Sardonicast - Sardonicast #60: The Lord of the Rings Trilogy

Episode Date: May 18, 2020

The guys discuss Peter Jackson's Lord of the Ring's Trilogy!

Three, two, one. One does not simply listen to Sardinacast. Or maybe you do. You might be listening right now. This is Sardonicast. I'm Adam from your movie sex. I'm Ralph from YouTube of Solveoravrimor. And I'm Alex from my H.E.

And that was a nice throwback intro that time. Yeah, I was thinking of Lord of the Rings quotes. That one seemed to be the most fitting. least obnoxious, I guess. I didn't want to just, like, start off the podcast with, like, potatoes, boil them mesh, I'm stick him in a stew. Stick him in a stew. Yeah.

It's a very quotable franchise. Incredibly. Everything's a mean now. Before we get into the Lord of the Rings discussion, there's a bit of movie-related news. I'd like to get your opinions on. So Universal, let everybody know that they're trolls to a movie, not to be confused with troll two

but trolls, whatever the subtitle is. The DreamWorks film, yeah. Yeah. No, I thought it was Universal. Didn't Universal? Trolls is DreamWorks. Yeah, no. Oh, but Universal owns DreamWorks, right? Yeah, yeah, because the minions are under the same thing. Okay.

It's like has Strange Dragon now, which is messed up. Anyway, they publicly stated that the sequel film, Trolls 2, released only digitally was more successful than the first trolls movie, which had a theatrical run and then digital. And now AMC, a theater chain in the United States, is very, very angry.

And they have publicly stated at this point that they're not going to be showing any universal films in their theaters anymore, which is kind of hilarious. Really? Yeah, it's insane. Because I can understand their perspective, because they're like, oh, no, you can't let other studios know that this is a viable option

and that you could do things this successfully because then they'll do it after the pandemic and then we'll be out of a business, right? So I understand that perspective, but you think that that's just making it worse if you're if you're not showing any universal films in your theaters anymore. Like no more Jurassic World, right? They don't want the other studios to do it. I agree. Yeah.

Yeah, theaters are going to go out of business if they can't make that kind of money. This has been tried before with Tower Heist. They tried releasing Tower Heist digitally early, and theaters were like really uptight about that. And, you know, nothing happened. But this is way more successful, apparently. Yeah. It's kind of inevitable. I don't know.

I'm more on the theater side, though. Yeah? Because I don't want them to do shit like this. Because then theaters are going to close. Yeah, I agree with you in the sense that, like, I love film festivals. And a lot of the venues for film festivals are just theaters that at other points in the year, they're used as regular movie theaters. Yeah, exactly. So that would be terrible for all of these theaters to close, although it's happening to a lot of them anyway.

And at the same time, I kind of, I don't know how strongly I feel about the situation as a whole when it comes to like whether or not films should be released digitally. Because I like that option. Like, I don't see why you can't have an option to do both. I like it too. was it released for also I think it was probably like rented invisible man and it was 20 bucks yeah I think it was around there 48 hours yeah so like that's a lot of money it is but it's also people might be willing to pay that now but I don't know if in a year when you have the option to go to a theater if people are gonna pay that when you're when you're releasing a children's film

especially though like the implication is that it's being watched by more than one person anyway like no one's expecting a child to buy it on their iTunes account it's usually like a family of four or something is the implication. So that's a lot more cost effective than taking a trip out to the movie theater, buying four tickets and popcorn and gas money and stuff. So, I mean, it seems like a viable thing. I don't know. I like the option.

I like the option existing. I don't know what that would mean. Unless people would go to the theater if you just have the option to go at home. It seems like kind of a reaction based on a lot of fear. this whole AMC thing. I feel like a lot of companies in these situations are kind of, they're bricking themselves at this reality. They have to face themselves with right on the back of like some of the most profitable

years in terms of like these just billion dollar movies just every year. So I think it's been a bit of a shock for them. And they're obviously an industry that's kind of set in its ways being forced to change radically is going to, there's going to be a little pushback to that no matter what, I think. I think I and also another side of it is contextually you can probably understand why this trolls movie is doing better in the same way a lot of other things that have gotten popular during lockdown may have got a bit of a boost just for this because of the you know yeah like Tiger King or a lot of video games of getting like Animal Crossing is just seeing ridiculous numbers like just people yeah people are looking for things to keep themselves busy and you know there are loads of kids at home in the moment. just there are probably loads of frustrated parents that want something to distract their kids with and they've seen the posters for the new trolls movie so yeah i don't know what it's going to really dictate for the future beyond just these like growing pains of where it's inevitably

going because how long can they really push back from it because we've been saying like since the podcast began about how like movie theaters are kind of that they're turning into like blockbuster a kind of, you know, like Scorsesey said about like superhero movies where they're like a, uh, a, uh, a park or something, a theme park, yeah, a theme park, yeah. Theme park ride, yeah. And that a lot of the smaller stuff is being relegated to streaming services and stuff like that, which personally, I don't even really mind that much, you know, I think more eyes on it, the better.

And instead of, you know, it just being lost in the sea of content, we're in. Yeah. Yeah. Jones. I feel like depending on the theater too, like if you make your theater experience enjoyable, if you make it something that people actually want to go to,

rather than being like, oh, I hate that I have to see this in theaters, but it's only playing there. I think your business will survive. I'm expecting people to still be going to like Alamo draft house, right? Like that's a desirable theater experience. Like really good food. You know, no one's allowed to use their phones

and text and talk. Like, I have a strict policy on that. So you can't You can't really have your movie ruined by just some asshole in the theater, theoretically. You know, like that's a desirable experience. So they like to do a lot of like reruns, older cinema stuff. You know, like they'll have like special movie nights and people go to them because they like the theater. Not because it's their only way to see the movie. It's like it's a nice experience.

So I think in that way, there's a lot of room for theater chains to catch up. And maybe AMC should be considering how to improve their business. so that people actually want to keep using their theaters. So you never know. There's a couple different factors. Well, saying to Ralph before we started recording about how, I don't know if I'm that confident if people are going to be that willing to swarm back to movie theaters even when,

like, governments take their fingers out and kind of give us free reign on what we're allowed to do. Like, I think people are going to be kind of trepidious. Probably so, like, you know, for a while, like, I can't put, like, a number down to it but it's not really like in the forefront of a lot of people's minds right now I don't think it's like yeah you never know to the cinema yeah to go see tenant yeah I think people want to get out of the house so I think people want something to do so I think they will go back to do something either go eat and everything's going to be at like half capacity yeah it depends on the person depends on

the place depends on the type of thing like a lot of people will want to be going out and doing things, but I don't know if a lot of people want to be going out into a room with a bunch of people and circulated air. Yeah, I'm just thinking about how much money's being lost by this. Like, it must just be absurd from all these studios that, yeah, and all these shareholders that were kind of counting on releases and certain dates in times, and they're obviously not being hit because of this. So there must be so much money just being thrown into the wind at the moment.

So that's why I just want to see what they're going to disqualify. decide to do because I don't know if how many more months they can survive just not showing anything. Like it is just an absurd amount of money that's being lost. Yeah. I don't know if like Hollywood studios will need like a bailout or anything like they make a lot of money. I don't know. No, I'm thinking more the actual theaters themselves. No, the theaters for sure. Yeah. They're struggling. Oh yeah. Especially independent theaters. Yeah, I think AMC like filed for bankruptcy or something. Not too long ago. Wow.

If they don't want Universal to be releasing their movies digitally, then how does banning their movies from your theater help at all? You think that's only just going to make it worse. Now they're like, okay, well, if we're not even showing our movie in the most popular theater chain in America, then we might as well just do it digital anyway, just to make our money bag. They're hoping that'll stop other theaters,

or sorry other studios from doing that. Yeah, I guess so. Because then Disney will start doing it and then... Yeah, you think Disney gives a shit about other businesses? Yeah, exactly. They have tons of money. They don't care if they watch something else go bill. They got billions of dollars.

They can hold out for like 10 years if they need to. Yeah. So they're fine. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, they could release everything on Disney Plus. Yeah. That's a very real possibility. Yeah.

All right. I just wanted to get your thoughts on that because I found it interesting. we'll see what happened again interesting yeah but the reason universal and Disney would do that is because they want to make all the money and take the theaters away from that not you know the theaters are taking a percentage they don't want them to oh yeah and they get more of the revenue just by releasing it digitally like the revenue share from the actual sale so you know if they're business I guess that's fine but it's kind of corrupt isn't that corrupt what's that line from again oh come on You gotta know.

Is it Neil Breen? No. Breen. Okay. Yeah. It's a fateful findings, I think. Yeah. It's the one where he's in the mansion.

I was leaning towards Neil Breen. I just wasn't sure. Yeah. All right. I guess we can start our film trilogy discussion. Previous episode, I recommended a little hidden gem known as Lord of the Rings trilogy from... Yeah, I never heard of it. Peter Jackson.

Yeah, what's this? it's pretty cool and I guess we'll go through one movie at a time although they're pretty consistent I mean like not not like exactly the same in terms of like how much I enjoy them or quality

but it's it's a trilogy that really feels like it was all conceived as one big idea rather than just like okay we made enough money for a sequel like they were already making all three of them before the first one was even released Which is insane I don't see a lot of releases like that anymore

They made all of them as if they were one movie too Yeah I think they even paid everyone for one movie I think so which is pretty funny Yeah so they like worked on basically three movies but Really? He got to cut down on costs I mean the budget wasn't that big on this Yeah they were like 90 million dollars each which is pretty low Considering what it is I think I don't know

It's like in 2000 or something Even adjusted for inflation? It's like 20 years ago now. Yeah. I don't know how fast inflation's gone. But let's assume it was even like, I don't know, twice as much. I guess that seems reasonable. Like $180 million per movie.

But still, it's like, I don't know, Amazon's spending like a billion dollars on their production costs. They bought the rights for $250 million and then they're spending a billion on production costs. And this trilogy is like the length of a mini-series. So it's like, what the hell is Amazon? on doing? Like, what are they doing?

Yeah, they're doing like another prequel from my understanding. A prequel? Because, like, The Hobbit is already a prequel. Yeah, they're doing like a prequel show. Really? That is set before the events of Lord of the Rings and the Hobbit. Okay. That's my understanding of it.

I thought, I thought for sure that they would try to like just remake the Lord of the Rings story that, you know, the popular thing that everybody... That's what I thought of the first two. No. No. No. I don't think so. Anyway.

Uh, Lord of the Rings, Fellowship of the Ring. if you haven't seen any of these movies watch them and come back because you're going to get spoiled we're going to talk about spoilers fellowship it's a story about a hobbit

and he has an uncle or whatever named Bilbo was it his uncle he has a friendly relationship with Bilbo that I think was a family member yeah that sounds right I can't believe in blanking on that

but that does sound right irrelevant They're really close. And Bilbo... Yeah. And Bilbo found a ring at one point, and it's a crazy ring, and he loves it too much. And then Gandalf

shows up, and he's a wizard, and he's like, yo, that rings bad. Frodo, you take it. We need to get rid of this shit. And it starts them on a gigantic adventure full of peril and conflict and friendship and hope. And I love it. What did you guys think?

Yeah, they're all great. All these movies are great. Yeah, they're essential viewing. Yeah, they are. Maybe we should start by saying our kind of experience with the story is and which version we watched. Because, of course, there's the extended and the normal versions which have some pretty, I'd say significant differences. The third one's like nearly an hour longer, like the extended version. There's a lot of stuff, but...

Yeah. Yeah, I've... This story has always been a part of my life because I'd listen to, like, the... There's a really good BBC radio, like, play version, which I listened to growing up, so I really like that stuff, and then the movies came out when I was young,

so it's always been there. But it wasn't really until I was 16, 17, where I kind of rediscovered them with a bit more of a grown-up mind and started to appreciate them for what they were and became, like, properly upset, with them and watch like all of the the onslaught of special features that this trilogy is known for god there is so much extra content if you're into that kind of stuff just endless stuff

about like concept art and visual effects and planning and all this stuff that's really cool so all that stuff really sucked me in haven't watched it though for quite a few years until just the other day for this episode which is quite fun to re-experience i watched them on tv when i was like younger I didn't see him in a theater or anything. I liked them. I thought they were fine, but they grew on me as I got older, I think. More the like the technical aspects of it, the battles and like how all like the makeup was done and the the size of the hobbits compared to like the people and the force perspective is like fucking awesome. The force perspective is really cool. Yeah. Like all that is super cool to me. I'm not a big like fantasy guy. So I don't like I don't like Tolkien. I don't like like elves and all this shit. But this is clearly. like something special. This is not like a run-of-the-mill fantasy.

It's a great story. It's got a lot of great characters in it. Yeah, it's epic shit. Yeah. I watched it when I was younger. Pretty sure I saw them in theaters. Pretty sure. I would have been 10 when the first one came out.

So, I don't know. Pretty sure I watched them in theaters. I vividly remember at the end of the first movie there being that they had this trailer at the end of the movie basically for the second movie and they used like an orchestral

rendition of the music from Requiem for a dream that Bada, but da, ba, ba, yeah, and they were like teasing Gollum. Yeah, there's that like, I vividly remember that. That's cool. So I'm pretty sure I thought of it.

Yeah, I've always really enjoyed these movies. And yeah, obviously growing older, I haven't seen them in like 10 years. up until I just watched them for this episode. Yeah, I do appreciate a lot more of the technical aspects, that's for sure. And especially, like, I wish that I had seen more of Peter Jackson's older films.

I've seen the Brain Dead slash Dead Alive one. I still haven't seen a few of his other ones like Frighteners or Bad Taste. I would love to check out some of his other older movies. Yeah, I haven't seen that one either. But even just from watching like Brain Dead, which I think, is a hilarious movie that I would recommend everybody see. Even just watching that one, like there's a lot of interesting stuff in there too,

like the Force Perspective, like, you know, like a bunch of actors with crazy makeup and stuff. And so you can see little hints of what would eventually turn into this gigantic, super ambitious professional studio project. You can see little hints of it even in something like, like Brain Dead,

which I find kind of interesting. Also, on that note, I mean, I was thinking while watching this trilogy this might sound like a strange comparison but I feel like there's a lot of similarities between the Lord the Rings trilogy

and the Ramey Spider-Man trilogy because they're both from directors that used to create horror movies right and these horror movies weren't just like you know jump scare or slasher like they weren't bland horror movies they're horror movies that were celebrated because they were so wacky and there were something to the filmmaking there, like really interesting cinematography and ideas being presented

in those movies. And then they get like this big budget studio feature of something that's a bit more like fantasy that takes itself a bit more seriously. But there's still that kind of playfulness with the films that, you know, there's something genuine there. Like it's so weird what you get when you have a director like that that had made a bunch of wacky, bizarre horror movies and then just give them a gigantic project like this. There's so many things about this trilogy that just have like early 2000s tropes in there,

not just tropes, but like the feel of watching the film. Some of the effects kind of felt really within that time frame too. Yeah, especially if we're talking about fellowship with it being the first one. That is definitely the most aged in terms of some of the visual stuff, mostly like the CG when they show Golan the little teasers of Golan it's not the best most detailed stuff that shows a bit of age

the troll kind of battle in Moria minds the troll doesn't hold up the very best yeah there's like some fades and stuff that are like weird there's one that was like posted on the Reddit that was kind of funny oh yeah yeah

some slow mo too I saw that yeah the slow mo it doesn't take me out of the movie like I wouldn't yeah I don't hate the films because of that. The artificial slowing down where you just have less frames. Yeah, yeah. That's a stylistic thing too. Like he did that in King Kong also.

Yeah. I don't know. It was much more common back then. It was more acceptable then. Now I think if you put it in a movie, it's kind of like annoying. But yeah, it didn't ruin the movie for me or anything. If we're going to talk about like aged visual effects, though, I would say the most aged one would be the,

the tentacle creature outside of the cave when it's like grabbing Frodo like that was the moment where I was like yeah but the rest of it I thought was fine so which versions did we watch oh yeah I watched the extended ones me too for this for this one I'd never seen them so okay so we all watched extended yeah I'm pretty sure

I honestly don't know if I had seen the extended or not because they're like I always thought that I had never seen them and maybe I hadn't until now, but, like, there wasn't anything that felt too unfamiliar. But I guess it might just be because I hadn't seen it in 10 years anyway, but, like, I guess,

every added scene seemed to be, like, I guess, context for the other scenes. They didn't seem, like, so wild and crazy and different. There's nothing too egregious. There are a couple scenes that I think are obvious, um, like, as to why they would have been trimmed out of the theatrical version,

just for pacing's sake. But Peter Jackson's, Jackson said, like, the extended are just kind of, he considers the theatrical ones, like, the pure cuts of the movie, but the extended ones are kind of like for the fans. Like, if you just want to indulge. Yeah, basically, it's the way to do it. So, anytime there are kind of, like, pacing issues in the extended ones, I can't really get annoyed. I could just watch the theatrical ones because it's not like a George Lucas thing where that you can only watch extended. You can choose what you want.

He's trying to change it. And there's a bit of a debate behind, like, some people think two of them are better extended, but one theatrical. So it's like up to, it's a bit up to interpretation, I think, because, yeah, because, like, some of the purest, like, will only watch the extended ones because it has more, like, detail and context. And I was looking up, like, a bunch of the differences between the two. And it does seem, like, some pretty core stuff is missed out of the theatrical cuts, especially in the third movie. which I guess we can talk about later. Yeah, when we get to it, I guess. Yeah, one interesting thing.

But from watching it this time round, I think Fellowship is my favorite of the three. I think it's the best one of the three as well. I would agree. This watch solidified that. It's kind of the tightest, most focused. To be fair, it is also the point in the story where it's not kind of split up

into these different plots that are happening across the world. Because, yeah, because basically at the end of fellowship, is where it starts to splinter off and that's something I actually admire about like the two towers with how complex it starts becoming without like tripping over itself

but there is something so clean about fellowship and simple and it's just about it's just kind of a simple a to be kind of journey with the all the adventure kind of tropes or the fun moments with the every scene is kind of like nicely blocked off into like

mini set pieces little reveals dumps of exposition there's like a really good especially in the extended edition i really like the kind of slow way they build up the kind of innocence of the world you're introduced at like kind of a nice point for all the characters yeah so you see this really wonderful um contrast as the films get more gray and dark like two towers and contrast to fellowships way darker and by the end like they're crawling around in the mud and they're like disgusting so it is nice to see the the the visual change. It's important because you need that context for parts in the story where they say like,

oh, if we fail, there's not going to be a shy or Mr. Frodo. You know, it's like you have to have that emotional connection back to it. And especially with the music too. The music is so incredibly nostalgic for me. But also like even if it's like your first time watching the film, there's elements of nostalgia in there by the time you get to the third movie when they play or play the Shire theme at the end when everything's wrapping back up and it's like okay yeah it's a nice little neat package wrapped in a bow but yeah I agree with you that the first film is like its own it's it's the best film it's the best like contained experience because it doesn't really it doesn't need anything set up from any of the other

films to be enjoyed whereas like two towers you're missing a lot of context if you've never seen the first one you know like same with the return of the king yeah I don't know if you could watch those without watching the first one they're kind of dependent on the first film is great yeah I think I like two towers more just because it Helms deep I like all of them about equally that's fair in terms of the characters and everything also that one with Gallum like the introduction of Gallum and all that stuff him talking to himself like I find all that so interesting I like Frodo and Sam like going off to Mordor I think all that shit is great mm-hmm fellowship had a great ending too

Yeah. Like, not just the battle, but like it ended on like a, like a low point. Like the characters are like two of them get kidnapped and there's like the guy who plays Ned Stark dies. I forgot his name. I don't know any of their names. Oh, Bar me. Yeah. Yeah. You're going to have to help me with some of the names. Yeah, Sean Bean who dies in everything. Yeah. Yeah, it was like a low point. So it was like this, this fun adventure, but then it ends with the fellowship failing. And they even say like the fellowship has failed. But it's like, it's okay. It's just the start of the. adventure we'll pick it up next time and it's like oh I'm really excited to see the next movie now it didn't it wasn't like a cliffhanger where I felt like I wasn't satisfied by the end yeah but that things weren't resolved it wasn't a yeah it wasn't a matrix reloaded ending well it wasn't like the Hobbit desolation of smog where it was literally like a cliffhanger yeah I guess we're gonna make comparisons you could even just yeah you could go back to the same itself yeah and it's like okay I I I we could have seen that in this

movie it's a 10 minute sequence that's just plopped onto the third film. Enough about the Hobbits. I think it all end pretty strong to be honest to be suitably for the story they're telling in the movie.

I've never read the books so I don't know if that's just the same ending as the books because there are three books I believe it's the same there's three books and the Hobbit and the Simerillion and a bunch of other stuff.

There's like so much nerd lore if you want to go into it. My roommate, Gail was watching this with me and I knew he would be excited to and he was basically like my own little codex

or whatever he like pulled up a map was like okay so they're actually like moving over here and so in this scene at the beginning when they actually go to the bar that's actually way further away and that's like a three day trip but the way it's cut it almost seems like they just went to the bar and came back that

night but that's like a three day trip that's like over here and like all the lore and stuff and just how things work it was it was really interesting I don't I'd never be able to memorize all that like but you know it made the experience a bit more interesting because there was a lot of information that I didn't have previously and there's a lot of lore when it comes to Lord the Rings shit there's just so much nerd stuff it's crazy Tolkien is very

dense yeah his worlds were very yeah I love the the orcs too one of the best parts of the movies is like when they introduced the orks whether it was like the like when they were birthing them or whatever in those caves And they were playing that music. Yeah. And the music's going like, yeah, it's the camera sweeping over them. It was epic. Yeah.

It is. It's so cool. It's so cool. Any scene that we're talking about, immediately I get the associated theme of the soundtrack in my head. Like, that's how good the score is. I think it's the best thing about the movie, honestly. No, I agree. One thing I really appreciated about the score this time around is how,

it kind of subtly in the back of your head subconsciously helps you keep track of where you are in the story because like every location, every character has their own light motif or whatever. I looked up how many Howard Shaw made for the movie and it's approaching a hundred different like themes for characters and places and moods and themes, which does really help because it is, there are so many different locations over the course of the trilogy

and they're able to use it for like emotional beats and just to keep the story in the momentum building. It's so well done in terms of that kind of stuff. I do think it is the, it really brings everything together, like the visuals and it adds that sense of like scope and scale with like how like the vocals especially and the use of vocals really add that.

It reminds me of like the Halo soundtrack where it kind of adds that kind of ethereal, almost like religious kind of mysticism to it, which I really, really like. that kind of ancient thing. Like I, my favorite sequence is when they go to the mine and just the mine

is like it's same little side quest of like something in history that's happened and it's just gone so wrong and it's like a nice little kind of horror beat as well with all the skeletons everywhere and they're just trying to put together the clues and this is in like a movie that is full of so many different

like set pieces and bits of adventure and there were like different emotional beings. and there's just so much to it. It's so much fun. And I just love the simplicity of that adventure in the first movie. It does kind of feel like a video game. I guess I mean that in like a good way. Well, like, it wasn't about like the plot. It was about the exploration and like, you know, I didn't mind taking my time like exploring this world with these characters. It was fun. Yeah. Plus some of the CGI from the early 2000s, it looked like a video game. Yeah, I guess that.

Yeah. There's a lot of it does hold up really well though. Um, if you take If you take out some of the age, CG and kind of weird, like, green screen stuff, um, compositing and all that kind of stuff, there is,

like, loads of really good, like, prosthetic work and, uh, miniatures and just so much, like costumes and there's, there's so much to the,

like, dedication to the, the visual side of it. And a lot of it still looks, like, really good. Like the, like the wide shots,

like establishing shots of a lot of the, location. look amazing still. It is just like the old thing. There's like wolf things in the second movie didn't look the greatest. It's a lot of like the natural components, like the big monsters and the giant elephants and stuff,

they were the most aged aspect to me. I think for the most part, there is kind of a timeless quality to, when they do keep it simple, and you do just have like a wizard and an elf on the screen at the same time. I'm very pure about it. Yeah.

I assume a lot of that's taken from the books, too, like the creatures or whatever, so they couldn't, like, change the designs too much. Like, you know, you had to put in a giant squid. Yeah, I guess so. Even if it looks kind of bad, it's like, we got to put it in because that's what the book said. I really loved the cast thing also. I feel like Ian McKellen, Christopher Lee, those two, are, like, really fun to watch. These were all no names, basically, when it came out, right?

Not all of them. Kate Blanchett's in there. Pretty sure she had. Yeah, that's for Cape Blanchett. Was Orlando Bloom big? I don't know if the Pirates of the Caribbean came out yet. Was part of what made him really big. I don't think Vigo Mortensen was really big before this either.

They might have been like just emerging or something. But yeah, Elijah Wood certainly didn't have his name on the map or anything. Elijah Wood's good. He's really good at us. Yeah, very appropriate for the movie. And it's kind of like its own weird experience in that way. Because even in other movies where he's in, you don't get that same feel. And his eyes are so huge compared to, like, the rest of his head.

Very innocent looking. Yeah, so weird. And as I was mentioning earlier, the comparisons with, like, the Ramey Spider-Man trilogy, there's a lot of moments in the Lord of the Rings trilogy where you get, like, Frodo gets stabbed or something or, like, he's about to fall over, and you get this, like, slow motion close-up of his face, and it's kind of funny. It's kind of funny when he makes certain faces. like in the same way that Toby McGuire was hilarious in a lot of the Spider-Man shots.

It's been kind of memes, yeah. I mean, everything in the Lord of the Rings trilogy has been memed at this point. It's like every five minutes, there's another line. I'm like, oh, show that pass. It's like it's reverence memes, though. It's not like mocking it, putting it down. Oh, of course. All right, then keep your secrets.

Whereas like some kind of suicide squad, that's not a reference meme. Yeah, that's a terrible line. Yeah. There's another pickle rick moment. Yeah, gravitas was the word I kept thinking of. Like, wow, Ian McKellan really has gravitas. Like, the, his ballsy, like the way they do introduce these, like, races and locations with this, like, sweeping score and these, like, huge camera movements. It is, like, it is treating the material with the kind of respect it deserves in a whole.

think it really shows through with how much work was put into trying to do it justice. Because I read today, Stanley Kubrick turned down the project in the 70s or 80s saying that he thought it was impossible to like adapt the story. And I think it was passed through a lot of filmmakers and because it is considered such a difficult thing to translate to screen. Yeah. So it does take some nuts to be able to do it in this kind of a clean way because there are things that are set up in the first movie that are paid off in the third and that there's a lot of

details that like really flow together well so at the same time as each movie standing alone in terms of having their own beginnings, middles and endings within the singular movie they also work as one continuous story over the trilogy which i think it's just like such a colossal feat like that that is huge to me like how they managed to do that it's one of the most ambitious film projects ever it's crazy but they actually did it we actually have an example of one that actually worked out because they you see that they started writing it in like 97 so they spent like four years and they were like writing it as it was going on still so years of pre-production was part of why I think it came together the way

it did and like the Hobbit didn't because it was like just rushed you know yeah of course do you think Peter Jackson like wanted to do it and then convince the studio to make it or do you think they were going to make it and then just chose him as a director? I'm pretty sure as explained in the behind the scene stuff how it will come together. Yeah, I didn't have that. I honestly can't remember. He just seems so perfect for it. Like, he clearly has a love for it.

He clearly read the books and loves this world. Like, it's so, it comes across on the screen. Yeah, it's fascinating all the behind the scene stuff, like seeing Peter Jackson's like transformation as, as like a person through them. Because you can see he like wildly shifts his. weight around. Oh, yeah. So, like, in some clips, he's, like, really skinny, other he's, like, quite overweight.

Like, you can really see, like, it was basically 10 years of his life just about. Yeah. Dedicated just to this trilogy. Probably a very stressful time. Exactly, yeah. Incredibly so. Which, uh, which was your favorite character? In fellowship, mine is Borumier.

Yeah? I think he's an essential character to show. and kind of set up that family for a start because his family's set up in one and you kind of see where it goes in the third movie more so but more so him representing the kind of

the power greed of man and I like his his backstory which you don't really get in the theatrical versions as far as I'm aware you don't get the flashback scenes with Barmere and his brother and the scenes with their dad

telling him to go back and get the ring or whatever for his family and that kind of stuff. So you kind of understand his motivation is a bit more compared to the theatrical where Boromi is just kind of more simple. He's basically more of a villain type character. He doesn't have the sympathetic slant as much. He gets a bit of a redemption by the end of his story. But I just like the push and pull type of characters like that. So he's my favorite.

What about you, Ralph? Probably I don't know favorite character like gollum is probably my favorite one of all the characters in this that stand out He's not even in this one really or yeah I mean I'm not gonna ask the question every movie I don't know we can include the call Yeah, there's just so many great characters there's so much going on I love the villain Soraman right Christopher Lee. Yeah, very entertaining He's great I kind of like Gimley I find him hilarious

He is much neat needed like comic relief. Oh man. Things get pretty heavy later on. There's quite a few comic relief characters in this movie too. Like Mary and Pippin are comic relief characters. Yeah. And then Ghibli's also there.

They just show up and do irresponsible things and screw things up for everybody. And I guess by the end of the story, they've kind of redeemed themselves in some way. Yeah, most of the core of the fellowship have some kind of arc. I think the first movie does a really good job of like establishing the importance and weight of everything. Like you get to see, they set a good kind of tone and atmosphere with Sauron and that he is something to be feared. I really like the introduction of the movie where it's just basically a bunch of exposition just setting up the world. I think that that intro is so crucial to kind of getting you on board and giving you like an overview of an understanding of it. If it just started at the shire at the beginning,

you wouldn't immediately care as much or know even where it's going to go possibly. Yeah, you wouldn't get to stakes at all. Yeah, exactly. And they do a good job of making you really fear this ring, this McGuffin, which, you know, like, represents power and how addictive it can be. And they do a constant good job of reinforcing how it is able to, like, control people and turn people. and you see like with Gollum it's like the like a worst case scenario type thing and yeah it's very powerful

constantly tempted even the way they shot it and like the design of the ring itself was great when the way the film was yeah like the way the film was letterboxed it would like perfectly fit into the frame like the ring it was like an extreme close-up on it yeah and like devilish chants that play and stuff yeah yeah yeah yeah they really sell flashes to the eye of saron yeah and the world war imagery as well. Like I really noticed especially this time. Even like a costume design I've thought Sam in particular

his costume really looks like identical to like a World War I soldier I thought yeah with his like backpack and everything there's just like a lot of imagery with like the grey cloudy skies and the doom and gloom of everything

is very like what was written during the time of World War II wasn't it so I don't know how they wouldn't be some influence from that bleeding into it especially with the whole like the industrialization angle with the it's more in the second movie with the ants and the farming and stuff like that they're cutting down all the trees but i think that begins in the first movie with them like making the uricai by farming all the trees and whatnot there's a there are a lot of themes in the movie to and it's not as obvious as like say something like a fantasy were like Harry Potter, for example, where the villain is very clearly like a Hitler allegory,

and I don't know how you could really miss that. It is slightly more, like, vague and fantastical in all the rings. You can kind of project a bit more of what you see in it and interpret it your own way a little bit more than something like like Harry Potter. Yeah, yeah. And like the complexity of it, too, I think helps. Like, those are like children's books, Harry's Potter. I always saw the Hobbits is like well like in World War I

World War II all the innocent people who were just living their lives were kind of taken out of their innocent lives and put into war and like these things that they were not prepared for and that's kind of similar to the hobbits how they were just kind of going about their day and then they have to take on these like world ending like scenario

and they have to like bring this ring to fucking ward or even though they're not prepared for it at all like I kind of related those too the hobbits are like completely essential characters, I think. Yeah, they're the heart of the movie. The empathetic side of the movie, yeah, because they like, they like just represent pure innocence and like virtue. Yeah. So having them along for the ride really gives you like an emotional point of reference and especially with one of the greater villains being like an evil version of a Hobbit that's kind of been warped over

hundreds and hundreds of years. Yeah. And a lot of the other characters to Legalis is like invincible. He's like shooting everyone in the head. So it's nice to have someone a little more vulnerable to like, there's more stakes to this someone can die you know yeah the rest of those guys were like unstoppable basically and and with like the lore of the book and it's explained in the movie a bit too but like supposedly hobbits are just like they're less influenced by the power of the ring even though like obviously throughout the movie bilbo and froto they like it ruins them in a way but still they're not as easily corruptible as like man or even uh any of the other species that exists in the film. I also didn't know up until watching it this most recent time, because I

had my roommate explain this to me, that the ring can actually change its diameter and physically Yeah, I learned this too. Conform to, yeah. So when it like falls off of someone's finger or lands on someone's finger, like it's physically trying to do that. Like it's attempting to do that. When I watched it when I was younger, I just thought like, oh, what a wild coincidence that it would land perfectly like that, or, oh, that it would just fall off his finger. But the ring is intentionally doing these things to be found, which I found really interesting. I didn't know until watching it this time. And it's the reason Frodo carries it on the chain, because it can control its size to make itself bigger or small as fall off your finger. But if it's on the chain, it can't control anything.

It can't fall off his finger. Yeah, it's cool detail that Yeah, very interesting lore I also definitely want to mention the The writers Those like ghost horsemen That screech or whatever Those things are fucking terrifying

And I had the exact I felt like I got a genuine reaction out of it Watching it still today in a way that is almost identical To me watching it as a kid And that might just be like a nostalgic kind of response I don't know, but I think like, especially with the music, it's just very, very effective. They're screech that they have. It's like piercing.

It's horrifying. Yeah. They're legit, kind of scary. But I love it. And I love the experience watching it, the experience that I get from those scenes. It's very emotional and you could say epic, even if that word has been ruined. But it is. it is genuinely epic though

the music and everything and the sweeping shots and yeah it is just an epic story told epically there's only one more thing I'd say about this one and I don't know if it was a problem for you guys and it was the only one of the three that this happened for me with was

I was finding that the audio mixing was kind of a pain in the ass I had to keep turning it up and down because I was finding the dialogue was really quiet but the music and sound effects were really loud. So I had to keep changing up and down. These are mixed for a theater too, so I get it. Like maybe in a theater environment, it sounds fine.

But watching it at home, yeah, it's a pain in the ass. It makes me wish they would like remix it or something or offer different. I didn't have the same issue with two and three though. Oh, yeah. So I don't know what was going on there. Oh, no. I don't know. I just, I don't know.

I have like a decent home theater set up. I just have the volume pretty loud anyway, so it's not like that big of a deal. I'm usually, I don't know, changing my volume a bit. I had a, I had subtitles on, like, to help. Yeah, I kept it down. Yeah, I like to watch it with subtitles. I'd never done that either. It helps, like, keep track of the places and the names and all that.

You got to tell what they're saying. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, some of them you can't tell what they're saying. I watch every movie with subtitles that I can at this point because, like, you don't know what you're missing until you'd watch with subtitles. Sometimes you'll miss certain things without subtitles and not know. you've missed it and then watch it with subtitles and be like oh that's what they actually said or like how can i didn't know this before sort of thing so i feel like it's helpful

which is another argument for in support of watching movies at home and not in a theater yeah but we'll see you can you can get captions in a theater yeah yeah you can't it's not as widely available no all right what would you give the first film out of 10 i would give it a 9 out of 10 it's a easy 10 for me yeah I would also give it a 10. I'll give this one. Nice. A 10 out of 10. It's closer to a 10 than a 10, but I'm keeping it out of 10. All right. Does one of you want to introduce the two towers?

Sure. The two towers. Spoilers. So what's going on? Roto and Sam are going to Mordor, right? They have the ring and they meet Ghalm along the way. Who's like who loves the ring and he's trying to take it from them. And then you got the other guys, Legalis, Aragon, Oregon, whatever the fuck. And Gingorn. Oregon. Oregon. Oregon. And Gimley. And they're going to some king, King Theodin.

And they go there and they have the Battle of Helms Deep there. And Gandalf shows up and helps them. That's basically what happens. Like the highlight of the movie for me, the most standout moment, is Helms Deep, the Battle of Helms Deep. which is at the end. Yeah. And that whole sequence is... I'd agree. It's one of the best battle scenes I've ever seen.

It's fucking great. It's a very lengthy one, and it's well earned, well deserved. Definitely. 100%. The only thing I don't like about that sequence is the constant cutting back to the trees at one point. I was kind of irritated by that. But the sequence itself... Which doesn't happen in the theatrical.

I really. Oh, really? That was an extended thing. There's way more ent stuff put in the extent. did one. Okay, that's why I felt it this time then. All right, good to know. In saying that, though, it is a really good follow-up to the first movie. Because in a way, it's kind of the most difficult entry, just from like a story perspective.

It's the middle chapter. Like, it's neither a beginning nor an end. It doesn't get to have either in the movie, so it has to be a middle movie that has a satisfying conclusion. and that's what the Helms Deep thing kind of builds up to and gives you a huge set piece to base the movie around that increases the epicness. Each movie kind of doubles the epicness and scale.

So you have this like building and sense of progression. They're introducing things in this movie too. They introduced that whole new kingdom of Helms Deep. They introduce, well, I guess Gallum is in the first one, but he has like actual scenes in this and they interact with him. And it's really, that's really good. The seed was planted in the first film and now. Uh-huh. They probably didn't have the technology to do it well yet, which I guess is a big risk.

They didn't even know if Gollum was going to look good. Yeah, I guess so. Yeah. But it looks really good. Yeah, how did you feel he held up, Gollum in particular? It's not so bad that it's distracting or anything. Yeah, the third film he looks the best. There's a bit more detail there in the textures. And it's Andy Circus's performance that really like pushes it makes it great. I don't know if they mocapped his face. I don't know if they have the tech for that yet. but it's like his his physical acting and his voice and everything was just really great as gollum yeah if they didn't mocap it they certainly used a reference yeah definitely well i've seen the side by side of like him acting yeah as gollum or whatever it's yeah it's cool he does a good job the way they integrate him is is very well done on like a technical level um

like that that shot where he's like in the water trying to catch a fish and he's like scraping along the ground and it's the water's reacting really realistically it's like a really impressive use of that early kind of CG because aside from some of the more thoughtful shots like that

I found that he tended to look a lot better just in terms of like CG quality when they were doing kind of closer up sequences on his face like I think it's in the second one where he's like talking to himself and the camera's kind of swinging around and

yeah there's two changing from his personalities. One of those scenes in the next movie, but also, yeah, there's one in two towers. Yeah, yeah, and I remember thinking the CG animation looked pretty good in those moments when some of the

other stuff's a bit more aged. I also love just how that scene was shot, too. Because, like, I'm sure that aspect wasn't in the book of, like, how it was framed from, like, a cinematography perspective, I guess, or how it was shown. I thought that both in the

this film and the next film just the way that the internal conflict gollum smegel scenes were filmed was really creative and that it was in those moments where it was like yeah this is peter jackson like part of his personality kind of shines through in that yeah it's really clever you seem to have a lot of fun with gollum oh yeah because he's such an extravagant character and they kind of gave circus free reign it seemed to capture the the craziness of how many hundreds of years old is the character is supposed to be. It's just this weird freak monster that lived in a cave underground for like hundreds of years. Very iconic. He's a bit cuckoo. Yeah. And it's kind of like a risk being taken when you present a character in that way, especially with the voice. You don't want it to come off

as like jar jar irritating, you know? You don't want it to come off. Yeah. But they still manage to do something where it's like, okay, that's really weird and strange and higher pitched and all that. But it's not like ear rape. It's a character still. He wanted him to seem very like helpless too. Like at times he can be very like, please don't hurt me, yeah. But then he can be very intimidating and scary when he

he wants to be because that ring is just driven him crazy. It's a great like way to show where the ring can take you if you like hold on to it too long. He plays a crucial part in the story with his dynamic with Sam and Frodo because Frodo is kind of instantly sympathetic

to him not only because of the the stuff Gandalf tells him about how he used to be like a hobbit but he does represent what the worst case scenario for Frodo would be so he feels like if he can protect him and he can like redeem

Gollum then there's a chance for him in the end too because he like fears becoming him yeah he has to believe it's really cool yeah exactly that's why I never have a problem with the whole kicking Sam to the side after he's manipulated in the third movie because a lot of the discussion I remember when these

films were, you know, more prevalent in the early 2000s was that like, yeah, Frodo is annoying. He just doesn't, he doesn't try. He's not doing, he's not a very good hero, whatever. It's like, I don't know. I think he did a pretty good job of like with the, the weight that he's given of carrying it. And like, yeah, he's like, flawed in ways, but they do a good job of explaining that it's because of the burden he has to carry. Like, he still apologizes. And when he, like, lashes out of people and he's still like a good person at the end of it. Even with like how

low he's forced to go as part of what makes the story good is it is completely about the power corruption thing and how this just innocent little being is turned into this despite his heart he's turned into this kind of like spiteful selfish creature

by the last kind of action scene with the in Mount Doom or whatever. Yeah he is being manipulated by both the ring and Gollum at the same time so yeah it doesn't miss some charles and he's impaled like yeah he's impaired what three two times yeah he takes like eating and loses a finger a slow-mo face shot oh yeah yeah there's a lot of interesting setups and payoffs some more subtle than others like the I think

it was near the beginning of the movie they're using the the the rope that Galadriel or Galadriel, I don't remember how to pronounce her name, that she gave to Sam. And you, you know, during that moment he was like, oh, can I have something better? Can I get a sword or some shit? Yeah. But then it turned out to be very useful, which I think is kind of cool. Magic. These are really violent movies.

I love that. Yeah. Like with the orcs, like they just, there was a point where there's like an orcs had on a spike or something, but they like decapitate them or whatever. I guess it's fine because they're orcs. Yeah, it's weird. Eating each other, yeah. Yeah.

It's really gruesome. You're allowed to get away with a bit more when they're not humans, I guess. As long as they're not people, it's fine. Yeah, very weird. Yeah. They're like evil. It's fine. Yeah.

They're berth in caves. They come out of goo. It's gross. You're gross. I thought the, going back to like the effects work, the way they portray the huge armies for the Helms Deep Sequence looks pretty flawless because they, they cleverly kind of disguised. the scene with the rain and the wind and everything. Yeah, it's night.

It covers it a little bit more, yeah, and it's night time. The visual effects were showing, like, the large armies in this series, from my understanding or from my memory, like, that was pretty unheard of at the time to have so many different character models within a single frame in a CG environment. Like, that was pretty groundbreaking for the time,

especially considering, how well it was pulled off and how realistic it did look. Now you see an effect like that, you don't even think twice about it. But at the time, that was like a huge deal. Lots of crazy ambition and like groundbreaking things. Yeah. But I think because of that, I think the Helms deep kind of sequence is actually a better action sequence than anything that happens in the following movie.

I think it's that well done that it almost takes. some of the umph away from the third movie especially because the setup and the is so much kind of slower in the way it does converge at Helms Deep and all the separate separate story threads kind of come together at this one place yeah i also remember there's like more supernatural creatures in the third one like in that battle like orcs and giants fighting yeah and this was just like yeah dragons like this is just like i guess they're orcs but it just looks like two armies of people the little more grounded. I like the more grounded fantasy elements of it.

That's why I like Game of Thrones, I guess. I just like the... Yeah, that's why the Hulms deep battle is so great, one reason why. I love the battle, for sure. And I love... There's a bunch in this movie that I do love. And, you know, Ghalam being explored and stuff like that. But in terms of, like, my overall investment compared to the other two films,

I would say I was the least invested in what was going on in this one. And it might just be because it was like extended edition thing, but I'm pretty sure from memory, like two towers out of the three would have been, you know, the least memorable in terms of like what I get out of the experience. I'm less interested in what the human characters are doing, more interested in like Frodo's thing. And there are parts of the movie where, you know, it's a lot of fun still watching this battle. But you kind of like forget about Frodo for a bit. And coming back to him, I'm much more, I guess, emotionally. invested in what's going on. Like, technically, I love what's happening in this film. You know, the huge battle sequences. Like, there's a lot of elements that come together really well for

filmmaking, but on a personal, I guess, emotional investment level, the first film is a lot better. And the third film is slightly better for me in that sense. I like the plot, I guess, more. Like, I didn't like the elf stuff as much as I liked them going to the Helm's Deep and meeting with King, whatever, and like that whole plot going on. Yeah, it did. seem a bit more Game of Thronesy right yeah I guess so I don't even watch Game of Thrones but I kind of felt yeah like a political intrigue angle to it yeah we're like there's this other guy who's taken over for the king he's like poisoned him or something I thought that character was kind of one-dimensional yeah I enjoyed that more than I don't know going to Kate Blanchett and

talking with the elves yeah and then it'll end up to a big battle we also I don't know if we mentioned that all of this is shot in New Zealand or like most of it most of the series Great locations getting. The epic fistas and everything. Yeah, it's gorgeous. I don't know if they like sped up helicopter footage or what, but yeah, they were just like these long sweeping shots where you'd go like miles across and it was so cool.

Mm-hmm. Lots of running. Lots of running, yeah. But they do really like establish how much, like, time and how far they're going. Like I didn't pick up in the first movie. They say that like, in the minds of Moria

they're there for like days they're traveling through it for days just like such creepy it's just so creepy to imagine but for me my biggest problem with the two towers is the semi love triangle thing that's that's the one thing that I actually just I would happily not be present in the movie and I think it would be

better as a result yeah the love triangle with Fredo Sam and Gallum right? No with the Aragon Cors her name Uh, Buh,

she's not I know Yeah I first listed I mean She's the one who says I am no man In the third movie

Yeah He kills the Nileschool guy Yeah that character Aowin Yeah Aowin Played by Miranda Otto

Yeah Yeah her whole segment Um Really I don't mind Like I like Her place

In the story As like The woman Who wants to fight For what she cares about that she's like not she's not allowed basically so she has to sneak under cover but before you really get any of that development she is just kind of pining after arragorn and it's like a pointless love triangle because arragon like really doesn't give a shit about her like he's not even tempted

by her at all like it in the in the extended version there's that scene where she like gives him some soup and he's like so disgusted by it trying to be like spits it out and tries to throw it on the ground. Yeah, that's funny. So it's like, I don't understand the point of that love triangle kind of tease, to be honest. Yeah. I think it doesn't hold that much importance in the story because especially in the

third one, she just moves on instantly and goes out with Barme's brother anyway. It seems like they just wanted to give her something to do. How about the return of Gandalf? That's a big part of this movie. We find out he was fighting a hell monster. Yeah. He fell down with the hell monster and then he fought it with a sword. They're like gods, yeah.

Yeah. That was pretty cool. That always used to confuse me when I was like a kid. I didn't really understand. Uh-huh. Did people, were they surprised by that? They spoiled it in the trailer. Yeah, I remember.

Okay. I just wanted to know what people were thinking at the time. It's like, you gotta watch this movie, Gandalf back. Is this supposed to be like a Jesus thing? Like a resurrection thing? Yeah, he's like, he's like Neo in the second Matrix movie. Well, when the shot when he returns is like sunlit behind him, you can't see his face or anything. That's partly because they were.

want you to think it's Saraman but there's also like Jesus like Christ element. Yeah, I was interesting. His it's like they melted from Saraman's audio to like Ian McKellen. Yeah. It's really interesting how they did that. But it's like why did the character do that? Why are you trying to be a dick to make your friends see you? It's the audience, yeah.

He's being a massive troll. It was cool. Like this is not the time. They shot at you. What if they actually killed him? That would be an unfortunate ending. Yeah. Yeah.

I kind of, I like his, like, prophetic role in the story, though, within being, he's kind of brought back from the dead, but it's not the same as, it's actually really similar to, like, a story thing in Game of Thrones, where it's, like, a character that keeps being brought back by, like, the ethereal gods, and you have, like, one purpose, and you have to complete that purpose, then you go, like, kind of back to where you came. I like that aspect in terms of the fantasy stuff, because they, you have to have a character that can dump some kind of exquisites.

so you have any clue as to like what's going on so having this all-knowing kind of wizard character is quite essential to just keeping you up to speed because he actually knows what's happening in the world so he can yeah provide some answers yeah i i like the purpose he serves in the story but i prefer gandolph the gray as a character i felt like he was much more he had a bit more like charisma to him he was a bit more like playful this one he's kind of like almost too serious at points as a character. Still like him, but prefer the gray boy. Yeah, I agree.

I agree. How about the trees? Yeah, the ants. We haven't talked about the ants. No, we haven't at all. Do you think the CG on them is kind of dated? Yeah, still nothing as bad as like the tentacle monster. But, yeah.

Sure. I'd say the most aged part of the Entz visual effects are the close-ups on Mary and Pippen when they're on that kind of tree animatronic thing that they've seen. the face. There's just something about the like backgrounds and the way it's moving. It looks quite weird to me. Yeah, the way that it's like melt those together. It just seems weirdly inconsistent.

Yeah, it's the most janky part of the trilogy to me. Right. It's the end stuff. Yeah, I didn't, I didn't enjoy so much of it being in this movie. But so I guess I might, if I ever, next time I watch the trilogy, I might just do the normal edition, the theatrical edition for this movie. I don't know. I don't know how much I'd be missing.

Yeah, but. I think they don't have like that really good burial scene where the king is like reminiscing about how no parents should have to bury their child. I've always liked that scene. But I think that's only in the extended. Okay. So there's a bunch of stuff like that. I almost wish I could just tick down a list of the extended scenes I want and watch my own version. Yeah.

Which people have done, I'm sure. Yep. Yeah. You can definitely do that. I was going to say there's a really. funny line from Sauramon just pacing around by himself and he's like, Gandalf the white, Gandalf the fool. It's kind of lame, but really funny.

Even the cheesier parts of these movies I still love in the exact same way as like the Ramey Spider-Man trilogy. Because it's like the cheesiness is like more acceptable, I feel. Or maybe it's just nostalgia. Yeah, because like I don't know. like I don't know how you can sell like a fantasy universe without having a bit of you know silliness in there like if it was taken so seriously to the point where there's no levity that's when you kind of start to laugh at it you know I guess getting back to the the big

fight scene stuff that spans over quite a long time in the film like there's a good build-up to it I feel like the movie is you know slow slowly, slowly building up to it. And then when it happens, it's like, okay, well, this is actually something. It's not just like a tiny little thing at the end. And there's a few different elements that I really like about it. I really enjoyed, you know, the sequence where you're watching these children gearing up to battle and, like, putting on, like... Very well, but one, yeah.

Yeah, yeah. That was, that had, like, an emotional impact there. Although you didn't really see them in the battle. It was just them gearing up to battle. They probably all died within the first 10 seconds off screen. Yeah. On a lighter note, the kill count competition between Gimley and Legalis, I find very amusing. And that's something that I definitely remember being a child watching that, and that's something that stuck with me.

This movie has some really good miniatures in it, in particular. Miniature effects, like, in the Battle of Helms Deep, when the bomb goes off, that, like, destroys the wall. I just really like how that looks That's always looked really good to me And the same with when the ants are like pulling down the dam And the way the water It flows through it doesn't look like CG water Because it actually built this huge

Minitures are great Yeah they just always look amazing I want to see more movies use miniatures Because they work really well It's like why why create something artificially in CG When you can just create in real life On a smaller scale and it's real You know

Mm-hmm. Very effective a lot of times. That's another thing I find confusing about, like, in the first movie, there's that scene where the elf makes the water turn into, like, a bunch of charging horses. Oh, yeah. And I thought the effects there looked pretty good, to be honest. Pretty good for the time.

Yeah, like, some of this stuff from so long ago looks as good as it does. I guess a big part of it is just art direction and, you know, the detail of all the paintings and the, they went and got these, like, concept artists who've worked on like the series for like decades and stuff like that so there's like an authenticity to a lot of it and just how it's coordinated and storyboarded in terms of like which shots are going to be CG and which ones aren't and which parts of yeah no the storyboarding is actually a good shout because it is I find it especially apparent in the first movie just how well put together just the visual side of it is yeah it has to be like classic stuff well coordinated or

else it's just not gonna work you can't just you can't just like figure out which shots you're gonna get on the day yeah you can with some movies there's so much going on yeah there's like 80 characters you gotta follow gigantic it all it all comes together yeah and I mean because of that there are some moments where there's like continuity errors or whatever just because it's like okay yeah they had so many different days of shooting like this is probably like a week later or something like I think it was um Pippin or Mary, which one of them

when they're like running around escaping from the orks or whatever they are and crawling around with their hands tied and then the horse is about to stop on him and he's like no, but his arms are like spread out to the side I'm like, but your arms were just tied

it's not like it matters a lot that was what I stuck out. There was also... Does he not cut it on an axe or something or is that the other? No, they do after the fact. Because then when it comes back to it, it starts with the like, oh, arms to the side and then they crawl away and then cut it.

It's not, it doesn't ruin the movie, obviously. I'm not trying to make it a big deal with it. Another little tidbit, fun fact that I'm sure has been repeated many times on Reddit when Vigo Mortensen kicks the helmet when he's like pissed off, he's like, that's him breaking his toe and they kept the take, supposedly. His like genuine visceral reaction.

Really? Yeah. You can tell. He's like screaming in pain. I find that funny Yeah that's funny Yeah because not only is this huge plot going on But this one does have the tracking aspect With the like flashbacks and everything

At the beginning of the movie where Aragon's trying to find The hobbits and you like think they're dead for a bit And they're not Yeah there's a lot of like different entry going on Because it all comes together with like three climaxes At the same time All happening in different places Like you've got the Helms Deep victory, you've got the Entz destroying the castle, and you have Sam's speech.

That's what I just boil it down to. He's got that kind of emotional speech while they show the victory and implant a bit of hope in the hopelessness that is to follow. And also kind of like solidifying just how essential of a character he is too. Like this is the movie where it's like, okay, Sam is crucial to the story. Like, he can't remove him. Like, the story does not work without him. He's not just, there's so many movies where it's like you have a sidekick character and they kind of force in some way that they're essential, but it's not really.

Like, but this one, he actually feels like an absolutely necessary character. And I like that about this. They are quite good with that overall. Like, there isn't much that could be trimmed out a lot. Yeah. Like most people have an important role to play. This, uh, this movie was the first set of the three that, uh, He used a Wilhelm scream, from what I could tell.

Oh, yeah. That was great. 2000ism. Yeah, yeah. I remember noticing that. Are you glad they didn't change the title? Because, of course, this came out one year after that. Oh, yeah, I guess it's a little bit after.

Yeah. It's a big controversy. They thought they were, like, capitalizing on the fact that, yeah. Wow, that's funny. But that's just the name of the book, isn't it? Yeah. Yeah. No, that's just the name.

Sorry. I'm glad they didn't. What did they want to change it to? Yeah. Yeah, what could you change it to? I feel like now they would give in and do it. A bunch of people would go on Twitter and they'd give in. Yeah, I don't know, maybe.

Maybe. You never know. It's so coincidental, though. It's not like these like movies about earthquakes or whatnot, and then there's like a horrible earthquake in Japan type thing. There's nothing in the movie that has to do with that. It's like a fantasy movie. There was definitely a Reddit post of just,

an image of someone holding their ticket stub, and it was for Lord of the Rings, the Two Towers. And I think it might have been, I don't know, like 2009 or something, it was just re-releasing at a theater. They just decided to play it. And the date of the screening was on September 11th, and the post read, what a weird date to play this movie, but go off, I guess.

It sounded kind of amusing. All right. Anything. I guess that's two towers. Yeah, I guess that is the two of the towers. What would you give it? Not out of ten, same as the other one. Yeah, I give it a ten again, but it's the one I'm most critical of.

I think it might be closer to a nine than a ten. I'm torn between a seven and an eight. I'm not sure. Least invested in this one out of all of them, but mostly just for personal reasons. I think like, I don't know, on a technical level, it holds up pretty well, but I think just pacing-wise, I'm not as into it as the other ones. So, yeah. Yeah, I'm a feeling the shorter version might be the better version of two towers, because I felt it drag a bit more too.

Yeah. I don't know how fair it is to just judge it on one, I don't know. Yeah, it takes a while to get there. There's a lot of build-up. I don't know if this one got any Oscars. I know the next one It was nominated. I don't think it was nominated for.

Yeah, it got all of them. The next one. And the first one got a few. Yeah. All right. Alex, do you want to introduce Return of the King? Let's talk about the third in the trilogy,

the Kappa, the Return of the King, 2003. The longest one of the three. The special edition is, what, four hours something? Exactly, four hours. It's three hours of credits, though. Yeah, true. There's no way to avoid a,

huge movie either way. But yes, it's the, it's the Kappa. It kind of starts showing Gullum's backstory, which I always forget is how the, how the movie opens, and I was nicely surprised, because it's a nice, nice little story to kind of remind you

and get things flowing again. But yeah, it's about the ultimate destruction of the ring with the Frodo and Sam storyline and their journey coming to end, with all that conflict. And I guess the other major part is the, lots of fighting lots of wars the war for gondor and arragorn reclaiming the throne is the other

major beat it's not in the three story thing i don't think in quite the same way it kind of branches out again so you've got lots of little conflicts going on within battles and stuff like that there's lots going on with like boromia's father and his weird preferential treatment like he hates Faramia we forgot to mention I guess in the second movie yeah

Boramy's brother who is yeah he's like the red-headed stepchild even though he's blood he's just treated like shit by his dad the unwanted child

sad little bit there was a really funny meme posted on the posted I've got to clear my throat I'm sorry there's a really funny meme posted on the Lord of the Rings memes subreddit

that I discovered the other day and it was just like images of of like the breakfast that he would give to Boromir versus Ferramir. Oh, I think I saw that. Oh, it's so funny. I can't even describe it.

Just look it up. It's probably still like top post right now, anybody listening, even though it's a week after we talk about it. Yeah, so where does this one kind of, there's not much else to the story is there. It's just kind of the caper. They achieve their journey and everyone completes their arc. If they have one set up.

And there's lots of fights, lots of fights. Lots of fights. And then lots of satisfying, like, goodbyes. Yeah. The whole, like, last hour of the movies, them, like, all resolving their stories, basically. It just keeps going and going and going. Yeah, it was this one where I really noticed the horror influence

we kind of talked about earlier. Mm-hmm. Of, like, the whole spider sequence. Oh, yeah. Yeah, that one. A definite kind of horror thing. They all actually have quite a lot of horror elements. Like in the second one, we didn't mention that creepy scene where Frodo, like, falls in the water, and there were these things that are, like, grabbing it and stuff like that.

Those are things that would freak me out as a child. Yeah. I remember freaking me out. And just the, there's a lot of payoffs in return of the king. My favorite being when Gollum gets the ring. I think that's quite a powerful moment with a, like, all the sound just is bored down into that, like, that piece of music. Yeah. in his eyes, like nothing is important aside from that he finally achieved his goal and the irony of him

kind of destroying the ring through just the addiction side of it. It's the most appropriate way to end the story. I could not think of a better way to do it to still have that kind of like success within the goals that are trying to be achieved by the characters, but not just have it be this like sappy like, yeah, we did it and nothing went wrong sort of thing. And it doesn't feel unjustified when things go wrong. And it's interesting how it plays out too. I find it very appropriate.

It's kind of like bittersweet in a sense. Yeah, I like, I like, oh, you deserved it, bud. He's a really interesting character because you don't really... He's not a mustache twirling villain. No, not at all. He's very sympathetic. You'd completely understand why he is the way he is, even though he is kind of evil. He's got more internal conflict than the majority of villains that exist.

He's like trying to see. He's battled. himself too he's not just being battled by other characters mm-hmm no it's really interesting that that's definitely the strongest part of the movie to me is the uh sam frodo golem yeah final part of the journey with the whole like lying about well the manipulation angle's really fun with gollum kind of framing sam and getting into go away so you can have the hero moment for sam where he he really does save the day like without him they would have been completely fucked then he just carry

him up the fucking mountain. Yeah. Yeah, and he even carries the ring for a bit. Yeah. Oh yeah, that was a nice little reveal. He's like, they've taken the ring. He's like, no, I took it. It makes sense, too. He's like, I thought you're dead.

Yeah, it makes total sense. Yeah. How do you think this spider thing held up? Visually? I mean, it's still creepy as fuck. It works well. Yeah. I mean, it's great for

its time for animation. I don't really have it. issue with it at all. Yeah, it was fine. Yeah, no, I like the spider sequence. In this one, the most aged thing to me were the big elephants in the big war sequence, because it's already such a huge battle, and it's kind of crescendoed at a certain point. They kind of focus on this, like, really ugly orc who's this general or something, his commander, and you focus on them for a while, and then one army clashes into another, and then, you're, you're going to, and then one army clashes

into another and then the elephants show up and then you have the kind of deus ex machino the movie the the zombie hoard thing oh yeah and if I had to if I had to point anything that's my least favorite part of Return of the King and I think that's a pretty common

complaint is just I really wish those seeds were sown a bit earlier or something because for a movie that does have so many good like or for a trilogy of movies that has such good setups and payoffs over the three I really wish there was some way it could have been sewn a bit earlier so it doesn't just feel like well this this it does just kind

of come out of nowhere um and then saves the day for them do you not feel that way about the ants though because they seem kind of comparable just like how they're showing up in the story it feels the same yeah yeah because the the the ants and the way that the whole story of the second one is is basically justifying why the ants are there and why their involvement is kind of forced which i guess is kind of similar it makes sense to me that like Like they're always going through woods and there are trees everywhere that like magical tree creatures being involved in this is not that strange to me. But I don't know what it is about the zombies and the, yeah, I don't know. It's just a preferential thing, I suppose, with him like convincing them and then them saving the day.

Yeah. It's just a time thing, I think. It happens quite quickly. It's a bit better in the extended version because they kind of linger around and set it up a little bit more. but again it is just like yeah I know they're coming so there's not much tension for me like there is in the Helms Deep one as much like I really feel like a lot of people are

are really losing in that Helms Deep fight and I'm not waiting for some ghosts to show up yeah and then they just don't use them at the end they're like you can go yeah that's what I mean like when they when they show up and save the day and then they've got to like explain why they can't keep using them And they've got to like go their own way because they've you know, it's just like the fantasy stuff I usually like start checking out on like fantasy universes when they get to like this degree.

Yeah, that makes sense. It doesn't ruin it for me, but it's just like yeah, okay. Let's just get past this so we can get to the more satisfying stuff for me. The only part of this movie that felt like kind of unnecessary for me was just like a tiny, tiny thing. Not the not the opening scene flashback with Gullum and Schmeagle, but. when later on, I mean, not even that much later, I think like maybe 20 minutes later or something, Ghalem says, Schmeagel did it once, he can do it again, like referencing to killing them. And then it flashes back again.

And it's like, eh, we saw that. Yeah, I thought the same thing. Yeah. Like, everybody would know what you're talking about, hopefully. But there is another thing that really bugs me about this trilogy. It's such a minor, like, nitpicking detail that I don't, I don't. can't say I would have noticed otherwise, but for not watching the behind-the-scenes stuff. But now that I know it, it really bugs me every time I watch it.

And that's that whenever they have a shot of someone underwater, they're not really underwater. So they have these like CG like bubbles coming out of their nose and mouths. And I really noticed it until it was pointed out in the special features. Yeah, I didn't notice it either. Now when I watch it like it is really recognizable to me and it really bodes me. I'll never unsee it. Oh no. Yeah.

That's it. Just ruined it for everyone. Even in that like ghost scene, there's still some, there's still some enjoyable moments there. Like when the skulls are falling down. Yeah, I like the skulls. Yeah. I like skull, but...

I like when Gimley's trying to blow away the ghost hand. Just like it's a fucking bug or something. That's a funny moment. I think it was about in the second movie where just like, I got to the point where like every time, it showed Gimley on screen, I was just thinking, like, I could just re-edit this movie and add, like, a wet fart sound every time he was on screen. And it would have, like, more or less the same kind of tone for him appearing on the screen. So I'm just like cut to him.

He does, do. Does he have a, he has a burp scene, doesn't he? Like a belch scene in the drinking contest. I think so. So you get a burp. No fart, they're bullshit. He's a funny character. So what do you guys think about the there's a very common criticism of this movie

Where when I first heard it I was like okay, yeah, I guess that makes sense But now after watching the trilogy again recently I don't know if the criticism holds that much weight people say like why didn't they just why didn't they fly To Mordor with the birds from the end of the movie They could have skipped the whole yeah the Eagles they could have skipped the whole journey and made it easier I don't know after watching the trilogy recently now. I had that in the back of my mind

and I noticed other parts in the movie where it's like, yeah, but they're also the enemies are flying too. And there's points where they have to like hide down low so that they don't get spotted by like their scouts and like all that stuff. So I think they probably would have just been obliterated if they

took a straight path using a using an eagle to get there. Like they don't address it early on or anything but still I don't know if that would have worked out the way that some people pretend it would. Yeah, there are like some logical things that would be like, first off, the eye surely would see them.

Yeah. From like anywhere. So anything that goes near it, they make a good point of showing that, like, this horrible beam can spot you from anywhere. Yeah. And like, um, by the,

by the third movie, one of the bigger, like, antagonist being Saruman is dead. And he seemed to have like a big, a big role in terms of like the, enemy's power like using those crows to spy on people and using magic to create in the mountains the snow to cascade down and everything like and then he's he's out of the picture by

the third one so that might make a difference that yeah like that that's really not on my mind when I'm watching the movies to be honest what was your favorite scene from this movie um I have a couple but there's a there's a particular moment I really like just for the execution of it kind of like an action moment where Gandalf goes out on his own, well he's not on his own, I think he has the hobbit on the horse with him, but he goes

out on his own and kind of saves the soldiers that are just being tormented by one of those flying beasts and the score plays this really cool song as he holds up the stuff and there's like the, that like ultra wide shot of the beam coming out

of his, um, it just looks like a piece of concept art basically of the wizard holding back the dragon. It's just like a really memorable burn into my brain piece of imagery. What about you, Ralph? I don't know.

Through the end, probably with Frodo and Gallum and all them in Mordor. We bow to know one's a pretty good bit. Mm-hmm. Yeah. The battle's great. It's not as good as Helm State for me, personally, but, you know.

One sequence that stuck out for me was kind of like a transitionary sequence was when they were lighting, the fires over the mountains and we got this long. I loved the music there. I loved the emotional impact. I thought that that was like really well presented. Really good ideas going into that.

Yeah. When things come together in this trilogy, like when things are building up, like when Gandalf shows up with a bunch of people to save the day at any given moment in time, like all the emotions that are building up, it's just executed so well. You don't get that in a lot of other movies and I think part of what helps it is the length and and just how many things are happening that when things build up, it is cumulative in a way.

There's much more of an impact. Yeah. And because they're being set up and paid off at different times. Like you get them constantly, different payoffs at certain times in the movies. There's a lot of like depth to the world and to the storytelling of it and the music too, like you said. The music is yeah That really helps too When I was under the impression that

Amazon was remaking this story All I was thinking was like You can't make the music better There's room for improvement Yeah On every other aspect But you cannot make the music better It's not possible

Yeah they can't improve the same music That's why I can't really be It would have to be set in like I don't know the same world as Peter Jackson's movies But like something like that Where they use the same music and it feels like part of those movies. I feel like that's the way to make it work.

Who was it, Howard Shore? Yeah. Maybe they can get them back. That'd be cool. Yeah. Would not complain. But it could be like with the Star Wars movies. Like John Williams' music is kind of whatever for those.

The new ones, I mean. Yeah, true. The ones he made for Disney. They're like fine, but there's not like, it's not like the Empire Strikes Back. Yeah, it's not the same. Yeah. It's not the same. They really raise the stakes.

with each movie. In this one, we got two Wilhelm screams. That was the most... Wilhelm screams out of all of the movies. First zero, then one, then two. So they're really... Yeah. Really raising the stakes.

Why two? Come on, Peter. One is too much already. Two Wilhelm screams in one movie? I did notice in this one, it was where the Peter Jackson, we kind of know now, seem to be coming out a little more.

where he's clearly more comfortable with the like epic scale of the CG and everything so you have stuff that like he clearly really wanted to to be in the movie like like the legolus taking down the the elephant by himself type stuff like that's some fun cheesy maybe maybe yeah that's one word for it but at the same time it it does make sense to have the third one be the most grand the grandiose one like just so you have some progression over the trilogy so that's especially hard too much that's hard with like these first two movies that are so epic already yeah i get that but like all of those movies have this indulgence or i don't know if that's the right word but they feel like king kong is three

and a half hours long and like the hobbit movies each of them is like three hours long and it just gets to a point where it's like i don't even know if he could tell a story in an hour and a half he just there's so much there's so much going on i don't know i feel like It's a gradual thing because I don't feel that indulgence in the first movie and it's just a little bit there in the second movie and then it's a bit more there still in Return of the King and then by the time you get to King Kong and the fucking Hobbit movies is kind of in full effect. It's not distracting at all in these. Like I would never criticize these for that. I actually like those moments, just fine. Yeah, the action's really good for the most part.

Yeah, it is there. It is like we're watching a four hour long movie. Okay. Here we go. One thing I do want to shout out is how strong the, like, architecture and, like, design of the world is. Like, it's so memorable. Like, every location has such a strong visual style to it. It really does help.

Like, in the third movie, a lot of the scenes are set in, like, the city in Gondor, that big white city, like, in the middle. Yeah. All the wars, the battle scenes are set. It's just such a striking piece. of imagery with the like dying tree at the top and there's so much cool stuff like that. Powerful imagery goes a long way. One of the most memorable parts of the first movie for me was quite literally just like when they're on the two boats and they see the two statues with their hand like basically saying

like stop or whatever. It's like that visual is just so powerful and resonating that even before watching it again, it's like that that's just something that's stuck with me from being a kid, even though that, you know, there's nothing like insane or crazy that's happening in that scene. There's not like a fight scene or anything. They're just going to another location. But everything coming together, especially with the music, it's just, it leaves an impression. They do really let the world breathe. And it feels like it's existed for a long time before these characters have been in it. They do a really good job of that over the whole trilogy, actually. Like, the first

movie has the the trolls that have turned to stone and the third movie has that really nice little moment where they find the statue that's head has been knocked off and the like weeds have grown into like a crown for the king and stuff like that there's loads of nice quiet moments like that it's one of the most consistent fictional universes from what i can tell i mean i haven't read the books but so from what i can tell but it feels that way you can just see how influential it is how it just bleeds into all other, especially fantasy, like, works from the last, like, hundred years. You just can't escape it. Did anybody have the kind of like the bed scene at the end ruined for them a bit by this hilarious YouTube dub

that was really popular after the movie came out? No, I haven't seen that. So funny. Everything is memes from the movies. Yeah. That's a particularly funny one. Yeah. Yeah, it's just they basically somebody redubbed that bed scene.

just made it so much more awkward and like homerotic as if froto and sam weren't already homerotic enough in the movies but uh yeah just dubbed over it and it's just look it up it's hilarious and every time i watch the movie now i think of that it's kind of funny i mean it's goofy on its own either way it's not like the most serious scene that's ever existed so it's not like completely ruined but it's kind of funny yeah the dialogue's really good really memorable like a really poetic in a lot of ways. Yeah. They seem to have taken a lot of dialogue from the books, obviously,

which, like, why would you not, if you have this source material, like, and it really, it really flows nicely with the way that, what they chose to put in there and how they define the characters. We have to talk about the ending. Yeah, what about the other major criticism

people always spout for this movie saying that it's got so many endings, it just never ends. Yeah, which I kind of criticize it, too. I mean, it's not that bad. It really isn't. And it's good to see everyone wrapped up well. It's better than not seeing them wrapped up at all or for it to be not satisfying.

But I mean, it's a lot. It goes on. You think the movie's over and then it fades out and it keeps going. You're like, holy shit. I can imagine being in a theater and being annoyed. It feels somewhat appropriate, though, given how long the trilogy is anyway.

Yeah, that's the way I see it. If it's like 12 hours, if half an hour of the 12 hours is just like wrapping it up, that seems reasonable to me. Proportional. Yeah, exactly. You've got to end a lot of different things. And the extended version, the extended version of the third one, it seems like one of the more essential ones, to be honest, because you don't have the Saruman being killed scene, so

you just don't know what happens to Saruman. And there's a bunch of other stuff with like the ending. There's way less like clarity and like explanation of what's going. on there. I know the mouth of Sauron bit isn't in there because it kind of, that actually kind of serves no, no plot purpose because in the book you're supposed to think that Frodo is dead at that moment and they're reporting that to Aragorn and everyone. So you as the like reader or viewer know that he could possibly be dead, but in this version of it, we know that he's alive. So it is a pointless scene for the most part. I feel like I've seen a lot of characters designed that

way too. The like helmet covering everything but their mouth sort of thing. I feel like I've seen that in a bunch of other things. Yeah, and he's just instantly killed anyway. Yeah. In a strange character. Did you feel as though the scene

at the end where he throws the ring down and they're in the mountain? Was it Mount Doom? Was that what it was called? Was it Mountain? Yeah. Okay. Yeah, when they're in there, love the scene, but I feel like the kind of environment is a bit lacking compared to every other scene in the whole trilogy really like there's

like some sort of environment there this one just felt mostly it was a little bit too much green screen for me in terms of what was there like I don't know how they would have pulled it on otherwise yeah when they're inside it just felt a bit more artificial of an environment compared to the rest of the trilogy which you know even if there are computer generated elements like usually there's something there to kind of latch it down into reality. I don't know. It's still a really good scene, but like

just felt more George Lucasy in that moment. Yeah, I think it's just the being inside a volcano thing. It's just going to be so require so many visual effects either way. It's just lava everywhere. All right. Anything else

you wanted to say about the films? That's it. I think we're pretty harsh on this one. Still think it's great. That's the thing. You have to remember the context of it. I've seen these movies so many times. It's taken me a long time to figure out the things that I don't like about it as much.

Because I never used to really, like, even think about it. I just watched them. Being a little more thorough than. Yeah, I'm just thinking about them in terms of, like, yeah, just the structure. And I was thinking about that Love Triangle thing especially annoyed me because I saw how they took that element from all the ring. and forced it into the Hobbit story as well. That really bothers me. Like it worked so well.

Right. Yeah. Yeah. All right. I get that. What would you give it out of ten? Nine out of ten. Yeah, I give them all tens.

Yeah, I give them all nines. And I'm giving this one an eight out of ten. And I want to give all of them tens. And I currently have them all rated as ten on IMDB, because I rated them a long. time ago in my IMDB account's very old but I might change it to reflect the individual films rating but at the same time I almost feel like it's a part of a greater experience like the second and third movie don't really exist without the first one yeah they don't

stand on their own at all really and it's like I like it wouldn't enjoy them on the same way yeah I often like to rate the individual movies within something that feels like it's actually a part of a greater whole I like to rate them as like the whole experience for me And in that sense, it's like close to a 10 at least for like the overall experience. For me, the whole experience was like a 9-9 to 10 all the way through. So they were like low points maybe toward the third one. You know, maybe I wasn't the biggest fan of like the first half of fellowship. Like once everything came together and the fellowship started, I got a little more into it.

And my axe. Yeah. I just liked meeting all of them. Yeah. All right. Awesome. Is it the best trilogy? It might be.

I'm trying to think of a better trilogy, honestly. Yeah, it's up there. Other than like Madagascar, maybe. Godfather. I have a trilogy to recommend that that's up there. Mm-hmm. I won't say. Okay, awesome.

Okay, let's do some questions then from the Sard community. If you want to leave your own questions, head over to the Sardonicar subreddit where there will be a suggestion thread. You can ask us whatever you like. Let's start with this one from Pike and Shot 1618. who says, how often do you guys visit the Sardonica subreddit?

All the time. They tend to look a couple times a day. Yeah. It's fairly active. Despite the constant nostalgia critic spam, it's pretty long. Oh yeah, there's new memes of like using the intro gunshot. Splicing it with another movie. That's pretty funny.

They used a clip from my review of Gotti. Yeah, I saw that. Where Antonio gets shot, yeah. Yeah, I find Reddit to be a good tool to engage with a community. And it's, you know, it's nice to have something that is also curated by the community. So you can understand, at least for the Reddit portion of the community, you can understand popular sentiments or, you know, requests. And it's a good way to get someone's attention if the community collectively decides

that it's something that would want attention. You know. Yeah, fair enough. I'm on Reddit. Usually before I try to fall asleep or something, the end of a day. Sometimes when I just wake up, but then most of the day I'm just like editing. Okay. Nico Liberti says, what are your favorite slash most tastefully done?

Sex scenes in cinema. Hmm. I don't know about you guys, but sex scenes are something that have the potential to annoy me. They're not essential to the story. If they're just, you know, frivolous, like, sex scene. just thrown in. Yeah. Yeah, it's like, what are you trying to do there?

It's like, I'm supposed to get a boner right now? Yeah, like, Game of Thrones is really bad for it. Oh, really? It gets to such a point where it's like... Yeah, exactly. It's so ridiculously over the top that it's actually distracting me from what's going on. Yeah. Team America?

Yeah. Well, if it's supposed to make you laugh, that's different. Do they mean, like, a tasteful one? I don't know. like in Terminator like Sarah Connor and Kyle Reese Like I don't even remember it really

Like that's like fine The new Blade Runner Is one of my favorite ones With the giant The like hologram Yeah Like going over the woman That's like a unique one

Yeah I would also Give kind of a similar answer The sex scene in her It's kind of like bizarre. It's like erotic role play more than a sex scene, but it works, and it's important to the story, you know? Yeah. Yeah. That's a good example. There's a really bad one in

I know who killed me with Lindsay Lohan. And it's just like, it has nothing to do with the rest of the movie, basically. It's just like, okay, they're fucking now. And it's like weirdly comedic. It seems like they're trying to make as much noise as possible, and the mom's like in the kitchen downstairs and it keeps cutting back to her. And the music sounds like that oh yeah so like a parody of that or something like a parody of that it's so weird and this movie supposedly it's a horror movie but that's just in there show girls had a terrible one in the pool oh yeah that's like a total piece of shit that was a

like fortuitous nudity fucking stupid like scene like that scene made no sense and was so like comedic and bad unintentionally surprised you're not mentioning uh don't look now Ralph would you consider that one to be oh yeah I guess that yeah that's a good one I guess yeah because they were just like a couple wasn't trying to be like pornographic they just like walked around naked he was like brushing his teeth naked it's like okay that was one of the more interesting aspects yeah if you're presenting people like normally like I guess they do things like that they walk around naked and have sex yeah it's like we're a gratuitous horror movie or something those are yeah it should always have a purpose in the story and that's you know completely

independently of whether or not it's a sex scene. Like every part of the movie should have a purpose. It's just, it sometimes feels really at a place when it's like, oh, and here's a sex scene. And this is the one part of the movie that like serves literally no purpose. And you're just throwing it in there to show a titty. Yeah. I don't know. Or like the room, like has terrible sex scenes that are even repeated.

They never end. Yeah. It's like totally pointless. And it goes on for two minutes. When the director casts himself for a sex scene, those are always amusing. Oh, no. You're doing this for different reasons. A sex scene that stands out in my mind is that really fucked up one from, I guess it's kind of spoilers.

But in the movie Gone Girl is one towards the end. Let's just not specify it, I guess. Yeah, yeah. Like Mid-Somer. Mid-Somer has a sex scene. Yeah, that one's messed up. I fucking love Gun-Girl. Uh-huh

Yeah, man's great It's amazing I'd like when they use something like that Like a sex scene for Like a kind of crucial Story moment Or some kind of expression Yeah beyond it just being

Yeah I'm now thinking of There's at least one sex scene In Syneciki in New York And it's not like gratuitous You're not supposed to get a boner You're supposed to feel sad You know

It's just like It's like pathetic Anomalisa has that sex scene as well That's a great one That's a really great one That's a really great one. That would be one of the top examples for me of like ones where you actually feel some emotion from it

and it's like important to the characters sort of thing. It's very like natural and human too. There's so much going on in there artistically that it never feels like, ha ha, we're just showing a titty. Check of time. Yeah. Unzip them boys.

Right. the theater yeah like pee we harman yeah big mistake suicide king underscore 15 says this what is your opinion on the theory of signs the happening and after earth being a trilogy set in the same universe does this change your viewpoints of m night i've never heard this before they might have just pulled this out of their ass i don't know i feel like i would have heard about this shit before everything's A theory It's like the Pixar theory And all these fucking

Superhero theories I wouldn't be surprised if After Glass It's like He decided to make the M-night Charamelan Universe Cinematic Universe

Well As much as I love all three of those movies I don't think they're connected Well like Tarantino A lot of his movies are set in the same world They have like the same burger joint Or something Like you can see that in a few of the movies

Cool little Easter egg, yeah Yeah But maybe it's something like that We're like M-night's not trying to make a trilogy of movies Maybe he's like He throws in some things to connect them I don't even think that's the case He's a little full of himself

Because Jaden Smith at the very beginning of after Earth Is like the entire thing is an exposition dump Where he talks about the history Of like the planet and stuff You'd think that he would mention that trees Tried to kill people at some point In that exposition You think that that would be like a weird

Relevant thing I don't know. Because like the aliens and signs are not the aliens. Then aliens came down. Yeah, that too. He's like, yeah, this is the second time aliens happened actually, the OSHA. Like, because the whole introduction where he's talking about that shit, like he does play into the whole like, oh yeah, and we killed the environment and that's why we had to do this

and this. You'd think that if that tied into the happening, that would be where it tied in. But he doesn't mention that. So, yeah, I think this person pulled it out of their fucking ass. If you want to make a compelling argument on the suburb. writ it I would love to see it but I'm not sure there is a compelling argument there I would love to see it surely um signs being connected to the happening and after earth is only bad for signs anyway right because signs is the one out of those three that anyone will defend who the

fuck is defending the happening or after me they're fucking great they're so much more and it's not making signs better that the happening is funny you know what I mean yeah this makes it a little better for me. I've seen the happening and after Earth more times than I've seen signs. I've gladly watch them again right away.

So long. Yeah, maybe we should maybe we should discuss it at some point. Where does the village sit in this? The trilogy? The village is the most boring in my opinion. Yeah, I could see that.

It's like right where he starts falling off the deep end, yeah. Right when people are starting to be like, oh wait, is M-night not great? That was like the moment. It was that movie. debatably the lady in the water was when more people were like okay

this is bad that was when I remember everyone like properly turning on him yeah the village was a bit more split yeah nobody liked lady in the water and then after that he just came out with hit after hit yeah no I watched glass recently

god it's bad man it's actually it's actually like insufferably bad like I couldn't believe how bad yeah it's horrendous I really want, I might have mentioned this before, but I really, really, really want like a big M-night Blu-ray box set. But I don't think that'll ever happen because the target demographic for his good movies is not the same as the target demographic for his bad movies.

Who's going to buy that box set other than me is the question. You can't release it without releasing it like somewhat ironically, which might be a little offensive for him. I don't know. But I want it. I want it to exist. Big criterion. What a box set that would be?

You have like last airbender and after Earth next to the signs and then and then six cents. Unbreakable. Yeah. It's the perfect filmography. There's art within the filmography timeline itself. It shows a downward spiral. There's a story within that story. Yeah.

That's why I love him so much. All right. You want to do one more question? Yeah, we can do one more. There's one I want to end on from Mani Dog Wawa 4. He says, as you may know, The Last of Us 2 has recently been leaked online

and is now receiving a huge amount of backlash on the direction. The story goes, my question for you guys are, do you think that the game will still be good? Do you think people are overreacting? And most importantly, do you think Nauty Dog will recover? So, yeah, the last of us two leaked a couple hours of

footage and the whole plot synopsis and everything it was all leaked and is out there if you wish to view it we won't say anything now if we have seen any of it yeah and then they changed the release date they were like it's postponed indefinitely and then the leaks happened they're like it's coming out in a month which is kind of funny

yeah so I'm hoping that doesn't play a big role because like I don't want them to release an unfinished game just because it was leaked that's my biggest concern is not even necessarily where the story goes is like them releasing an unfinished game that's that's my concern um in terms of the leaks i haven't like i know a couple basic things about the leaks i've seen like maybe a couple screenshots but spoilers don't really ruin an experience for me generally

um but i don't seek them out anyway because i know i'm going to play the game even if it's to play it because it's funny bad that's just content for my gaming channel i'm going to play it either way and hopefully it's good i like the first game enough that hopefully you know the same if the soundtracks is good then that's one thing i'll definitely like about it i don't know i haven't looked into them enough so i won't say this with certainty but i'm kind of getting vibes of like that whole marriage story twitter thing where people are yeah judging it based on part of what it is and perhaps in the broader context of what the story is it's more acceptable now i should repeat i don't really know the full extent of what's actually going on in these

leaks so maybe maybe I'm full of shit but I'm gonna have to see when it comes out anyway I think people are upset where the story goes with it I've seen like some things some spoilers but yeah yeah it's a shitty situation for everybody involved yeah yeah it's unfortunate there was like speculation that like they weren't paying their employees or something and then somebody leaked that was debunked that was debunked yeah um it was a just disgruntled employee who leaked it? Yeah, that's not true. Yeah, it wasn't actually that.

Yeah, that's not true. It was like hackers that were using like, um, the online connections. Oh, weird. Like uncharted multiplayer and like the Last of Us multiplayer to get into like, uh, PSN. Yeah, naughty dog like servers or something and they got like a terabyte worth of data and just put it out there.

That's insane. Yeah. And just like, why? Why would you do it? That's so weird. But it's just the story too Like as far as the game play and all that Maybe all that's good

Yeah I don't know People are complaining about I have no idea It's just yeah certain things that happen in this story Yeah people don't like and maybe in the movie it'll be better Or in the in the game it'll be better like once you see it played out Yeah maybe I just like the first game a lot I'm holding out hope for this one I do also want to mention that part of the controversy is also that

They were like copyright claiming people's videos for discussing the leaks without even really showing footage of it. That's pretty bad if that's true. Supposedly that. They probably just, they want to raise any of these videos because I'm not interested in the leaks. I want to play the game first.

So when that's out, then maybe I'll revisit these videos talking about that happening. But I just, like, I'm not seeking out the leaks at the moment, so I can't really be as informed. It's hard to know the truth. Because it could be just people uploading

actual clips of the game and having their videos like fairly taken down posting something against the rules. Yeah, but even if you're like commenting on it and criticizing it, that's still fair use though, right? So you're saying it's potentially a scenario where there's like

no commentary even? If you took the like leaked clips of that game right now and tried to put it in a YouTube video it would get taken down. It would get taken down but I don't think that it's not fair use though. It's irrelevant where the footage comes from and whether or not it's published I believe. I think

yeah, yeah. I think it's just because it's not a released product that they're able to just be like no like the second the game comes out you can say whatever you want about anything in the game i can understand why they're trying to do that but i don't think they would necessarily have the legal right in court i think i think that there is a fair use argument to make for sure even if it's leaked footage yeah i i i can understand it there must be a lot of anger like if you've worked on a project for that many years oh of course right before it comes out like the whole thing is like the cats out of the bag.

That's terrible, yeah. Yeah, it's really lame. It's a disastrous scenario. The debate in my head is like how much of this is, is it fair to like criticize and cancel your pre-orders and judge it before the game is even out and no one's played it. So it does seem strange for, like, I saw so many reports of like people canceling their pre-orders and like truly furious about where the story goes. But it's like, yeah, I've read a lot of the like stuff that came out and it's like, yeah,

like it really depends how these beats are like implemented into a plot to me like this could be really unsatisfying or it could be kind of interesting like it's hard to know without some of the context yeah it's an annoying situation but whatever also i don't know if people canceling their pre-orders had a gigantic impact because i read like five days ago that they went gold from pre-orders So clearly they have a net positive, I guess. Oh, the game's going to be huge either way. We'll see. Even if it's terrible, I'll enjoy it.

I like laughing at things, you know? Yeah. Yeah, we'll see. Yeah. I bet it'll be fine. It might be a fun game. We'll have to see. Just like a gameplay level.

Yeah. All right. I guess that's it for questions. Yeah. Maybe we go. Awesome. So we've got a recommendation for the next episode.

And in the order that we were doing before, because we'd swapped me and Ralph, normally it would be Alex's this time. And I have this all written down, everybody. So don't worry. It's very complicated. But we're having a special guest on next episode. And I decided,

why not let the guest pick this time? because I know that they're very passionate about films and have a lot of interesting perspectives. Yeah, so the guest is Matt Johnson, director of the Dirties in Operation Avalanche, and creator of Nirvana The Band The Show, which is a hilarious television show that I'd definitely recommend. Yes, very fun.

And so he's going to be on next week, and the film that he was wanting to talk about is F for Fake. Orson Wells A documentary? I think Yeah Okay cool

And I haven't seen that That's been on my watch list for a while It's got a criterion So yeah We'll have We'll talk about that And we'll talk about Matt Johnson's stuff And should be a lot of fun

Have you Ralph you've seen a run of the band the show Alex have you seen that? No I haven't seen it I've heard good things Have you seen any Matt Johnson thing I've only seen your interviews with him

For me honest okay cool well now is a good time if you want to catch up on something awesome awesome okay thank you all for listening to the show if you want to support the show $2 a month Sardonicast.com sign up for premium

you'll get these episodes early as they're edited also Patreon.com slash Sardonicast we also got merch link in the description thank you all very much who get that merch and my axe take the Jencom to Eisengard

That was like one of the most annoying Means for me It was like that hobbits to Eisenhower You really don't like that one I don't know why It's just kind of irritating It's too much of like ha ha-ha-l random funny meme culture

Just brings me back to like a bad A bad Fib Just a horrendous time Yeah Yeah Yeah Yeah

Yeah epic funny meme Anyway Thanks everybody Bye bye Bye Bye