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The Rings of Power Feels Like an Appendix, Not a Story | The Rewind Podcast
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This week on The Rewind, Darren, Marty, and JM8 chat about the second season of Amazon's The Rings of Power, as well as their thoughts on other recent movies, TV, and anime they've watched.
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Transcript
Introduction and Hosts
00:00:00
Speaker
This podcast is brought to you by us. Since Second Wind operates 100% independently, we rely on your support to help us continue delivering the great content you love. Consider checking out our Patreon if you want to access ad-free versions of every podcast, plus your name featured in our video credits, as well as other exclusive perks. So if you like what you see, hear, or smell, maybe, visit our Patreon page and become part of the community today. Now back to the show.
00:00:35
Speaker
Hello everyone and welcome to the Rewind episode number 7 for Tuesday, October 15th, 2024. My name is Marty Sleev, I'm joined by Darren Mooney, Jim Mate, and producer Eric. ah Jack is is ah currently filming reshoots for Juror number 2, so that is why he's not here today. I know Jack is doing his civic duty currently.
Tolkien's Influence and Adaptations
00:00:55
Speaker
but the timing is perfect because uh jay you're joining us today and uh as you see our main topic is the rings of power season two uh which i would say i would say among all of us you are the token superfans so much as you have you said the shards of narsil yeah the shards of narsil on my arm um uh yeah i
00:01:16
Speaker
I'm I'm a big Tolkien head. I'm your favorite thing. and It's always a question I ask people like what's your favorite thing? I think lost is my favorite thing. Do you have a favorite thing? Essentially, I i actually think Lord of the Rings might be maybe berserk up there with berserk.
00:01:32
Speaker
ah No, Labyrinth is my favorite thing. Berserk is my second favorite thing. Yeah, I've got another tattoo of Labyrinth. And then I think Lord of the Rings is my third favorite thing. But it's it's up there. like i I own multiple copies of the books. I own some to quite rare editions.
00:01:49
Speaker
tell But it's it's not quite one thing to rule them all then, unfortunately. No, it's it's i like nice renting yours yeah three more were forged. I did have to siege a city to get some of these books. So, you know, it's a amazing a big thing. But yeah, I'm a I'm a I'm a big fan. And because of that,
00:02:07
Speaker
um I have some opinions, sit on season two of Rings of Power. We will find out in this episode. Does Rings of Power season two enter your top five of things? Or is Jishai just outside looking in? Just almost in there? Almost in there. In the treeline.
00:02:23
Speaker
I love the bakery and yet specificity of that. It's like, it's going to be a pool of things, but you could only have five of them. So it's like, it's oxygen in there. Like it's like, no, like oxygen and food don't like things. ah Oxygen is a thing. It does exist. you so thing What's your, what's your favorite thing? dar i I mean, you wrote a book on the, yeah, Star Trek would have been the one back in the day. I don't know if it still is. Uh, but yeah, Star Trek would have been the default one back in the day. yeah Turns out engaging with the fandom of something can sometimes sully your relationship with things. Oh yes. Also there's just so much of it, like it kind of dilutes like the purity of the thing. Like this is probably something to talk about with Jim 8. How do you feel about Lord of the Rings being a franchise now? Because it was like just Tolkien's work, and now it is obviously we have the Rings of Power.
00:03:15
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We have the two Gollum movies because there's got to be two Gollum movies, the hunt for Gollum. And now we also have like the war of their hearing coming out. this november What is it like to live in a world where Lord of the Rings is like a franchise like Star Trek or Star Wars? I i don't like it because there there's something about Tolkien. Well, one, it was the thing that got me into reading, which is like huge for me because I have dyslexia. So it was like a huge thing for me to actually fall in love.
00:03:43
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series and um the movies were foundational in me going to study film and TV um because, you know, the special features, I watched them more than the movies themselves. um But something about Tolkien, for me, reading it, and especially The Unfinished Tales and the Silmarillion and stuff like that, it feels like lore. It doesn't feel like um a story or a book, it feels like I'm peering into history. And then that's what Tolkien intended, right? He envisioned it as being a- As a mythology for England, isn't it? A proto-mythology for for England. um And to see something that, because of that, I view as very, this is going to sound sad, I view it as very sacred, um seeing it
00:04:29
Speaker
bastardized um is is painful. And um and i as a as someone who who studied the the making of films and understands it, I get why they're making a lot of the changes they are, but I don't like it. I don't like it. Yeah, I think we'll be it'll be an interesting convo because and like i I know some of Darren's thoughts just purely based, we haven't talked about the show, but based on ah your your columns, you've you've read your columns, you've written on it.
00:04:57
Speaker
um that There are two golems. There are two golems because you can't just have one. You got to split it in half. One each Christmas. um And it was your your most recent one that went up on on Monday about how ah this isn't a story. It's a side quest, a series of side quests, and how ah it it very much feels like um every moment, especially in the back half of the season, which we'll get to. That'll be our main topic, but it feels like the Leo pointing meme of like, yeah, I remember that thing from the Peter Jackson movies. what Why are we doing this? There's a moment where one of the characters dresses the other as Lord of the Rings, as if you as an audience member are supposed to go wait.
00:05:37
Speaker
I get it. yeah It finally clicked. yeah yeah It is precious, isn't it? He literally does say it will be the most precious thing in Middle Earth. And you're like, how does he know that the word precious is the one distress there? like I've got so many details and we'll get into them later. But for me, the the kind of pressing point is Rings of Power Season 2 references so many things from the book that the book series that only people who are obsessed with the books will recognize, but then reference them incorrectly so those people would be upset. So who is this for? Right? Like, who is it for? I don't get it.
00:06:19
Speaker
we're exactly probably I don't think I dislike it as much as you do, Jay. um And there are parts of it I actually do enjoy. I think the production value is a step up from season one. I think the pacing is a step up from season one. And I think a few of the performances and I honestly, the choreography in the battle, I thought that the siege battle
Challenges of Adapting Tolkien
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was like,
00:06:40
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you know, felt like a theatrical battle to the point where I was like, well, this is just Helms deep. And then this is just, uh, like right down to the, like the white stone front of the horse being ridden through the narrow streets of this kind of like white thing. You're like, somebody recently watched return of the King. I should why should watch return the King. This is the red movie. Yeah. Uh, but yeah, before we, uh, before we get to that, we have a couple of news items we want to touch on. Uh,
00:07:07
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And also, I see, I see, well well, you know what, before we touch the news items, a bunch of Super Chats came in before we started. So we'll hop on those really quick. Thank you to everyone watching live on YouTube right now, watching the VOD, listening on your podcast service of choice. Everyone who supports us over at places like Patreon helps helps keep the lights on, helps us keep doing weird experimental shit. We we really appreciate you.
00:07:27
Speaker
a jumbly right off the bat with a $10 don't know thank you so much jumbly uh gave us a fair chance as a generic fantasy show but soon after just gave me whiplash and then something click and understood rings of power to be the greatest unintentional comedy of our generation i don't think it's that i think the more you like lord of the rings or the token books the angrier you're gonna get at this Yeah. Yeah. My thing is an anger. My thing is like more apathy at this. And I just think that there is so much good and better genre TV on right now that you can spend your time with.
00:08:04
Speaker
not to jump into a discussion we might have later on, but this is the thing where I look at like Joker folio do and I'm like, there is actually something quite impressive about lighting $200 million dollars on fire in the present climate. Cause it's like, you look at something like rings of power and you're like, that could have made 20 Clint Eastwood drawer number two movies. Like you could have spent that money doing literally anything else and you're doing this.
00:08:26
Speaker
And to be clear, I don't hate it as much as Jamaite does. um but I find myself mostly just zoning out during large portions of it, which is bad. I try. I really do. I find myself zoning back in and then getting like pushed out of it.
00:08:40
Speaker
um But like, yeah, you're watching and you're like, this is gorgeous. This is massively expensive. This costs you some of some money, involves incredibly talented people. Like the production design is astounding. The scale is fantastic. The spectacle I think is amazing, but you're like, it's in service of.
00:08:58
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a story that I don't understand why it is being told. Like, I don't understand why you are telling this story now in this world, outside of the fact that it allows you to reference a bunch of things that, like, millennials will recognize from Perjamate's point, ear the books,
00:09:17
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or online posts about how Peter Jackson's films betrayed the books by not including elements that are in this show or things that you recognize from the films themselves, even though Amazon don't own the copyright to them. um So we have to kind of just vaguely allude to them. I don't know why outside of those reasons this exists, which is a very strange thing to say about a show this big and this expensive. Yeah, I think I want to preface that I don't hate the show.
00:09:46
Speaker
I just think it's a bad adaptation and I don't think that's necessarily their fault because like you said, Darren, they they don't have the rights to specific things, um but what they have chosen to do, um I just think is baffling. But yeah, I'm completely with you. I'm not sure why this show is the way it is. um like It had the potential to be so much bigger, but it also feels as if They are just trying to set up pieces so we can have big set pieces like the, the drowning of Numenor. And, um, you know, the siege of a reggie on was the big one of this season. And, um, we've heard so much about it, um, in the, in the stories and they're just trying to set up characters to be able to experience that. Like, um, uh, Gil Gallad and, um, Elrond and glad real and stuff like they're quite passive.
00:10:37
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in a lot of these situations and they've given them motivations, which is positive, which is good. Like characters having motivations is good. Yeah. But if the characters you're spending time with, yeah, you're spending that much real estate on, but they fall really flat because once they've done their big law moment, they kind of just go back to being non characters. And it's yeah, I'm not a big fan of it. I also like when characters leave for several episodes and then they pop up again. I'm like, I forgot you were on the show.
00:11:03
Speaker
but like it that is a minor for handolph was on the show for a while I think you mean grand elf. Oh, I'm sorry. I mean, grand elf. Yeah. Okay. We, yeah. Sorry. We, we, we, we will talk about Lord of the rings later, but I do like that we're front loading. Uh, sorry, Jamaite. I'm sorry. I reminded you of that stuff pisses me off. Hold the door. Hold the door. Stuff pisses me off real bad. Like that's probably the bit that pisses me off the most. I go to bat for hold the door.
00:11:29
Speaker
I think hold the hold the door is dumb as shit and it works on me every time I see it. RIP Hodor Purple audacity with a $10 don't know. Thank you so much purple audacity mandatory longtime listener first-time caller comment Thanks for all you do Darren. I'm visiting Ireland for the first time any Dublin insights Also, where do I find the cursed shop from oddity Darren? Have you seen oddity? We talked about oddity is quite good oddities and and it's for it's made have you seen oddity Marty? Yeah, I did I thought it was great It's great like and it's particularly like for a zero budget horror film. Yeah It eases location really well. It does feel like it's like a bunch of people getting together on a weekend to make an Irish horror film. hey It's the scariest mannequin ever. This is why you don't have statues of like weird little wooden statues of people.
00:12:12
Speaker
yeah um it's It's really good. I wholeheartedly recommend it. And Ireland's had like a really good boom recently of horror films. I mean, you could argue things like Evil Dead Rise, which is directed by Lee, like Lee Cronin, for example, but even more local stuff like Hole in the Ground or like Hammer Horrors tried to restart themselves with Wakewood, which is like, I believe an Aidan Gillan horror film. If I'm remembering correctly, Aidan Gillan, Timothy Spall. I think it's very good. I really enjoyed that.
00:12:35
Speaker
Um, but yeah, in terms of like recommendations for Dublin, if you're around, I mean, the big one is if you can get into Kilmainham goal, um, and I say goal, it is actually a prison, but you should book a tour of Kilmainham prison. If you can, that is one of the best walking tours in Dublin. The tickets tend to go far ahead of time. So if you know when you're going to be there, try and book ahead of time. Uh, the other big one that I would recommend is the little museum of Dublin, which is on safe Stevens green.
00:13:01
Speaker
It's small. You'll do it in a couple of hours, but it's a really nice sampling of Irish culture. There's a bit off the beaten path. And then outside that, like the Jameson distillery, the, not to turn us into alcoholic tourism, but like the Guinness brewery and the Jameson distillery are also like really great locations in the Capitol as well. And just go out of a night and just have a night in Dublin would be what I'd recommend. ah Just kind of wander around. Yeah.
00:13:23
Speaker
I love going to New City and just getting a nice wander and especially booking a hotel, staying somewhere central that you could just like walk out of your hotel and be like, I'm just going to wander around for several hours. Exactly what I did. Yeah. I love it. Absolutely lovely. That's awesome. Fosse with a five pound down. I don't think it's much Fosse. Watch Transformers 1 on the weekend and as a 21 year old fan, it was everything I wanted and more. Can't understand it being boring for some though. I mostly liked Transformers 1.
00:13:53
Speaker
Um, I am not, and that's speaking for someone who's not a Transformers fan. You weren't super hot on it, right? darren I wasn't. I felt kind of like grumpy and old and out of touch. I mean, again, like it's, I found it nice that it was a kids movie for kids that was designed to sell kids toys as opposed to convince them to like join the US army. I think that's a better space for Transformers to be in. Um, but I did find myself just like, I,
00:14:17
Speaker
I was kind of, it's because it's from Josh Cooley who directed like Toy Story 4. I think I was expecting something like Pixar or even like late Dreamwork adjacent. And I think what I got was something that's much more traditional children's movie in the mold of like the original Transformers movie. And it just, it didn't connect with me the way that it did for some people. And honestly, I'm delighted. Like I i was there with a bunch of fans on the night. They had a good time. I was left kind of cold, but it's always nice to be in a room full of people who are having a good time, you know? yeah Yeah, there's nothing like deeply offensive, not offensive in a like this offended me way, but there's like nothing like you can really get mad at the movie. Like the worst is you can leave and just be like, well, I didn't really like it. I want to say that I got corrected there in the comments. Go is pronounced jail. Apologies in Irish. um We don't have a J. i Yeah, sorry. I just showed you that I live in Ireland. But yes, it would pop up. ah
00:15:13
Speaker
Uh, that word popped up a bunch in Elden ring. Every time you had to fight a dude in like, uh, in a weird dimension. And I was like, what the fuck is this word? It's got a G and A no and O and they're like, it's just jail. I'm like, Oh, okay. Well, that makes sense. It's like the Scotty fragments. People always dance. It's just shadow. I'm like, why don't we just, why don't we just smell a shadow? though scanny nophon not to jump into like a discussion of Irish culture, there is that weird tension where like we will initially try to invent words for like words that we import from like English, like computers, I think, for Reaver us and stuff like that. But we will eventually at certain stages just go just call it a computer with an accent, just say the word computer with an accent. mean Also, language is always changing. So like pronunciations, I think I never really get too hung up on because like regional dialects might completely be different. Like there's several correct pronunciations of several words. Words are just
00:16:02
Speaker
ah so And by the way, sovereign is entirely correct to call me out. I'm not at all complaining or dunking itself. And I should be able to say the word jail. It's actually, it's extra sovereign suffering. Good point. did It is sovereign. R G to pronounce. I could double A with a file or don't know. Thank you so much. Darren, did I miss an episode of your personal pod, the two 50 last weekend. I need my dose of Irish culture. Darren, where's the podcast?
00:16:27
Speaker
You did not miss at that episode, to be clear. That is an us error, not a you error. ah We are covering the alien and predator franchises and we had a bunch of scheduling conflict. It's great. um And we managed to convince some like people who are far too qualified to be on our podcast, to be on our podcast. So Emma Kerwin, who is like an Irish playwright, Irish actor, Irish film writer, ah he wrote like Dublin old school and started Dublin old school. I, he came on to talk about like predator two and we weren't able to make the date line up. We had like a last minute cancellation because he had to do a charity book read. And I was like, screw those kids. You agreed to be on the podcast. I can't do it. So we, it should be at this weekend. too Sorry for a second. I thought you said Emma Corrin and I was like, Emma Corrin is just on your podcast talking about predators.
00:17:16
Speaker
When you said that, my eyes were like, what? And then you were like, okay, no, no, no, this is this another person. Yeah, no, I was I was surprised like Emmett is great. I love Emmett very much. He's a really wonderful director. But I love that you were like, hey, I was just like, that's a weird life. That's a weird get she's just the devil. And then Bookworm 776 with a five dollar don't know. Thank you so much. Lord of the Rings were the last books I had read out loud to me by my dad before I had fully ah before I read fully independently at bedtime. So they'll always have a special place to meet. That's really nice.
00:17:51
Speaker
and But I was. I I. I came to the books after the movie, I saw a fellowship of the ring and I was like, this movie is sick as hell. And then I read the three books ah and The Hobbit that spring, I think after after fellowship. It was bribed.
00:18:06
Speaker
I was obsessed with the movies, especially me who has always really struggled. Like reading for me is a chore because I've dyslexia. So it's like, it's difficult. So it's not a fun time. I have to read paragraphs multiple times to fully contextualize them and stuff. If it's heavy and Tolkien is heavy. Um, so when I i i was obsessed with the movies and my mum said, if you read a chapter of the Hobbit,
00:18:34
Speaker
every week, yeah ah you'll have your pocket money, like you'll get your your allowance, basically. So um I blasted through The Hobbit um and ended up just loving it because I felt like I was discovering more about, you know, the movies I loved and the world that I loved. And then when I was like, oh, my God, look how much more there is, that's when I just snowballed into, you know, falling into that world. So it was bribery for me. Yeah.
00:19:01
Speaker
I never, and then I, yeah, I never felt there after that. I never felt the urge to like do the Silmarillion or any of the, or I think I might've tried some of it and I'm like, oh, this is just a, this is just a history book. Yeah, you don't need to, you don't need to read the Silmarillion. I feel like once you get to that point, you're like, I'm making a choice whether to like fully invest in this thing or like stay sort of at like an arm's reach fandom.
00:19:21
Speaker
Is this one of my three favorite things? That's what I read. Yes. Am I going to read this like I read that shitty fake book from Lost that was like, here's the manuscript of someone who crashed on the island. I believe it was called The Bad Sister.
00:19:34
Speaker
Bad Twin. It was called Bad Twin. There was a book that didn't have anything to do with Lost, except for the fact that the book was supposedly written by someone who died in Flight 815, and there were supposed to be clues in it. And let me tell you, they weren't. They just got me to read a very shitty mystery book, so. Obfuscation. Somebody on the production team had an unpublished manuscript. They were like, the easiest way to get this on the New York Times bestseller list.
00:19:58
Speaker
yeah But lost on it. You could fucking whoops like Marty doing it. And it worked. Really quick, before we before we go whole hog into ah ah Rings of Power Talk, I want to talk about two things. One is casting news of lanterns. Speaking of of genre TV, an upcoming ah this is ah the DC... What's what's the James Gunn's brand called now DC Studios? Is that like...
00:20:24
Speaker
This is officially under the umbrella of James Gunn's thing. Unlike Joker-Folia dude, this has got to be under the new DC. Lanterns, which is going to be the upcoming Green Lanterns HBO series ah that is being pitched as a true detective-esque sort of like a dark murder mystery set in the American heartland, ah has found its pair of Green Lanterns. John Stewart being played by Aaron Pierre, who was just lead in Rebel Ridge that we talked about and really enjoyed from a few weeks back.
00:20:52
Speaker
and Kyle Chandler as Hal Jordan. So this is almost, like again, like True Detective going to be sort of like a buddy cop of of like ah two separate Green Lanterns solving cosmic crimes on Earth. I don't know anything about Green Lantern. I know it's got rings. I know there's multiple of them. Sometimes they're aliens. And I know I i think they hate yellow. That's like the most I know about Green Lantern. Yeah. the The Green Lantern stuff is there. Obviously, um again, nice nice into Tolkien and they're inspired by Wagner's The Ring Cycle, I believe, um which Tolkien was officially not influenced by The Ring Cycle. I think his his argument is that they both have rings in it and that's the extent of the similarities between the two. um But basically, Sorry. But basically like the, the green lantern is a character who can like generate constructs using their ring. It was originally like Adam Allen's gosh. And then in the sixties, it was reinvented like in the silver age in the same way that you've got your silver age flash, you got your silver age green lantern. And it was like, again, 1950s gee whiz science fiction concept. So now it's no longer a guy who finds a railway lantern. It is a space cop. And the idea is that you have this space cop who everybody patrols their own sector of space. You get a ring that ring allows you to construct
00:22:06
Speaker
whatever is in your, usually like a big fist, because, you know, there's only so many ideas that comic book writers have. Um, but basically the Green Lantern, it was always kind of like a secondary kind of joke character, because as you said, the Green Lantern's fatal weakness for most of the classic run was the color yellow.
00:22:24
Speaker
Like, the character could not affect anything that was the colour yellow. So there were like, again, as somebody who read a lot of the Silver Age comics, there were a lot of like, oh no, the villain has a yellow rocket launcher! And it's like, how are the Green Lantern boys gonna get out of this one?
00:22:39
Speaker
um But it did actually, to be fair to it, it had a really good reinvention around about the early 2000s, underwriter Jeff Johns, the Rebirth brand, where he basically like fashioned it into what is effectively like DC's Star Wars, where he came up with this concept of like, well, what if there's a yellow lantern or an orange lantern or a, you know, a violet lantern or whatever. And like just fashioning this kind of mythos that really intense, really fascinating and like was kind of the basis for the movie of which we do not speak.
00:23:08
Speaker
But like yeah for a lot of like comic book fans of my age, the Geoff Johns Green Lantern run was an activation point. So the like the Green Lantern has like a place in modern comic book fandom, in large part, due to that. I am very fascinated by this idea of like doing True Detective, but with Green Lantern. because like i's the thing right the thing about like the penguin, which is great is the penguin is what if the Sopranos with the penguin and that worked out pretty well. So I'm like, what if true detective with green lantern? I'm like, that sounds like the premise that worked really well. It is working really well on TV right now. So yeah.
00:23:42
Speaker
Hit me. And one of the one of the lead writers is Damon Lindelof, going back to Lost, who's when he's delved in the comics before. He gave us Watchmen, which was phenomenal. So great. Yeah, but he also wrote that manuscript, dude. So yeah, I think he also wrote Cowboys and Aliens, which we don't need to talk about that. There's no need to talk about Cowboys and Aliens in one movie.
00:24:03
Speaker
what movie movie movie where You can really sense the enthusiasm radiating off Harrison Ford. its Like, it you know, you can really just sense he's happy to be there watching that movie. And Daniel Craig, like two of the guys who are most happy doing this sort of stuff. um I'm just so happy to live in a world where for the next six months, people are gonna be asking Harrison Ford about Red Hulk.
00:24:24
Speaker
um my He's already described himself as on a day trip to the MCU. Like he's already done. It's great. Like it's great. The movie's not coming out for another six months. It's like, you know, I just, I'm just here for the day. oh It's like, please stop asking me about this. Uh, that's good stuff. Uh, the other thing I want to talk about before snake, you cannot blame me for being in the U S granted. I am and the only one in the U S so maybe we can blame me for being in the U S.
00:24:49
Speaker
along you can't but is is go be a rough This be a rough next month for the US. Just don't blame me. Just have have pity on your American friends for the next month. ah The other thing I want to talk about, not quite news, but ah this week, yesterday and today, a pair of pretty ah substantial movie anniversaries for movies that I would say ah for especially our generations ah really meant a lot. And I know both movies meant a lot to me growing up and sort of when I started blossoming into someone who like watched movies more than just
00:25:19
Speaker
Oh, man, Batman forever. That was cool. ah Is October 14 1994. So the 30th anniversary yesterday of Pulp Fiction. And then October 15 1999, the 25th anniversary of Fight Club.
00:25:32
Speaker
um which I know for, i you know, it's not original to say that those two movies, you know, we were fans if if you came to them at a certain age. But, you know, Pulp Fiction is one of those movies. I remember like I had like pneumonia in middle school and my dad took me to the video store and I think they had some like rent five movies for $5 for five days or something. And I remember getting Pulp Fiction. It was like he and my dad was a big movie guy. And I was like,
00:26:02
Speaker
I think for some reason, I don't know what sparked me wanting to be like, I want to like watch adult movies or like movies that aren't superhero movies or comedies or whatever. And so he picked out Casablanca, The Untouchables, Goodfellas,
00:26:18
Speaker
ah
00:26:21
Speaker
Scarface and Pulp Fiction. And he gave me those five movies as like a 12-year-old that just like unlocked everything and beat that. Wow. What do you watch the next weekend is the question. I was just like, this is what's going on here. like every Now Marty, it's time for porkies and porkies too the next day.
00:26:40
Speaker
um And it was just kind of incredible. And I remember them just being like, oh, movies can do this. And yeah like part of it was because I had like a high fever, I think, from from pneumonia. But the other part was just like, oh, this is this is phenomenal. And yeah, at 12, I was that was like a good kid, though. I wasn't like getting into fights or anything. So I think it was fine. I think like my mom was at work all those days. So he was like just watching her in the day and just put him away when she's not here. um Did you concoct a plan to like take down the US government? Was there Project Mayhem? No, no, no. Pulp Fiction was a little later. Fight Club was a little later. This would have been in like 98. That was when i when I first got Pulp Fiction. And then ah Fight Club to me was, again, I didn't, I don't think I saw it in theaters, but it was a, ah for probably a lot of people, it was a seminal ah DVD movie.
00:27:31
Speaker
When I got my first DVD player in ah the fall of 2000, I got a PlayStation 2 and that was our family's first DVD player. And I remember Fight Club and the Matrix and whatever the most recent WrestleMania was. Those are my my first three DVDs. I have a memory of owning a DVD of Fight Club that came with a bar of soap. but Yeah.
00:27:56
Speaker
Yeah, we would have been in the same market, I would have got the same DVD. Oh, I was gonna say, I don't think that was a thing in the US. Bunch of dirty boys here. I remember it vividly, like the color of it. Yeah. What it tasted like.
00:28:08
Speaker
I don't remember that, but okay. it like That's why I am the way I am. The liposuction clinic that the that they harvested it from. i mean like to to To your point and to like, to mate's point, the thing is like, we're talking not just about like moments of activation of cinema, like the DVD, the idea of like the DVD market being a thing. And Jamaite mentioned like the Lord and the Rings special editions. Those are basically film schools or like, Oh yeah. Yeah.
00:28:31
Speaker
the matrix where you had like the follow the white rabbit thing that would take you into the production of it and like ask you to engage with it. And even like Fincher's DVDs generally are packed full of special features that go through every aspect of the production, including how much he hates every single second of making alien three. But like I, my memory of fight club is fascinating because it's like, it is a, you mentioned it's almost the inverse of the moment that you mentioned Marty, which is my family would, when we were growing up, would always make a point of like Friday night or Saturday night, you know, as we got, as the kids got older, they went out, but like one night a weekend, we would all sit down and watch a movie together and it would be a modern movie. It would be a recent movie and we'd go down to the store, we'd pick it out. And sometimes dad would pick, sometimes mom would pick, sometimes we'd be allowed pick. And I remember us watching Fight Club and watching Fight Club and my parents
00:29:18
Speaker
Not getting it, it not being like ah a movie that appeals to like, you know, a middle class, you know, at that stage, 40 or 50 something like Irish audience, ah but it activating something in me. And I remember that Christmas, my parents getting me the DVD of fight club.
00:29:35
Speaker
um And it just being like a really thoughtful gesture, this movie that they personally hated with every fiber of their being. But we're like, this clearly connected with you, Darren, in a way that we're not alerting the authorities yet about, but in a way that we are a little bit concerned about, but we want to encourage. I just, ah that is my, my big memory of Fight Club is like my parents being like, this clearly means something to you and doesn't mean anything to us. And we are going to encourage it. And that just being magic, you know?
00:30:02
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. And both these movies were like when when my freshman year in college, like dorm room staples on what like it was like posters of these two and the big Lebowski like those are just be the face. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Walk into any room. It's funny. All those movies I mentioned Scarface is the one that it probably like I just rarely revisit because I'm like. I mean, that's the one Al Pacino won the Oscar for. That was the big interview this week, where Al Pacino was asked, what movie do you think you deserved an Oscar for, if not sent to a woman? And you're like, come on, Godfather I, Godfather II, even Godfather III. And he's like, no, Scarface. I really wanted the Academy to give me an Oscar for the movie where I shot this whole town's a pussy just waiting to get fucked. I want that in the little reel beforehand. Yeah, no, that's it.
00:30:48
Speaker
Cause it's like 83. The audience clapping. Yeah. Cause who else would it it would have been like Jeff bridges or so like, who are your other nominees it's out of Africa? Yeah. it's like And then, uh, uh, Pope, I don't know if we've ever talked about pulp fiction on the show. I'm, I'm assuming Darren, you're, you're a fan. All right. Yeah. I like it a lot. What I, what I, what a controversial take.
00:31:12
Speaker
but
00:31:15
Speaker
but and great Darren says, but that activates American indie cinema, where obviously you had had like sex lives in video tape, like beforehand, and you had had like the Soderberg kind of breakout hit. And obviously you have the Weinstein's who you have to unfortunately talk about when you talk about like American independence in in the nineties. But like Pulp Fiction is the moment where that independent American cinema really becomes vibrant and dynamic. I think it was the first indie film to earn over $100 million dollars at the American box office. I may be wrong about that. But it it did set some sort of record along those lines. And it's, yeah, it just, it is, as you said, a moment of activation, a realization that films can do this stuff and films can do this stuff in a way that is accessible, popular, and that mainstream audiences will follow along. Because obviously, you know, it doesn't invent any of the stuff it does, the non-linear narrative, the anthology format, that any of that stuff is, you know, Tarantino is a magpie drawing from a host of different sources, but he's synthesizing them into something
00:32:11
Speaker
that sounds insane. If you look at like the early nineties in American pop cinema, like driving this Daisy wins the best picture Oscar. And you're like, okay, let's go see this movie about how there's a dude in a leather gimp suit in a basement. Um, but somehow that becomes a movie that like the culture just kind of latches onto and like for better or worse, and I'm going to put my hands up and say for better and for worse, Tarantino is a controversial figure. He is divisive. He is not everybody's cup of tea, but I think there is also something interesting in like,
00:32:40
Speaker
does Pulp Fiction create the last celebrity superstar director? And I know you can say Nolan is the obvious other example, but like the director that you would invite on a talk show to just have chat at you where Tarantino becomes this celebrity who just does the rounds telling stories about the things that he loves and where you can have him on like yapping about whatever. He doesn't have to be promoting his own movie even, but you just put him on a show and he becomes kind of like a,
00:33:08
Speaker
a public intellectual. It's a very strange way to describe somebody who's talking about like the Shaw brothers from Hong Kong, but he does become this kind of American public intellectual figure in a way that I don't think we've had since. If that's not too much to say, uh, Nolan seems to almost like go into hibernation.
00:33:27
Speaker
in between movies, right? It felt like after the Oppenheimer run and the Oscars and everything in the awards season that he kind of had you know he goes to work, right? He goes and he starts writing his next thing, which is apparently going to start Matt Damon and is coming out in summer 26, right? is that Is that right, Darren?
00:33:46
Speaker
Darren's dead. Darren got so excited that I talked about Chris for Nolan that he just decided to leave the podcast. Um, whereas some of the Grant Terrance, you know, I'm sorry, baby. Okay. You packed baby. But, you know, so, so Nolan is like famously like after a movie kind of just turtles for a couple of years. And then he comes back out and he's like, look what I've created. Me and me and Matt Damon are going to make ah but a possible a Western. Is that like what some of the scuttlebutt is?
00:34:12
Speaker
Darren, Darren refuses to tell us what this movie is going to be about. No, I can say, the time you start talking, Darren, you phase out for a little bit. Darren has inside input. Yeah, no. movie um But yeah, remake of The Prisoner is the other one I've heard rumored. Oh my God. Could you imagine? But they just remade that with Jesus. You can't remake something once Jesus is in it.
00:34:31
Speaker
Uh, shout out to Jim. i don't even know this um the sound of freedom yeah least I didn't say friend of the show. jim ca beel so thats we're We're training you out of them. yeah um but I'm sure I'll call someone friend of the show by the end of the show.
00:34:48
Speaker
um Yeah. You know what? HPD, ah HPD, Pulp Fiction, HPD, Fight Club, a couple of good movies. and given to watch ah where do what Do either of them rank in your top three of their respective directors?
00:35:07
Speaker
I think Pulp Fiction is in there. Pulp Fiction. Yeah. Fight Club actually, for me, is probably bottom half of Fincher. Like, yeah, think I think just Fincher has made some like stone cold ass volume. Right. So it's like, so it's yeah Gone Girl. It's Seven. It's Zodiac, like yeah social network. I love social. Yeah. and So it's like it's certainly it's it'd be lucky to get it to the top five. Yeah. Yeah.
00:35:32
Speaker
I mean, Tarantino though, Gory's pastors, if I could combine the kill bills, maybe that's an easy cheat. Smuggle one in. The whole bloody affair, yeah. The whole bloody affair, yeah. Good movies, good movies. Okay, before we move on to our main topic, Jewel Rowell, two euro down. Oh, thank you so much, Jewel. Something, something. Money for support, you cuties, ooh-woo.
00:35:52
Speaker
That was beautiful. That was like a little haiku. But speaking of the only haiku I want to talk about, Lord of the Rings Rings of Power season two. It's not called Lord of the Rings of Power. Is Lord of the Rings in the title?
00:36:07
Speaker
don't know what the show is called you just says brings a power the rings of power yeah rings power it does feel redundant to have the word rings in your title twice the rings ring of power the ringing ring rings and it up ah so ah season you adaptation yeah around ah Season two has wrapped its eight episode run. It was airing, I think it dropped its first three episodes and then aired weekly. I did not watch this week to week. In fact, I've watched them all in the past 72 hours. um And I'm kind of happy for that. I'm not sure as I'm generally a fan of the week to week experience of television, because in my mind, that is just what TV is.
00:36:50
Speaker
um But I think this show might have worked a little bit better for me as a binge ah because I think with a binge you tend to again for better or worse ah I just forget, the stuff is just in and out kinda. Like I don't have time to really sit on and like think an episode. And so the good and the bad is just in and out. And so now when I think about the last 72 hours, I'm like, there was a couple of things I liked. I thought it was cool when the the shot turned from day into night, when it was reflecting Kellen Brimbor's, the fantasy spell he was under that everything was fine in his little kingdom, but it wasn't.
00:37:28
Speaker
That was done practically as well, by the way. I saw that. Yeah. Yeah. which I thought it was really impressive. And I think I will go into it. The Kellen beer more stuff might have been my my favorite yeah season, um at least the most effective stuff. ah but i guess what did what what what did we what do we think this top level what did you what did you think j what of of season two i guess what did you think of season one and What did you think of this season as a follow up to that? um Season one I gave it a pass because it had a lot of groundwork to lay. um I don't think it did a very good job of it. I don't think the the characterizations of its characters were very faithful and ah as
00:38:07
Speaker
as the opposite of that, it would have been fine to not be faithful if you're making something interesting, but they didn't. Um, so I was like, the lay in the groundwork season two, I'm going to give it a much, you know, just try and fall into it and not be a ah law nut and not really care for the first few episodes. I was like, m look okay. And then I think we got to the bit where.
00:38:30
Speaker
Um, Gandalf is no, the, the, the Halfords in rune and they find the Hobbiton prophecy. Oh yeah. And I said, fuck off and die. And I turned it off. And Alex was like, we don't know how to process that. Um, restate your request. Um, I was so done. And then they just kept more and more things. They just kept putting in that are kind of just.
00:38:59
Speaker
Even to the general audience, art is just very derivative and offensive. Like, having Hobbiton be a prophecy rather than it just being a quaint, hidden village in in the Shire, right? It's like, oh, yeah there there's lore, there's hills there that you can live in. Oh, like under a hill. Go fuck yourself. Like, it's terrible. It's terrible writing.
00:39:26
Speaker
It is the, dar Darren wrote about this, but it is like the the solo, the Star Wars movie did the thing where it's like, I bet you wanted to know how he got his name solo or I bet you want to know how he got those dice that you've never noticed until now. And you're like, well, I didn't, I did not actually, I would like a cool story with a fun story with this character. It is that.
00:39:46
Speaker
just constant throughout the second season. It is that moment in Alien Romulus where we were mad at, where where where he says, get away from her, you bitch. And you're like, why are you doing this? It's that 10,000 times over.
00:39:57
Speaker
ah it like it is ah it's a It's a collection. It's basically a walk through a museum where it's like, did you ever wonder how Gandalf got his staff? Not not really. Well, here you are. And I'm like, do you ever wonder about the origin story of Aragans sword? And I'm like, not really. They're like, well, here you are. Do you ever wonder why the, like, why the bull rag is known as Durin space? Like I didn't actually know it was called, well, here you go. It's like, do you ever wonder why he's called Gandalf? It's like, I just figured that's his name. Like my name is there. Here you go. And it just keeps like even something like the rings where it's like,
00:40:27
Speaker
There is, and I think you're right. I think the Kelly Brimbor stuff is the best part of the season in large part because I think Charles Edwards is great in the role. yeah And it's the one part of the show where there is a sense of tragedy to it. Um, but also that is also. Collect these new 11 Lord of the rings. You're going to hear a story about how each of them were forged in sequence. And it's like, I don't object to that. I think that's a perfectly reasonable structure to have on a show called the rings of power, but it really does feel like at the end of it, all I know is that the rings exist. It's like, I don't know what they mean or represent. I don't know why their rings are not like, I don't know, necklaces or medallions or whatever. It's just like you recognize these things. So here is their origin story.
00:41:14
Speaker
and It's like, I don't need them to have origin stories. I need them to be important to the plot. And they are important to the plot of these three movies that I can watch anytime I like. um's It's very disconcerting. The thing is, is everything they do with Kelly Brimble and, you know, um anatar you know, Lord of gifts and stuff like that is stuff that I was screaming for in the first season because they made the elven rings in season one, which is the last thing that color Brimble does. Like, and they did it first. Um, and incredibly compressed.
00:41:52
Speaker
ah yeah like Yeah. Out of order. It was all grim. And but I understood why they did that is because they needed to go give Gil Gallad Elrond and Gladriel stuff to do because like they don't really do a lot um in in those stories. But like all of the stuff that I enjoyed and what it seems like you guys enjoyed is stuff that is faithful to the books like and is just basically copying exactly what happens um in in those tales. And I don't know. I just think There's so much and they put so much in like with those references. Like, uh, for example, I took so many notes on this, but I'm not even gonna look at them. I'm just gonna fire these from the hip.
00:42:32
Speaker
the Barrow whites, which are something that Frodo and um co meet in the beginning of Fellowship of the Ring. Elrond's and his gang run into the Barrow whites. um They don't exist like in this story. They are sent, those spirits are sent there by the Witch King of Angmar, who isn't alive. And they're just like, oh yeah, a very small percentage of people who read the books will understand what Barrow whites are. Let's put those in. And it's like,
00:43:01
Speaker
while you're putting them in wrong. Yeah. But you're like, you're, you're, you're putting them in, but you're not putting them in the way that they should be. Like this, the thing with like the Tom Bama deal stuff. Right. And I feel like yeah we had this conversation earlier on about like your experience reading Lord of the rings. And I think I've talked about this where like I tried to take several runs at Lord and the rings. It is a dense book to read. And I was like 10 at the time and they spend so much time in the Shire.
00:43:24
Speaker
And like they spend so much time and everyone keeps telling me, Darren, you got to go back. You got to get through the Shire and then the adventure starts. So I go back. I power through the Shire. I'm like, I will get to the other end of the Shire. And then the actual adventuring will begin. And as soon as they get out of the Shire, they hit Tom Babadil, this dude who just sings for pages upon pages. And then I'm like, I'm out. I'm i'm done.
00:43:44
Speaker
Um, and like when Peter Jackson is adapting Lord of the Rings, to the screen, he makes a decision that is controversial to like the literal tens of people who care about Tom Babadil. Uh, but he makes the pragmatic decision as an adaptation to go, well, Tom Babadil, not in the movie. Like it it doesn't make sense. It'll slow the pacing of the movie down. It's a conceit that works in literature. It doesn't work on screen. And also we need to get the audience on board with this concept and we need to actually progress the plot in a linear way that works.
00:44:13
Speaker
on a screen, even in the extended edition. And there is this weird vibe to Rings of Power, where it feels like one of the primary purposes of Rings of Power is to take so much of the stuff that Jackson took out of the Lord of the Rings adaptations because they don't belong in like a theatrical cinematic adaptation that works as a story in its own right, and then just like plop them on a plate so you can go Here's more Lord of the Rings stuff from the Lord of the Rings books without really thinking about how they work as elements of a story in their own right, if that makes sense. I shouldn't couldn't agree more. It is the it's the complete opposite of how you do an adaptation.
00:44:55
Speaker
Peter Jackson, um at like Tom Bombadil is the perfect example. Tom Bombadil and the Barrow whites and stuff like that do not propel Frodo and the Fellowship forward in the plot. So if you're dealing with the free four hour movies, it makes sense to remove the stuff that does not propel any of its characters forward as much as some people like the Tom Bombadil singing and getting eaten by a tree and whatnot.
00:45:19
Speaker
Whereas Rings of Power, like you said, is they only have a certain amount of rights to specific references and certain parts of the Silmarillion and stuff like that. So it's like they've taken all of the potentially recognizable things and thought, right, well, you've got to find a way of fitting in the Shire into this season and the Barrow whites and a Balrog. See, like, OK, so the Balrog is an example of.
00:45:45
Speaker
The whole thing of waking up the Balrog and it turning into um ah the Minds of Moria, that happens like hundreds and hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of years after, um like I think it happens in the third age or the end of the the second. and But it makes sense to give the dwarves a little bit of spice. And to be honest, everything with the dwarves,
00:46:10
Speaker
I liked, um, but then like the dwarves are great actors. Like it's just good to spend time with those actors in the first season. It was like the relationship with the comedy with Doran. Yeah. Yeah. And it's really nice. Um, and like there, I really liked that. Um, and it's like, they're referencing all the things that people are going to ah like and recognize poorly, but not focusing on stuff that's actually interesting. So one one example is um racial racial stuff. There's a little bit of elf dwarf human kind of racial tension but Elrond, who barely has anything to do ever, is a super interesting character because he's half human.
00:46:51
Speaker
And like his last name is half elven. Like he is. He's half human. And that would be a really interesting plot point to have even elves be, you know, slightly racist towards him and there'd be tensions there and um succession and power and stuff like that. And he could use that as a way to communicate with the dwarves or humans. They don't mention it. um and ah There's so so many examples like that. So Gandalf is something that pisses me off massively that he's in this show. One, he shouldn't be here. um he He famously doesn't come in the Second Age. um he He said that ah he meets who I'm going to assume is Sauron.
00:47:35
Speaker
in um the East, like he meets that dark wizard. They have said that's not Sauron, but like creators like stuff like that. Yeah, I believe they have. But if you believe that, you know, so I mean, he's a blue wizard, Saruman, not Sauron.
00:47:48
Speaker
Oh, not Saruman, sorry, Saruman, Saruman. Yeah, the Kieran Hines character, basically. He looks a little bit like Saruman, right? He looks and sounds like Saruman. Also, Saruman isn't... Saruman's whole thing is that he's good until the start of, like, the... He's got the rocks on these little folk. That's not very nice. Yeah, he's petty. It's a big twist, like it's a big twist to the fellowship when Gandalf is like, well, let's all team up and fight Sauron. And Saruman's like, no, we won't. It doesn't feel like if based on the show, Gandalf should be, well, I should have seen this coming. And it's like Gandalf isn't there in second age. He very famously doesn't go to rune. Like he never goes to the east. He's, he's based in the west when he, he has to be convinced to go to middle earth. Cause he thinks that he's not going to be powerful enough. And he's too scared to fight Sauron.
00:48:37
Speaker
Um, and then one of the, I think the Maya basically says, and yes, that's why you need to go because you feel that way. And that's why he sent. Um, and the the fact that he's there and then not utilizing the blue wizards who are based in the East and are completely blank slates to do whatever you want with, right? Like.
00:48:58
Speaker
why aren't they using that it's like oh but people recognize Gandalf um or yeah grand elf which is a pair his name's grand elf please so column like please hold the door please yeah hold the door please well good moment but how good yeah my ah Like I know from just reading some stuff and hearing other people talk that this, uh, the show takes things that take place over the course of dozens, hundreds, thousands of years ages and truncates them right into, uh, sort of the, the, the forest gumpian thing of like, Oh, everyone was around for the important stuff. Uh, every, all of this is happening at the same time, which I.
00:49:35
Speaker
on paper don't have a problem with if done correctly. I just do not think it is done correctly here. um Go ahead, Darren. I was just going to ask, like what what is this about? like What is the Rings of Power about? like What is the show conceptually like a big argument? You're telling me, I need to sit down and watch Amazon's The Rings of Power. What is it about? you know like What is the core of this story? And like is it anything but you like Lord of the Rings, right? like feel like what they wanted to do and either didn't fail that or didn't didn't really go all in was to make Sauron sympathetic, was to make Sauron a ah ah Walter White, ah Tony Soprano, an anti-hero that you could be like, oh, if I squint, I kind of see where they're coming from or even like Thanos. It's like, well, that's a lot of people you killed, but when you balance the knife on your finger, that was pretty neat.
00:50:33
Speaker
buts so Like you then have him turn into a literal pile of toxic black goo and these first like like tell you yeah sorry I love I fucking love I don't know what was going on there. I loved when he got to you first off It was just a different actor. I'm like, did they just recast this dude? Then he gets absolutely good absolute good and he's just like crawling through the snow and like I'm like Oh, this is what I don't know what was going on there. I was all aboard. I'm like, well, I give me more of the goo. But like, I'm talking to people who are fans of like the books and like of Tolkien and they're like, and then after that, Sauron has this like long, dark midnight of the soul and he like tries to decide what he's doing next and it's really compelling. And in the show he's like five minutes, he chats with the dude. He's like, I'm going to conquer middle earth again. And you're like, that's okay. Good, yeah good for you. the The one good thing they got from that. ah Also, I agree really hard to sympathize with someone when they turn into a pile of worms. Um,
00:51:26
Speaker
i move famously i was behind hoie boogie night before christmas really I'm out. Like, there are some really cool things, right? I think as much as I don't really like the the character of Ada and giving this weird conflict with the orcs,
00:51:45
Speaker
the Sauron being betrayed by being stabbed with his makeshift crown is upside down. help And then he uses it as a sword. Yeah. Yeah. Like that stuff's awesome. And especially like as a, as a law nut, knowing that that was once the crown of Morgoth's crown and how's this, uh, the similar rules, like super, super cool. But there's lots of things that we just like.
00:52:09
Speaker
Adar doesn't really matter much yeah to the plot. He holds up space until it's time for Sauron to get the orcs. And Sauron's meant to be doing the siege of Eregion, but that's because all of the rings are made and he is sieging it because he wants them. And he's just like, give me the rings, right? I will give me the rings, please. um And I believe he's meant to have the one ring at that point as well. but Did any of the the humanizing or or sort of empathizing with orcs work on you guys that they tried to do?
00:52:40
Speaker
Yes, um but that's because in the books um and in like Tolkien's notes and unfinished tales, Tolkien does talk about the orcs not being irredeemable. They are not pure evil. um They are corruptions. So that is always a chance um for them to to come back. And there's also mentions of, you know, orc women and and stuff like that. So they must breed. ah So I'm like went with it up until ah like, the this is the thing you mentioned, like the issue is the half measures thing where like you can tell that there's, there's a gem of an idea there, but there's also the sense that if they pull the pin on the grenade, the fandom is going to go wild. So you can't have sour on be too sympathetic. He has to be obviously evil, but will gesture towards Milton Satan or Walter White or Tony Soprano. And the thing with the orcs is like, i'm I love like that stuff in the the like penultimate episode, in the final episode where Galadriel is watching them tend to their wounded and tend to their dead and seeing them take care of their children and realizing that these faceless monsters that she's been killing for generations are actually like people who have wants and desires and feelings and emotions.
00:53:46
Speaker
ah aly But then you get to like the climax of the episode and they just stab it there and like, yeah, we're with evil now. And I'm like, yeah, I'm like, you, you can't do it in the same episode. It's the same problem. The first season has where like the first season holds back on the reveal of like sour on for so long that like the plot doesn't really start until the final episode, because it can't start until you know who sour on is.
00:54:10
Speaker
So then the final episode has to rush through. And by the way, I made a whole bunch of rings and here they are. Here's the title of the show. Have a good day. See you next year. Bye. Um, like, yeah, it's, it's weird. It's very strange. Like there is this constant sense of like, we have an idea, but following that idea would make the internet angry at us. And our bosses have said, we're not allowed to do that this year, by the way, Galadriel is only going to be in like half the season. Don't worry about that.
00:54:33
Speaker
well the same with ah The guy who got the most screentime coat was Arundir, the elf ranger. Like that dude was barely in the show and he didn't do shit.
00:54:45
Speaker
passed by a di like there was a moment where I was like, like, like is this a ranking level of like contractual immortality where like a dark gets to like properly skewer him in a sense of like, we could write out the character if he wanted. And then he just gets to like lightly tap L rod. Cause obviously L rod needs to hang around for Lord of the rings. And I was like, okay, is this like, is this basically where we're at now? We're like any original character, just shimmy about the narrative. We're going for it's all sour on all L rod all the time. He comes back, right? That that was the thing that really got me in the the first episode of the Siege of Eregion. That guy gets janked by Adar. yeah And I do not care about that character at all because he's really boring. So when he got shanked, I went, oh, okay, cool. And then like looked back at my phone or whatever I was doing, I was on Slack or something.
00:55:29
Speaker
thought he died. And then yeah the next episode when they're, they've all been captured yeah um and they're being held by the orcs. He was there and I was like, are they meant to be dead? Fuck. And I was disappointed that he was alive. Mason Gooding Jr. At the end of scream six, doing the thumbs up from the gurney.
00:55:47
Speaker
yeah Well, he needed to be there so that we could end the season the exact same way the first season ended, where an event happens and they're like, but did you know you're actually in Mordor? Because the event happens, you're like, oh, but did you know you're actually in Rivendell when the camera cuts to it? And I'm like, oh, sons of bitches. like You ended up the same way you did before! 100% one of these seasons is gonna end with them getting to the Shire, and the camera's gonna flip around and you're gonna see the Rolling Hills and be like, that's the Shire. That's exactly what it's gonna be, it's gonna be Hobbiton. Like, that's the thing, like, they've set up the prophecy. The final episode is gonna be We're in Hobbiton. I hate it. I can't carry all these hobbits on my back, they weigh a hobbit ton! Damn it.
00:56:29
Speaker
It's frustrating. If that happens, you guys owe me. I will. Yeah. Yeah. I will. That's true. I'll give you yeah a bunch of money. um It's frustrating that I think.
00:56:43
Speaker
The casting, I think the cast is by and large good. I don't think there's like a, I don't see a character where I'm like, ugh, like you're you're just flub of this. Like the bad scenes are generally the the fault of the writing or just the the lack of story propulsion for these characters. And the production design, I think like I mentioned before, it's pretty, pretty good when it's, I mean, a lot of it is mimicking what the foundation laid in the the Jackson trilogy, um but Like I said, i thought this the I thought the siege was well choreographed. Most of it took place during the day, which I know it's sad, but big battles like that, when they don't take place in the dead of night, I give you like us ah one point, because I'm like, well, now at least I'm able to see what's going on. um But it's just...
00:57:28
Speaker
Like you asked what the show is about. I don't, we spend so much time with Sauron and he has no motivation other than I i just want to make it evil. I'm like, well, why don't you, what if what if you made me at a certain point and be like, oh, maybe he's got a point. Like I just don't know what his point is.
00:57:46
Speaker
Well, like this is the thing. This is the thing that bugs me while I'm watching is like every time you get to like, what is Sauron's motivation? What is Sauron's history? What is driving him? The answer is always, man, I was tortured by Morgoth. Like my experience with Morgoth is what really changed me. my experience at Morgoth is what dictates my actions. And you're like, then why aren't you telling us that story? Like if you want to tell Sauron's story, you can't have him keep going. Okay. Yes. I know this is a prequel to Lord of the rings, but really the stuff that actually motivated me happened way before this, but we're not going to get into this. Like every time he mentions Morgoth, I'm like, that feels like the show that you should be telling. If you keep referencing it and the Silmarillion is what you should be doing. It's got so many cool moments in it.
00:58:31
Speaker
And like the thing is, because they don't have the rights. Yeah. So we're going less goth, but anyway, sorry. There's so many, there's so many moments that the show is trying to move towards because they are undeniably unbelievably cool. So the example I'll use is the drowning of numinal. Um, so if people don't want spoilers,
00:58:50
Speaker
for what is going to happen. Um, these books are very old. Um, so you call it the drowning of Numenor. I feel like the hint is in and the title. drowning it in a prophecy Like a million times, like if a big wave doesn't hit the city, then you've lied to me. you They want to get to the drowning of Numenor. It's very important to say Sauron's, um, story. It's where he loses his ability to take a fair form. And when he goes full evil,
00:59:13
Speaker
and he starts to wear his suit and use his ring, right, and everything. And the way he corrupts the Numenorians, he goes from a prisoner of war to being the right hand of the king, um just through his words and how he manipulates people. And it is fascinating. And he turns the entire, um you know, island of Numenor into a cult, Morgoth cult like, death cult.
00:59:37
Speaker
And they say, Oh, this is going to happen? Or is this already? This is going to happen. This is going to happen. Is that the shitty dude? Yeah. Is he going to become like the main ring race?
00:59:49
Speaker
Uh, he shouldn't, but, um, I mean, look at those eyebrows. I love that the show's like, you know, this guy's evil because look at his eyebrows. Put a cool filter on it where blacks become white and whites become black. that we yeah feel like right yeah but And we're we're sharing them with Kieran Hines, by the way, when Kieran Hines comes on the show, they peel the eyebrows off and just swap. Sorry. So the the thing is is like the drowning of Númenor is really interesting um they they then send a fleet to go to Valinor to take over um and Iruuluvatar god goes now mate and takes a huge section of earth out from underneath um and everything drowns um and canonically that's when the earth goes from being flat to being a sphere and it was a flat earth it's no longer but anyway drowning of Númenor super interesting story but
01:00:38
Speaker
Um, the, the problem is, is you have to get there and a lot of stuff has to happen with Sauron for him to be able to get to that point. And also you have to have the relevant characters be within the lexicon of the viewer. So, uh, Ariandel and, um, Isildur and, and that whole family and ah um top out, um, Tarzan. Um, and to do that, they have to keep coming back to them. Like Isildur story in this season is just like boring and,
01:01:06
Speaker
inconsequential. ah Oh, he has a love interest too who was ah a prisoner. And oh, look, there are ants. Oh, the ant wives are here. There's a female ant. Don't you remember that when, you know, Treebeard said all the ant wives were gone? Well, here's one of them. um Okay. um Thanks for that reference that only a small amount of people would get. um But they have to keep referencing these boring characters. um Gil Gallad being um being one of them, right? The high king. Super, super boring. He's just ah a king man, but they have to set him up because he has to fight Sauron at the the battle, right? He's one of the people who kills him. um And they're just trying to get to all of these different moments and having to spend time with all of these different characters and even when they have nothing to do. And that just makes it so slow and like boring. um Hence why they have to make all these references that just piss people off.
01:02:03
Speaker
Does the plan for the show to run until the prologue of Lord of the Rings? Yeah, that's one of the moments it's trying to get to. So that's ostensibly the end of... This is a four-season show? A five-season show? As I said, do you know Darren?
01:02:20
Speaker
Well, they've said that it will run forever because it's a massive success and the audience figures are pointing very strongly in directions. They want them to go. Um, um so they've said like, it we will get a third season anyway. I don't know if they have a target of like five or six or whatever. They can't do all the stories in one more theyre going have a half they're go have a time jump anyway, aren't they? Like there's going to have to be a time jump at some point logically, right?
01:02:43
Speaker
I could see the time jump happening in between now and, um, the Numenoreans coming over to effectively Sauron becomes very powerful, starts terrorizing the the elves and is going to win basically. yeah Um, and then the new Numenoreans come with their fleet and their army and it's infinitely more powerful than Sauron's. And they go, all of the orcs literally just run away. They, there's not really a battle. They just run away. And Sauron is captured drowning of Numenor.
01:03:11
Speaker
ah Sauron loses his form, has to go back. Then he starts getting super powerful and going crazy. And then everyone there, the Alliance of Men and Elves have to um have to fight. But yeah, they'll have to be a time jump because the, even after the drowning of Numenor, because ah Gondor and Osgiliath and Ministereth all have to be founded.
01:03:37
Speaker
yeah before that to happen, right? So we're not going to see the founding of Gondor like in the story that's not going to happen. um So yeah, ah it's, it's weird. i I don't know how they're going to do it. And I, I don't envy the the writers because it's so dense.
01:03:54
Speaker
um But I think there's a better way of doing it. and it's it's It's hard not to compare it to its contemporaries on TV, right? It's hard not to compare it to Game of Thrones and and House of the dragons the Dragon. yeah yeah um And then when I was mentioning genre TV, that's almost one of those things is this was airing uh, concurrently, the first season was Aaron concurrently with the first season of House of the Dragon. And like right afterwards was Andor. And right after that was the last of us. And I think somewhere around there was like Loki season two. And it was just one of those where I was like, these are just fucking really good versions of the thing that they're trying to do. And this in comparison is just, I don't know, oftentimes comes across as kind of like messy and schlocky and like,
01:04:45
Speaker
Like there's this whole, everything with Gandalf and the, and the Harfoots and everything. I'm like, are they ever going to enter the main story? Like there was always with Game of Thrones, it was always like, well, half the episode takes place over, over East with, ne let and with yeah. but like characters are referring to each other like everyone everyone in ah the capital are aware of this ooh she's she's gaining power and she's got an army and she but she she married caldrago and and she's got all of her horses and like it seems like there's just knowledge of what's going on whereas like with this like Gandalf is just gonna like get powerful and then become a deus ex machina at some point and just
01:05:22
Speaker
enter a battle He won't be involved in any of the any of the main events of the story. Why are they in the show Sorry. um so also and Also I love by the way that the entire point of that subplot is to explain why Gandalf likes Hobbits. Like you can't just assume Gandalf like so his guy he just likes type weed and like, like homets hole like this, this is like prime, like back to the future stuff where it's like today you would have to explain why Marty McFly is friends with Doc Brown. It's like, no, the movie doesn't need that. I need them to be friends in order for the plot to work. I don't need like a five year prequel explaining why Doc Brown hangs out with Marty McFly. He's Gandalf isn't going to interact with the main plot and I'm willing to bet money on what is going to happen.
01:06:13
Speaker
Okay. Last season, probably on the last episode, he is going to go see the elves um and they'll call him myth and deer and kid on the ship, right? We'll give him the the one of the rings of power because that's what happens in the books. Gandalf has a ring of power, which is probably something that a lot of people don't realize.
01:06:31
Speaker
Um, he's the, uh, it's the ring of, I can't remember its name, but it's the ring of fire inspires courage and, um, people trust him. Um, he's going to get given that and he's going to go, Ooh, now I have a ring of power. Aren't I cool? Oh man. I love hobbits. And then the credits will roll and, um, I'll cry. You know what, you know what? I, I feel like would have been sick. So Galadriel is supposed to get all of those rings out of the city and then she gets cornered by bad guys. Just put all those fuckers on you guys. Fucking wear all of those rings. You're going to love Green Lantern so much, Marty. and all That's literally all that like Green Lanterns do is just put on different rings. Would you imagine if she was like, well, each one of these puppies gets a ring. That would be gnarly. I love the idea of this turning into like a Western where it's like, now give us whatever you've got in the bag. And she just reaches in and then pulls out a hand with like five rings on them. Just constantly reloading rings.
01:07:31
Speaker
Also, can we talk about the fact that Elrond and Galadriel kissed? Yeah, I thought they were... I did not realize that they were like that. I thought Galadriel were more likely, right? As like a casual Lord of the Rings fan, it seems more likely that like Galadriel and Gandalf were appearing, right? Yeah, a little bit. But we're introducing Galadriel's husband next season. It's very interesting to introduce the husband. Is he not been a character on the show yet?
01:07:59
Speaker
ah No, he's not in the show yet. They're introducing him next, next season. um It's very interesting. That's exercising real health control.
Hate Watching and Adaptation Trends
01:08:05
Speaker
Sorry, Jamais. ah That was so clean. um That was better than the gant ga Grand Elf reveal, right? Like, which is impressive. um i I think it's very interesting to be like, Oh, let's set up a weird love plot, because unless they were doing a friendly kiss, but the way it went to slow motion during the battle didn't really feel like it was a friendly kiss. I don't know. Yeah. it was also sonic because there He slipped through the brooch. So I don't know if like the kiss was like picked of the what, Marty? That was under the flame. i don't see what's god These days. Yeah.
01:08:39
Speaker
Hey, he slipped at the brooch. ah So maybe that was a fake kiss. To get all the Uruk hot and bothered. Oh yeah, we'll see. Orks just gathering around being like the one true ship is landing. Forget about the Numenarians, the one true ship has reached shore.
01:08:58
Speaker
i just ah I don't get it. I'm going to quickly look at my notes to see if there's anything else that pissed me off to the nth degree. Please please do. Yeah, go for it. Yeah, are you still going to watch next season? Oh, yeah. I'm going to hate watch the shit out of that. I mean, that's a good question. So Sovereign with a 10-year-old dono earlier said, got any opinion on the practice of hate watching? I see all this anger around shows like Rings of Power or Velma, and my usual reaction is just, don't watch it. Or is that just me being dismissive?
01:09:26
Speaker
I think there's a difference between people who are just like, I really don't have a vested interest in this, but I'm going to watch Velma to get angry. Yeah. we as Or someone like Jay, who is clearly a huge Tolkien and Lord of the Rings fan watching this, even if he isn't enjoying it. It's tricky, right? So I want i used hate watching. I guess I used it as a strong term.
01:09:50
Speaker
There are aspects of both of these seasons that I enjoyed. I am watching them as someone who has an above average. I wouldn't say I'm a fucking expert or like obsessed. I have an above average knowledge of the Tolkien lore.
01:10:04
Speaker
Watching this, I find fascinating, not just as someone who who studied and lived in film for so many years, but um from an adaptation standpoint, I'm like, how are they going to do the time skips? That is fascinating to me. Like, how are you going to narratively get that across to an audience that doesn't have the knowledge that, say, I do? um That's why I like watching this show, not because I think the stuff they're doing is interesting. um I genuinely feel like I am learning from their successes in adaptations and also their failings. Uh, so it's also hate yeah to watch this from a, like a business this perspective of you the most expensive show in the history of television. That's what we're not talking about Citadel. Like I love that. Like they've released like Citadel Diane and Citadel Italy and Citadel India. And what none of us are talking about it. The second most expensive show in the history of television. Sorry, Marty.
01:10:57
Speaker
I can't, but every time I get a... chip First off, on Amazon, why are you showing me ads for something? I pay for Amazon. Why am I getting Citadel ads but before I do that? Somebody's got a lot Citadel. Yeah. yeah ah just yeah just Just a fascinating thing. Did you see anything else in your notes, Jay? that i I did, but I i just completely forgot. ah Tom Bombadil, you did a a great tweet about this, Darren, um your explanation of like the reveal of Tom Bombadil. Can you give our viewers a ah description of this?
01:11:27
Speaker
Again, it's one of those prime like moments of like what modern pop culture is where like, if I remember correctly, and it's been a while since I've seen it, I don't obsessively rewatch like the early second season of like the rings of power. yeah But like, obviously the stranger, as he's known, the character who is grand elf and hence Gandalf needs this strange man.
01:11:47
Speaker
And he's trying to figure out who this guy is. He's played by Rory Kinnear, respected British television and film actor. And at one stage, he just like flat out asks the question, the million dollar question, who are you? The camera cuts to a low angle. It's Rory Kinnear leaning against a tree like he's Sean Connery's James Bond. The camera presses in on him, as he explains. Been a while since anybody called me much of anything.
01:12:13
Speaker
But back in, and I apologize J, wild with thyme or somewhere like that? They used to call me Babadil. Dramatic beat, camera presses in close on Rory Kinnear's face, Tom Babadil.
01:12:28
Speaker
Hold for applause. It is one of the most brazen things I have ever seen because it assumes that every audience member is like, that's Tom Babadil! We've been waiting the moment pop culture has been waiting for. Tom Babadil is here.
01:12:46
Speaker
There's only five people, right? and And what pisses me off about Tom Bombadil, because I think he is the most egregious. um Why are they here reference? So Tom Bombadil is introduced in Fellowship of the Ring by a tree, effectively eating some of the hobbits. And then Tom Bombadil coming over and saying, fucking stop that button song. And then they chuck him back up and then he sings for a bit.
01:13:08
Speaker
um How are we introduced to Tom Bombadil here? um Gandalf gets eaten by a tree and the and Tom Bombadil comes over and says you fucking stop that button rhyme um and he has now become this weird prophecy machine that helps wizards and um is like all knowing and Tom Bombadil is a weird character because Tolkien famously never alluded to who tomba but Tom Bombadil was or like what his why he exists. um There's loads of um theories, one being that he is God, like he is the manifestation of a Ruuluvatar or that he represents Tolkien himself, the author.
01:13:46
Speaker
Um, cause he says, I, I was here the the first acorn. Um, like he was there at the creation of the world. Right. So he's either God or talking. Um, and he doesn't help the plot. And Gandalf says that the, um, the council of Rivendell, Oh yeah, we can't give Tom the ring. Cause he'll just like, he doesn't care. He'll just like chuck it and he'll forget about it. And we'll he'll lose it. Right. He doesn't care. He's very whimsical. He sings.
01:14:10
Speaker
But now they've turned him into like, I'm going to lead the Wizards round rune, which he's never been to, and, um, lead them on this mystical quest to get their staff and, yeah um, like, teach important life lessons. Like the key thing is like, he instills in Gandalf the virtue or Gandalf at the end says the real lesson I learned along the way was that friends are more important than the pursuit of power, perhaps even the rings of power.
01:14:35
Speaker
or like giving him direct quotes. Like he says a quote of like, um, there's a, in the minds of Moria Frodo says, uh, we should kill Gollum. Like we should just kill him. And he says, I can't remember the exact quote, but it's like, who are you to, to deal that out? Um, some deserve death, some deserve to live.
01:14:53
Speaker
Um, yeah. and Oh, some who deserve like, uh, get death and some who deserve death, get like, yeah, who are you to, to, to do all that basically. And Tom Bombadil says this to Gandalf and I'm like, Oh, so he's just parroting shit. Gandalf, hot bars for Bob, Bob, and all. He's done. Listen, a thousand years from now, I'm going to use this when we're lost in intersection. There are so many moments in this season that are just like referencing lines from Lord of the rings of different characters. There's the moment where Durin says, and so it begins the great tale of our age. And that's like,
01:15:23
Speaker
That's just Gandalf's feck and so it begins the great battle of our time. Like there are so many of those where it's like, as you, I think Jay mentioned it, like characters in the rings of power. I've clearly watched Peter Jackson's like Lord of the rings really made like, I'll take that. That's a good one. That'll be excellent. We were allowed to reference this. Let's do that. Yeah. Let's have someone say the word precious. Uh,
01:15:46
Speaker
ah The two bomb the bill things bomb bird ill things that's the me one. ah I like these got like an invisible wife. I don't know what's going on there
01:15:57
Speaker
One scene where Gandalf's taking a bath and he hears his wife. He's like, where's your wife? I don't have a wife. I'm like, what was going on there then? And then two- That feels like the new grant like heretic reveal where like he invites the two women in. It's like, my wife is in the kitchen cooking blueberry pie. And then they see it's the candle, that's not pie at all. And then I did enjoy their last moment together where it's like, listen,
01:16:23
Speaker
This is gonna be the first step of your training. Let's just sit down, get very high, and look at the fire. And we'll sig will sing a song. I'm like, well, that's nice. I like that. That seemed nice forget for Grandel. This is what it needs to be. if And um' this is probably me speaking from a law law perspective.
01:16:40
Speaker
That bit, I agree, was really entertaining. And again, that is what Tom Bombadil is like in the books, and that's why he's so interesting. He picks up the ring and um puts it on, and it doesn't make him go invisible. And he he like he he's not attracted to it at all, and he tosses it ah away like it's nothing. That is interesting, because the book spends so long telling you how powerful the ring is, right? And it means nothing to him.
01:17:03
Speaker
You flipped that into an adaptation where we've only spent half an hour in Hobbiton and setting up the ring. We now meet a character that doesn't give a shit about the ring. That completely destroys everything, right? Sure. Yeah. um yeah But to a general audience, if Gandalf met this weirdo in Rune and we met and we were with him for like a few episodes and all he did was sing and smoke and eat I would love it. Like every second of that, I would be like bawling my eyes out with like happiness. But my mum watching it would be like, what are we doing here? Like what is this happening? But um but ironically, that's what I feel about the other half of the fucking show. So it's you can't win. You literally can't win for for Eva. Yeah. ah Yeah. i
01:17:51
Speaker
This is a show that I'm going to memory hole by the time season three comes along. I had to watch one of those like screen crush recaps in 20 minutes of the first season. So I was like, I don't remember any of these fucking people. I remember there was Like, it looked really impressive. Like, boom, got an origin story. It was when i was wild how many characters I didn't remember being in the show until I watched that recap. And I was like, OK, no, no, no, I remember these. I think I watched every episode of season one twice. Like,
01:18:16
Speaker
i know like Wikipedia-ing at several points to like be like, Oh, that's who that person is. yeah Like that, that's a, like, that's the thing with like Newman or where like, it feels like Newman or kind of should be the engine of the show. Like we talk about like the question of like, what is this show about? And the closest thing it comes to being about something is about this like idea of a paradise descending into like chaos and anarchy and totalitarianism.
01:18:42
Speaker
And like, you know, again, this is not an original parallel, like Tolkien, obviously he's talked about how he like cordially dislikes allegory and all this sort of stuff. But you do have like, before the show was even announced, people like writing Tolkien nerds who are like, you know, like West Wing nerds, but for Tolkien were like, you know,
01:18:58
Speaker
Númenir feels like a parable for the state of like modern America or the state of like the modern West. It's this like idea of like a culture in decadence and in decline that is succumbing to its worst impulses. and I'm like, could that be the heart of the show? like Could that be what the show is about? and like It does feel like that is what it kind of should be about, but every time we're in Númenor A,
01:19:22
Speaker
I'm really bored. B, I can tell the writers are really bored. And C, I can tell that they're also just literally setting up the guy whose job it is to hold the ring over Mount Doom and say, no, I won't destroy it ah in the season finale. You know? yeah yes i I think I said this on because we were on a pod talking about season one. And I think I suggested this then and I'm going to suggest it again. um This will never happen because we can't go back in time. This should have been a show about ah the elves and it should have been time skipping nearly every episode like and we should have been seeing generations of humans like and generations of new men all because it does take place over thousands of years this story. Right. So
01:20:07
Speaker
The elves don't age. That's a beautiful narrative thing see all those characters through those ages. Yeah. Um, everything is spaced out and everything requires spacing, right? The, the fall of Numenor, the founding of Gondor, um, the interpersonal relationships between the dwarves, um, even Durin's Bane, right? The Balrog. Yeah. These are things that can take place over thousands of years. One, we've never seen a show like that.
01:20:32
Speaker
Like that time skips to that scale and has the yeah like the narrative to be able to do that. It would um allow us to still follow characters narratively through these ages because of the elves, but still hit these beats a lot quicker. Right. And just get to them sooner. And maybe you'd have one less season, but I think you'd have a much more cohesive narrative and there'd be far fewer like lulls in character development. And like you said, Numenor just feels completely boring.
01:20:59
Speaker
Why are we here? Why are we still coming back here? Um, it's, it's just boring. So that's my suggestion of what I think they should have done. But that that might be a lot for general audiences. But then we wouldn't have got grand elf. Oh, fuck off. Also, why didn't he call himself grand off then? They keep calling him grand elf. And he's like, my name will be Gandalf. I'm like, well, why, why not grand elf? He doesn't like the hard ore.
01:21:29
Speaker
doesn't like yeah that way know yeah It's not even the hobbits that name him, it's it's humans and it doesn't mean big elf. It means elf with the stick. and know what names can then have multiple meeting
01:21:43
Speaker
Jay can be a bird and Jay can be a letter of the alphabet. Think about that. And Jay can be a pedantic Tolkien fan as well. The Tolkien, the token Tolkien fan. The token Tolkien fan. Beautiful. um that I think that concludes our every two year roundup of yeah power We back in 2026 talking about the exactly the same complaints because we memory hold like this as like this is thinking about binge watching you watch it and it just pours out the back of your skull. It goes in through the eyes and out through whatever other hole you have on your head. Well, yeah well I'm assuming you did you binge watch or did you not, Darren?
01:22:27
Speaker
I watched the first three episodes when they premiered. Um, and then I watched the fourth episode. And I think the fourth episode is the moment where they have the Tom but folks already used to call me Bob Adil Tom. And I'm like, fuck this show. And then, um, we get onto like Jay's coming on and he's the Tolkien expert. We should be polite and be able to talk about like the rings of power. I kind of have to watch it. And I watched the final like four space together.
01:22:51
Speaker
I had, I had the opposite because I know my, are you binged, right? yeah And and you like half binge, right? So yeah, Darren, I watched every episode week to week.
01:23:02
Speaker
where, so, oh, we, we get to see a little bit of a sealed or having an interpersonal relationship and seeing an end and Gandalf thoughts in rune. And that's an entire episode. And I'm like, what is happening? And then I have to wait a week. And then it's like, Oh, gladriel has a ring and Elrond doesn't like that. Oh, by the way, Numenor exists episode ends. And I'm like,
01:23:26
Speaker
What is happening at siege of the, you know, the the siege of, um, why have I forgotten the name of the city? Oregano the siege of oregano. Pretty cool. Did you guys, I don't know if this is just cause I'm used to like the scale of return of the King or like helms deep or stuff like that, but like, I did like the set piece of the siege of, air um, Eregion.
01:23:51
Speaker
But whenever they showed like the armies or like the battles, it just looked like a few people laughing. Rather than like armies of like people clashing. This was my thing. i Like Marty said, like, it looks Marty said, this looks better than the first season. And I think like it is close. I think it's also like, this is obviously they moved from like, you know, New Zealand to England. yeah Yeah. Yeah. To England. So because it was cheaper and because it allowed them more control over the production. Um, but like, you know, I also did feel a little bit towards the battle that like, there were shops where they had dozens of orcs around, right? There were clearly like shots, but there were also moments that were like, we have six guys and we're going to CGI a background. There's a lot like Kelly Brimbor is running around the kind of stockades at the top.
01:24:35
Speaker
And it really does feel like you're backing kind of like 1980s BBC production, but with a screen saver in the background. yeah um it It was it like it was an in again I'm not complaining. I don't need like this is the thing. Maybe I'm a bad audience member because I could be like I would happily watch a 1980s BBC adaptation of this that looked really cheap as long as the material was good. I don't need the scale and spectacle. I don't mind that it looks like there were a total of eight people on set for the epic battle. yeah But yeah, it, it, I think there was, I think there were money shots, ah but I think that they didn't have like the blank check that they had during the first season. So they had to like carefully apportion it where they're like, okay, we're going to crucify a giant troll now. So that's the money shot. um of Why did they introduce that troll in like episode one, not show him for like the entire season and have him die in like two minutes. I'm like,
01:25:28
Speaker
And also like his arrival is treated like it's a big deal and he's killed off in like two minutes because obviously like dis special the special effects budget only goes so far. They should have got rid of Adar and just had Sauron have beef with this troll who just doesn't want to listen to him. That would have been way more fun.
01:25:45
Speaker
ah i like And then you have a nice contrast between, like, Doran and Elrod. So you have, like, Sauron and his, like, giant yeah show. yeah More racism in my fantasy show, please.
01:25:57
Speaker
Zarther, thank you so much for the don't know. There. A hobbit ton of money for that line after taxes and conversion. A hobbit ton of money. As Arthur with another don't know, thank you so much. Fun fact, the Magic the Gathering Lord of the Rings set has a Tom Bombadil card who's a god, just a subtype of card, and whose whole deal is interacting with sagas and chanting them. Look at that. A little Bombadil. That's a little Bombadil fact for you all. What's going on with his wife though? Did he kill his wife?
01:26:26
Speaker
Is she like under the floorboards? and she like barry That's like, that's what you can't get into the rings thing. It's like, people are going to start asking questions about my background that I can't answer. Yeah. yeah I'm not goldberry. His name is his wife. I'm not sure. Oh, he does have a wife. Yeah. He has a wife. She's in lord the rings. Goldberry has like real Rosebud energy to it when it comes to nicknames though. Like it's like, yeah. Yeah. yeah you know She got that name. She ate a bunch of golden berries.
01:26:54
Speaker
I like that characters get their names, like how George W. Bush famously would give people nicknames. Like someone had a pot pie for lunch once and for the next eight years, you just referred to him as pot pie. for else yeah grandel So maybe this show is about something that maybe this show is about, like, what if the, you know, the second age of middle earth was the Bush administration? um giha yeah newmenal it's all coming together I also like, if I'm not mistaken, this show film season two filmed during the writer's strike.
01:27:25
Speaker
last year ah and makes a lot sense famously didn't, wasn't able to have writers on set. So I liked the idea that like the grand elf thing was just like a fucking put in there and we'll fix it. We'll fix this on set. Don't worry. And then they got the writer's break happened to like, well, we just got to film it as is. we can't fix but gots As much as I hate the Grand Elf thing, I like do like that they haven't been even more derivative in the sense of someone who wasn't an elf didn't call him Mithrandir, which is what the elves call Grand Elf, and like that would be how they reveal that he is Grand Elf. No, they just have someone call him Big Elf.
01:28:00
Speaker
yeah Okay. There is plenty of time. There's like three more seasons. It's coming. Final episode. I genuinely love the grand elf thing. I think it is so dumb. And if something is that dumb, I'm like, I dad i get to pass. Yeah. got Nothing. The height, the big one for me, I said at the beginning and I'll this to be the final thing I say on it is the Hobbiton prophecy is the worst thing this show did. Um, and it should fuck off.
01:28:29
Speaker
Well, it ties into, you mentioned the Babadil thing. Everything now has, again, this is the the prequel era that we live in, where everything you watch has to exist to remind you of something that's coming down the line. And so everything is imbued with like a mythic weight and status. It's no longer just like the hobbits found a place and built a house. It's like, no, no, no. You have to like believe that it is a special place that it it is, you know, important. Tom Babadil is no longer just a fool who dances round and could easily be removed from the narrative, he has to be the most important character in the history of Middle-earth who you've never met. like there is this and you know it's Rings of Power is just the most obvious example of it, but it is so much modern pop culture of like, well, here, let us explain the backstory of the thing. And like i I think there is something more broadly in pop culture where we don't make I long for the days when we were like, man, they make so many sequels because now they just make prequels. Like there's no sense of continuing the story or expanding the story or pushing the boundaries of the story outwards. And I know obviously that's impossible to do in Lord of the Rings, given it ends with the end of middle earth. But like even in Star Wars or something like that, there's no sense of like, we're going to go past the sequel trilogy. Instead, it's all like, let let's
01:29:43
Speaker
push ourselves as close as we can to the thing that you recognize and let's just keep pointing towards the thing that you recognize and imbuing it with more meaning and more weight so that even if you're not enjoying the thing you're watching right now the thing you're watching right now is telling you how important the thing that you love is and it's this kind of sense of like well Do you want your entertainment to flatter you? Do you need like Amazon to spend a billion dollars to tell you that Lord of the Rings is good? I don't know. I found all of that stuff super derivative and I know you guys have mentioned it, but I haven't like asked your specific temperature on it.
01:30:20
Speaker
Marty, you said you liked the Grand Elf thing. You found it dumb, but like you kind of liked it. When it makes these references that you notice, do you enjoy it? Or are you rolling your eyes? No, no, no, no, no. I roll my eyes every time. I roll my eyes every time. The Grand Elf one gets a pass because it's so dumb. But no, every time there is a reference to Lord of the Rings, I just think, what if I was just watching Lord of the Rings instead? Which are great, and I watch them every year. And that's why I notice all these references, because there's like,
01:30:47
Speaker
specific turns of phrases, and I'm like, oh yeah, that's what Gandalf says to Frodo in the Mines of Moria, or yes, that's the way Elrond describes something when he goes to Rivendell. No, that does nothing for me. It does nothing for me in in this, does nothing for me, especially in Star Wars. like Even when Star Wars is like, don't worry, the Acolyte, it's gonna take place so long ago, there's not gonna be any connections. And the last shot is fucking Yoda. Son of a bitch, how'd that guy get there? it's just Now tell me how Yoda got his name.
01:31:17
Speaker
It's just comes back for me. it His son was greeting him casually one morning and it really stuck. Sorry. you have a name of julieta saw yeah I just, I, I just don't understand who rings of power is for. I
Corporate Influences on Adaptations
01:31:34
Speaker
don't think it's the general audiences because I don't think it's tight enough for the general audience to get it. And I don't think it's for diehard fans because it's just the either derivative or doing its references wrong.
01:31:45
Speaker
So who is this for? It's a lot of money to not please most people. It's for Jeff Bezos who wanted a game. Like that, that is it. That is the the famous story of the origin of the rings of power is Bezos. I have to imagine sitting at a long dinner table, banging his knife and fork saying, bring me game of thrones. That's the quote that I believe was in business insider. Bring me a game of thrones. And it's like, well, we have enough money. We can just buy most of the Lord of the rings. and most yeah Yeah, most of. Yeah.
01:32:15
Speaker
God damn it. and like I should be clear. I don't hate this show. Like I feel like I've been very negative about it. Yeah. I didn't hate it. Yeah. Like it's like, I will have forgotten that it existed. Like that's the question about hate watching, which is I generally don't watch things I hate. And I will say one of the great things about moving away from the old company is that I no longer feel the obligation to watch things that I hate in order to write about them. I mostly now write about things that I either enjoy or I'm fascinated by, which is great. Um, especially that's a TV series. Because a movie, it's like one of those things. Well, if I didn't like it, it's 90 minutes. yeah walk I never have to watch Joker follow you do again, you know, but i'm not my timer every Sunday night, I got to tune in. So my blood pressure can raise like watching like, I don't know, connected recently, we are.
01:33:02
Speaker
therere Like there there are, I've been getting like shows like for Halloween from streaming services and like the worst feeling in the world is like watching the first episode of an eight episode streaming show, which I can't mention because it's under embargo and it's an hour long. And at the end of it, you're like, that was not good. And then you're like, Devin, more to go, baby. It's the worst feeling in the world.
01:33:24
Speaker
It's like your work date starting off really badly. Yeah. And, you know, you just have to keep doing it. Like a Monday, like Monday, 9 a.m., you know, just he's going to be fucking bad. I can
Media Reviews and Cultural Impact
01:33:34
Speaker
feel it. No, I was going to say, speaking of that, do we want to chat a little bit about the other stuff? Non rings of power things we've been watching this month of October. Good media. Good media. Yeah, some of it's good. I had a good I had a good week. at the theaters over the weekend. I saw two things that I enjoyed to varying degrees. One was Saturday Night, the new movie by Jason Reitman that it tells the 90 minutes leading up to showtime of the very first episode of Saturday Night Live. Forty nine years ago, I believe it was in 75 in October of 75. And so this is, you know, cast. It's an incredible cast of really talented young actors playing everyone from Lauren Michaels to Chubby Chase to Gilbert Radner to John Belushi.
01:34:24
Speaker
I always get worried about Belushi, that I'm going to say Jim Belushi. John and Jim, yeah. Yeah, I always get worried. The one who isn't in K-9, yeah, to be fair. Exactly. um But it's it's ah the the movie, it moves with a really great sort of jazzy breakneck speed. It's pretty much in real time of the 90 minutes leading up to the show, which it's easy to laugh like to to point at this SNL and feel like it's just beating a dead horse now. But like at the time, it was like genuine like counterculture.
01:34:53
Speaker
adapted into television in a way that just hadn't been done before, especially a group of like kind of avant-garde, weirdo, Canadian, and Chicago comedians like really trying to deliver something for the youth.
01:35:06
Speaker
um yeah you know In contrast to like ah someone like fucking Milton Burrell, who was on TV or even Carson at the time, ah the the movie feels like an episode of Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip. yeah I liked it. It's it's it's saccharin, Eren Sorkin garbage. But I like that flavor of garbage. And obviously this wasn't written by Eren Sorkin, but it is very much modeled after that to the point where like they compare important, Marty, like is what we're doing important. They compare it to like Prometheus. Like we are modern day Prometheus by airing this show. um The cast is likable enough. And the movie is 90 minutes and moves at a quick enough pace. where i really enjoyed it in theaters. Did not really think about it after I i after i left, so it's it's not going to stick with me. I don't think this is going to be an Oscar contender, but some really, really, really great performances. The guy who played Spielberg and the Fablemans plays Lauren Michaels, and then the guy that got to play Chevy Chase is phenomenal.
01:36:05
Speaker
like shockingly good at at Chevy Chase. And two Nicholas Brawn performances. He's Jim Henson and Andy Kaufman. Wow. yeah Which is an Andy Kaufman-esque pitch. yeah Yeah. Matthew Reese as George Carlin, who was the host of the first episode. Willem Dafoe as the network, I believe.
01:36:24
Speaker
Yeah, he plays the evil network executive who's like finger is on. He can like cancel the show at any second and just air a rerun of not willing to friend. He's willing to throw absolutely throw in this, even though on a podcast I was listening, to they said that that guy is a real network executive and that he was a huge ally of the show at the time. And so I'm like, imagine that guy is like, I'm for the show. Why are you turning me to like? Holy shit. Yeah. Like imagine taking your whole family. It's like, we're going to see what grandpa did. The huge important role that grandpa played in getting Sunday live on the air. Why does he just feel like the crusty old Dean is true ah the be center. grandpa joe He's now grandpa foe.
01:37:05
Speaker
Willem Dijo. But yeah, that came out here in the States. i've got If you have any interest in SNL or those sort of like real-time workplace process movies, chuck that out.
01:37:18
Speaker
and then i sort Is it? Did it not come out in Ireland? No, again, like you have to keep in mind, I have never watched an episode of Saturday Night Live. It's just not a thing over here. I'm aware of it. throughous most yeah So it's like I am looking forward to it, but I am like the one person in Ireland who knows what this is. When I go on radio to talk about this, I'm going to have to begin with. So.
01:37:38
Speaker
Before we begin, there is a TV show that airs on Sunday night in the States that's called Sunday Night Live. It is a live comedy show. I will have to explain the concept of the show before I explain the concept of the movie exploring the show. yeah um But yeah, I'm looking forward to it. Again, like for all that I loathe, like Ghostbusters Afterlife. Ryman is a director that I like have a soft spot for. I do think up in the air is great. I think, you know, Judo hasn't necessarily aged wonderfully, but is like well made. college I think, um yeah, totally.
01:38:07
Speaker
Tully is massively underrated. I like Tully a lot. yeah Yeah. Like, I like, like Reitman, I, if he, with the right material, I think Reitman is the right man, you know? That's how he got his name. Grandpa Reitman. Yeah. When I'm the fella standing around set one day going, isn't that right, man? And yeah, yes, it is. S and L prophecy.
01:38:31
Speaker
and probably um so We will build it here in Rockefeller.
01:38:40
Speaker
inside Inside the rolling hills of Manhattan. yeah And then I also saw, it was it was only like a two day limited release, but a Look Back, which is an anime ah movie that is based on a one shot manga from Tetsuki Fujimoto, who would go on to create Chainsaw Man.
01:39:01
Speaker
It is the opposite of Chainsaw Man, though, whereas Chainsaw Man is just like terrifying and violent and hedonistic and wonderful. This is about like almost like a semi-biographical story of ah of a mangaka, a manga creator. ah Just like ah a really sweet, really beautiful movie about ah art and creation and passion. and um yeah really I was really glad I got to see it in theaters because it was only in it was only in screens for two days. I'm like, why?
01:39:27
Speaker
Are you only in theaters two days? What if you put them in the rest of the days? What if we remove some of these Terrifier 3 screenings? and you You put something nice like look back. and I think look it's very easy to say that with hindsight, looking back, it's very easy to know what to do. Did you see Terrifier? Did you watch all Terrifiers? I did. I watched all the Terrifiers for my sins. I suffered for my art. I've seen one and two. I can't drag myself to go to the theater and sit in a dark room to watch three.
01:39:55
Speaker
It's a very weird energy. i I did see it at a surprise screening. The audience didn't know what they were getting. And like it's like a bad movie to surprise people with. It's very interesting because like when the lights went down, the room was about like 40 percent women. And when the lights came up, it was something like like 95 percent men. um It was very strange. But yeah. No, not a, not a big fan of the terrifier franchise. Like I get what they're doing. It's nice. Like the practical, it's nice. He says, but the practical effects are impressive. The fact that they're indie films that have succeeded is good and laudable. And I do think that art is a memorable character design, but like there's a monkey Paul, the kind of curdle when I watched the first movie and the first movie is basically a special effects reel. It's basically a Damien Leon, the director showing off what he can do. And I'm like, but what is this? Like, what is this in service of? What is the point of this?
01:40:42
Speaker
and the monkey paw curls. And then Terrifier 2 is a two hour and 20 minute slasher movie about an existential battle between good and evil in which art the clown is the representation of all that is evil in the world, while our hero is a warrior angel, presumably sent by God in order to strike him off earth. And like, as you watch the movies, they take on this weird, like, I love that Jay is like, Jay, this is the mythology of Terrifier. Um, but like,
01:41:10
Speaker
There's a proper Gibsonian energy to these movies, which is the idea of like, the flesh will be rend from your bones, that there will be suffering and agony and blood and gore and guts. And through that, there will be some sort of spiritual purification. Except of course, because it's Gibsonian, and the pleasure is in the pain. As an audience member, you're meant to kind of sit there and laugh at the suffering and the gore and the graphic detail while the film itself is like, isn't it, isn't it horrible. what's happening here it's a very strange energy that doesn't work for me and i know it works for a lot of other people but it's not it's i i just find them like i find the first one vapid and then i find the second two like really insistent on themselves where there's large gory sequences that are like excessive for the point to the point of just being excessive and then there are long stretches of like dialogue mythology and backstory that just do not engage me whatsoever and I'm like please let me go back to the horrible torture stuff because that's kind of a relief it is very
01:42:12
Speaker
wild that these movies keep getting longer. Like what are we doing? No, no. The third one is shorter. He did. He trimmed. That's 15 minutes shorter for the third one. It's only two hours and five minutes. No, you can't do that. It's two hours and five minutes. Titan 90 was built for horror, horror and comedy. Titan 90s. But also like art uses guns and bombs. Like art is a slasher. Again, this is, this is me being a JMA kind of like JMA getting like you getting possessed of like Tolkien lore where I'm like,
01:42:39
Speaker
it shouldn't bother me. And it it's not an issue if it were like, if the movie worked for me, this wouldn't bother me at all. But the fact that like, this is like a, where it's a pure slasher movie. It's like we're stripping it. Like it feels in some ways like a reaction against elevated horror, but by being a reaction against elevated horror, it's ultimately like a vindication of, of elevated horror, because it's like movies that are consciously trying to say nothing, which becomes a statement of themselves in a weird paradoxical sort of way. But like,
01:43:06
Speaker
much as these movies try to be quote unquote pure slasher movies, art like routinely produces guns and machine guns and pipe bombs. And I'm like, what? What is the energy here? Like, like what? Why am I like?
01:43:21
Speaker
And not to be the like, Oh, I can't believe the killer clown gets away with this. Or why, what are the laws of magic that govern this? But I'm like, why do I care if the killer when he's wounded can just produce a gun out of nowhere and kill the hero? Why am I invested in what's happening? yeah If this guy who like stabs people through houses can also produce dozens of pipe bombs that will explode and kill dozens of people, why do I care about seeing him stalk through a house and murder a family? I i don't know. I feel like I'm being overly whiny about a movie that I don't hate that much, but I also just don't get anything from.
01:43:58
Speaker
It's just, it's also very much a one trick pony of like the, yeah especially in the first movie, like the, it is, oh yeah so these movies, I guess for people who don't know, extremely low budget and the hyper violent, like and the the camera lingers on the gore and and it's not just, oh, you he went do a woman's taking a shower and he goes in and murders her. it's He murders her over the course of a 10 minute scene and peels her face off. And like, yeah it's just like extreme gore, which in graphic detail and there's like intestines there and like there's Muslims. An audience for it because the movie, which costs like $2 million dollars to make the third one released and it made $20 million dollars in the US this weekend. It made more than the Joker did on its second weekend. Like this movie is a massive, massive, real killer clown, if you will. real killer cloud. It is like, it is an indie sensation, like genuinely at the box office. And so that is, as much as I do not care about these movies at all, I'm always going to be like, hell yeah, an indie movie made a shit ton of money. That's cool.
01:44:57
Speaker
And like to give credit where it's due, like, cause I feel like I've been very harsh about it. Like you can see Leon is like invested in what he's doing and he's having conversations. So like there was criticism of the first two terrifier movies for their treatment of women. And that is kind of what I was alluding to when I was like, let's go down 40% women lights come up 5% women. yeah But like there is like, it's very graphic and a lot of the violence is directed towards women. And I don't think it's I don't think it's misogyny. It's just like he's emulating 80 slasher movies, which just absorbed background, like misogyny and doesn't like interrogate in any meaningful way. But to his credit, like he seems to have heard this criticism and there's an extended sequence in the third movie that is recreating a famous kill from the first movie, except this time he's doing it to a guy. Cause that's, that's feminist. You see, yeah that's, uh, and I'm like,
01:45:46
Speaker
I kind of admire that you're in that level of weird dialogue about your gore horror movie. Like I like that you are clearly internalizing and thinking about this stuff, but also that's not, like, that's not the solution to the problem that you're facing. And I do want to say before I end, like just one thing nice to say about Terrify 3, one thing I did genuinely love. There was a moment where I did smile and like I gave the movie credit for what it was doing, which is when it's obviously an homage to classic slasher movies. It manages to do.
01:46:17
Speaker
like the three core pre-Halloween slasher movies in one set piece. It does black Christmas, psycho and Texas chainsaw massacre in the same sequence. And I'm like, that is actually artful. That is like actually clever and thoughtful and engaged with the source material in a way that I don't know the rest of the movie is. And I, i yeah. ah So to get praise where it's due, it clearly does come from a place of love for the genre and the material.
01:46:45
Speaker
Yeah. And to show how big this has gotten, you can buy an art the clown skin in Call of Duty multiplayer. Like, that's how big this franchise has gotten, um which is just very strange. Also, the fact that in interviews keeps being like, I think I got I got lore for two more movies. I'm like, what if you don't? Let me just make something else.
01:47:02
Speaker
i live the fuckers look Like this is the thing, it's like where does art go? Like at the moment art is riding high and people are like, oh, he's a new horror icon, like Ghostface or like, like Jason or like Michael Myers. And it's like, and let's maybe give it a little while. Let's maybe see how much mileage art the clown has in the tank before we start raving about this. yeah I think he's he's currently at like pumpkin head level. Like that's where I think he's at. He's like, he's at pumpkin head. Like that's where he's at now. Give him a couple of years and we'll talk about it. You know? Yeah. Yeah.
01:47:35
Speaker
Uh, you watch anything else there? I think we both watched it's what's inside and I just want to share that great fun. It's on Netflix. So it's easily watchable. Um, just a wonderful high concept movie. Um, it has this incredible premise, which I don't want to spoil. It feels like a movie that I saw blind. Um, I somebody i just recommended and I don't want people to watch the trailer. I just want people to watch the movie movie. Yeah. Yeah. Cause it's such a great premise and it's one of those things where it's like,
01:48:04
Speaker
I want to see 10 different movies that use this premise as their starting point. They don't have to be the same genre. They don't have to be the same style. They just like, there's an idea in this movie that I feel like you could do 10 or 15 different ways and make a great movie out of.
01:48:20
Speaker
Um, I think this is wonderful. I also think it's just wonderfully well made. It has some of the best exposition I have ever seen. We were talking about like rings of power, but there are like moments where characters are just dumping extended backstory and it's delivered in a way that is like playful and fun and exciting and inventive. And the gimmick that we mentioned forces the movie to be visually inventive. It has to be very clever about how it conveys information to you visually, which gives it a very strong visual style, even though it is mostly set in a confined single space. I had a really good time with it. um I yeah really did. People are asking what genre it is. It's
01:48:57
Speaker
Really high five, very light horror thriller, but like not super gory and not like super like jump scares or anything. It is more when you get to what the premise of the movie is, you're like, oh, I get this kind of feels like it could be like ah an extended Twilight Zone episode. It reminded me a little bit of. ah Two things reminded me a little bit of bodies, bodies, bodies. Yes, because they're all in the house and they're all gathered together and it's a reunion of old friends and it's very hip and modern. Yeah. And it reminded me of the panos cosmatos episode of the the curiosity. kind and Curiosity is a viewing. I think it was called in that sort. Even like the thing has that retro that my I look to it. Yeah. Yeah. Like at its strong like lighting choices. Yeah. Like blue and red and stuff. And by the way, if you haven't seen the viewing, the viewing is incredible. More like that. We talk about concepts that more people should be doing stuff with space cocaine. Like more movies should have space cocaine in them. Think about it. um Yeah.
01:49:57
Speaker
Elf cocaine is the next big one. Yeah. It's like, just take a movie and say like, if you added space cocaine to it, it would be better. Like, so like Marty, Sunday night, if I added space cocaine to that, there was so much space cocaine in that writer's room. already I don't think you need to give Dan accurate. I can't wait. I can't wait for a hobbit to walk past me and say, see you later or crack elf.
01:50:24
Speaker
and was a really good that was a really good impression i cane Why do you think that's a good they're from the region where I live dev not like they off what was the accent was my regional accent What were the names of the different tribe they found the snoots um The Irrelevance, I think it was called. Scruts? That's a silly name, but I liked it. Sort of not appearing in this movie. um Classic Scruts. And then the other one is like, I saw a wild robot and I liked Wild Robot. um it's It's incredibly well made. It's just beautifully animated. Like, I love the animation style where it looks like a painting. um It is incredibly moving. The only real problem I have is that it's a movie that has like four separate endings. Like, you get to ah certain points in the narrative and you're like, okay, movie's over. Or maybe movie's over.
01:51:07
Speaker
and we'll jump to like forward in time and there'll be a nice coda to it but it just kind of keeps going and has like these false endings which always involve action scenes that and to be fair they hit the emotional mark so i don't complain too much but it knowt it does always feel like i have my hands on the two sides of my cinema chair and i'm ready to get up and the movie's like oh no you don't there's another 20 minutes for you um which isn't the worst problem in the world if it's done well but i did find it very disconcerting okay Then you also, ah before you at the J, you wrote down, you watched a bunch of David Lynch stuff? I was. I've but've just been watching. Is there for a reason or just because his stuff rules?
01:51:42
Speaker
Uh, the podcast blank check, which I listened to is during a Lynch season. And it's just like, I figured it had been like, it's been years since I've watched Lynch stuff. Um, and like Lynch is not an, like, he's not one of my guys. He's not like, ah you don't really sit down and put your feet up and go, you know what? Oh, really? Like clear the head, when you raise your head. Yeah. He's not one of my top two. It's not like, you know, after a hard day at work, I crack open a can of brewskis. And I'm like, you know what? Blue velvet. That's a fair walk with me. Yeah. your online really yeah whale mind yeah read as a movie I just put on in the background to just soak in the vibes and it is a nightmare list of unintelligible screaming i want you like laundry and household chores to the nightmare cries of firewalk with me. i i love marty This explains a lot. it
01:52:30
Speaker
like grandolph will' be clear like Firewalk with me is a story of a young woman's degeneration into madness, degradation, and eventually suicide resulting from an incestuous relationship. I like the part where he's like, yeah, I just fold close to it. It's just his vibe. That's how you do a prequel. Didn't tell me how Twin Peaks got its name. I don't give a shit how that's how it got its name.
01:52:50
Speaker
like that is that is what I was thinking about actually like for all that like because it's weird to like the sharp pivot of going from the unreserved fan service of like rings of power to like firewalk with me where the entire premise of it is what if Like, this small, beautiful town that you love, this quaint little TV show populated by all its quirky characters, was actually just a nightmare treadmill of suffering and incest and violence and murder. um It is like fan disservice. It is so stunning. It is so aggressive. Because of that. David Bowie ran in for a couple of seconds and then just disappeared. and said, notpa we're not going to talk about Judy and then doesn't talk about Judy. Like it's, that's good setup and payoff. ah know he He says he's not going to talk about her and they don't talk about her above a convenience store. Um, I love by the way that like Bowie apparently was asked cause obviously he had cancer at the time they were making the return and they did ask whether he wanted to come back and do a voiceover performance. He was like, no, just to hire an actor from new Orleans.
01:53:56
Speaker
I feel like I didn't quite nail the norleans accent if I'd had a little more time. Um, but yeah, just like watching Lynch stuff, ah like revisit twin peaks. I think twin peaks is probably his masterpiece for all the the show's flaws. Like that is the grand work that will unify like all of Lynch's filmography, but yeah, just having a good straight story. The straight story but straight story is lovely.
01:54:16
Speaker
He has that like, bitch. It's like, a he's like, yeah, I could do something that it's like, beautiful and heartfelt and like, like a family movie. And you're like, Oh, you're great at it, too. A G rated movie, like a G rated like, and I love that Lynch is like, it's my most experimental movie, a G rated Disney film. um But like, Yeah, even even stuff like, say, um like The Elephant Man, which I had not seen since I was a teenager, and made me cry like a baby. like it really it's It's such a beautiful, sweet film. And for all we think of Lynch as the weird guy, like watching Lynch's films so close together and so back to back, it's like he's a guy who really feels things.
01:54:54
Speaker
Like his movies aren't about like logical or rational things. They aren't about lore for all that. Like you have Wikipedia articles about Twin Peaks. They're about like Lynch processing the way that things make him feel. And so when you're watching them, I don't have the critical divide of going, well, obviously when these little man appears and dances that symbolizes, uh, that's a metaphor for the American exceptionalist experience. because it's not, it's just an image that appeared to David Lynch and made him feel a particular way. And so as a critic, I go, how does that make me feel? And it kind of just bypasses so much of like how I watch so much other stuff. And it just, it hits me like a ton of bricks. It's it's incredibly effective. Like fire. was what Yeah.
01:55:37
Speaker
Yeah, broke my heart. Speaking of DVDs earlier, when Mulholland Drive famously had like the one sheet of like, here's all the clues for if you want to figure out Mulholland Drive from David Lynch, here are 10 clues. and Every time a lamp appears. And it's like complete bullshit. Like the clues are complete and utter bullshit. Also the movie didn't have chapter. Yeah. The movie doesn't have chapters. So you can't just be like, I want to, I want to watch the scene where the girls kiss. It's like, no, you can't, you got to start the movie in the fast forward there. There's the like the straight story DVD when you open it comes with a note from David Lynch saying that a movie is not a book you cannot skip to chapters it should be experienced like life and I'm like that is just king behavior like that is like that is just like total ownership of your work on it.
01:56:23
Speaker
the amount of like, and again, you're watching even like, even back in twin peaks when twin peaks was on television. I don't know if you guys have watched like the twin peaks TV show, but like there are moments in that that are so deliberately trolling of the audience. Like episode three ends with Cooper waking up, picking up the phone and going, I want to meet you in the morning. I know who killed Laura Palmer. And then in the the following episode, he's like, Oh, I completely forgot. Sorry. Um, it just slipped out of my head. And like the second season premiere has like, is it like a 10 minute sequence where Cooper is lying on the ground bleeding out from like a gunshot wound and the world's slowest room service attendant comes in to see him, goes to leave stops halfway, turns around and realizes he needs to ask more questions. It is like so deliberately trolling of like the audience's expectations.
01:57:11
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. And I kind of love it so much. Yeah. Like I have a great deal of affection, particularly like in an industry that is now so fan centric that like Lynch is just like, well, it interests me. Um, you know, it's all that really bad. Yeah. I had my fun. Um,
01:57:25
Speaker
like i love it. I get to be on Twin Peaks and hang around with people like Twin Peaks, the return where like Lynch as Cole is like, I had the dream about Monica Belushi last night. And it's like, David, did you just write that so that you could be in a scene with Monica Belushi? And it's like, probably. Yeah. Tim Burton does the same thing. So yeah, a couple of wild haired men just living their dreams.
01:57:48
Speaker
ah
Horror Movies and October Traditions
01:57:49
Speaker
Jay, what about you? What have you been watching? I've been on a real October spooky horror fest, not just in games, but um also TV. um I've been watching a lot of old horror movies that kind of um I watched when I was younger. I recently just finished Return of the Living Dead, which is a fantastic movie. Yeah.
01:58:10
Speaker
um absolutely adore it. I think it might be my favorite zombie movie of all time, the way it manages um and contextualizes zombies. I absolutely adore. I also watched some shit, ah namely Jeepers Creepers, which is worse than I remember it being when I was younger. um I don't know if I've told you guys like my experience with horror movies in general. so I started watching horror movies when I was very young, namely because ah my mum's friend had collected DVDs and had a wall, like a video store wall of DVDs. And every time we went to visit, he would allow me to take like as many as I could carry. And it was like a treat for me to go visit. And one day um I went and I tried pretended to take, I think it was Friday the 13th.
01:58:57
Speaker
or something like a horror movie. And I looked at my mum and she like she was like, yeah, okay. So I took Friday the 13th, all of them, all of the Friday the 13th movies, um all of the Nightmare on Elm Street movies, um and all of the Halloween movies. And I watched them all in the same week. And um it just We're talking about foundational moments. This was like horror, like just became one of my things. So yeah, I've just been trying to delve into a lot of those. I'm saying that I watched Science of the Lambs last night. Oh my God. I got how good that is. One of the best movies ever made. But I haven't seen it since I was, you know, a teenager. So wow, having context and have lived life, that movie changes a lot.
01:59:46
Speaker
Yeah. Um, so yeah, that's pretty good. Um, and on a less serious note, uh, I've been watching a show with someone on, uh, I'm interested to see how many viewers know about this show. It's called a sort of shut it. It's called Dragula. So this is a is that the drag show. It's a drag show. Yeah. It's a horror themed drag show. Um, yeah. Well, it's kind of like RuPaul's drag race, but, uh, it's more horror themed and they have like horrible challenge challenges and stuff.
02:00:13
Speaker
super entertaining, like super, super entertaining. The drama, ah the costumes, the artistry of it. I love it. um So big shout out to Dragula. Does Rob Zombie ever pop up? A zombie? I think people have seen Rob Zombie. I haven't seen Rob Zombie yet. No, but they do have celebrity guests. um But oh it's it's.
02:00:35
Speaker
So, so good. I absolutely love it. And they've got a new season out. And also like, I just think supporting Shudder, supporting yeah horror generation is just really good. So, you know, go, go watch your horror movies. Go, go. okay shain Speaking of zombie movies. Have either of you guys seen, this is a Japanese movie from like, I think like 2018, something like that, called One Cut of the Dead? No, but I've heard of it.
02:01:00
Speaker
it's sad It's its premise is that a ah um ah movie crew goes to this abandoned, uh, like a bad spooky abandoned building. That's supposedly haunted to film a horror movie. And, uh, they are attacked by zombies, but that is not what the movie's about. And I'm not going to say what the movie's about. That is what the the first 10 minutes of the movie is about. Uh, but the movie is,
02:01:29
Speaker
So smart and so fun. And if you like the the story of making movies, I highly recommend One Cut of the Dead. um And again, much like it's what's inside, not watching a trailer to kind of get spoiled of like what the movies actually advertised to me um while I was browsing movies yesterday.
02:01:46
Speaker
Yeah, it might be on shutter or AMC plus or something. it' yeah Whenever I open up like Amazon, it kind of pops up there, but um yeah, one kind of get it. So it's a incredible
Cultural Themes in Sci-Fi and Fantasy
02:01:57
Speaker
i's what you're saying is' absolutely a cut above. Yeah. Just one cut above.
02:02:04
Speaker
ah Excellent. Then before I wrap up, a couple of super chats that came in. Sussie guru with a five year old don't know. Thank you so much. ah They should make a Star Trek version of Lord of the Rings. Elves are Vulcans. Orcs are Klingons. Hobbits are Tellarites. I don't even know what those are. Imagine Bilbo swearing all the time. What are Tellarites? Tellarites are the pig people. um They're the people who will always argue. They're defining character. Like this is one of the things about Star Trek and stop me if I get too nerdy. But there's an early episode of Star Trek in which Spock's father is introduced. And he's doing a trade negotiation with the Tellarites. The Tellarites are the pig people. And at one point, like Spock's father makes a comment that in any other circumstance, about any other ethnic group would be horribly racist. Where it's like, you know you might as well just not fucking talk to Tellarites. It's like they argue for the sake of arguing these people.
02:02:53
Speaker
Unlike in any other circumstance, like if it were like a British ambassador talking about an Irish ambassador, it would be horribly racist, but because Star Trek is Star Trek and because we love Spock's dad, it turns out that we extrapolated the entire characterization of Tellarites to be, no no no, Spock's dad wasn't being racist, he was just making a statement of fact. Tellarites really like arguing, that is their entire culture.
02:03:15
Speaker
It's just one of those great little world building things where it's like somebody watched that at too young an age didn't get that like the whole point was Spock's father's a dick and was like, no, no, Spock's dad is a good guy. He wouldn't say anything unless it were true. Therefore, there's an entire race in Star Trek whose shtick is they like arguing. Those are the teller. God, just a fucking well, actually. a Well, actually i guys. Yeah. And look at And I like the teller rights. It's a really fun design. Google it. If you want, like it's a really great 60s design. They pop up in the later season of enterprise. They're quite good as well. Like, and I think they've now got like tusks, like pigs, like warthog tusks, nuts from yeah as makeup gets more advanced. Like there are real, like, what more can we do with these people? so like that big like
02:04:01
Speaker
That bitch freaked me out. That's great. I love them so much. Um, but yeah, like, and and to to be fair, um, didn't like Nimoy, uh, record them of Tolkien songs. And again, I may refer to Jay on this one. And it's also like not a stretch to connect like the 1960s embrace of the counterculture of Lord of the Rings, which obviously Tolkien, as far as I know, i I'll, you know, defer to Jay on this, but I think Tolkien was kind of bemused and slightly confused by these kind of like pot smoking hippies being like, yeah, the hobbits, that's where it's at. but like it does make sense that you look at like Star Trek and Star Trek has the Vulcans who as you say are elf like but also have like yeah ESP powers and pretty like in the classic Star Trek they have like extrasensory perception and like telekinesis and things like that that the later like 90s like your dad's Star Trek kind of toned down a little bit but like in the 60s it's like no Spock can feel the universe die like it's it's yeah no it's it's it's not a coincidence it is I think part of the same kind of cultural s stew yeah 100%
02:05:10
Speaker
You know who was a great recent pig creature in pop culture? The Nick Nolte character in The Mandalorian season one. Was he like a little, if you like rode the thing, what do you say, like I've spoken or whatever? I've spoken, yeah. Yeah. It was great. Shout out to Nick Nolte. I hope, speaking of cocaine, speaking of space cocaine.
02:05:35
Speaker
Uh, George Lucas with a two-year-old don't know. Thank you so much. George Lucas spooky movie talk to the 2016 film raw by Julia Docker. Now I believe Docker now is how you pronounce her name. I've seen Ron. I've seen tight Tanya. That was one but about a couple of car fuckers. Okay. i like I was going to be coy about what that film was about. But yes, yes, it is. It's like, what if David Cronenberg's crash? Yeah. It's like, what if David Cronenberg's crash was too subtle is basically what the Tanya is.
02:06:03
Speaker
And it's fascinating that like you have this, again, it's the the new new French wave or the new new French extreme, where like you have like during the 2000s, you have like French directors and European directors pushing like gore. And a lot of that influences like the American wave of remakes of 70s horrors, like, say, ah The Hills of Eyes or um The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and things like that.
02:06:25
Speaker
Whereas like, I love that you now have like a post-wave of that, which is what if women like were more interested in body horror and it gets you things like raw. It gets you things like to Tanya. It also gets you things like the substance. Like, yeah. would Like, did you mean people who, two people who like to fuck in cars or people like to fuck cars? Have you seen the counselor? Have you seen Ridley Scott's the counselor? No.
02:06:49
Speaker
Okay. This is going to be a lot tougher to explain. Marty clearly has seen, love but I love it. There's a scene in the counselor where like Javier Bardem is sitting down to have a conversation with Michael Fassbender, which is very similar to the conversation we're about to have with you, which is like, he's talking about it like a night out with Cameron Diaz. And he's like, um so we were getting busy and then at one stage she started to fuck the car and like michael fastbenders like so you too fucked in the car is what you're telling me no no no no let me explain in graphic detail she climbed on top of the car and she pulled down her pants and she pulled up her skirt and she like straddled the car itself
02:07:27
Speaker
And like you like, as this is happening, you just see the reactions of Javier Bardem seeing what is happening and the reaction Michael Fassbender reacting to being told what Javier Bardem has seen is happening. And that is like, Titania is just like, but what if, what if we actually did that? Like, what if we followed that idea to its logical conclusion? And you, did you like this movie?
02:07:49
Speaker
I think it's pretty good, yeah. It's pretty good. I think it's pretty good, yeah. I love art. Art is great. It won the, it won the Palmdor? But it did, it screened a can. Did it win the Palmdor? I think so, yeah.
02:08:05
Speaker
Um, yeah, but oh, yeah, that's what yeah, we were talking about the substance had a chance of winning, but we were like, yeah, yeah, after that yeah war open yeah. Yeah. Um, yeah. Where's the movie crash? Not the one that won. the That was a COVID. That was a COVID win as well. I think it's like one of the things that explains it. Dog was
Fan Influence on Media Production
02:08:20
Speaker
like, let's give it to the car. Fucking movies. What movies do you remember from this year's film? Sonic the Hedgehog. It's memorable. It's memorable. Uh, great. Um,
02:08:33
Speaker
I think, oh no, we still got one more. and that That leads us perfectly into our little finale. Darwin's dummy with a $5 don't know. Thank you so much. Loved the new backdrop. Then I checked the comments. Darren, you sure kicked a hornet's nest of angry fans. Don't let them get you down. ah Darren, I think your new backdrop is delightful and I highly recommend everyone watching it as soon as this is done.
02:08:55
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, I do want to shout out like it was Nick who kind of like, I had, I have thoughts about this sort of stuff, but I generally keep it to myself because as you said, kicking a hornet's nest, like sharing those sorts of opinions on an online space doesn't lend itself to nuanced discussion. Um, but yeah, no, Nick was Nick basically said, look,
02:09:12
Speaker
after seeing the Variety report that two weeks ago now about like how studios are reacting to fan pressure, we should talk about that. um And fair play to to Nick for like backing me on that. And like a wonderful edit from Jesse, um like again, like, like, like Omar and Jesse, whenever they, whenever I throw an idea out there and I see what they do, I am just like blown away because it's like coherent and it makes sense and it's logical. And I'm like, none of that came from me.
02:09:40
Speaker
Um, so it is, it's, it's like, I'm very proud of that episode. I think it's, I think it's a good episode. I also think it is like the coldest, like the the coldest possible opinion that you could have about like fandom where I'm like, yes, major franchises are in bad water. Yes. There are very real problems with how these projects are made. Yes. The modern media landscape is awful.
02:10:04
Speaker
But also, we need to talk about the behavior of fans. And like then the immediate response is, so so you're taking the side of the large faceless corporations. And it's like, trust me, I don't think Warner Brothers consider me an ally. um I don't think the guys at the Walt Disney Company are like, well, Darren, he's a good one. because I didn't watch this episode and was like, finally, we have our three white knights. He gets it. um The Amazon executives like hobbit ton question mark. um But yeah, no, i'm I'm very proud of how it turned out. I think it turned out reasonably well. um Like, yeah, it i did is a statement that it's something I've been wanting to say and something that I'm glad I got the opportunity to say. And next two two weeks from now, I'll say something much more banal and and less controversial. are Banal and gentle. I love it.
02:10:58
Speaker
um Perfect. Yeah. And then obviously you have your your three times a week columns that go out usually on Friday, Sunday, and Monday. ah Those go out to folks who are at the Patreon at the $5 tier or above. And then we occasionally make ah
Marketing Strategies and Upcoming Projects
02:11:11
Speaker
make a freebie if we think it's one that the Joker one was the last one. And then I'll probably make that. ah You have another for folks who may have liked your ah your Hickman X-Men deep dive.
02:11:22
Speaker
from a couple months ago, I think the end of the summer, you have ah you have another comics based one that that will be running on a probably on a on a quiet weekend that will make will make that a public one as well. Because I think your your comics ready, you don't get to do it a ton for us. But I think is always phenomenal. And it's something that because that's definitely the that's the medium I know the least about of anything I that we produce here that I edit. And so being able to learn a little bit from those is always wonderful.
02:11:48
Speaker
No, it's delightful. it It is about Rom V's recent, um, detective comics run, which is for my money, one of the best Batman runs in years, one of the best detective comic runs in over a decade. And it's, I think a really great take on like Batman and superheroes and as well, well worth a read. Um, and yeah, so this weekend, uh, I know that on Monday I'll be talking about the third episode of the TV show, the franchise on HBO on Friday. I will probably be talking about smile too. Maybe I don't know. I haven't seen it yet. So I might not be like wait like a lot better than the first one.
02:12:16
Speaker
I hear them the performance. I've heard like her performance is absolutely incredible, which is stunning. Um, so I'm very excited to see it. Um, there is like the premier is taking place right now. I unfortunately have to miss it. Um, but I will be going to ah another screening tomorrow. so juicy So they've been for smile. They've been doing the viral marketing of, uh, they'll put like ah someone smiling at like a baseball game or like the audience or something. So they had them behind the world series, which has gone, which is baseball championships happening here in the States.
02:12:43
Speaker
they were sitting there to smile the guy and the girl sitting like right behind home plate so you could see them the entire game just staring at the camera smiling amazing someone hit a pop foul ball right beforehand and the smile guy breaks because he's afraid it's good I want to see his clips. i run And then it has to go back to be like, Oh shit, I'm smiling. And so I like wonder if like he had to go back to smile HQ afterwards and the strip is bad. Like, we'll need your smile badge and your gun away. Do you get a bonus? Like if he showed up with a massive like baseball shape, like lesion on his head with the smile still on his face, does he get like employee of the month? I also love the idea of there being a wall of people with the smile smile in like smile HQ.
02:13:29
Speaker
I put a link to I think someone clipped it. I'm putting it here in the chat if anyone wants to make it very scared. If you want to smile this evening. If you want to smile, the guy in yellow gets very scared. ah ah see Yeah, check that out. ah Jay, what do you got going on?
02:13:44
Speaker
ah the In a few days, I've got my episode on Silent Hill 2 Remake coming out, talking about um what it is to remake a game and how changing something as simple as how the camera controls can completely make or break an experience and have these cascading effects on having to change the rest of the game. um Spoilers, i I did not like the remake as much. Um, so yeah, that will be coming out. Uh, an episode of dev heads came out last week and we've got a bunch of streams. Um, we've got resi seven on Thursday. Um, yeah team same time devs pod on Thursday will be resi seven. And then I think same time as this pod on Friday.
02:14:24
Speaker
You guys will be doing Night in the Woods? Yes, we're doing Night in the Woods on Friday, and then on Sunday, me and Jesse will be continuing obscure. Yeah, I love it. Yeah, lots of streams, lots of videos, lots of content. Lucky bunch you guys are. The Big C, as folks call it. I don't think it was ever called the Big C. Yeah, I feel like the Big C is something else. Like there was a while, like my siblings work in medicine and there was a while where we weren't sure what the Big C was. Like the Big Conte was a contested term in the medical community. Got the Big C. How bad is that? Hey, but coming up from behind, content, don't say the Big C coming up from behind.
02:15:01
Speaker
it ju that's the end of day That's the end of the episode of the conversation. So for Jared and for Eric, thank you all so much for tuning in to rewind episode number seven. We appreciate you all. Everyone have a wonderful rest of your days and afternoons, and we'll see you all next time. Bye, everyone.