its Wikipedia page,
00:12:29
Speaker
It has 1,489 visual effect shots, nearly three times the number from the first film and almost twice that of the second. So there's way, way, way more CGI in this movie than in the other two.
00:12:44
Speaker
I think the other piece of it is now because we're like we're watching it in like HD. And so, you know, in the theatrical cut in 2000, it may not have been like so crisp.
00:12:58
Speaker
Yeah. And when it's that crisp, it makes the like the lines that don't really fit stand out a little more. Specifically, what I was noticing for that was the size differences.
00:13:13
Speaker
Whenever the body doubles were there as the hobbits, or or like when they might have even had like like mannequins, I felt like that was much more obvious.
00:13:25
Speaker
Yeah, I was also keeping more of an eye out because you had pointed it out in the last one. And then once I was looking for it, I couldn't unsee it. That was one of the things that I just chose to accept. Okay, sure. It's a movie. It's pretend.
00:13:38
Speaker
But it did stick out. I also had a very weird and specific problem with this viewing because we had to split it up into, i think, three sittings just because it's so long and we were all so busy.
00:13:52
Speaker
And for some reason, my sound quality was fine the first time, but the second two times it sounded horrible. It was tinny. There was something happening.
00:14:04
Speaker
So I think that I also missed a lot of the more subtle sound effects and music bits. and when i was going back to do more prep for the show and I was watching it again, it sounded fine.
00:14:15
Speaker
So it must have been something in the air between Jeff Bezos' website and my little Bluetooth earbuds. I don't know. But it was also...
00:14:27
Speaker
I feel like every time that we sat down to watch this movie, at least one of us was just having a bad day or had something going on. So i know that ah at least I was in a bummer mood a couple of the times.
00:14:39
Speaker
So it was, it cast a bit of a shadow over just like my frame of mind. There was also, i know that I've mentioned in and I forget if this was last time or the first time.
00:14:52
Speaker
The amount of gore in these movies. This one, ah felt like there was a lot that was really viscerally gross to me. There's Gollum biting into that raw fish. Saruman getting fucking impaled fully on screen. Yeah. heads flying over the wall at Minas Tirith and hearing their wet thumping orcs being nasty, lots of blood. It just really, that makes my skin crawl. I'm a huge horror fan and I don't mind the idea of blood and guts, but something about seeing it just happen slowly in front of you. It just is so yucky to me. There's a couple of times I thought maybe it was a bit much.
00:15:41
Speaker
That's fair. I do have one last small gripe and then I will go into the much longer list of things that I like because I did like many things about this movie.
00:15:52
Speaker
My last sort of major critique is despite how long the movie is and it is... very long it's about four hours if you include the credits I feel like we ended it still not knowing the characters that well and I might be spoiled because I just came off reading the books and spending countless hours analyzing them but especially Sam and Frodo's relationship felt like it lacked a lot of the depth that it had in the books and I just wasn't really invested in what they were doing there was a point towards the end where it cut away from some other part of the story and back to Sam and Frodo and Miles and I simultaneously went oh I forgot about these guys we just forgot they were there and that's not great
00:16:44
Speaker
There's a lot, particularly towards the end, there's a lot of really quick cuts back and forth. We don't stay in any one scene for a super long time. Yeah. And I get particularly during the battle at the Black Gate and the approach to Mount Doom, like that's happening simultaneously.
00:17:03
Speaker
And so the idea is like, you know, we're seeing two minutes here, two minutes there, two minutes here, two minutes there. Like that's what's happening, but it is kind of jarring keep going back and forth.
00:17:19
Speaker
i I agree that we definitely didn't get depth on a lot of characters. I feel like, I feel like we got depth on Aragorn. Yes, very much so. And Aragorn can get depth on me. Sorry. was right there.
00:17:33
Speaker
It was right there. it was right there I would love it if Aragorn was right here. oh
Eowyn and Aragorn's Portrayals
00:17:40
Speaker
So true. um there were There were multiple shots of Aragorn in this movie, again, where I had to just be like, this is porn.
00:17:51
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, there was... and We'll talk about this more later. But the scene at the end where he and Eowyn finally kiss... Well, first of all, they were just standing near each other. And I went, oh my god, being bisexual is so hard. Just looking at them.
00:18:04
Speaker
And then they kissed. And I was wearing shorts. And so in my... Along with my shriek of delight, I threw my hands up and then slapped them down really hard on my legs like one does when they're excited. And that's so hard that I left a handprint on my own leg that was then visible for a good hour afterwards.
00:18:27
Speaker
I mean, that's the proper response to that scene. it It was over the cradling of the chain. And they they lingered on that kiss. It was it was so good. It was it's hard to be bisexual and just look at look at everyone.
00:18:43
Speaker
See, I definitely have commentary on that scene, too. And we can and talk about that more later if we want to go in more chronological order. But we also don't have to. other characters that I felt like we saw more of in this movie I felt like we got more Merry and Pippin and we got some sweet little moments between the two of them like when Merry gives Pippin the last of the long bottom leaf before he gets shipped away for accidentally drawing Sauron's eye upon him whoops they're very sweet together ah yeah we we got more of them I felt like we got a little more Gandalf
00:19:25
Speaker
And we got a good amount of like Faramir and Denethor. The one whose screen time really stuck out to me the most, though, was Smeagol slash Gollum. I mean, the movie opens with this whole framing scene where we see him killing Deagle and finding the ring. And it was such an interesting choice to put that at this point in the film, at the beginning of Return of the King, but also after we've already seen the first two movies and then sort of reframing how we think about him.
00:20:03
Speaker
And he has some new lines and some new mischief. And as much as I fucking hate him, I feel like he's really annoying. did appreciate getting to see more of him because I think that it was really effective and an interesting opportunity to use the medium to show us more of his backstory that that decision to give smiegel more more more evil plans isn it led to the the decision for sam to like go to be banished temporarily
00:20:41
Speaker
Which, that was an interesting choice, because they don't, like, obviously that doesn't happen in the books. Yeah. Where Frodo tells Sam to go home. it It's an odd one. It's it's similar to the, like, Aragorn falling off the cliff when they think Aragorn's dead.
00:20:58
Speaker
Yeah, it's it's an odd decision, but it works to create tension in this medium. Which I feel like... it is It has to be a more tension-filled story, or a more tension-filled version than the original.
00:21:21
Speaker
Yeah. I know i mentioned, least in the first in our first discussion episode of of these, that they've sometimes been criticized for like reducing the story down to like generic sword and sorcery fantasy.
00:21:35
Speaker
Mm-hmm. And this sort of insertion of tension, so I feel like, sort of makes me feel that way, but also i don't feel necessarily like it.
00:21:50
Speaker
When thinking about it now from atop Amandine lighting the beacons, I don't dislike it. I think it works for the story or works for this this retelling.
00:22:07
Speaker
Yeah, I think
Military Tactics and Special Effects
00:22:08
Speaker
I am, like I said, being a little bit more critical because I am just fresh off the books for the first time and going, oh my god, it's not the same. And yeah, I think that if I had seen the movies first, I wouldn't have as much of a problem with it.
00:22:24
Speaker
I just know that there's all of these like subtle little moments that we just don't have time for in a movie. And especially, like you said, having to do all this rapid back and forth because we can't have...
00:22:36
Speaker
30 minutes of one set of characters and then 30 minutes of another set of characters. That's just not something that American film audiences are going to like. But I still grumble about it.
00:22:48
Speaker
i I have some like sort of vaguely... like I like half rewatched the movie and I was taking sort of semi-chronological notes. The design of Minas Tirith and specifically the Citadel when we saw it my My first thought was, oh, that's that's a basilica.
00:23:11
Speaker
It's really, really similar like in initial shape to Santa Maria Novella in Florence.
00:23:24
Speaker
There are pieces of the facade that are really similar to ah the cathedral in Pisa, Catedrale Primaziale di Santa Maria Assunta.
00:23:38
Speaker
And, like, pieces of the shape that reminded me of the Basilica di San Patronio in Bologna. And it's all that white like limestone marble, which reminded me of places in... I haven't spent time in southern Italy, but pictures I've seen from southern Italy and from places I've been in Greece, isn that that white limestone, that marble, it gets really hot in the summer.
00:24:11
Speaker
in In the Mediterranean. And i it made me think about. like what's the What's the climate like. In Gondor. We're down south. We're not super far south. But is it like is it a Mediterranean climate?
00:24:24
Speaker
How do the mountains. Affect this? like is Is the white stone. Because Gondor in general. like Everything was grey. And everything was white.
00:24:37
Speaker
Is that. like a climate choice. Hmm. Yeah. i feel like that was most likely a Tolkien thinking, wow, this would look really fucking cool choice.
00:24:51
Speaker
But now, yeah, but I mean, he's also like, he's clearly basing Gondor on Rome. True. And so it, he's, he's pulling from like, you know, these old pieces of white marble in the Roman forum.
00:25:10
Speaker
I was thinking about, that again, the dress of the civilians, again, reminded me of Rome. isnt It felt very Romanesque.
00:25:21
Speaker
And then some of them look like Catholic nuns. They do a little bit, don't they? There's a particular order of nuns that's always in like gray, and they have the gray like wimples and habits.
00:25:35
Speaker
So it's not the it's not the like the black robe or the white robe nuns, but I see them around the Vatican ah bunch. feel like they look like old school teachers more than anything else.
00:25:48
Speaker
But nuns? Yeah. I guess that one long shot of everyone in gray and black that That piece is when Faramir is leaving on his doomed attempt to retake Osgiliath.
00:26:03
Speaker
isn And so in some ways, it's a funeral march. o And so you know that could be a piece of the you know why everyone's there in drab colors.
00:26:15
Speaker
But also everything in Minas Tirith is drab. Yeah. And that was one of the things that I had also noted design-wise, is I was comparing and contrasting Theoden and Denethor's throne rooms, because they both...
00:26:36
Speaker
speak to their characters really well. Because you think about Mediseld, it's a mead hall, it's a communal space, it's warm, it's full of people, there's tapestries, there's people eating and drinking and talking, and it's still really impressive and beautifully decorated. It's obviously still a castle, and it's a pie on a hill, but it's also accessible and lived in to a certain degree.
00:27:02
Speaker
Whereas the throne room in Minas Tirith, which Wikipedia tells me is called Tower Hall, so that's what I wrote down, it feels really sterile.
00:27:13
Speaker
Denethor is usually the only one in there, unless people are going to see him. And something that I went back to rewatch, just because I had a feeling that this might be the case, and I was right, is that the first time that Gandalf and Pippin go in, there's not even any music.
00:27:32
Speaker
It's just footsteps and Gandalf's cane tapping on the stone floor. And so it's this very forbidding, unpleasant environment. There's not even anyone milling around on the grounds outside. There's just the four guards.
00:27:46
Speaker
being kind of ominous and the other random little design thing that I noticed in there is that Denethor isn't sitting on the throne which makes sense that would be disrespectful but he has his own little chair next to it And that is just really pathetic and kind of comical because you have this big white gleaming stone chair with a golden thing hanging over it.
00:28:12
Speaker
And then Denethor hunched over in his weird little black seat mutilating a tomato. it's It was a little bit funny.
00:28:22
Speaker
Well, in thinking about the way you put this now, when we first see Theoden in Meduseld when he's under the control of Wormtongue, and it also looks meduseld also looks sterile or maybe stuffy is a better word like it's been shut up and nobody's been allowed in there yes yes and it's only as theoden returns to himself that meduseld also returns to itself until at the beginning of this movie after um saruman's death
00:29:01
Speaker
Which, by the way, the manner of death for both Saruman and Wormtongue is the same as in the books, even though it's in a completely different place. True, true. Because Wormtongue stabs Saruman on the back and then gets shot by somebody with a bow.
00:29:17
Speaker
But now that when they're back in Ederos after that, and there's you know drinking to the glorious dead, that is when Meduseld is truly at its at its height.
00:29:31
Speaker
And then, of course, it's ah's there's going to be a fall off as many of the Rohirrim will not be coming back there again. Woof. Denethor specifically, now going back to Denethor, I feel like he's so much more obviously ring hungry and ring corrupted than the books.
00:29:47
Speaker
He's just eminently hateable. He's got stupid big robe and his everyone in these movies has got the quivering chin down. He is quivering in an unsettling way.
00:30:03
Speaker
yeah well Well done, John Noble. um The choice also to have like the two-day unkempt beard is a good one. And it was it was interesting because i I thought about that and then it was yeah I was thinking about that during that scene where he's talking with Faramir before he hallucinates Boromir.
00:30:23
Speaker
And Faramir also has that two-day, like he hasn't shaved in a few days beard because he's been on guard duty in Osgiliath.
00:30:34
Speaker
But on Faramir, it looks intentional. Yeah. Like, it looks like he trimmed up the edges a little bit. Whereas on Denethor, it's like, oh, he's just letting things go.
00:30:49
Speaker
letting things go Yeah. And now I'm just imagining, because I've also just, in my unrelated to Lord of the Rings life, been reading a lot of books that deal with court drama and palace intrigue and stuff. So I'm just imagining the servants in the tower going, um I'm not going to fucking go tell Denethor to shave. You tell him. No, I don't want to get exiled. I'm not going to do that. So just like all of the servants going, oh, something's wrong with him, but um'm I'm not going to say anything.
00:31:20
Speaker
That's I can imagine it very clearly. Two other notes from like this. We we do spend a minute in Minas Tirith, which is nice. But two other fun notes.
00:31:31
Speaker
I spotted at least four women in armor as extras in one shot. Oh, very nice. um It's all the soldiers without obvious facial hair. And then there's one shot where it's like, where, again, Faramir and his suicide mission are leaving.
00:31:48
Speaker
And there's a shot and there's a kid. And was like, wait a minute, and i don I know that face. And it's the same kid who gasped when Bilbo was telling the story of the trolls in Fellowship, isn which is adorable. So it's it's like, that's clearly got to be someone from the production crew's kid.
00:32:07
Speaker
Yeah. um That now just gets to be an extra, which is just so fucking cute. That's delightful. And then I also noticed that the standard of Gondor on the shields right now is just the white tree.
00:32:22
Speaker
There is a pennant flying in the breeze when... Gandalf and Pippin ride through on their first ride through that has the seven stars over the tree crowned.
00:32:37
Speaker
But that design doesn't return on armor until Aragorn is wearing the armor at the Black Gate. Oh, yes. Oh, my God. I love that.
00:32:51
Speaker
Faramir's helmet when he's going on the suicide mission does have the seven stars, but that helmet fits him so badly. Oh, I didn't even notice. Like, it does not it does not fit over his luscious hair. Oh, no.
00:33:04
Speaker
I guess that's a good problem to have. But thinking about Aragorn reminds me of another thing that I really liked from this movie, which is... ah Seeing more of Elrond and Arwen's relationship just in general, which was great.
00:33:19
Speaker
And Hugo Weaving really delivers an understated performance that works so well. I don't know about film. I don't know about acting.
00:33:30
Speaker
But I know enough to know, oh, this guy's doing Just the most subtle, but also at times most fucking hilarious thing. There's a scene in the war camp with the Rohirrim where Aragorn has a dream about Arwen. He has this vision of her.
00:33:47
Speaker
And then he's immediately summoned to Theoden's tent, right? And so we see he walks in, Théoden is there, we see a figure facing away from us wearing an elven cloak.
00:33:58
Speaker
We have a little tendril of long luscious hair peeking out. And Theoden is facing us, facing Aragorn. And he looks uncomfortable in his face. He's just, I do not want to be involved in whatever this conversation is about to be. So he hustles the fuck out and goes, I take my leave. And then runs away. And Aragorn is confused. He is gazing at this hooded figure with this softness that we'd expect for how he looks at Arwen, his one true love.
00:34:30
Speaker
And then they stand up and Elrond reveals himself. And Figo Morse does it so well He is shocked. And you just see this face journey that he goes on where he is surprised, disappointed, recovering quickly, trying not to insult his father-in-law.
00:34:51
Speaker
um And then Hugo Weaving is just slash also foster father. hugo weaving just completely deadpan the whole time he is not happy to be there that whole scene so fucking comical i loved it and yeah and then when elrond uh gives uh aragorn andero he's visibly shaking as he's talking it was like hugo weaving are you are you okay yeah and then there's I think Aragorn's holding it up and it literally, the sword literally splits the frame. It is literally dividing them.
00:35:29
Speaker
Again, I'm not a film expert, but some symbolism is pretty obvious. And you know what? I liked it. I was eating that shit up probably because was already in a good mood from the very funny sight gag that they just did. I had actually had some other commentary on this scene specifically.
00:35:47
Speaker
Yeah. You Elrond sort of shows up and gives Aragorn his blessing, guess. And this is also that conversation from the appendix where he basically tells Aragorn, like, if you're going to marry my daughter, you have to be the fucking king of Gondor.
00:36:07
Speaker
isn't And it takes the place of the Grey Company showing up with the banner that Arwen has made. Because it's still somebody showing up with a symbol of his office and of his station without now having a whole bunch of extra characters that we haven't introduced up to now.
00:36:33
Speaker
Yeah. He also, the the piece that I feel like another piece of story that didn't get developed super well was he, he's like claims Arwen is dying now because of the evil from Mordor.
Musical Themes of Gondor and Character Moments
00:36:47
Speaker
And I was sort of like, okay, is, is she dying because you're an elf? And so any half elf that chooses death is, is always dying? And so her choosing to remain in Middle-earth is a choice to die, regardless of what happens in Mordor?
00:37:04
Speaker
Or is she so sensitive to the power of Mordor that she's dying? Like, it wasn't really developed enough to to make sense there, I feel like.
00:37:15
Speaker
Yeah, i feel like the movie was implying that she was directly, individually tied to the ring for some reason, which is not the case. um I think it's kind of maybe also drawing on from the books the stuff that Galadriel says about the time of the elves ending and her power because she also has her ring.
00:37:40
Speaker
I can see where they got that idea from. But I think if you're just taking the movies on their own, it seems to be implying that Arwen is directly tied to the ring for some reason, which doesn't make any sense.
00:37:54
Speaker
Yeah. I did then go ahead and compare Anduril to the sword that Aragorn is... Aragorn, keep that
00:38:06
Speaker
in. You know, Aragorn... Make sure I really emphasize the extra r the sword that he's been using up to now. Anduril is a little bit longer. It's a little bit narrower.
00:38:19
Speaker
It's got a larger pommel and crossguard. They're both of the like hand and a half bastard longsword type variety, but Anduril with its longer pommel and longer blade is clearly more of a two-handed weapon.
00:38:36
Speaker
So where we see Aragorn... wielding his sword as a one-handed weapon in the fight against ah the orcs during the departure of Boromir, we see after he gets Anderil, he uses it more as a two-handed weapon through most of the rest of the film.
00:38:57
Speaker
There is one point where he's giving his big speech where he holds it up in the air in a very dramatic, awesome gesture. And i there's so many things that he does that just show how ridiculously strong Aragorn is, because obviously he is.
00:39:12
Speaker
But all I could think just seeing him hold up the sword was, oh, my God, he's so strong. Because I have been trying to reincorporate yoga into my exercise routines. I want to be flexible and stuff.
00:39:24
Speaker
And it's hard for me to just hold my arm up in the air with nothing, not holding a giant heavy sword. So I just immediately had like the muscle memory of doing yoga poses and going, oh, my God, I couldn't do that. I couldn't even hold this man's sword. He's just that strong and cool.
00:39:43
Speaker
I mean, something, something, it could hold a sword, something, something, but...
00:39:49
Speaker
Swords are specifically, typically, like, not super heavy. They're usually, like, well-balanced, because you have to be swinging them around a bunch. You're gonna get... you You need to work on it, but, like, and, you know, build up strength in your wrists and things.
00:40:05
Speaker
So you're saying I need wrist strength to handle Aragorn's sword? Yes, i am. and with that... I guess, well, speaking of how strong people are, isn't can we talk about how strong Eowyn must be for a second?
00:40:23
Speaker
Yeah. Yes, we can. Because as the Rohirrim are riding out of the war camp, when Merry is there like requesting to go with the king and he gets brushed off, and then he's just standing there and he gets fucking yoinked.
00:40:39
Speaker
One handed and lifted up into the saddle. And yeah, Mary's not a big dude. He's a halfling. He is also wearing probably at least 40 pounds of armor minimum.
00:40:52
Speaker
And he just gets yoinked by the back of the neck, lifted up and then placed like on the saddle, which is, yeah, on a galloping horse.
00:41:04
Speaker
Mm hmm. Which is control, strength. Like, it's one thing to, like, pick something up off of your horse and, like, toss it over your saddlebow. It is another thing to be like, I am going to position this carefully.
00:41:19
Speaker
ah you know, bring it all the way up and then down again. And not injure the poor little hobbit. And then also, i was thinking about this, and in Two Towers, we see her practicing sword strokes, and she pulls her blow inches from Aragorn's face when she turns to see him there.
00:41:39
Speaker
Right? That takes a lot of strength as well to to stop the momentum of that blade. This is not a woman who just, like, fucks off and lets the servants do the work.
00:41:50
Speaker
Yeah. like This is a warrior. This was something that Miles and I were talking about in the car the other day, too. They really appreciated that they let her, that they, the film people, let her be effective in battle.
00:42:06
Speaker
She is no more or less skilled than any other soldier. She's there. She's whooping ass. She is... trained and skilled. She is not just appearing to do her one cool trick and then need to be rescued. She is fully participating in the fight because she has been trained to do that.
00:42:26
Speaker
Another thought from, since we're now talking about Rohan and that and that war camp scene, my first thought when I saw the tents was, those are like yurts, but not.
00:42:39
Speaker
It's like the top of it the top of it is more pointy than a yurt. But then the sides and like the stitching on it um and the doorways were very yurt-like. Yeah.
00:42:50
Speaker
I was worried about fire safety in the camp. I assume that they have it under control, but there were a lot of torches burning really high next to all of this flapping fabric everywhere.
00:43:04
Speaker
I don't know if you know, you seem like you would know things about War Camp fire safety. Is that realistic? Because I was worried that one of those torches was going to fall down and then everyone would die in a giant fire.
00:43:16
Speaker
was worried about it I have to assume that it's some sort of like that there's some sort of fire retardantness to the fabrics.
00:43:26
Speaker
They could be wool. They could be wool. But also then I'm thinking about like, I know I've read at some point like waxed canvas because that's waterproof.
00:43:40
Speaker
But I would think that with the wax that would go up. quicker Yeah, wax is candle. Candle is wax. So you've made a very big candle.
00:43:51
Speaker
oh So that's not great.
00:43:56
Speaker
Yeah, when i when I happened to do outdoorsy things in my youth, we very much kept the tents away from the fire pit.
00:44:07
Speaker
And also thinking about impractical but still fun design inside of Theoden's tent, there's furs strewn about everywhere on the ground, so it's so lush and cozy and awesome in there.
00:44:20
Speaker
But again, just thinking about servants, somebody had to carry all of these fucking furs for kind of no reason. And put them on the ground just to make the tent comfy.
00:44:32
Speaker
And I'm thinking, okay, what if it rains? And you get mud under those furs. It is going to stink to high heaven. It's going to get mildewy. It's going to be gross. This is only cool if you're in a perfectly dry, mild climate.
00:44:48
Speaker
Otherwise, this makes no sense. And then some poor some poor schmuck has to deal with all this wet fur when they could be carrying weapons or something. But maybe that's just the excesses inherent to attending on a king and something, something monarchy bad. But it it occurred to me, mostly just because I used to have one sheepskin rug. And so I can't imagine lugging around 50 bear pelts or whatever.
00:45:14
Speaker
Well, and there are plenty of nomadic cultures around the world that do carry around things and then put them on the ground. this So there there are ways to do this.
00:45:28
Speaker
But this is a very temporary war camp. This isn't somewhere that they're staying for any length of time. Well, yeah, but i you know it it makes sense to me, I guess.
00:45:43
Speaker
It was like, this is this is the king's war tent. He can have as many furs as he wants. Other thoughts on design and story choices...
00:45:56
Speaker
I love during the the fight at Minas Tirith, I love that Gondor is fully just chucking pieces of the city out of their trebuchets. How did they get those onto the trebuchets? I don't know. Don't worry about it. It's kind of funny and it's just like it's just like, ah, that is a part of a building.
00:46:14
Speaker
Was it a part of a building that was just knocked off by the orcs catapults? Or was it like something previously that fell down and you stacked it in the trebuchet for when you might someday need it? I don't know.
00:46:26
Speaker
I also really enjoyed Gandalf's confrontation with the Witch King here with the flaming sword and he breaks Gandalf's staff as we've already seen Gandalf do to Saruman.
00:46:41
Speaker
And so it's like for a second, oh, Gandalf is gonna die for real this time. Right. And there's the Nazgul and like danger themes over this.
00:46:55
Speaker
And then there's a horn call. And the music cuts out. And that is the only sound as the sun breaks through. And that's what pulls the Witch King away.
00:47:07
Speaker
As the horn call gets repeated and joined by some deeper notes, as the army of Rohan rides over the ridge and we get a low brass rendition of the Rohan leitmotif.
00:47:20
Speaker
Mm-hmm.
00:47:27
Speaker
I'm not going to die.
00:47:59
Speaker
which is just so good. is so good. ah This may be a good opportunity to pivot into your deep dive because I know you have prepared a tremendous amount about music. The stuff that I have about design is mostly just some scattered notes, which I can stick in when they feel relevant. But I know that you have prepared a lot of musical thoughts and I am very eager to hear them.
00:48:25
Speaker
I have prepared a lot of musical thoughts, but actually I realized as I was going through, I have another like softer deep dive. It's it's it's a shallow dive. A shallow dive. Let's hear it. Into weaponry and military tactics.
00:48:37
Speaker
Yes, please. Okay. Staying for a minute on the Rohirrim, I would like to talk about heavy cavalry tactics because this is a thing in this movie. It's ah it's a never-ending road to cavalry.
00:48:51
Speaker
These men who seem to know my crime will surely come a second time one day more. ah I do not know what that's from, but it is a reference to something. You're making a face of disappointment because I don't know, but I don't know what it is.
00:49:04
Speaker
I'm sorry. I don't know a lot of names. is. I've never seen it. We were singing it the other day in book club. Yeah. And I was tuning out and cooking dinner because I thought, okay, Rin and Tori are singing a song. They're having fun. They're doing a bit.
00:49:21
Speaker
And I didn't think to question it, but now I'm on the record. I don't know. We can watch Les Mis together if you want. I have not seen most things. This is the conceit of the show.
00:49:35
Speaker
It's all good. But setting aside my my little joke, heavy cavalry tactics. Yes. I guess actually I would like to start earlier with it the earlier version of heavy cavalry that we see.
00:49:47
Speaker
We see Faramir and the Knights of Gondor going out on their suicide mission. Heavy cavalry was the bane of militaries everywhere for centuries.
00:50:05
Speaker
isn The challenge being it takes an incredible amount of money and time to train and equip a heavy lancer. And so like that's the trade off. You can only have so many of these lancers because you also have to train and equip the Destriers, their horses as well.
00:50:26
Speaker
You can't just like throw somebody on onto a cow pony and be like, now go hit him.
00:50:32
Speaker
You have to train a horse for war. And also the person on the back of the horse. ah Some of the same tactics are used on police horses today. i was just talking to people about this. and Miles was giving some of my family members a quick lesson that Rin is making an excited, devious little face. No, this is not excited. This is this is a so yeah um But ah horses have a natural instinct not to trample.
00:51:06
Speaker
They are weenies. They are scared of everything. They do not want to step on uncertain ground. So you big, squishy meat sack of person, they don't want to step on you. I did not know this the first time that I met a horse that was galloping freely and majestically in a field and came straight at me and Miles wasn't afraid of it and I thought I was going to die.
00:51:23
Speaker
But that's neither here nor there. But horses have an instinct not to trample. And so both military and police horses have that instinct trained out of them. So, you know, just be careful around cops and their horses.
00:51:38
Speaker
Anyway. But the thing the thing with heavy cavalry is like it's... Basically a ton of person, armor, and horse coming at you at like, I don't know, 50, 60 miles an hour. It's like a tank. However, however yeah, it it is a it is a medieval tank.
00:51:58
Speaker
That is what it is. And all of that force is typically concentrated at the end of a lance.
00:52:06
Speaker
And if you have a whole line of this... your Your line of, you know, spearmen, like, can't do shit about it. And it was only the development of, um the like, the things that really broke um the supremacy of heavy cavalry charges, right?
00:52:27
Speaker
One, ah pike formations, strong, well-trained pike formations, where you have like an 18-foot long pike and people in multiple rows where you can set up a pike phalanx.
00:52:43
Speaker
Because horses, even when they have that instinct ah not to trample trained out of them, still don't want to run onto a wall of spikes. That's reasonable. So they will be very hesitant to do that. Mm-hmm.
00:52:57
Speaker
The other ways are projectiles that can pierce armor, which is you have to have a either a very heavy draw bow for that or a crossbow that um has a heavier draw than a person can pull.
00:53:12
Speaker
And usually a bodkin point arrow, which is um there's no like flanges on the arrow. It's just a single point. So all the force travels into just the point of that arrow. It's like a bullet in arrow form.
00:53:24
Speaker
Or alternatively, bullets. um Those will work too, so I'm told. that That also is, like gunpowder also broke the supremacy of heavy cavalry.
00:53:37
Speaker
But this this heavy cavalry charge by the Knights of Gondor, the group that we see out there is is a two-ranked deep charge. it's heavyca It's heavy cavalry in front, armored Kappa P head to toe.
00:53:51
Speaker
But only some of them have lances. So they're not all striking at the same spot. And the second rank appears to be like light armored rangers with bows, but they're not shooting as horse archers because those are long bows and long bows are not super practical to use from the saddle.
00:54:10
Speaker
They were also working their horses up to a run way too early. um And they're also charging at a city, which isn't super useful.
00:54:21
Speaker
um you You kind of want your heavy cavalry charge to be in a relatively open space where your enemy can't run away. But so your charge also isn't restricted by shit your horse can run into.
00:54:36
Speaker
Yeah, you can poke the walls with your spears all you want, but not really going to be the most effective approach. But then then, of course, then then the knights spread out.
00:54:47
Speaker
Like, they get out of their close formation as they get closer to the city, which kind of defeats the point of the cavalry charge. Mm-hmm. Like, the idea of the heavy cavalry charge is you're hitting and a mass so that the formation that you're running into is completely shattered.
00:55:05
Speaker
Yeah. and now now you're just a mass of men and horses running along and getting shot. Yeah. Which, on that note, we have a little close-up shot at one point of one of the orcs' arrows and of the of their little bows.
00:55:19
Speaker
The arrows, you pointed this out, I think, is that they were kind of rusty and like didn't look very sharp. Yeah. And they're also not on super heavy draw bows, like because they're so small, unless they're like super thick and all horn and sinew.
00:55:36
Speaker
And those fletchings, too, at the at the back looked super bare. The purpose of a fletching is to put spin on the arrow, which increases range, force, and accuracy. Mm-hmm. um So the orcs arrows likely would not have gone where they're aiming.
00:55:50
Speaker
um They likely wouldn't penetrate armor unless we assume that orcs are significantly stronger than they look and like significantly stronger than men like in a one-to-one fight and their bows have a super heavy draw, which we haven't seen necessarily being a thing.
00:56:09
Speaker
Yeah. But then we compare that to the Rohirrim. Who, when they show up, they're all wielding these long spears. Cool.
00:56:21
Speaker
Point in the Rohirrim's favor. they keep Point in it. Because it's the spear. It's point. um They keep in formation. Also another point in the Rohirrim's favor.
00:56:33
Speaker
During that fight, I have to now give a point to the orcs as well, because when the Rohirrim come up on the hill, the orc general is running around yelling at everyone to form a line, um pikes in the front, archers in the back.
00:56:51
Speaker
which is exactly what they should do. And then all of the orcs in the front rank, they go down on one knee, they brace their pole arms against their feet and against the ground.
00:57:03
Speaker
And the second rank um keeps them more horizontally. So now you've got a three or four rank deep wall that these horses are going to run onto of points.
00:57:15
Speaker
They aren't the 18-foot pikes that are most effective because that keeps the armored knights from getting anywhere close to you. And they're all kind of disparate. They don't have pikes or even really spears. They kind of have like some sharpened sticks. They have like lock-a-bar axes, some like glaives and like billhook-type polearms.
00:57:36
Speaker
But then the other point in the Rohram's favor is there's 6,000 of them. listen That will present an advantage. In rank after rank after rank, and even though there's a lot of orcs, um we see as the Rohirrim charge, the orcs don't hold their line very well.
00:57:54
Speaker
Which, to have that polearm unit be effective against this heavy cavalry charge, you have to remain in formation. A single man or a single spot where the cavalry can break through and your formation's done.
00:58:11
Speaker
Even if the orc archers manage to take out riders as they're coming in, even if the front rank gets obliterated by the spears, now you've just got rank after rank after rank of heavy cavalry charging into you.
00:58:27
Speaker
Anyway, I think that's that's my military... ah semi-deep dive not really shallow shallow wade in um can put a little bow on that with some fun horse animation and horse special effects facts so please tolkien horse girl would approve of the treatment of horses in this movie all of the horse deaths were animated No horses were put in distress or harm in the making of this film. Don't you worry.
00:58:58
Speaker
But another thing that is technically very cool is the visual design for all these movies was mostly done by Weta Workshop in New Zealand.
00:59:08
Speaker
And they've been around for a really long time. They have done everything. Think of every movie with cool visuals. They have had a hand in it to some degree.
00:59:19
Speaker
And they they're the ones who coined the term bigoture that we've talked about on the show before. But they also developed... a new system, a new technology for animating crowds.
00:59:33
Speaker
Basically, it's called Massive Multiple Agent Simulation System in Virtual Environment, which was made specifically for these movies. And what it does is it lets individual characters, which they refer to as agents, individual agents react to to their environment and react to each other so that you can get big battle scenes that are complicated and chaotic but without everyone just having the same exact animation copy and pasted or conversely having to individually animate each specific person but in scenes where you had
01:00:10
Speaker
Hundreds of horses, you know, obviously there were some real horses, there were some real riders, but a lot of them, ah some of the horses had mocap stuff going on, some of them were animated, but they used that technology to get these really cool big battle scenes and a lot of that was done for the horses as well, which I thought was really neat.
01:00:31
Speaker
That is super cool. I i think I knew the the fact about like them creating the crowd animating thing like for Lord of the Rings, but yeah, it's super duper cool.
01:00:42
Speaker
i I also love that the article I was reading really, really strongly emphasized they needed you to know that the horse deaths were animated. That was completely CGI. Good.
01:00:54
Speaker
Good. They were they were well treated. And I mean, one of them got to go home with Viggo Mortensen, which is the best treatment of all. Speaking of animal deaths that were also animated, don't know.
01:01:06
Speaker
But the animals actually the animated animals actually died, I guess. ah The Mumakil. Oh, yeah. The the um depiction of the Haradrim is rough.
01:01:17
Speaker
yeah Yeah, it's rough. Not great. Another design thing. is thou I mean, the first thing that I said when they came on screen was, oh, look, they're foreign. They must be evil.
01:01:31
Speaker
Wow. Again, Not subtle, my friends. Them and the Corsairs of Umbar, too. I struggled to find the original source, but I saw a quote in an article from one of the production designers who said that for the Haradrim, if you notice, a lot of them are wearing scarves and masks and their faces are partially obscured.
01:01:54
Speaker
They needed to dehumanize them by covering more of their faces so that audiences wouldn't feel as bad about seeing them get killed. Which, uh, I... I why they made that choice. I don't know that I agree with that choice, but um yeah, it was something we were intentionally intentionally dehumanizing the Hardrim, which kind of defeats the purpose of having them there. but it's It's a really common thing in various stories with henchmen. It's one, you cover their face with a mask so you can use the same extras over and over again.
01:02:31
Speaker
And two, so they're not a person. They're just they're just the soldier standing there. Yeah. But the Moomakill specifically, first of all, they're fucking giant.
01:02:42
Speaker
ah The whole scene felt like fighting the walkers in Empire Strikes Back. But they all had six tusks. Mm-hmm. So I, and I was like, well, a couple of them, like I knew, i know there's extinct proboscideans with those under jaw type tusks as well. Let me look into this.
01:03:04
Speaker
The most I found on a cursor on cursory research on extinct proboscideans was four tusks, usually like two under the jaw and two um above. The Tolkien wiki says they were that the design of the mumikil was based on paleoloxodon, the straight tusk elephant, which obviously was not that gigantic, but was sizable and only had two very long tusks, but only two tusks.
01:03:33
Speaker
um But they were clearly combining that with like some gomphothere type proboscideans that had ah different positioning of tusks and just making them very spiky.
01:03:46
Speaker
I loved my favorite detail from the Mumokil was, I don't know if all of them had this or just some. i assume they all did. They're long bottom tusks.
01:03:56
Speaker
They had this spiked, basically razor wire strung between them. So that way they could sweep their tusks back and forth in this lawnmower of death.
01:04:07
Speaker
And it was really cool. It was a cool choice. Also, science question. um I don't know if this is true. This may be foolish. But, proboscideans is that referring to like their nose cause it's like a proboscis yay gold star for me okay that's what I thought Yeah, that's the that's the family that includes mammoths and elephants.
01:04:32
Speaker
guess other pieces from this battle, um while we're while we're on it, I really loved the way that they animated the dead, the dead king.
01:04:45
Speaker
Yes. Where it, depending on how you looked at his face, you could see, you know, Kind of just like a scarred warrior and then otherwise like completely decomposed.
01:05:00
Speaker
Like sometimes his nose was there, but the jaw wasn't really. Sometimes the jaw was there, but the nose wasn't. Sometimes everything was there, but there were like gouges in the cheek. That was so good.
01:05:13
Speaker
i liked that a lot. It kept him... ah from being just flat and silly looking because it had this sort of eeriness. And another thing that I learned while we we're thinking about the dead, there's that scene when they're in the dead city and just these skulls come pouring out of the walls and they're drowning in skulls. And we were all going, okay, that's a lot of fucking skulls. And ah why are there only skulls? Who organized all these skulls? Why are these skulls here? Lots of questions about skulls.
01:05:43
Speaker
I found out that that was a practical effect. They were miniature skulls and there were 80,000 them. thousand of them god um so in case you were wondering how many skulls there were it's 80 000 it's a lot but that's a lot of skulls yeah the whole city of the dead the dead armies were very cool i love that they basically just said a big fuck you to aragorn even after he did this whole amazing speech about how he was king and he was gonna set them free they went no
01:06:19
Speaker
they're dead. Why do they give a shit? And then eventually they decided to show up. But I liked, you know, this was, I guess, the movie version. Because we don't get the phenomenon really in the movies. And this is just occurring to me now.
01:06:35
Speaker
We don't really get so much the phenomenon where the light hits Aragorn just right and he's an amazing shiny king. You know, we know from the beginning that this is his destiny. And so it's not really a surprise that we're building up to.
01:06:48
Speaker
But he still has a lot of influence over people just naturally. And so this was his opportunity to try that and have it not work.
01:06:59
Speaker
And I remember when we talked about that in the books as well. It's a good moment to show that even Aragorn doesn't control everything. And that was really effective. i I feel like there's a few moments where, yeah particularly in this movie, where we see him becoming more kingly.
01:07:15
Speaker
And it's, there's that moment where he's holding up Anduril in the City of the Dead for the first time. And it's, it's like bisecting his face. And then he uses it to block the the dead king's sword strike.
01:07:29
Speaker
And the ah king is like, like, you can't be Isildur's heir. Like that line was broken. and Oh, and then and then later on we see it with, um like, before the Black Gate.
01:07:43
Speaker
I feel like when he turns before before he delivers the For Frodo line, there's the glow behind his head. Yes, there is that.
01:07:55
Speaker
but And I actually, i have a musical note ah for this, too, in a little bit. the other The other piece from the dead bit, Aragorn's little heave over the side of the ship. And then swagger walk forward with the sword held up in both hands to the fellowship leitmotif.
01:08:12
Speaker
ah Porn. Yeah. Good God. Listeners, we know what does it for us, and it's Viggo Mortensen fully clothed, holding a sword.
01:08:25
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, it's beyond reproach, frankly. i If you are someone whose heart can be stirred by the sight of a man and you look upon him and feel nothing.
01:08:39
Speaker
I don't know what to tell you. You're lying. If your heart cannot be stirred by the sight of a man, that's fine. But if it can, then, you know, i don't I don't think anyone's immune unless you're a ghost king.
01:08:51
Speaker
I have a few other general observations from various points. There's ah heavy use, and we mentioned this last time, of slow-mo. Not like super slow motion, but just just ever so slightly slowed down um to either provide emphasis to a scene or like at the end of the battle, it feels almost dreamlike.
01:09:14
Speaker
Yeah, because it's also slow and you're getting music, but not the sound from the scene. And so you see Amir's scream of anguish when he sees his sister, but you don't hear it.
01:09:29
Speaker
And the look on his face, like, good job, Mr. Carl Urban, sir. That was phenomenal work. The mouth of Sauron riding his gnarly, mangy-ass horse, and also just the general look, was very, very good.
01:09:45
Speaker
um The weird, sort of creepy smile, slash grimace, slash baring teeth with the killer voice. it's It's excellent.
01:09:56
Speaker
In post, they doubled the size of his mouth. I thought To really go in on the whole mouth of Sauron thing. He also has these... cuts on his face that kind of go out in this starburst pattern around the mouth it's very unsettling but I thought that his design was really good it wasn't how I envisioned him necessarily i was imagining more just kind of a blank canvas of a spooky guy but this was this was good I don't have any critiques of the design I thought it was really cool very creepy
01:10:31
Speaker
and Just in general, with a lot of the creepy, fucked up little guys, I imagine it must have been really fun to do the makeup and other character facial design stuff for this movie.
01:10:45
Speaker
Because I am imagine if you are a person who is good at special effects makeup, being told to just make a thousand of the most fucked up little guys you can imagine is probably a dream come true.
01:10:57
Speaker
Like, that's probably so fun. Because especially the orcs, they all, they had a cohesive look, but each one was so unique and their faces were all different.
01:11:08
Speaker
And one of them had a helmet with another smaller head on top that he'd obviously cut off of some creature. They were just so fun that that did help ease some of the sting of me being scared of them.
01:11:24
Speaker
They were, they were really cool. other makeup piece it's subtle i don't know if it's in the makeup intentionally or what but it looked um like there had been a single tear track run down elijah woods cheek um through the dirt and the grime at the at the end as they're making their approach to mount doom and i don't know if like you know, either he actually was crying or something got in his eye and they were like, fuck it, we ball.
01:11:54
Speaker
Or if that was like intentional and they were just like, we just won't put something there. We're going to make it look like you were crying at some point. Like, Let's go. They just went for it. They went for it with Elijah Wood's makeup with specifically, I loved the like abrasions on his neck from the chain of the ring. It's like when you see those really sad dodo videos of dogs that have been chained up outside for a year and their neck is all raw.
01:12:20
Speaker
It's they don't mention that in the books. That was just a movie decision. But I think that it worked really well, especially because the ring is tucked into his shirt. most of the time it's not like you're seeing it but you have that visual reminder of how it's literally eating away at him that was very good I guess I will talk about some music thoughts unless you have some other things you want to get too My last big sort of overarching theme thing that I noticed with the design is that this whole movie is very blue and gray and brown.
01:12:58
Speaker
Those are the colors of Return of the King. There's ah good amount of red inside Mediceld and obviously Mount Doom at the end. There's lava. But even at...
01:13:11
Speaker
happy positive scenes like Aragorn's coronation we don't actually see a variety of colors on screen until the very end when Sam is back in the Shire at Frodo's goodbye we start seeing more of softer more natural greens as opposed to green man-made materials or hobbit made materials whatever not like you know, green stone and green cloth and stuff, but we're seeing more plants and leaves and nice, calming nature.
01:13:44
Speaker
But it's not until Sam is walking back to his home that we see presumably Eleanor. I don't think that they name the kids in the movie. Eleanor's running up to him in her little flower print dress and Rosie has her dress with a beautiful embroidery on the front and there's colorful flowers.
01:14:02
Speaker
And birds chirping and shit. And it's not until Sam is reinstalled in his rightful place in his home that there's literally color back in the world. And that's how we know that things are really going to be okay.
01:14:19
Speaker
And I was noticing all those little details of the house with the colors and the flowers and like, you know, filigree on the, ah but that's not the word, but like the the designs on the window and there was like designs of like grape leaves on the around the door.
01:14:37
Speaker
Like, it's so good. Also, one tidbit about Eleanor. Yes. First of all, she has the song that plays there is its own unique piece.
01:14:49
Speaker
That's not a piece that we hear through the rest of the story. And ah it is titled Eleanor on the on the soundtrack.
01:15:01
Speaker
Oh.
01:15:13
Speaker
Eleanor, Eleanor Gamgee is played by Ali Aston, who is Sean Aston's daughter. No, stop. That's so cute. So she is legitimately running to her dad.
01:15:27
Speaker
That's amazing. I'm like, there's literally a real tear in my eye. That's adorable. It's so cute. It was because, and you know, I'm sure that it's cool if you have a family member who's in, well, why am I saying this? Like it's abstract.
01:15:44
Speaker
I have a family member who's been in movies. I will not dox myself by saying who it was. um But I, my great grandmother was a very successful,
01:15:58
Speaker
working actress, not like super famous. She was like a B-lister, but she was in a lot of stuff. Elvis was a fan of her fun family lore for another time. But she was a well-known working actress in the 40s and 50s.
01:16:10
Speaker
And that's cool to be able to look at things and say, hey, that's my great grandmother. That's a member of my family. And this part of her life has been preserved for Her face is on a greeting card that you can buy at Target. um So like, that's cool. That's awesome to see. But to have the the next level of, look, whatever, you told me the name of the child and I forget. That's a video of you and dad together when you were a kid and you were all dressed up for the Lord of the Rings movie.
01:16:41
Speaker
That's the ultimate thing. It's not a home video at that point, but it's the ultimate home video. That's so fucking cool to just like have that memory with her dad. but That's so sweet. That was really all I had for main design observations. I know in the last two, I talked more about costumes.
01:17:00
Speaker
The costumes didn't really change that much in this movie. that I didn't have anything new to say. Just the nuns. that front. Yeah, just the nuns. But that concludes my specific deep dive knowledge.
01:17:15
Speaker
So now I hand it off to you. Thank you. Let's see. I'm just scrolling through my notes before I get down to like the music section.
01:17:26
Speaker
There's one point where Denethor has the audacity to be like, Rohan has deserted us. Theoden has betrayed me. Bitch, you didn't even want to light the beacons. Yeah. No one ever helps me around this damn house energy.
01:17:42
Speaker
Honestly. Bernard Hill doing his fantastic fucking little speech before the Rohirrim on the Battle of the Pelennor Fields adapted from the books. again we mentioned last time that bernard hale's a shakespearean classically trained actor who just brings it that was so well done also in the battle of the palinar fields legolas does that cool elf shit on the mumak and i love him counting with every shot that he takes and we get a wilhelm scream as he heaves a guy off of the elephant
01:18:17
Speaker
Now, this is one of those times where I will admit that I don't know something. Explain to me again what the Wilhelm scream is. Because it's a phrase that I hear all the time, but like I'm not confident that I could explain it.
01:18:33
Speaker
It's that um scream. it's It's a stock sound effect. And it comes from 1953 Western. and Amazing.
01:18:47
Speaker
And it just gets, yeah, it just gets used everywhere. it's it's It's like a little joke now that people put in. isn' Other piece on speeches, Aragorn is, when he's giving um his speech before the Black Gate, it's an incredible speech. It's genuinely inspiring as all hell.
01:19:11
Speaker
Um, like I, I want to draw my own sword and charge into battle beside him, but man, the camera's doing a lot of work there. And also I kind of have to laugh because one, his horse just, he kind of keeps going back and forth on his horse, just back and forth and back and forth.
01:19:28
Speaker
It's like, he's on a merry-go-round. Yeah. And then he also, when he does the, I see in your eyes, the same fear that would take the heart of me, um that it rises up like nasally.
01:19:42
Speaker
And he holds that knee just a half a beat too long. Like if it was us in the pod, I would trim that back. And then he finishes the speech, which, again, genuinely inspiring, delivered by the semi-mythical Arthurian king that has returned at the hour of Gondor's greatest need to the literal sea of orcs that vanishes back into the horizon.
01:20:07
Speaker
And it's like, ah, that sort of having been in your eyeline this whole time might defeat the the speech little bit. Also, I was thinking about the logistics of how much everybody could hear of this speech, because it's a great speech, but they have a lot of soldiers and he's running back and forth. So they're probably just catching, oh, my brave men, raise your swords.
01:20:31
Speaker
Like how much of this are they actually getting? and I'm going to hand wave it and say, yeah, it's magic. He can project his voice. But that did occur to me while I was watching it, that maybe not everyone could really hear the speech that well.
01:20:43
Speaker
Mm hmm. Mm hmm.
01:20:46
Speaker
So music. I will start with talking about the theme of the Gondor theme. Because we've heard it a little bit.
01:21:01
Speaker
But it is used quite frequently in this movie. um And Gondor had actually has two themes. There's one that is labeled um by one of the resources I was and was looking at as the Gondor leitmotif and one that's labeled as the white tree.
01:21:19
Speaker
Which also pops up here and there. But to start talking about the Gondor theme, I'm going to go all the way back to Fellowship to do a little bit of a deep dive into Sam's favorite scene in the entire series.
01:21:31
Speaker
um We first hear ah the Gondor theme during the Council of Elrond during Boromir's speech. I didn't know if this was going to be ah sincere or a bit. i was thinking, oh, what's my favorite scene in the series? I should know if it's my own favorite now.
01:21:48
Speaker
Fine, continue. Redeem the Council of Elrond for me. So there's Boromir's speech where he he leans forward and does his little... It is a gift.
01:22:02
Speaker
A gift to the foes of Mordor. Why not use this ring? Long has my father, the steward of Gondor, kept the forces of Mordor at bay. By the blood of our people are your lands kept safe.
01:22:18
Speaker
Give Gondor the weapon of the enemy. Let us use it against him. You cannot wield it. None of us can.
01:22:27
Speaker
The One Ring answers to Sauron alone. It has no other master. And what would a ranger know of this matter? This is no mere ranger. He is Aragorn, son of Arathorn.
01:22:42
Speaker
You owe him your allegiance.
01:22:49
Speaker
Aragorn?
01:22:53
Speaker
This is Isildur's heir.
01:22:58
Speaker
And heir to the throne of Gondor. Have a dad, Oedas. Gondor has no king.
01:23:12
Speaker
Gondor needs no king. Listeners, as Rin's friend in real life, this is one of the top things that they quote all the time. I knew this speech before I had even clapped eyes on these books.
01:23:27
Speaker
oh Continue. The music doesn't start until midway through this speech. It begins with solo French horn when Boromir says the word Gondor.
01:23:39
Speaker
Mm-hmm. And it's just solo French horn on the full theme. And then it's it it's almost plaintive, painful, and yet proud.
01:23:52
Speaker
And then when Aragorn interjects, there's a movement of strings and low brass. When he starts explaining his reasoning, it's the French horn standing solo again.
01:24:04
Speaker
And that continues through Boromir asking him, what would a mere ranger know of this matter? And then Legolas stands up and interjects. And this is where now there's a second French horn.
01:24:17
Speaker
And the theme repeats. But the second horn now is backing up Legolas's words. And it feels now like a conversation between Aragorn and Boromir, both represented as men of Gondor by the two French horns.
01:24:34
Speaker
isn It gives us the impression that they're two of the same type of person. And they're harmonizing, not in conflict, no matter what the words say. Then, as Boromir puts the pieces together and realizes that Aragorn is Isildur's heir and thus heir to the throne of Gondor, the theme is played again on with low brass and strings, and there's a subtle difference in the second phrase.
01:24:56
Speaker
And it serves the same auditory purpose as those descriptions of Aragorn in the right light being princely. um And it's like, oh, and no, no. This is his theme.
01:25:11
Speaker
And then it cuts off immediately and goes into strings and low moving minor chords as Boromir rejects that. gives He refuses the call. He says Gondor has no king.
01:25:22
Speaker
Gondor needs no king. um And it feels like he had an opportunity to join in and fill out the orchestration and become the hero of his own part of the story. But he then he continues to hold himself apart from Aragorn rather than working with him, as was the design of the steward's position initially. And it ultimately costs him his life.
01:25:43
Speaker
The Gondor theme then continues throughout the movies. We don't hear it more than once or twice in Two Towers, but it's every other phrase in Return of the King. Yeah. And it's used in a number of different ways.
01:25:54
Speaker
We get it alongside quotes from the fellowship motif when Pippin and Gandalf ride to Minas Tirith. And then we get basically our first full statement, full orchestration of the theme. As we get to see so much of the city, there's moving strings underneath, um but the strings have some tension to them.
01:26:14
Speaker
It's like when we're seeing this glorious city now preparing for war, seeking help here but we don't know what we're going to find when we get to the top the next major orchestral statement of the theme is the lighting of the signal fires yes There is a string movement before you get the classic.
01:26:39
Speaker
boom bomb boom butanaana And the strings there are providing a sense of urgency, but they're not as discordant as they were when they were initially riding through Minas Tirith.
01:26:51
Speaker
And it feels like we're getting a little hope. And that string and low winds section builds into the theme. And it feels like the earlier section is going from desperate to, oh, this might actually work, to when the full Gondor theme comes in, it it's a ah this is Gondor.
01:27:10
Speaker
This is what this means. We are standing. We are fighting. If we're going down, we're taking you with us. Mm-hmm.
01:27:28
Speaker
Thank you.
01:28:55
Speaker
And then it returns to fast, but now major key hopeful strings as We now come to the next morning and the last signal fire lights and Aragorn sees the fire, runs into Meduseld and says, Gondor calls for aid.
01:29:18
Speaker
The beacons, the beacons of Minas Tirith, Gondor calls for aid. And the music stops there for a moment. And as Theoden says, and Rohan will answer, there's another statement of the theme in Brasp.
01:29:32
Speaker
of the Rohan theme. Not the Gondor theme, but the Rohan theme.
01:29:52
Speaker
are made of city! The beacons are lit!
01:29:58
Speaker
Gun knuckles for eight!
01:30:10
Speaker
And Rohan will answer.
01:30:13
Speaker
Muster the Rohirrim.
01:30:20
Speaker
And then we get depressing with it. Because as Faramir and his men go on their suicide mission, it plays like a funeral dirge. And then that combined with the imagery of all of these people lining the streets and laying down flowers at their feet as they go by, all dressed in black and gray, like these men are already dead. Their bodies just haven't figured that out yet.
01:30:43
Speaker
Mm-hmm. um We get it again in a sort of in a similar funeral march style, but a little more hopeful as the army rides out to the Black Gate. And then we finally get it again in in all of its glory when Aragorn is crowned king.
01:30:59
Speaker
And that movement, that goes from Frodo's sickbed, where it's fellowship theme, shire theme, fellowship theme, the white tree into the main Gondor theme.
01:31:13
Speaker
Mm-hmm. Leading up to that sickbed, I was also paying a lot of attention to the music because we're jumping back and forth a lot during that whole scene between the Black Gate and Mount Doom.
01:31:24
Speaker
Mm-hmm. And so the music kind of can't change every scene, but there's little changes here and there. There's a lot of statements of the fellowship theme. There's a lot of like single chord statements of the fellowship theme. By this point, the fellowship theme is so well established that Howard Shore can kind of just put the bum, bum, bum.
01:31:48
Speaker
And you know, it's, that's, that's the fellowship. yeah He doesn't need to do any more than that. That's the fellowship. He also, over the approach to Mount Doom, uses flints flutes and high woodwinds to hint at the Shire theme.
01:32:02
Speaker
I noticed that. But they're not playing the recognizable Shire theme. They're not. But i I noticed it and I put it in my notes and I was like, Rit is going to be proud of me because I picked that
Musical Themes and Leitmotifs
01:32:12
Speaker
up. ah it's It was very good.
01:32:15
Speaker
Then there's the ah piece of you know, I can't carry this burden for you, but I can carry but i can carry you I can't carry it for you, but I can carry you.
01:32:29
Speaker
Come on!
01:32:43
Speaker
And you get solo trumpet trading off with low French horn and these sweeping gestures as, you know, they take step after step towards Samoth Narh.
01:32:56
Speaker
And then the other piece from this scene that we I feel like we hear a lot of going back and forth between the Black Gate and ah Mount Doom is a lot of ah low strings quiet and choir.
01:33:10
Speaker
We break into the fellowship theme with low strings and organ and then a vocal choir takes it over. Mm-hmm. And it gives it, as we're going between the battle that's actively in progress now and the approach to Mount Doom, it's a very Choir of Angels, Choir of Valkyries feel. Yes.
01:33:36
Speaker
um Singing over those that are about to be carried off to Valhalla. And then it fades away into that one solo voice for the leitmotif that I can only call hope.
01:33:49
Speaker
which we hear a few times in the series, but always just when all hope is lost and then regained. it's It shows up with the moth at Orthanc to rescue Gandalf. It shows up when the Ents destroy Isengard. It shows up when the Rokarim arrive at the Pelennor Fields.
01:34:06
Speaker
and And it's folded in with the Rohan motif there. And it shows up again here now, quoting the first time it showed up with the moth and the eagles coming with a solo soprano voice. Mm-hmm.
01:34:25
Speaker
okay We get more coral bits through the destruction of the ring and through the rescue of Sam and Frodo by the eagles and by Gandalf.
01:34:38
Speaker
And the coral bits here felt very churchy. Yeah. And i was struck by that and the imagery then of Frodo as he's picked up by the eagle because we're given an image, a shot of him in the eagle's claw, lying back, just of his head, kind of lolling back.
01:34:59
Speaker
And it's very, it felt very pieta, very lamentation of Christ. Yeah, yeah.
01:35:08
Speaker
And that fading from the that shot where it's like, is he dead? Is he not really dead? To the shot of him all dressed in white in the white bed in the ethereal sunbeam. i was like, oh, it's it's it's Jesus. That's the resurrection. Yeah.
01:35:24
Speaker
And the music here, again, we have some use of the the like slight slow-mo as the fellowship all enters. You have woodwinds with a few quotes from the Shire and Hope theme.
01:35:36
Speaker
And then it fades to just the fellowship theme, specifically when Aragorn comes in, because he's the last member of the fellowship to not be standing in the room except for Sam.
01:35:48
Speaker
And that fellowship theme gets its full quote, and then it stops when Sam is standing in the doorway, and Sam and Frodo lock eyes, and it switches back to the Shire theme.
01:35:59
Speaker
Yeah. Because the fellowship has always been important. But Sam, as much as he's been a part of it, was there for Frodo above all else.
01:36:11
Speaker
And so having the Shire theme over Sam and Frodo, it it places Sam as Frodo's center and Frodo's home. And so getting the
Aragorn's Coronation and Reunion with Arwen
01:36:23
Speaker
leitmotif for their collective home as they focus on each other to the exclusion of the rest of the fellowship is really, really good.
01:36:33
Speaker
Yeah. There's a similar moment of this when Frodo guides Bilbo onto the boat at the Grey Havens. um There's bits of the Fellowship theme, but when it's just him and Sam talking, it's the Shire theme again.
01:36:46
Speaker
Yeah. As I mentioned, this all fades into the White Tree, into Gondor as King Elessar is crowned, and then it fades out as Viggo sings. And I want to be so focused on the majesty of the moment, but one, it's hot.
01:37:01
Speaker
And two, Viggo manages to make it also heart-wrenching. Yeah.
01:37:12
Speaker
Yeah.
01:37:16
Speaker
Thank you.
01:37:50
Speaker
Because it's it's a bitter victory, you know? It's like he's there, he's king, but a million fucking people died and it was horrible. Yeah, and and he's singing in Elvish. These are lines direct from the book, which Aragorn speaks in the book, but is is sung here. ah This is, again, Viggo came up with the the music for this.
01:38:10
Speaker
Of course he did. But this is the lines he sings. ah Et yelaro endorenai utilien. sonoe marivvan are hilinor ten abar meta Out of the great sea to Middle-earth I am come.
01:38:27
Speaker
In this place I will abide and my heirs unto the ending of the world. And it's him singing over that whole shot until we see fucking Arwen. Well, first, before we see Arwen, because when we were watching this together, you know, he's getting crowned. It's amazing.
01:38:45
Speaker
And then I said, oh, Elrond's going to be pissed. Now he doesn't have anything to hold over him because he's met his impossible Herculean labor of a task. and When you become king, then you'll be good enough for my daughter. They go, no, fuck you, Mickey.
01:39:01
Speaker
And then it pans to Elrond and you see his disappointed face. And then Arwen steps out from behind the banner. So good. and And the grabbing of the banner that he like shoves aside so he can see her whole face.
01:39:19
Speaker
And she's bowing to him and he tips her chin up. And then the kiss and the spin around and the... It was so good.
01:39:31
Speaker
And I am the type of person who, you know, I bluster a lot on this very horny podcast. I'll say whatever because, you know, why not? This is somewhat anonymous. Y'all can't see my face.
01:39:46
Speaker
But there is a certain type of generic straight person TV kiss that still just makes me cringe a little bit. It's kind of uncomfortable to watch. I don't like this.
01:39:59
Speaker
This was a good kiss. This was an exceptionally well-done movie kiss. that I felt the true love there in a way that I just have not seen in a lot of other stuff. It was
Frodo and Sam's Relationship
01:40:12
Speaker
it was affecting.
01:40:14
Speaker
Since the invention of the kiss, there have only been five kisses that were made at rated the most passionate, the most pure. This one left them all behind.
01:40:26
Speaker
Princess Bride. ah Another thing that I have not seen. We can do a special on that because that's another one of my favorite movies. Speaking of kisses, the forehead kiss that Frodo gives Sam at the end.
01:40:42
Speaker
that That and their... meaningful eye contact when he's in his sickbed. Those are the two things that bring... Homoeroticism is the wrong word because it's not erotic, but that bring that implication of their relationship that has been lacking the rest of these movies.
01:41:03
Speaker
Those are some lingering, intimate moments. Whatever you want to chalk them up to in the movie characterization of their relationship, those are some intense moments.
01:41:14
Speaker
And
Pippin's Song and Denethor's Feast
01:41:15
Speaker
they were so good. The one other really wonderful music moment, I think, that I noted was Billy Boyd's song, Pippin's song, over Faramir's charge to Osgiliath.
01:41:33
Speaker
Because it is alternating shots between the charge to Osgiliath, which, again, we don't have the sound from that. We just see the motions.
01:41:47
Speaker
And then the shot of Denethor mangling a tomato and chicken disgustingly juxtaposed there. Billy Boyd wrote the music for that. Billy Boyd, Pippin's actor.
01:42:00
Speaker
And the lyrics are, if you remember way back in chapter three, Three's Company of of Fellowship. Trying to cast my mind back that far.
01:42:12
Speaker
There is a nice little walking song. that they're singing oh and this is the final verse of that lovely little walking song that has been ah had a couple of words removed at the end there where they talk about and now going to bed it's like a it's a you know you gave up your worries and now you're going to bed which is also wonderful this is another like book to movie moment for the book nerds Because Pippin says, like, he can sing songs of his own people well enough, but nothing for great halls.
01:42:46
Speaker
And he's clearly feeling the weight of this place. And so him trying to sing a happy song from the Shire and not managing it because of the place that he's in. Yeah. I think...
01:43:06
Speaker
is is the best way to do that. Yeah, that was also just fucking gorgeous. trying to think if there
Wagnerian Influences and Season Conclusion
01:43:14
Speaker
are any sort of major musical pieces.
01:43:19
Speaker
I felt like the music for this movie was much more brass heavy, and a lot more high brass specifically, but um which makes sense. it's a lot more battle-focused, so you get more fanfare type music.
01:43:34
Speaker
And it was nice to hear some of the leitmotifs that we haven't heard as much, and also here hints at leitmotifs that we've heard more often that we're now familiar enough with that we don't need the full thing to get the effect.
01:43:47
Speaker
Yeah. Final piece, which doesn't actually apply to the extended edition. This came up in my reading. We've talked about how ah Howard Shore drew from Wagnerian opera for this.
01:44:02
Speaker
But if you find the file that says finale theatrical cut,
01:44:10
Speaker
So this is what closed out the credits in the theatrical cut.
01:44:29
Speaker
And it's just his his final goodbye to this opera that he wrote. You don't have to listen to all of it, but if you then listen this lovely little quote from Wagner,
01:45:00
Speaker
It's a lovely little tribute to Wagner right there at the end. You can hear the similarities there. I feel like I don't know enough about Wagner to hear it.
01:45:12
Speaker
I think it's it's just the similarities and in the movement, the chords, the instrumentation. um He's pulling almost direct quotes from that piece of Wagner. That's very sweet. I like that.
01:45:24
Speaker
And I like, too, that the the last piece of music that we hear... Over the actual ah story that we're seeing is its own unique piece. It's the the fourth age of Middle Earth is beginning.
01:45:42
Speaker
The ring bearers are gone. And now Sam gets to live his story with his family. And so it's a closing of our story and a beginning of a new one for Sam.
01:45:54
Speaker
Mm hmm. And that's a good place, I think, to close our story unless you have any other notes. No, I think we've about covered it. We fucking did it.
01:46:08
Speaker
We did. Fucking well done, bestie. Right back at you. All of my big feelings TM about it, I... just want to save for us not for the podcast but they are there the feelings are present um we have to do some logistic amongst ourselves to figure out what the next couple episodes are going to look like we have a few more ideas for bonus content related to lord of the rings and then at some point we will be making announcements about season two which we have already hinted at. You have planned out way in advance before we even started doing Lord of the Rings stuff. You already had started to make plans.
01:46:52
Speaker
So there will be much, much more of us before for your ears. Don't you worry, listeners. We literally have years of content.
01:47:03
Speaker
Not only for us to go through, but also then to do podcasts on. So if you like what you're listening to and would like to hear more for the next several years, or however much time you would like to stick with us, but we'd love if you stick with us for good. It's it's great to have you here.
01:47:20
Speaker
You can follow our podcast on whatever podcast platform you're listening on. We're on all the major ones and I assume some of the less major ones too. If you would like to interact with us outside of the podcast, you can shoot us a message on our social media.
01:47:39
Speaker
We are at fan app pod F A N A P P P O D on whatever social media sites we're on. If we're on a social media site, that's what we're on under.
01:47:50
Speaker
You can also always send us an email at thefandomapprentice at gmail.com. And we will be back in two weeks with a new episode for your ears.
01:48:03
Speaker
Thank you so much for listening. Thank you for coming on this last stage of the journey with us. The many stages that led up to that. The many last stages that led up to that. It's been a lot of fun and we're, we will never put Lord of the Rings away fully.
01:48:21
Speaker
It will always be in our toolboxes and in our commentary and in random bonus episodes we come up with in the future. But this is the end of a big piece of this podcast and it's been a lot of fun to do this and I'm excited to see where, where we're going to go from here.
01:48:42
Speaker
Yeah, this is, means a lot to both of us that y'all are here and listening to the things that we have to say, which is kind of wild. We genuinely, sincerely appreciate y'all spending part of your day with us.
01:48:58
Speaker
And we're excited to hang out with each other, mostly, really, and also to experience some new things, bring some new stuff to y'all. So thank you for...
01:49:09
Speaker
hanging out and
Closing Credits and Acknowledgments
01:49:10
Speaker
we'll see you next time. Bye. See you next time. A Phantom Apprentice is produced and edited by Rin and Sam. Our music is written and performed by James. You can hear more of his music on Spotify or on Bandcamp under the group Beiruz, B-A-E-R-U-Z.
01:49:27
Speaker
Our art is by Casey Turgeon. You can find more of her work at KCT Designs on Instagram. The content discussed is the property of the Tolkien Estate and of Peter Jackson and New Line Cinemas, and is used here under fair use.