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Ep 37- Gard-g-g-g-gard
25 Plays1 month ago
We move on to the second film in the trilogy, The Two Towers! Ryn provides more commentary on music, Sam continues to hate Gollum, and we are confused about some story choices! Join us for discussions on tragically cishet immortals, incredibly hot Numenoreans, Shakespearean actors, and Skyrim! Do you get to the Cloud District very often? Listeners of our podcast do!
Covers The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (Extended Edition) (2002)
Recommended
Transcript
The Timeless Appeal of 'The West Wing'
00:00:01
Speaker
But i i started watching House of Cards. not Sorry, not House of Cards. The West Wing. In part because it's supposed to be like one of the best shows of all time.
00:00:15
Speaker
hmm. And i mean, it's living up to that. It is, you know, the writing is phenomenal. And I think too, it's not like triggering my political show aversion right now because it's from 1999.
00:00:36
Speaker
oh And so it is so far removed from modern American politics. It like practically doesn't feel real.
Cultural References and Humorous Exchanges
00:00:44
Speaker
We're talking about a show that is pre-Columbine, pre-9-11.
00:00:52
Speaker
Damn. You know, Don't Ask, Don't Tell is half debated in one of the episodes. There's a reference to a character who's meant as like a Matthew Shepard analog at one point.
00:01:09
Speaker
Like, and we are so far back in what we consider to be like monumental moments in American history and in queer rights and that it it it feels like fantasy.
00:01:26
Speaker
Yeah. And yeah, and then there's like occasionally there'll be things where it's like, ah, we have not changed in 25 years. Yay. Yeah, I didn't realize it was that old. It just seems kind of eternal to me. Like, it's one of the shows that has always existed. When was it made?
00:01:44
Speaker
it just appeared when the first TVs were made.
00:01:50
Speaker
no that's Star Trek the original series. So true, is so true. West Wing Ponfar. me go to AO3 real quick. Also, let me set a new Discord status.
00:02:07
Speaker
Oh.
00:02:11
Speaker
Reference to two series I have not watched.
00:02:16
Speaker
Because I haven't watched the original series. Wow, I don't know what to do with that. i'm now trying to think about like which characters would be the best in a an AO3 West Wing.
Media Consumption and 'ACOTAR' Critique
00:02:28
Speaker
The crossover you didn't know you needed. Right. The West Wing fuck or scenario. Sorry, you were talking about politics and it was insightful. And then i had to save my shit.
00:02:43
Speaker
No, I mean, ah there's there's a lot of that show. Like, yeah, there's some stuff on politics, but it's largely about, like, the interplay between the characters. Mm-hmm.
00:02:55
Speaker
And also because it's 1999 and it was a highly successful show, there are many actors that I recognize but they look like babies. Yeah.
00:03:07
Speaker
Because this was 25 years ago. And so like Elizabeth Moss is in it and Rob Lowe. I'm like, Jesus Christ, they're they're infants.
00:03:19
Speaker
Has Rob Lowe ever not been 50? Because that again is just an eternal state of him being middle-aged. I cannot imagine a young Rob Lowe. Yeah.
00:03:31
Speaker
He looks like he's 35. Mm-hmm. isn't Maybe 40. Yeah. Okay, I can accept that. He's approaching middle age. Yeah. But it's it's kind of funny to see that. um But the writing is phenomenal. The the delivery is just so quick.
00:03:51
Speaker
Mm-hmm. I actually almost have to pay attention. It's not something that I can just like put on in the background as I'm playing a video game. Mm-hmm. So I like actually have to pay attention to what's going on if I want to pick up the plot points.
00:04:06
Speaker
As a lot of shows do in their first season, we don't have like recurring through lines for the first half of the first season. And then sort of once they find their stride, you start getting like recurring bits.
00:04:21
Speaker
Yeah. um And like recurring plot points.
00:04:25
Speaker
What have you been dedicating your media energy to lately? Yeah. You're doing like the Lord Vetinari steepled fingers. I know that I, the thing I have to say is,
00:04:39
Speaker
Well, I was going to say shameful, but no, because I went on a journey and i recently read ACOTAR. I was just reflecting as I often am. And I was thinking like, well, ACOTAR is stupid and it's dumb and it's for stupid, dumb, not smart people. I'm not like other girls.
00:04:59
Speaker
And then I was thinking about the stupid, dumb shit that I read ah like hot and badgered. or any of the other weird dumb garbage commitment ranch and I was like okay I think internalized misogyny may be afoot here I may be dismissing ACOTAR out of hand because it's something mainstream that a lot of women like and it's widely ridiculed and maybe I need to give it a chance and see for myself what is happening with ACOTAR so I read the whole thing
00:05:36
Speaker
And it is very bad. it is worse than I imagined it could be. These immortals are so heterosexual that gender roles are just deeply baked into their society. It's Regency England or whatever with pointy ears.
00:05:59
Speaker
it's like their goddess has all of this inherent divine womanhood fertility magic. Wee you, wee you, turf alert. a Get away, go leave. And two of the characters, Tamlin and Lucian have definitely explored each
Queerness in Fantasy and Literature
00:06:14
Speaker
other's bodies. And that is not,
00:06:16
Speaker
written on the page but it's implied by me reading it sarah j moss didn't imply it but i imply it i impose that onto them but it's just so shockingly straight and i'm looking at it like really you all are immortal and so you've decided that you are gonna commit just to the most boring cishet society ever okay fine If there were gay people, that might make me like it more.
00:06:47
Speaker
This is not a universal rule of fantasy, unfortunately. But I think we should make it one of our, I don't know, maybe we we need to establish like a, the fandom apprentices desires for fantasy.
00:07:01
Speaker
Yeah, our aspirations, our criteria. I don't know. We can workshop the name, but i would say that the first one, Is that the length of a character's life, ah the length of a care of a character or species lifespan beyond that of a human's should be directly correlated with how definitely queer they are.
00:07:28
Speaker
Yes. And if you are immortal, not. you're queer. There cannot be cishet immortals. It's just bad writing.
Impact of 'Lord of the Rings' on Hosts
00:07:41
Speaker
However, speaking of tragically cishet immortals,
00:07:49
Speaker
do we want to talk about Lord of the Rings? Hell yeah.
00:08:10
Speaker
everyone. And welcome back to another episode of Fandom Apprentice. My name is Rin. I read Lord of the Rings as a kid, and it had a profound effect on my love of fantasy, on how I run tabletop games, and how I've lived the rest of my life.
00:08:34
Speaker
And during the ah early parts of the pandemic, which is now officially over five years old. Happy birthday, pandemic. I hope you enjoy kindergarten.
00:08:47
Speaker
Yeah, we're we're recording this in March of 2025, if that wasn't clear. ah But during the early parts of the pandemic, I decided to share my love of Lord of the Rings, which I hadn't touched in a little while, with my dear friend, Sam.
00:09:06
Speaker
Hello, I'm Sam. I'm the other one. We are moving through this at a good clip. Now I only have one movie left before I will have consumed all of the main essential Lord of the Rings canon.
00:09:21
Speaker
So I'm almost caught up at this point. But Two Towers is definitely a pretty big departure from the book. So I'm not sure where the rest of this is going to go.
00:09:32
Speaker
Yeah, we have read all of the books. We are now on the movies.
00:09:39
Speaker
um Speaking of... I do want to bring up one thing. we're We're joined by a bunch of new actors in Two Towers. One of whom we saw bits and pieces of in the first movie, but now plays a major role, is Andy Serkis as Gollum.
00:09:57
Speaker
And Andy Serkis in 2020...
00:10:02
Speaker
read the full text of The Hobbit and streamed it as a fundraiser. I love that. And then was recruited to record new audiobook versions of both The Hobbit and all of The Lord of the Rings books.
00:10:18
Speaker
And I just thought that was very fun because that's the story of our podcast. Yeah. reading The Hobbit distanced to each other during lockdown and deciding then to do more with it.
00:10:36
Speaker
Yeah, I love that. That makes me happy. He is also just a phenomenal fucking actor, but we'll talk about that more as we go in. um I don't have like a deep dive this time around In the way that we did last time.
00:10:53
Speaker
I also don't have a super deep dive. Because we're kind of in the mushy middle right now. Because we had talked last time about bunch of things. Like the soundtrack and the costumes. Which if you haven't listened to our first movie episode. Go back. We established a lot of things in that one. And then come back here.
00:11:10
Speaker
but So now I'm seeing how all of that stuff is continuing through this movie. But I don't know how it's all going to come together. Or what the final result of a lot of things is going to be.
00:11:21
Speaker
So it's hard to know what else I should be looking out for to really go into. I feel like once we finish Return of the King, then with the benefit of hindsight, I'll be able to go, oh, this thing was happening and this thing is interesting. But now the first impressions are out of the way.
00:11:37
Speaker
And so I'm just trying to keep up. Yeah, and there's a lot of contrasts, like you said, between from the book to the movie in this one. it It feels more like a retelling.
00:11:49
Speaker
In doing our research for the last episode, I was reading a lot of criticism of the movies as like ah abandoning the nuances of the books for a more swashbuckling like swords and sorcery vibe.
00:12:01
Speaker
And I started to feel some of that more this time around. hmm. It's still a great movie, like, to be clear. I think some of the choices they made in this movie work.
00:12:14
Speaker
Some of the choices they made in this movie don't work as much. And some of them I kind of question why it was necessary or...
Cinematic Techniques in 'Two Towers'
00:12:23
Speaker
Why they made the choice.
00:12:26
Speaker
One of the pieces that as I was doing research for this episode, I found in interview with um Peter Jackson, who said that the first movie is centered around Frodo as the hero.
00:12:41
Speaker
And like the the editing reflects that. It's, you're supposed to see Frodo at the center of the shots. The, you know, anything that's not focused on Frodo will come back to him.
00:12:52
Speaker
Like things that are away from Frodo feel as if they're going to be pulled back to him. This movie does that with Aragorn. Aragorn is the central figure of the two towers. So we'll see. i kind of want to keep that in mind when we go into Return of the King and see like, all right, how do they now marry those two?
00:13:12
Speaker
One of the changes that I thought worked really well for this movie was the the intercutting of the multiple stories. Because in the book, they're separated by the book, the two books, right? You have the whole first book being like, this is Merry and Pippin and the hunters and the Rohirrim.
00:13:32
Speaker
And the second book is all Frodo and Sam. And that doesn't fly as well in a movie. Yeah. Yeah, it helped to be able to go back and forth and understand which things were happening simultaneously.
00:13:44
Speaker
Because as much as it's nice to trust your audience, and there are definitely some parts in this where I do feel respected as an audience member in ways that I maybe don't with other contemporary movies.
00:13:57
Speaker
That's one thing. But I think if we had split it up that way, it would just be very confusing. and And you you have a visual medium. You're allowed to do stuff like that and have it make sense. With this visual medium, I really love all the sweeping shots that they get, all the helicopter shots of the landscape of New Zealand, because it's gorgeous.
00:14:22
Speaker
And also, I'm really enjoying the sweeping shots where of the three hunters running, where Gimli is like a quarter mile behind the other two, just slowly running. He's got short legs.
00:14:34
Speaker
He does. The other piece of trivia, I know everyone knows the piece of trivia, that Viggo Mortensen broke his toe when he kicked an orc helmet at the beginning of the movie. Mm-hmm.
00:14:46
Speaker
But Orlando Bloom and Brett Beattie, who's the stunt double for John Rhys-Davies, were also injured during this. ah Orlando Bloom cracked three ribs, falling off a horse.
00:14:58
Speaker
Oh, Jesus. And Brett Beattie dislocated his knee. Oh. And so apparently they'd be doing these running scenes and then the director would call cut and they just all start shouting.
00:15:14
Speaker
There's one scene where I think it's Pippin is about to be trampled by a horse and it's this almost comical shot of him in distress on the ground. And then you're looking up and seeing the horse's legs from below as they bear down.
00:15:27
Speaker
And that is what I think is going to happen to me every time I get near a horse. I am not the biggest fan of horses. I am very scared of them. But your spouse is a big fan of horses.
00:15:40
Speaker
And we were getting their horse commentary because the way we did this one, the first movie we watched together in person, this one we did ah Discord call podcast. synchronized pause play situation, which I do feel like counting in for the podcast has really helped us hone that skill because we were perfectly in sync, which was nice.
00:15:59
Speaker
Yeah, even though we paused a couple of times because it is a four hour movie. Yes, we did the extended edition naturally. go big or go home. Obviously. i just kind of have thoughts chronologically through the movie so we can we can talk through them chronologically and then as as we have thoughts, I guess.
00:16:19
Speaker
Yeah, sounds good. I had a couple of just overall vibes, besides ones we've already talked about. If I had seen this movie as a kid, it a thousand percent would have given me nightmares.
00:16:30
Speaker
It's definitely a much darker tone than Fellowship, which I guess... is true. It's the case in the books too. But I didn't really think about it as being that different because was experiencing all as kind of one continuous thing.
00:16:45
Speaker
This movie is depressing and scary and has a lot of blood and guts and death and I would have been afraid of it as a child. But On the flip side of positive things, after our conversation last time, i was going into it thinking about it as an opera and paying a lot more attention to the soundtrack. And that was very rewarding. So I was glad to have that in my noggin.
00:17:08
Speaker
And also, just so many dreamy sighs about Aragorn.
Character and Costume Analysis
00:17:13
Speaker
Somehow that man putting on clothing... feels indecent it was just so i don't know what it is i don't know what it is it's just the everything his hair is like always a little wet he's always a little grimy don't know i just it's a lot it's arresting
00:17:32
Speaker
there was there is of course the famous double door opening scene ah later in this movie and that happened and literally all three of us all made
00:17:47
Speaker
noises there were sounds you can't help it listeners just go look look it up unless you're driving or something you know just go watch it for personal reasons it's it's great everyone can appreciate just I'm at a loss the amount of people yeah the amount of people from our generation who I know that was a sexual awakening for like that specific scene like it it makes sense yeah it does I don't think it needs any further elaboration. We just have to talk about it and make vague, horny gestures because, oh my God, look at him.
00:18:24
Speaker
the When he's putting on armor in the Helm's Deep scene, it has the same energy as the slow rolling up of the sleeves. Yes. Oh my God. Yeah. It's because forearms.
00:18:36
Speaker
And just the deliberate, the preparation, the carefulness. There's a lot. There's a lot there. Speaking of forearms, there's in the in the Dead Marshes scene, there's a slow shot of the Nazgul gauntlets up to the hood and then the slow pan down to the fel beast.
00:18:59
Speaker
That's phenomenal. Yeah. That is a brilliant reveal of the Nazgul now being on winged mounts.
00:19:12
Speaker
And the fell beast is fucking unsettling. It's like a worm with wings. i don't know how to describe it. It's a unique creature. It's sort of vaguely wyvern-y and just gross.
00:19:27
Speaker
There's also kind of like a fairly frequent use of slow-mo in this, which I feel would be weird, right? in in a modern film, but it works well in this movie, I think, particularly because we're used to Tolkien lingering for pages on small details.
00:19:53
Speaker
And so for us to be pulled into a specific shot with the slow motion makes total sense. It feels like an adaptation of that prosaic waxing that Tolkien does.
00:20:06
Speaker
Yeah, and it doesn't feel jarring or out of place. It all flows very smoothly. Right, because they don't hard cut between slow-mo and up to speed.
00:20:18
Speaker
Mm-hmm. They sort of slowly bring it back up to speed. Yeah. Or they cut away and it's not immediately to a high speed moment. One of the things we get super early that I fucking love is the design of the Rohirrim.
00:20:33
Speaker
Yes. love the design of the Rohirrim. Their armor, everything in Ederos, which i'll talk about a little bit more in a minute or two. But they very clearly, the the costume designers and the the concept artists, clearly did their research because we see that their armor and their weaponry mimics like actual historical finds for Anglo-Saxon and Viking era warriors.
00:21:09
Speaker
And I think a lot of the visuals are drawn more from Viking era warriors um in some ways, but there is particularly when we meet Aemers Aired, fairly early on, we see the helmets, and that really called to mind, I'm sharing these with you now, two helmets, one from the Sutton Hoo find in England, which is an Anglo-Saxon helmet from the, I want to say it's the 7th century.
00:21:41
Speaker
And the second helmet that I just shared is ah the Broa helmet from Sweden, from an assemblage in Sweden. And there's some similarity as well to the Vendel assemblage, which is another Swedish grave find.
00:22:00
Speaker
And I'll put images on our socials of these helmets as well. But they're the detail on like the eyebrows, the facial features, the the like eye mask piece of it is something we see on a lot of the armor. And I know a piece of that is to conceal the faces of the extras because many of them were played by women.
00:22:22
Speaker
Hell yeah. Horse girls. And also, yeah, and also... It's quote unquote historically accurate. I do, for the bit of research that I did do, I do have some gripes with the Rohirrim's costumes, but that was more about the regular people, the villagers, the extras, but we can we get to that later.
00:22:46
Speaker
Okay. But their armor was very cool. I did like the horse carving thing on Amorous Helmet. I thought that was very neat. There's a lot of good horse carvings, which I appreciate.
00:22:57
Speaker
Yeah, well, and a piece of that, that reminded me specifically of the Sutton Who helmet, which is the one on the left um in the picture that I sent you, which is a dragon carving.
00:23:09
Speaker
And so for horses, which feature so heavily in obviously, Rohirric culture to take the place of the dragon, which you'd see in a more, in an Anglo-Saxon bit of artwork.
00:23:27
Speaker
I think it's, I think it's super well done.
00:23:31
Speaker
Moving on from the Rohirrim, because I, again, I was, I was just like scrubbing through this and because it keeps cutting back and forth between the stories, it's a little bit, dissed my notes are a little disjointed.
00:23:43
Speaker
I did have two more things about... Please. throw here The first one is that when we first see Theoden, he looks like shit in a good way, but they really just made a husk of a man who, if you sneezed on him, would probably turn to dust like a vampire. He was on the brink of death, which I hadn't visualized him as being in that bad of a state, but in terms of visual storytelling, it really worked.
00:24:12
Speaker
And unrelated to that, unless you, did you have more? No, please. not saying anything. And then the second thing is that I feel like so far the movies seem to be a bit kinder to Eowyn than the books. She's a little less helpless. She's a little less centered on this crush on Aragorn. She seems to have more of her own character and her own interests and ambitions.
00:24:40
Speaker
And I appreciated that. Even though... I learned that the only time that two women talk to each other in these movies are, what is it, her comforting a lost child.
00:24:52
Speaker
Yeah, who just goes, where's mama? he That's it. That's the only time. Yep, that's unfortunate. But besides that, she seems to... it does mean It does mean that the two towers does pass the Bechdel test.
00:25:10
Speaker
Yay.
00:25:14
Speaker
But it's something. I'll take it The bar is very low. I guess, honestly, yeah, this is a good time to talk about my other Rohirrim thoughts, particularly about like Meduseld.
Design Elements of Edoras and Rohan
00:25:25
Speaker
Yeah, so I guess we'll go out of order here.
00:25:27
Speaker
The designs in Meduseld, I was like, where have I seen these before? And this is where i I started to think more about, oh this is drawn from some more like Nordic vibes.
00:25:40
Speaker
I sent you two pictures of pieces from the Broa and Vendel assemblages in Sweden. And that sort of interlocking not work is seen all over Edoras.
00:25:54
Speaker
But also we do see that kind of artwork in anglo-saxon art as well this piece is from an anglo-saxon ah cross oh i love the picture that you showed me is a stone carving but right next to it it's been highlighted in different colors so you can see the different elements of it better which i super appreciate because it's hard to tell the details in old-ass weathered stone
00:26:24
Speaker
Well, and it's the coloration. Yeah, and it's the coloration that it would have been. Oh, hell yeah, it was painted. At the time. think so, yeah. And then, again, another piece, a belt buckle from the Sutton Hoo ship burial, which again has sort of this interlocking knotwork.
00:26:45
Speaker
And all of these images will be up on our socials. So seeing all of that in Edoras was really cool. When we get to Edoras, we're following the three hunters on their horses after they've met Gandalf. We'll go back to the Gandalf scene in in a little bit because we got a comment on that.
00:27:06
Speaker
But staying on the Rohirrim for a minute, there's the transition of the Rohirrim theme, which we hear in a number of different orchestrations throughout the movie.
00:27:19
Speaker
We first hear it when we first see Rohan, when they first come out from the Emon Mule and look over the open space. We see hear it in a brass orchestration.
00:27:40
Speaker
home of the hostlords. This is one of the most recognizable themes in these movies behind maybe the fellowship theme and the Shire theme. Frankly, you play this to any Lord of the Rings fan, they're going to know it.
00:27:54
Speaker
But then in Edoras, we hear it solely on ah the Hardanger fiddle, which is a Norwegian style of fiddle.
00:28:04
Speaker
So again, pulling from this ah Nordic influence
00:28:38
Speaker
Ooh, very cool. Very different vibe.
00:28:42
Speaker
And that plays over Eowyn leaving the body of Theodred and exiting out the front of Meduseld and seeing the hunters and Gandalf arriving and the pennant tearing off and flying out of Edoras and it comes and it falls down outside the walls sort of symbolizing Rohan in distress and it comes and it falls at the feet of Aragorn's horse as he's entering Edoras which I thought was a very cool way of showing like the nation of Rohan requesting his help
00:29:24
Speaker
He's literally taking up the banner of their cause. Yes. And that was another slow-mo moment where we linger on the shot of the banner following falling and of Aragorn's focus on it. And then he turns his focus into Edoras.
00:29:42
Speaker
Mm-hmm. As they enter, we get this sweeping counterclockwise moving shot of Edoras, which is built on, I think it's Mount Sunday in New Zealand.
00:29:53
Speaker
I half expected them to be stopped in the street by some guy going, do you get to the Cloud District very often? Because that's Whiterun.
00:30:05
Speaker
Like, almost shot for shot, if you wander counterclockwise around the walls of Whiterun in Skyrim, That's what the back of Dragon's Reach looks like.
00:30:17
Speaker
um You can see very much where Bethesda drew their inspiration for for Whiterun. And as somebody who has put multiple hundreds of hours into Skyrim, I recognized it immediately.
00:30:36
Speaker
Have I told you my Skyrim tale of woe? Maybe. My relationship with Skyrim. So I have also sunk not hundreds of hours, but a decent, a respectable number of hours into Skyrim.
00:30:49
Speaker
But I have never completed any of the storylines because I was mostly playing it in college and And I didn't have my own game system at that point. So I was playing it on other people's devices and I would get a couple of hours here and there.
00:31:04
Speaker
But I kept having to start a new game every time I would play it somewhere new. And so I just got so sick of the, oh, you're finally awake cut scene.
00:31:15
Speaker
And just replaying that beginning part over and over. It was my Sisyphees and... task was just to play the beginning of Skyrim infinitely and never get very far.
00:31:27
Speaker
There was one time i was house sitting for somebody and I was able to get far enough to marry Lydia and I was just grinding trying to get there so I could feel like I accomplished something.
00:31:38
Speaker
But I actually have no idea what the plot of Skyrim is because I've never gotten far enough to figure that out. That's okay. I think a lot of people ignore the main plot of Skyrim.
00:31:50
Speaker
That's fair. It's one of those games you can go, you you can literally refuse the call and go fuck it. I'm going to go wander around and fill my house with cheese.
00:32:04
Speaker
Yeah, i was about to say pick flowers and collect cheese wheels. I also am not good at games that have any amount of stealing or pickpocketing. So I just feel bad for the people. there was nice siblings still mock me because they were playing Skyrim and I was there at my mom's house.
00:32:19
Speaker
And they were in some castle and going to steal a long taffy treat from the side table in one of the servants quarters. And I was like, no, you can't steal it. That's their treat. They're just a servant. They don't have a lot of money. They probably saved up for that long taffy treat. You're just going to take it?
00:32:38
Speaker
Why not just take from the king? what are you going to take from this servant? And I just felt so wracked with guilt about the long taffy treat. I don't think I have the right personality to succeed in Skyrim. That's fair.
00:32:50
Speaker
Going back to Theoden being fucking gnarly.
Thematic and Emotional Depth in 'Two Towers'
00:32:55
Speaker
Yes. Crispy old man. Truly. The orchestration of the Rohan theme behind Theoden being cured is incredible. you As we see him coming back to himself, you get that brass version of the Rohan theme that we've already heard.
00:33:20
Speaker
And then as Théoden grasps the hilt of his sword, you get the Hardanger fiddle again. Gandalf, breathe the free air again, my friend.
00:33:50
Speaker
The fingers would remember their old strength better if they grasped you soon.
00:34:32
Speaker
And then as the sword is drawn, we get a full orchestration of the theme. Ooh. Which is just a really, really cool build. And then, and so you get Theoden coming back into himself and realizing once again, he's king.
00:34:51
Speaker
And then it fades out again as he asks, where is my son? And you know how i said before we started recording, I was going to talk about dead things. Yes. Yes. Tell me about dead things.
00:35:03
Speaker
I want to talk about Theodrid's funeral. Yes, let's do it. um And my first thing was actually a costume thought. And I was wondering if you had noticed this as well. When we first see Theodrid's body and Eowyn is weeping over Theodrid's body, they're both all dressed in white.
00:35:23
Speaker
who And there's plenty of cultures around the world where white is the color of mourning and death. And so I kind of like, that was my assumption. And then when, when Wormtongue enters the room to harass Eowyn, he's all in black and it's a very strong contrast.
00:35:40
Speaker
Which Wormtongue, side note, so fucking creepy in this movie. He was having his grimy little hands on Eowyn's face. I wanted to cut them off. Continue. Well, quick sidebar. Do you know why he's so fucking creepy? It's because he doesn't have eyebrows.
00:35:57
Speaker
Didn't realize that. Apparently the actor had to shave off his eyebrows on multiple occasions because he kept getting called back in for different shots. That's a super easy, like, uncanny valley activation, particularly when the character has other distinguishing features.
00:36:12
Speaker
I feel like if we don't see the character with eyebrows, we're like, oh, something's wrong about them. Mm-hmm. Right. I feel like we we do it with all sorts of like alien type characters. They just don't have eyebrows. Whenever you want a character to seem creepy.
00:36:32
Speaker
Other than human, just take off their eyebrows. Yeah, it's very subtle because I was mostly just focused on him being a creepy old man. But yeah, the lack of eyebrows doesn't help his case.
00:36:44
Speaker
Yeah, you completely reshape the face. Yeah. But funerals. Theodrid's funeral. Then when we go down to Theodrid's funeral, everyone's in black.
00:36:55
Speaker
Mm-hmm. This is also one of the only times we see Legolas's bow unstrung as they're carrying their weapons in sort of a formal way in procession down to the tomb, which thinking about it now is kind of interesting. It's a, I don't know. I don't have the English words for it right now or words in any other language because I don't speak any of those.
00:37:21
Speaker
You're selling yourself short, but I understand what you're saying. When Eowyn starts singing, we go from full orchestration to just like very light background strings.
00:37:34
Speaker
As Eowyn sings Lament and Miranda Otto delivers this so well. It's almost as if like it feels as if she's been waiting and can't hold it in any longer.
00:37:45
Speaker
Yeah, it's got this kind of rawness to it where she has a lovely voice. She's an actress. She sounds fine. But it's not a beautiful musical performance. It sounds like somebody grieving and doing their duty in performing what they're supposed to perform. But it has an edge to it that I feel like works very well.
00:38:49
Speaker
Yeah, and this is translated into Rohirik, which is just adapted Old English. But the translation reads, Now, dear Theodrid, lies in darkness, most loyal of fighters.
00:39:00
Speaker
The sound of the harp shall not wake the warrior, nor shall the man hold a golden wine cup. near good hawk Nor good hawks swing through the hall, nor the swift horse stamp in the courtyard.
00:39:11
Speaker
An evil death has sent forth the noble warrior. A song shall sing sorrowing minstrels in Meduseld, that he was of men dearest to his lord and bravest of kinsmen.
00:39:23
Speaker
The only thing that says that this is not like something off the cuff for Eowyn is if you watch her singing that, all of the women behind her are mouthing the words along with her.
00:39:36
Speaker
Oh, I didn't notice that. Oh my God. Now I need to go back and rewatch that and it'll be a thousand times sadder. Where it's it's clearly a known, like traditional farewell to a warrior rather than something she's composing on the spot.
00:39:52
Speaker
And as she's singing and Theodrid is placed into the tomb, there's a flash to Theoden's face. And that's heart wrenching because Bernard Hill is a fucking fantastic actor.
00:40:06
Speaker
And he has so many little monologues during during this ah movie. He's also a Shakespearean trained actor. So like he he brings that to the stage.
00:40:18
Speaker
But just with his face here in that single shot, I got a sense of like him thinking, how did I miss this? How did I allow this to happen?
00:40:29
Speaker
This is my fault. Mm hmm. And then shortly afterwards, we get a ah conversation between Gandalf and Theoden, where he lament weeps over his son and laments that his son is dead.
00:40:48
Speaker
there's this little, alas, that these evil days should be mine speech. And it felt very similar thematically to the, I wish the ring had never come to me exchange.
00:41:00
Speaker
Mm-hmm. again, with Gandalf there to provide reassurance. Yeah. And then there's I think this is after that scene because we're kind of going out of order with our notes.
00:41:13
Speaker
But there's another more somber conversation with Gandalf with him and Aragorn that's about Theoden. And just the way that it's shot is in front of this beautiful dark teal gradient. There's no it's obviously supposed to just kind of represent nighttime, but there's no visible set pieces. It's all very low light.
00:41:36
Speaker
And I was thinking watching it, this feels very theatrical because we have Sir Ian McKellen fucking bringing the Shakespearean training so good.
00:41:47
Speaker
And it just really feels like it's a theatrical monologue. Yeah, and I think that really having it be in front of this plain, vague, suggesting of scenery background and the way that it's lit, there's one light that is implied to be moonlight but really feels more like a stage light.
00:42:08
Speaker
just gives it a very unique feel. There's other scenes that have kind of a dreamy quality that are not necessarily taking place anywhere specific. They're kind of in the astral realm where they're representing something greater, but I don't think that there's any shots that are exactly like that one. And it really, especially having the idea of opera in my mind, really has that opera vibe. It was very impressive to watch.
00:42:36
Speaker
Yeah. Going back to, like, right before that scene, Gandalf's return. Oh, yes. We should mention that Gandalf comes back. Yeah. Gandalf comes back, which any viewer of the movie or reader of the book will know.
00:42:48
Speaker
But Gandalf's back. He did not perish. ah We do get a flashback right at the beginning of the movie and when he returns describing... what happened to him.
00:43:01
Speaker
His fight with the Balrog, his death and his return. When they first meet Gandalf, like in the book, they think he's Saruman and so they all attack. And I like that all all of their attacks and how Gandalf stops them is exactly the same as in the book.
00:43:19
Speaker
Almost word for word interpreted into visual, which like they didn't have to do. But it's really fun for book readers to have that. Yeah.
00:43:31
Speaker
And then before we see his face, there's a combination of voices. They combine Christopher Lee's voice, Saruman, with Ian McKellen's voice.
00:43:44
Speaker
And I like how they shift from Christopher Lee's voice being in front to Ian McKellen's voice being in front to just Ian McKellen's voice.
00:43:55
Speaker
And that's when we see Gandalf's face. And his face is obscured again, thinking about light by this super, super bright light that's very much be not afraid, angel descending from heaven.
00:44:07
Speaker
And so as it kind of feels like he's taking shape as his voice is settling, his appearance is settling, and his friends are sort of reeling him in, bringing him back to his previous identity.
00:44:22
Speaker
Yeah, and again here we get the soft sort of low brass version of the fellowship theme um that we hear frequently around the hunters.
00:44:33
Speaker
But the invoking of the fellowship theme here is again showing us that we've we've got one more element of the fellowship that's returned to us.
Character Alterations and Story Decisions
00:44:43
Speaker
But taking it back to, I guess, other parts in this section of the movie, the Ents.
00:44:52
Speaker
Yeah, the ends. They are not how I envisioned them. But it works. Yeah. I also think that they're not quite exactly how I envisioned them.
00:45:06
Speaker
And I'm not sure how I envisioned them because now all I really can think of is the movie version. Mm-hmm. I was thinking much more tree trunk with shorter legs and less defined facial features and more just tree trunk with face on it.
00:45:30
Speaker
the The movie ends are very leggy and very tall, but that makes sense because they have roots. Yeah. There is also just kind of a a little bit of a goofiness to the Ents that I don't think they have in the books. In the books, they are dead fucking serious all the time. And in the movies, they're a little bit silly.
00:45:48
Speaker
But we need some comic relief for the movie, so. Yeah, they also incorporated, like... bits of Tom Bombadil's personality into Treebeard and moments from the old forest into the Fangorn scenes with Merry and Pippin, such as them getting swallowed by the tree.
00:46:08
Speaker
And there's there's certain lines from Tom Bombadil that are given to Treebeard, like the heed no nightly noises bit. Mm-hmm. And that makes sense because they cut another one of these ancient forest characters. They wanted to make sure that they got the elements in.
00:46:27
Speaker
Yeah. The Ents were also part of one of the changes that I sort of fine with. I understand why they did it. But it didn't really make sense to me, which is that the Ents initially refused to go to war.
00:46:45
Speaker
And it's not until Treebeard sees the destruction that on the borders of the forest as he's bringing marion pippin out that the ents choose to go and destroy isengard and i get you're trying to create a little bit more tension but it's not even like long tension and it's interspersed with the beginning of the helm's deep battle so i kind of don't feel like we needed that yeah Yeah, the tension could have just been the extremely long wait for them to say things slowly. I don't think that it fully needed to be done that way. but
00:47:20
Speaker
Yeah, and i understand why they things. quick beam um We didn't need an additional ent for that. But I don't think necessarily you had to have the refusal.
00:47:32
Speaker
And the refusal mirrors Faramir's refusal, like Faramir's characterization in the movie. I kind of felt like they assassinated Faramir's character.
00:47:45
Speaker
Yeah, Faramir's kind of an asshole in this one. He's not... His priorities are different. He's like, oh, hell yeah, we are we're bringing the ring to my father and we're going to use it. Like, what?
00:47:57
Speaker
Dude, that was not at all what you were like in books. Yeah, I... He just wants his dad's approval. Right, that's what they were setting up.
00:48:09
Speaker
But I feel like in the books, Faramir being the opposite of Boromir is enough to show you what Denethor values.
00:48:21
Speaker
And why Faramir can't get Denethor's approval without him trying to be more like Boromir. And also Faramir's assistance of Sam and Frodo is meant as a parallel to Aragorn.
00:48:39
Speaker
It's meant to show that, oh, the men of Gondor are still men of Numenor. yeah That power, that grace still runs in their blood. Yeah, and I also feel like with Boromir being more sympathetic in the movies, then Faramir also becomes a little bit more of an asshole. It all just kind of evens out and dilutes both of them in a way that they still have...
00:49:07
Speaker
ah more They have a more fleshed out sibling relationship and their relationship to Denethor as his sons is explored in a way that's kind of interesting, but they don't work as well as foils for each other.
00:49:23
Speaker
Yeah, I agree. Denethor also doesn't appear in the shortened version of the movie, the theatrical cut, I guess, the real version of the movie. We only we only see Denethor in the extended version.
00:49:37
Speaker
but Whatever happens with the tomato is not in this one. I am simply thrilled to see what that's going to be about. Yeah, that's um that's Return to the King. Don't worry, we'll get there.
00:49:48
Speaker
I'm excited. Do you have anything else before we get into Helm's Deep? Right, I think this is before Helm's Deep, is Eowyn and Elrond's confrontation?
00:50:00
Speaker
Arwen. Arwen, fuck. I wrote down the name of the wrong lady. There's so few. i should really keep them straight. Arwen. That definitely was not in the book. um Oh, listeners, it's been a day. I'm tired.
00:50:15
Speaker
Anyway, Arwen and Elrond's confrontation was... not outlined in the book we know that it happens and that it was tense and bitter but we actually see them hashing out Arwen's decision to stay which I think was done really well and it also weaves in some bits from the appendices about her eventual death and Aragorn's eventual death and her having to live without him and Elrond is painting this picture of how sad and depressing her future is going to be
00:50:47
Speaker
And it works really well. And I'm glad that we got to see it. I think that it's perfectly effective in the books, but in the movies, it was fun to get a different perspective. I think that was fleshed out well.
00:51:00
Speaker
Yeah, I like that both in in the last movie and in this movie, we've gotten more of Aragorn and Arwen's relationship. I think similar to your comments about Sam and Rosie it's nice to have an established relationship between these two that we see before they're married yeah which even in the books we kind of don't see after they're married either we only get it in the appendices In the books, they're very chaste. In the movies, they are definitely fucking.
00:51:31
Speaker
They have either fucked immediately before the scene begins or they will immediately after or maybe both. The sexual tension between those two is palpable.
00:51:42
Speaker
And I love that for them. Honestly, and also they're just a bisexual dream. They really are. Like, like, cool. i'm I'm so excited for the two of you to have fun.
00:51:55
Speaker
Are you looking for a third? I'm imagining one of those, like when you go to the deli and you have to take a number. think I'll just go up and pull my little number wait my turn.
00:52:07
Speaker
Are there unicorns in Middle Earth? There can Because there can be at least...
00:52:15
Speaker
Brain cell. oh
00:52:20
Speaker
Let's see...
00:52:23
Speaker
But yeah, that's all I had before Helm's Deep. Okay. Oh, the other thing that I do have before Helm's Deep. I have weird feelings about the warg fight and Aragorn going over the cliff.
00:52:38
Speaker
Okay, tell me about it. I get that Aragorn's unconsciousness then lets us do the Arwen scene. But again, it's kind of an unnecessary piece of tension. Mm-hmm.
00:52:49
Speaker
I feel like for Aragorn to go missing and they think he's dead. And yes, it then does allow him to arrive back in Helm's Deep and open double doors and ah drive us all into a tizzy.
00:53:03
Speaker
But yeah, it was it was just like, here, let's just add another battle. I guess. And I will say the battles, and especially Helm's Deep, which we're about to get to, are very engaging. And I have gone on record on the show saying that I zone out during combat, but I felt engaged. I felt compelled.
00:53:22
Speaker
I was feeling the tension. I was excited to see what was going to happen. So even though the battles just kind of kept happening, it was fine. was having fun.
Battle Scenes and Practical Effects
00:53:31
Speaker
Yeah, but the Battle of Helm's Deep is a large portion of the movie and it gets intercut with scenes of Frodo and Sam and their interactions with Faramir and then the battle at Osgiliath and then also intercut with scenes of the Ents at Isengard.
00:53:53
Speaker
One of the changes that I didn't mind was the elves showing up at Helm's Deep. It was a little weird. And I was reading that it was in part because initially they'd filmed scenes where when after Arwen has her confrontation with her father, she's the one that brings the elves down to Helm's Deep.
00:54:17
Speaker
That's what I thought was implied because they're having this conversation and what the end of their conversation wants us to believe is that despite all her protestations, Arwen has been convinced that she's going on the ship and she's sailing away. And so we see her riding off in this solemn procession with a bunch of other elves and then all the solemn elves show up at Helm's Deep. So I thought it was implied that those things were connected, but it's not explicitly, she's not there and we don't see her telling them to go help.
00:54:47
Speaker
But I made that connection in my brain. and Right. And we see Haldir, who we met in Lothlorien last time. He's the military commander in Lothlorien. And so it's implied that these are Lothlorien elves, not Rivendell elves. Right.
00:55:02
Speaker
Oh yeah, true. So just unrelated elves. Yeah, apparently by the time they decided to change that, they'd already filmed a bunch of the scenes with the elves fighting in Helm's Deep. Mm-hmm.
00:55:13
Speaker
They're like, all right, fine, I guess we'll mess with it a little bit. guess we'll keep it. I know this has been brought up by critics galore for many years, and that we are not film critics.
00:55:33
Speaker
But can I say, ah modern directors, please take fucking note of the lighting in the Helm's Deep battle.
00:55:45
Speaker
Because we can all tell that it's still nighttime. he It's okay. It doesn't need to not be visible. We can see all the details.
00:55:59
Speaker
When the actors' faces are telling us a story, we can see that. Mm-hmm. And yeah, it does get chaotic and confusing. It gets chaotic and confusing in the book, too.
00:56:12
Speaker
But that is managed with us as an audience still being able to see everything.
00:56:20
Speaker
I'm just really bitter about that one episode in, what was it, season seven of ah Game of Thrones? Just fuck. Anyway. I've never been to Game of Thrones, but I will be on your side blindly anyway.
00:56:35
Speaker
I'll say fuck that episode. One of the things that this lighting does allow us to see is ah kind of surprising amount of gore. ah There... These movies are fairly graphic in terms of showing blood and guts in a way that isn't just random sprays of red mist. It feels like a kind of realistic level of gore in a way that I don't feel like I see a lot in modern movies, especially for something like Lord of the Rings that has kind of a family-friendly reputation.
00:57:11
Speaker
I don't know how the modern Hobbit movies... compare on that score. But I do feel like in general, and people smarter than me have expounded on this in more ways, a lot of our media is becoming increasingly sanitized.
00:57:27
Speaker
And so this definitely felt like I respect you enough as a viewer to show you that there's blood and guts in this movie. And not in slasher, horror, shock value way. But yeah, if people's heads get cut off, there's going to be some bits that come out in towards the end at a verbs and stewed rabbit the dead rabbits are very real and very present and we see gollum like cracking their spines and it's really visceral but in a way that feels effective and i feel like yes i'm an adult i can handle watching this yeah it's it's battle it's not meant to be sanitized it's like like that line in the hog father it's a sword it's not meant to be safe
00:58:12
Speaker
I don't think I know and think i know that one. it's um It's another Discworld Terry Pratchett bit. Ah, very nice. One of the other moments that we all made fun of was the recruiting of the old men and young boys.
00:58:31
Speaker
Yes. I got so mad about that. It's like every strong lad who can hold a sword. Like, excuse you, what about the strong women? You're sending your oldest, crustiest men. And this is not me editorializing.
00:58:44
Speaker
We see some pensioners getting handed weapons. And like, there's perfectly healthy young women down in the caves. Why aren't they out here? Particularly after not an hour earlier, we have a quote from Eowyn where she's practicing with a sword and Aragorn is talking to her about it.
00:59:06
Speaker
Where Eowyn says that the women of Rohan learned long ago that those who do not have swords can still die upon them. Which implies that the women of Rohan will take up arms when they have to.
00:59:24
Speaker
And maybe can leave the fucking kids because although we're saying women and children into the caves, there are many lingering shots of kids who can't be older than nine putting on helmets and getting ready for war. And we're supposed to feel very sad about that. And we should because it is very sad.
00:59:43
Speaker
But why isn't that fucking kid in the cave? What's the cutoff? And I understand that, again, this is also a piece from the text of Tolkien. But in this movie where we're trying to give more agency to women characters than Tolkien gives...
01:00:03
Speaker
in his books, we could have achieved the same effect by having the old, both men and women, and young kids in the caves. as Because we get shots of, you know, the women and children huddling with fear.
01:00:19
Speaker
But we could have achieved the same effect with, like, children and their grandparents. Mm-hmm. I understand why they did it.
01:00:30
Speaker
And, you know, maybe this is just us being annoying, raging feminists. But, like, come on. um However, one of the kids ah that we see throwing a rock at one point at the orcs is Viggo Mortensen's son.
01:00:47
Speaker
oh Aww. Who's a big fan of the books. Yeah.
01:00:53
Speaker
Which is very fucking cute. I love that. and Speaking of Viggo Mortensen... I will always speak of Viggo Mortensen. Yes. Yeah. And transitioning away from children.
01:01:04
Speaker
you know how we have feelings about Aragorn? Mm hmm. There's the little piece where Gimli and Aragorn go out ah postern gate and have a little sortie onto the bridge.
01:01:19
Speaker
And Gimli has Aragorn toss him, which is one, a fun callback to fellowship where he refused to be tossed in the mines of Moria. But as you pointed out, when we were watching this movie,
01:01:34
Speaker
Aragorn tosses Gimli one-handed across this ah gap that Gimli can't jump. And Gimli, with armor and weapons and all, has to be upwards of 200 pounds, if not more.
01:01:48
Speaker
Yeah. And he just chucks him. One-handed. Like a fucking frisbee. Like, what? This man is so strong.
01:02:01
Speaker
um if I may. and And when we've gotten the lingering shots of his hands delicately pinning his armor on prior to the battle, I am filled with ah thoughts of a line from one of our favorite rom-coms, Satisfaction Guaranteed, ah of describing one of the character's arms strong enough to hold her down, but gentle enough to lift her up.
01:02:26
Speaker
Yes. Oh my God. That is exactly, that's exactly it It's exactly it. Listeners. ah a oh And speaking of tossing Gimli, I have not had too much to say about Gimli thus far. His characterization in especially in this movie, is really leaning more into him as comic relief. And he is very funny.
01:02:50
Speaker
And I do still love him. He's still my boy. But it's different. And I miss my kind of serious, poetic Gimli. But I did love... the In the tossing scene, he's like, you'll never speak to anyone about this.
01:03:03
Speaker
He's like, yeah yes, of course. And we still get the scorekeeping, which is very fun. And also just thinking of my little Gimli thoughts sort of earlier on. when they're marching out, he's bantering with Eowyn and telling her ah story about dwarf women and making all these jokes and she's laughing. And I just love that they're like little besties.
01:03:25
Speaker
And when we were watching, i was saying, that would be me. I would be Eowyn. I would be Gimli's friend. We would be laughing together. I would make him disgusting soup. it No, I would make good soup. Disgusting soup theme.
01:03:37
Speaker
i would I would make excellent soup. Yeah, you'd you'd get the... um Adam Driver good soup bit from Gimli there. Actually, that is one other piece in the soup scene.
01:03:51
Speaker
We have another recurring theme specific to Eowyn.
01:03:57
Speaker
um Which we hear first during Theodrid's funeral.
01:04:26
Speaker
And again, it's it's low brass, it's slow moving. And then we hear it sort of again quoted in this moment where she hands a terrible stew to Aragorn. That's really funny.
01:04:55
Speaker
Yeah, but it's ah it's an Eowyn specific theme. And we will actually hear it again in Return of the King. I'm sure. But ah I just thought that was kind of amusing.
01:05:07
Speaker
but That's really good. In the Helm's Deep scene, we get a couple of speeches from Bernard Hill from Theoden that are pulled from different places in the books.
01:05:20
Speaker
So speeches that Theoden gives but are not given in Helm's Deep in the books are now given in Helm's Deep. specifically the where now is the horse and the rider scene at the beginning when he's putting on his armor where he's got the solo light shining upon him again suggested to be moonlight shining through the window but is instead like acts as a spotlight on this shakespearean actor delivering a soliloquy on stage it's
01:05:52
Speaker
It has the feel of to be or not to be. Yeah. And also when I was reading about this, I learned something that I did not actually know before, um which is, this is obviously, this is written by Tolkien. This is from the books.
01:06:14
Speaker
This is a and adaptation of an old English poem, The Wanderer. Where is the horse? cu com maggo Where the rider?
01:06:25
Speaker
Where is the giver of treasure? Where are the seats at the feast? where is the horse where is the rider where is the giver of treasure where the seat at the fee Where are the revels in the hall? Alas for the bright cup.
01:06:43
Speaker
Alas for the mailed warrior. Alas for the splendor of the prince. How that time has passed away, dark under cover of night, as if it had never been.
01:06:56
Speaker
Shit. Yeah, and and this is given later on as the lament of the Rohirrim, where now is the horse and the rider? Where is the horn that was blowing? But Bernard Hill delivers it as a not simply a speech, but again, another eulogy, not just for his son, but for all of his people whom he does not think are going to make it out of here.
01:07:22
Speaker
Mm-hmm. it's It's very clear throughout the lead up into the battle that Théoden has accepted that he is going to go down fighting, as are every one of his people.
01:07:41
Speaker
But it is better to go down fighting in a space where they might take some of the orcs with them. I also took that moment as sort of a self recrimination of like, where is the horse and rider? Where have I been?
01:07:55
Speaker
What have I been doing this whole time? What the fuck happened to me? the Sort of the same reckoning that we were dealing with earlier. It's a lot. It's very loaded. And the other piece is right before they do this heavy cavalry sortie going out finally on you know dawn on the fifth day when Gandalf is supposed to return with the now for wrath, now for ruin, and the red dawn, which is taken from a speech at the Pelennor Fields um in the books, but now is placed here.
01:08:30
Speaker
And we'll have the rest of the speech delivered in Return of the King at the Pelennor Fields. So don't worry, we will still hear it. But it's interesting to, again, have this bit here. And then we do have the other change that they made to this movie, which is Eomer is not at Theoden's side this whole time. He is banished early on.
01:08:51
Speaker
And so Gandalf brings him back on the dawn of the fifth day and liberates Helm's Deep that way. Yeah.
01:09:04
Speaker
Which I suppose, i mean, we still do see the Huorns kind of in the distance, but I suppose it's sort of easier for the audience to accept because we don't have time to explain the Huorns.
01:09:17
Speaker
We don't have time to like we We do see them eating the orcs as the orcs flee, essentially. There's just a rustle of the tops of the trees, which was very good. And screaming.
01:09:31
Speaker
um But I think it's it's perhaps easier for the audience to understand. Ah, yes, we now have reinforcements here. And the reinforcements are people and horses, not trees. Yeah.
01:09:46
Speaker
Yeah. During that reinforcement charge downhill, your spouse commented that all of those horses would break their legs. Yeah, that is a steep decline. That's like a 45 degree angle that they're all just barreling down.
01:10:00
Speaker
That was another Skyrim moment of just descending a mountain on your horse.
01:10:06
Speaker
oh Turns out they breed for Skyrim horses here in Rohan. clearly that's pretty much it for Helm's deep and then I have a last piece to close it out but I want to make sure that you're getting everything you need as well Yeah, I didn't really have a
Adaptation Choices and Podcasting Plans
01:10:23
Speaker
ton on Helm's Deep. I didn't have a ton on the rest of the movie. I just had brief note that Gollum slash Smeagol was done well.
01:10:29
Speaker
But yeah, I think we're really seeing how much of the focus is away from Sam and Frodo by the fact that I have no notes about them. They're fine. They're there. They're not really the main focus here.
01:10:42
Speaker
This is Aragorn's movie. Yeah, but we do close, we open on them and we close on them, just sort of reminding the audience that, yes, this is Aragorn's movie, but the central plot and the main conflict will be resolved with these two little hobbits.
01:11:04
Speaker
um We've waxed poetic a lot about hope. But as they're watching Osgiliath fall, Sam has this very long and beautiful speech on ah holding on to hope.
01:11:23
Speaker
And it's interspersed, and he continues giving this speech over the end of the fighting at Helm's Deep, over the last of the fighting at Isengard, as we're seeing victory in both places.
01:11:37
Speaker
Mm-hmm. But with Sam and Frodo, there is no victory. There is only another slog ahead of them. And it ends with the famous line where Frodo asks Sam, what are we holding on to?
01:11:55
Speaker
And Sam answers, there's some good in this world, Mr. Frodo. And it's worth fighting for. Yeah, um that's that's the central message of our show, I guess.
01:12:10
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, there's not it's hard to follow that up. It's a perfect line. It's iconic for a reason. ah hu This movie holds up incredibly well 25 years later, 20 years later, in part because they put so much time and effort into practical effects.
01:12:27
Speaker
The CG, you can tell it's CG, but it still looks good. Except maybe Merry and Pippin riding on Treebeard when you can kind of see the green outline of their hair from the green screen. That one is rough. But other than that, it's all really good.
01:12:47
Speaker
Yeah, that's fair. Yeah, there's there's like a little haze around their heads. But like, it's really well done, all in all.
01:12:59
Speaker
you know They rotoscoped in Gollum, which is so they literally, because Andy Serkis was on set performing all of those physical actions. They drew over every single frame to animate in Gollum doing the motions that he did.
01:13:18
Speaker
Oh, damn, I didn't realize that. which is Which is why Gollum looks so good, is because he is essentially a computer suit placed over Andy Serkis.
01:13:32
Speaker
Rather than a fully CGI'd character. Most of the, like, forts were actual models. There is... A miniature of Isengard, which apparently is reading somewhere.
01:13:49
Speaker
They built multiple like scale models. So they had a smaller model for like larger shots. But then they also made a 15-foot-high miniature of Isengard.
01:14:03
Speaker
Oh, damn. So it was a quote-unquote miniature. And apparently they referred to it as bigotures. Oh, that's cute. Which is just the the amount of work that they put into these. Apparently they they spent literally dozens of hours on every single frame of Gollum.
01:14:22
Speaker
On every single frame of Treebeard. It took them weeks to construct Edoras. um Apparently the interiors of a lot of the buildings were used as like office space.
01:14:37
Speaker
During the filming. So that like they didn't have to construct any additional buildings. They were built there. So. The most fun possible place to do paperwork. Yeah.
01:14:48
Speaker
You walk out of your office and oh look, here we are in Rohan. I found a Reddit post with a picture of the bigoture of um the tower.
01:15:01
Speaker
And it's so funny because you have this elaborate, beautiful set. you have the tower rising up all majestic. And then once the green screen, or in this case blue screen, cuts off, it's just a suburban neighborhood in the background. I'm going to send it to you on...
01:15:16
Speaker
and discord But yeah, there's just somebody's house back there, which is very jarring.
01:15:24
Speaker
It's so fucking funny. It's a really well done movie. I enjoyed it. It was, it felt more like an adaptation or a retelling than the first one did.
01:15:35
Speaker
um The first one I think did a little bit better on the like direct to screen. Yeah. Translation of the book. But I think this one was overall a good movie and they they did a good job of making it a good movie rather than simply a good translation.
01:15:57
Speaker
Yeah, it's very watchable. It's very fun. And I'm definitely along for the ride now because it has changed so much from the book. I don't know how Return of the King is going to play out, but I'm excited.
01:16:10
Speaker
i did have one gripe one thing that i did do research on that just irked me a little bit and it was about the rohirim which we talked about before so not so much the soldiers but the villagers do have a little bit of everyone in history only wore brown disease and in this case it's everyone in history only wore green disease and i am not an expert in Anglo-Saxon clothing. So I don't know about the construction and the cuts of their garments. I can't speak to that.
01:16:46
Speaker
But what I do fucking know is that they had colors and they loved colors. ah People really underestimate the variety of dyes that were available to people throughout history. And we sort of have this image colloquially of all the peasants wore brown and gray and only the kings and queens had bright colors. No, stupid.
01:17:06
Speaker
Fuck that. Vibrant primary colors were super easily available. The Anglo-Saxons would have had access to, coincidentally, all three of these are plants with small yellow flowers.
01:17:21
Speaker
That has nothing to do with the fact that they're good dyes. It just happens that these three plants all look kind of similar. But matter... M-A-D-D-E-R is a small flowering plant with bright red roots that you can use to get a red dye.
01:17:35
Speaker
Weld, you can get yellow from the flowers themselves. Woad produces blue from the leaves. So you have three super bright primaries right there. And there's a lot of modern historians who recreate those.
01:17:47
Speaker
And you can get basically every color of the fucking rainbow. You can get corals, you can get really cool greens and different shades, obviously lots of different browns and blacks and stuff. But The thing that's a little harder to determine than the sources of colors, because lots of things make colors, you can get dye from pretty much anything, is what mordants the Anglo-Saxons would have had access to.
01:18:12
Speaker
And a mordant is basically a chemical that fixes dye chemically onto fabrics that it doesn't wash out right away. And people trying to recreate Anglo-Saxon dyes have tried various things and some are more effective than others.
01:18:26
Speaker
And that does also affect which textiles are well preserved and what textiles used to be dyed. But then we're washed so many times that the dye has gone away and there's only faint traces of it.
01:18:37
Speaker
hard to tell but and I get that also having all the Rohirrim in similar colors makes them visually unified it tells a good story but I would have loved to see more colorful more fun outfits because there was wacky wild vibrant ornamentation amongst the Anglo-Saxons and I'm really passionate about people knowing that it's like the painted ancient Greek statues is's there was color everywhere we're humans we love shiny things Yeah, and particularly, as we've noted, with them drawing so much like Nordic inspiration as well, a lot of the inspiration they're drawing is from pre-Viking Age Nordic nations.
01:19:24
Speaker
But during the Viking Age specifically, I i know for a fact that the the textiles there were also super brightly colored. Yellows and reds were incredibly common.
01:19:36
Speaker
Yeah, there was also a multitude of browns and greens and blacks, but there's a ton of flowers that produce reds, that produce yellows, that produce blues.
01:19:47
Speaker
You could get a lot of these kind of wild out there color combinations. So yeah, i think I think it would have been fun. Although I guess from a costume department standpoint, I suppose it's a lot easier to just be like, everyone wears one color It does make sense, movie-wise.
01:20:10
Speaker
But just as a history buff, I need i need people to know about the colors. And the fucking, sometimes garish combinations. People would just kind of wear whatever.
01:20:22
Speaker
and it was great. But other than that, it was great. Good movie. A+.
01:20:29
Speaker
Yeah, I'm excited to watch the third one. I haven't watched the third one in many years, so I'm excited to go back. I'm not, I kind of can't remember exactly what they did that is different or the same.
01:20:41
Speaker
i guess one of the other things that's different about this movie is they start it and cut it off in different places than the Two Towers book does. So like, we don't see Shelob in this movie. We'll see her in the next movie, probably.
01:20:57
Speaker
I remember when we were doing the reading for Two Towers, you not being sure where the book would start and where it would end, you going, not sure if this happens in this book or just in the movie. It is kind of mind fucky.
01:21:09
Speaker
And like we had Boromir's death at the end of last movie where it's the first chapter of the Two Towers book. So again, I understand why they did certain things, particularly after spending so much time on like the Battle of Helm's Deep.
01:21:26
Speaker
i think putting the conflict for Frodo and Sam with Shelob at the end would have just been too much. Yeah. Like the ending of Two Towers... the movie is focused on the battles that the men are going through right now, as opposed to we'll focus more on individual issues in the next movie.
01:21:52
Speaker
And if you'd like to join us for that, you can do so. we will be back in two weeks with a new episode, which will be our final episode of new Lord of the Rings content for now.
01:22:12
Speaker
And we'll deliver more updates as to what you can all expect after that, either in the next episode or on our socials or in episodes that come later.
01:22:24
Speaker
You'll find out. But if you'd like to join us for all of that, both for the next episode and for what follows after, ah you can follow our podcast on whatever podcast platform you're listening on and on other podcast platforms if you're so inclined. Just, you know, boost our numbers a little bit.
01:22:43
Speaker
um You can leave us a rating and a review. You can leave comments on our podcast. You can leave us comments and follows on our social media, which is at fan app pod on social media platforms, whichever ones we happen to be active on time.
01:23:06
Speaker
Tumblr, Instagram, blue sky, Twitter, TikTok, ah several of those I've literally never touched. It's like a fun little scavenger hunt.
01:23:18
Speaker
Yeah, some of them get regular updates. Find us where you will. And if you have a comment that you actually really want us to see, you can email us at thefandomapprentice at gmail.com.
01:23:31
Speaker
Am I missing anything? No, I think that but covers it. Thanks for hanging out, everybody, and we will see you next time. Thanks so much for joining us. We will see you next time. Bye. The Phantom Apprentice is produced and edited by Rin and Sam.
01:23:46
Speaker
Our music is written and performed by James. You can hear more of his music on Spotify or on Bandcamp under the group Bayruz, B-A-E-R-U-Z. Our art is by Casey Turgeon.
01:23:57
Speaker
You can find more of her work at KCT Designs on Instagram. The content discussed is the property of the Tolkien Estate and of Peter Jackson and Line Cinemas and is used here under fair use.