The Weekly Planet - The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug - Caravan of Garbage

Episode Date: September 15, 2022

Nobody was happier than us when we heard the second Hobbit book was being made into a movie. JOKES. The result of splitting JRR Tolkien's work into three movies lead us here to The Desolation Of Smaug, the middle and probably best chapter in the series. Here we see the return of Lord Of The Rings favorite Orlando Bloom's Legolas as well as a genuinely great performance with Benedict Cumberbatch as Smaug. Thanks for watching our Caravan Of Garbage review! SUBSCRIBE HERE ►► http://goo.gl/pQ39jN Video Edition ► https://youtu.be/ewjp6Ss8eoA Help support the show and get early episodes ► https://bigsandwich.co/ Patreon ► https://patreon.com/mrsundaymovies James' Twitter ► http://twitter.com/mrsundaymovies Maso's Twitter ► http://twitter.com/wikipediabrown T-Shirts/Merch ► https://www.teepublic.com/stores/mr-s... Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

FX's The Veil explores the surprising and fraught relationship between two women who play a deadly game of truth and lies on the road from Istanbul to Paris and London. One woman has a secret. The other, a mission to reveal it before thousands of lives are lost. FX's The Veil, starring Elizabeth Moss, is now streaming on Disney+. Will you rise with the sun to help change mental health care forever? Join the Sunrise Challenge to raise funds for CAMH, the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, to support life-saving progress in mental health care.

From May 27th to 31st, people across Canada will rise together and show those living with mental illness and addiction that they're not alone. Help CAMH build a future where no one is left behind. So, who will you rise for? Register today at sunrisechallenge.ca. That's sunrisechallenge.ca.

Welcome back, everybody, to another episode of Caravan of Garbage, where we are actively making our way through the Hobbit trilogy, Mason, aren't we? We are grinding through it. Here's a little quote from whatever Lee Pace's character is called in this movie. A hundred years is a mere blink in the life of an elf. Yeah, you bloody get him to bloody watch these bloody movies and tell you what's in your chain. You mind, Lee Pace?

You bloody... You got him. I got him. They're long movies. They're very long. Yeah, I wish he was in this more than his son is in it. He's not in the book at all. I see.

He does a lot of surfing around on orcs and whatnot, doesn't he? A lot of padding for time with Legolas. Here's the thing about this movie is, and the thing about Peter Jackson generally, I'm sure when people watched the original Lord of the Rings trilogy, they went, Peter Jackson, master storyteller. And that is true. Those movies are a masterpiece. But he has also mastered a different thing in this

which is to stretch every scene to its absolute breaking point, given the amount of narrative that it has, but without it snapping. So it's like, boy, what if all the dwarves were in a spider's nest and they're being attacked by giant spiders?

That's pretty exciting. What if it was 30 minutes long? I mean, I guess. And then it ends and we're like, all right, more movie, is it? What if they were in barrels? How many barrels are they in? They're in the same number of barrels that they're in, and what if it went for 30 minutes?

What if one was in a barrel and then the barrel broke and he jumped out and then he fell into another barrel that was also going in the river. That was just a spare barrel, I guess. I don't know. I actually quite like the barrel sequence. There's a moment where one of the dwarfs busts out. He's like a big barrel robot.

I thought that was fun. See, what about the bit during that sequence where there's a few shots where it just looks like a 2002 digital camera, like that somebody's dropped it into a river? Do you know what I'm talking about? I absolutely do, yes. There's a few shots where it just looks like a 2002 digital camera, like that somebody's dropped it into a river. Do you know what I'm talking about? I absolutely do, yes. There's a couple of moments. Anyways, I would like, Mason, you and the people watching this video

to give me a kudos and leave it a like, because I actually did the homework, Mason. I read The Hobbit in lead up to this. You've read that children's book. It's quite long, Mason. And by read, I mean I read some of it and had Andy Serkis read the rest of it to me through audiobook format.

Aha, you didn't bring him round to your house. I wish, Mason. Put him in a mocap suit, sit him in a big rocking chair and just go for it. You're going to be Stephen Fry. We're going to mocap you to be Stephen Fry. He's a better audiobook narrator.

He's also in this. He is in this, yeah. Big time guest stars in this, I think. More so than Lord of the Rings? Yeah, potentially. I mean, there were less kind of really well-known people in Lord of the Rings, I guess. And look, I just want to say on the topic of the book, I fucking loved it, man. I really

did. The whimsy, the wonder, the songs, Mason. Maybe not as much, but it's better when Andy Serkis sings them. It's really fantastic and also somehow from 1937. Yeah, right. It's really phenomenal. Like, I cannot stress that enough. This is not a bit.

I genuinely loved it and now I want Andy Serkis to read me The Lord of the Rings next. This is not an ad. I should get this sponsored. It's probably too late. Is that available? Can you get Andy Serkis to read Lord of the Rings? No, no, he does the audiobooks. Oh, great. Yeah. But look, it also had me appreciate

seeing some of the things that I'd read, like seeing them in live action, and made me also ignore a lot of the noise which is surrounding the things from the book. Also, a couple of apologies. I said in the last video that I hate how powered up Gandalf is, how he's using pine cone grenades.

That's in the book. And also I was like, why would Sauron need a dragon? He's got a bunch of other stuff. He's got a bunch of other shit. What does he need a dragon for? And in the book it's revealed his wife took it all in the divorce. He doesn't have any of that stuff. He has to get a dragon and stuff.

He's got it all. But look, when the dragon is revealed in this, I'm like, he's pretty big actually, isn't he? It's a great dragon design, I think. One flaw though. Go on. He's got a big hole in him. Yeah, but that's not a technical hiccup.

They didn't do that by accident. No, no. I mean just as a weapon of war. Oh, sure. I mean I can't remember the third movie. I can't remember whether the guy who has the big crossbow bow and arrow thing on top of a big stone tower, I can't remember whether he does shoot that big hole in the dragon or not.

Sure, sure, sure. We'll have to wait and see, won't we? We sure will. Yeah, that's right. There's a little bit of that, isn't there? I mean, if you were to point out one flaw in these movies. In the dragon, it's the hole in him. I'm going to point out two flaws,

one of which is there's a lot of setups of like, oh, my God, we need to light these furnaces, but there's no fire available. Why could there be some fire? Well, actually, we do because the dragon produces the fire. Yeah. And he did. Yeah, we saw him do it.

And also, folks, if you're out there, maybe you haven't seen these, and you're a big fan of the scene in a movie, maybe the penultimate scene in the movie, where it seems like all hope is lost. Yeah. And everybody is sort of resigned to their fates. But then from just outside your field of vision,

it's like some guy from earlier shows up. And you're like, oh, my God, it's that dumbass from earlier. He's going to save the day. There's a big swelling music. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. That happens, I think, in every scene in this movie. And the first one, I believe. Yeah, well, it's the whole, but it's been really,

it really hit me hard in this one. It's like, oh my God, guys, it's Bilbo. Oh my God, it's Gandalf. Oh my God, it's Evangeline Lilly in Orlando Bloom. Oh my God, it's Evangeline Lilly in Orlando Bloom for a second time. Can you believe this? So it's basically, it's anybody you can't see on screen.

Yeah, at any point they could just, it's, you know, at the end of Star Wars, Great Shot Kid, that was one in a million. It's just that, if you just wanted that every scene in a movie. But not the feeling. Yes. Just the physical act of that happening. Oh, it's this again, isn't it? Yeah. I also, in reading the again, isn't it? Yeah.

I also, in reading the book, I don't know if you know this, but I read the book. Is this going to be a series of videos on books, James? I hope not. But it's also mentioned in passing at the very end, Frodo's like, or Bilbo's, whoever he is. It's Bilbo. Is it? I'm confident it is, so it probably isn't.

Martin Freeman says, hey, it's great that you're here, Gandalf. What happened? Where have you been? He's like, oh, yeah, I'm at the council and something about dark magic or whatever. And that's it. Whereas in this we get the entire Gandalf side quest and we get him fighting a big black wind at one point. And it's all very boring, Mason.

And, you know, the other wizard's there and he's like, oh, what am I doing here? And he's like, yeah, what are you doing here? Fuck off. I'm going to do this by myself. It's a testament to the weird goop on his face that it's taken me two movies to realise that was Sylvester McCoy. Okay.

Well, look, he's good. Don't get me wrong. But he has that goop on his face. I love Sylvester McCoy. He's amazing. He was an amazing Doctor Who-b. Also, Mason. It's Doctor Hoobst.

Oh, thank you. I think they did Mirkwood really well. Like a lot of people might have been like, is that Fangorn Forest? Is that the same forest from Lord of the Rings? I didn't have to look that up. It's a different spooky twisted forest. And as someone who's read the book I enjoyed that. I also liked the bit where they

de-legged. Every caravan of garbage we're going to do from this point forward it's going to be james is going to give it a lot of well it's got a lot of hobbit vibes there's action adventure there's bit of magic you know yeah and we're talking about i don't know the poseidon adventure remake they de-legged that spider remember that bit that's pretty terrible that's a terrible thing they're spiders whatever but the thing is though it still really feels like lord of the rings light you know we get the pretty little dwarf get you know poisoned by the poisoned weapon you know the dark magic weapon we get like a little wormy right hand man he's like sure i'm being a little creep i think every dynamic has a it works best when there's a weird little creep in it.

Wouldn't you agree, James? I thought I was a weird little creep. Well, I mean, it depends on the week. I guess it does, yeah. Did you like the callback where he's like, that's my son Gimli. I did love that so much. And Legolas is like, I'm in the other movies. That's right.

Sounds like something I wouldn't like, but then I would slowly learn to respect. Well, here's something that I slowly learned to respect, Mason. Go on. Now, a love story in these films are about to blossom. And I'm not just talking about my love for the book The Hobbit, Mason, which I recently read. But this love story between the...

A lot of Boss Baby vibes about this. Yeah, we get it, all right? The big love story is the she-elf, who she's called Kate from Lost Shelf, by the way. That's weird. Also, I guess I can't really begrudge them putting like a prominent female character in this because there's none in the book.

I can't even remember if any are referenced. Like presumably somebody says Gladriel at some point. But it's mostly dudes just going, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha. There's probably a few, oh, the missus. Yeah, exactly. The miss-er upstairs. Oh, yeah. Bilbo's always like, yeah, my fucking cousin I hate or whatever.

There's a lot of that going on. But, God, that love story, and I guess we'll talk about it more next week, that's not very good, is it? Sure isn't. My goodness. And again, he should be a weirder little dude. week. That's not very good, is it? Sure isn't. My goodness. And again, he should be a weirder little dude. Yeah.

That's what I'm saying. I agree. He's two hands. Like, yeah, sure, the handsome man and the beautiful woman are going to fall in love. He should be a beautiful woman and just one of the regular dwarves. Yeah. Just with a big nose and a goopy eye. Exactly.

And he wins her over with his personality. And his goopy eye. His goopy eye. Yeah, because I think also. Don't personality. And his goopy eye. His goopy eye. Yeah, because I think also. Don't give us the GQ model guy. He's the, come on. I completely agree. He doesn't even have like a big prosthetic nose on.

That's what I'm saying. It's just a wig. Or it's his real beautiful hair. I don't know. I think it's a wig. But that's the thing though. Because you're right. Because every now and then they'll cut to like a dwarf.

And I'm like, who's that? Right? I don't know. he new is he new from the last one or is this what what is this yeah cut a few i'm just saying just chop a few i don't care if they're all in the book just chop a few so they should have done pre-production yeah i agree well peter meld some of them together yeah like with magic they just they're in a they're in a smelting accident yeah sure, yeah, sure. They fell into a wizard's fire. Yeah.

And Peter Jackson actually had this fear going into this. He's like, like in the book Mason, which I recently read, had read to me by Andy Serkis, is that they're not distinguished that well. Like there's a few ones that stand out, but they're mostly just like, you know, the one with the blue hood. And I'm like, no, I don't actually. I don't know which that one is.

Sort of, you know, with his clothes are sort of bluey I'm like, no, I don't actually. I don't know which that one is. Sort of, you know, with his clothes, a sort of bluey browny grey. Oh, all of them. Oh, okay. His beard's slightly shorter than the other guy's beard. Oh, is it? Yeah, but Bilbo ends up doing, like, most of the work. And the idea that he's going to get a 14th share of this treasure is quite frankly outrageous.

You think he should have slit a few throats while the rest of them were sleeping? Yeah, I think so. Well, look, he's the one, right, where he rescues them from the elf king and whatever. He's the one who opens the magic door on the side of the mountain. The magic door? Yeah, the rest of them get there.

Oh, no, I'm going to lose the key. Oh, no, wait, swelling music. A guy's going to show up. Here we go, it's fine. He saved the key, don't worry about it. Yeah, the rest of them, they're like, where's the keyhole? Let's just give up, I reckon. Yeah, let's give up.

He's the one who goes and confronts the dragon for some reason. At a certain point, I think if you realise you're on an epic adventure, you should just not constantly be giving up, you know? Yeah, I agree. Especially when you get to the door of the thing you're going to. Yeah. Just knock. Maybe there's somebody in there.

Oh, absolutely. Let's talk about Smaug, though. Okay. Now, initially, one of the ideas was, how do you get a dragon to talk realistically? They went through multiple incarnations. They thought maybe we'll make him telepathic, but it didn't really work.

It's a bit modern, isn't it? It's a bit modern, isn't it? Maybe finger puppets. Maybe, yeah. Maybe what they did in the movie Eragon. Does that one talk? Who knows? Maybe what they did in the movie.

Maybe voice of Sean Connery. What Dragonheart is going to say. Yeah, Dragonheart. Yeah, good movie one talk? Who knows? Maybe what they did in the movie. Maybe Voice of Sean Connery. Or Dragonheart, I was going to say. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Dragonheart. Yeah, good movie maybe. Who knows? But yeah, I think all that dragon stuff is terrific. And what they ended up doing, they went for like a classic dragon look.

Peter Jackson was like, I don't want like a creature, like an alien. I want like a classic dragon. I think what they've settled on is perfect. And they move all of the performance to, like, the front of the face. Yeah, right. And you really capture all that Benedict Cumberbatch-erisms. That's all true. You've seen the behind-the-scenes stuff, I'm sure.

Sure, sure have. People, like, every now and then, like, a clip. He's a weird grey spotty worm on the ground. Exactly. A grey worm covered in tennis balls. Yeah. That's what he is. But, you know, every now and then a clip will turn up on Twitter

that's like, try and love something As much as Benedict Cumberbatch Loves being a big dragon And I'm like Nah I don't love anything That much I don't think But oh that's great You know

And he's a good Terrifying Unstoppable monster With an obvious weakness Which is what we like He's loved for Cannolis Oh my god

Yeah Yeah Hard to get in Middle Earth I tell you what Yeah and he's in that He's hoarding them all And they've all gone bad What is a dragon even doing

With all that gold I guess he's got gold madness Or whatever Yeah they love it They love it do they They just love it yeah Yeah okay What's he eating in there

Gold and cannolis Well not cannolis Because he wouldn't be able To get many I'd imagine Unless there's a big Cannoli smelting facility In there I didn't see

That's going on But even then How does he operate it You know Well he doesnoli smelting facility in there. I didn't see that's going on. But even then, how does he operate it? Well, he doesn't. He's got Italians in there. Does he? Yeah. I didn't know he had a bunch of Italians in there. I also enjoyed how he gets covered by the liquid gold statue.

And he's like, ah! As women, our life stages come with unique risk factors, like high blood pressure developed during pregnancy, which can put us two times more at risk of heart disease or stroke. Know your risks. Visit heartandstroke.ca. FX's The Veil explores the surprising and fraught relationship between two women who play a deadly game of truth and lies on the road from Istanbul to Paris and London. One woman has a secret. The other, a mission to reveal it

before thousands of lives are lost. FX's The Veil, starring Elizabeth Moss, is now streaming on Disney+. Will you rise with the sun to help change mental health care forever? Join the Sunrise Challenge to raise funds for CAMH, the Center for Addiction and Mental Health, to support life-saving progress in mental health care. From May 27th to 31st, people across Canada will rise

together and show those living with mental illness and addiction that they're not alone. Help CAMH build a future where no one is left behind. So, who will you rise for? Register today at sunrisechallenge.ca. That's sunrisechallenge.ca. Ah! Terrible time for me! Hate this! Really good. What a plan by the dwarves, though. Just make a big gold guy.

And what, hope it comes to life? What are you doing? Maybe they're hoping you'd rush it off screen. Yeah. I'm sure, yeah. I don't know. I don't know, to be honest. Yeah. He's like a big, goopy, like, chocolate egg, you know?

Yeah, he is, yeah. I like that. I like all of that. Smell can fly. What if he just moved out of the way? Yeah, yeah. Also, it didn't work. No, it didn't work.

Didn't even fill up his hole. What if he had just decided, instead to go to destroy the neighbouring town, just kill all the dwarves because they just engoldened him? Yeah, that's right. Yeah, yeah. Great question. Great points. Well, it wouldn't have happened because they're the main characters.

Yeah, exactly. Just quickly to get back to how this is Lord of the Rings light. Aragorn shows up, and by that I mean Luke Evans shows up and he's like, I've got an ancestor who did a thing like Aragorn, but then he failed at that thing. And now for some reason it's up to me to do that thing. And also I carry all the pressures and burdens and guilt of that thing that I didn't do.

Yeah. Yeah, that's good stuff. That's what it's like in this awful, awful town. But also I think he's a great inclusion, and you need to flesh this character out more because in the book. He needs to show up later when there's a pivotal scene. That's right. Yeah.

Hello. Because in the book, they're like, anyway, the dragon was having a big siege on the town, and then this guy showed up and shot it with an arrow. Right. So that's pretty much how it goes in the book, which I read. Are you sure you didn't read a version that had some pages missing or torn out, you know?

Maybe I did, Mason. James, did you read a copy that was abandoned by like a lavatory or something? Is that – and some pages were required for emergency use? Maybe I did, Mason, yeah. Here's a question, though. Actually, a couple of things. There's a lot of beheading in this.

There is. Like, it's a crazy amount. Some say too much. I say, it's fine. Just do more, if anything. Second question, and this goes back to- Wait, was the first one a question? No, no, second thing that I'm saying.

Okay. And this goes back to- Beheadings, your thoughts? Yeah, good, I reckon. You remember that viral TikTok that was like, here's how I'd change this- I'll stop you there, James. You remember that viral TikTok that was like, here's how I'd change this. I'll stop you there, James. I remember all viral TikToks.

Okay. No, go on. Here's how I'd change that woman from Stranger Things' face to make her, like, put fillers in her or whatever. Did you see any of that? Absolutely not. Anyway, it was a whole thing. And it got me thinking, looking at any of these ugly-ass orcs,

with modern dentistry and plastic surgery, is it possible to turn one of these into a normal-looking person? Is that a strange thing to think? Yes. Have you done that? Yes, it's possible, or yes, it's strange. I wouldn't rule it out. I think it's possible.

You know. I mean, you probably wouldn't get the one, like the second main one with all the divots in his head. Yeah, sure, sure, sure. You could probably do it to like the white one maybe. But I don't know. I just think that's something to contemplate. I mean, you could certainly spruce him up enough to sneak him

into like a Dungeons and Dragons playing party or something like that. Oh, okay, right. I thought you were going to be like my fair lady him or whatever. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. You could do that too. Or your family. That's good stuff, Mason. Absolutely got you.

Yeah. Now, Mason, I actually do want to talk about the permanent and negative effect this had on the New Zealand film industry. Oh. But before we do that, it's green trivia time, everybody. This is where I go, hey, here's a thing that I thought. And I say that's trivia-rific. That's right. So I don't know if you've noticed this, And I say that's trivia-rific. That's right.

So I don't know if you've noticed this, but I found it more prominent in this movie. All the dwarves are wearing prosthetics to make their hands bigger and chunkier. Much like those big hobbit feet, right? Exactly. Well, first time around with the hobbit feet in the Lord of the Rings movies, they'd glue them around the ankles. This time they went all the way up the leg.

It was a little bit easier. Pull it on like a big rubber sock mason, you know? Sure. Anyway, so similar thing with their arms. But what would happen is you'd sweat through them and then it would mix with like the latex and then you'd squeeze your hand and like a milky residue would drip out of it. And when they pulled the hands off, like it would like flick like white sweat everywhere.

Awful, yes, that's right. And all the dwarf actors became addicted to that weird milky juice. You see them out there to this day, you know, trying to replicate it. Can't do it, though. Reach that high, yeah. Anyways, that's... Oh, that's trivia-rific. That is, isn't it?

Now, a lot of vegetation, obviously, on a big movie like this needed to be cultivated for various, like, landscape scenes and backgrounds and farms and whatnot. And this time around they did a similar thing, and under certain lights it would give it like a blue hue, which then led to the working title of this movie, which was Blue Harvest. Oh, that's interesting.

Funnily enough, Mason, the same working title for the original Star Wars from 1977. Well, that's trivia-rific. And pure coincidence. Isn't that great? It's trivia-rific. 18 million gold coins were rendered, Mason, for Smoog's treasure. That's

terrific. Smoog. And I bet some people say Smoog. I reckon probably like a month beforehand, they're like, we're actually, we put the wrong king on the coins. Can you change it, guys? CGI guys, can you change it? Or can you at least flip them all up to tails?

Yeah. According to Forbes also, this is interesting. CGI guys, can you change it? Or can you at least flip them all up to tails? Yeah. So we can't see them. Yeah. According to Forbes also, this is interesting. This is, oh, was that trivia? Yeah, it was trivia. Look, I'm already sick of the bit. So let's just assume from this point forward, I think everything is trivia-rific.

Unless it isn't. And then you say something. I'll say something, yeah. That's right. Then I'll finally speak up. So according to Forbes, Schmaug, some people say Smorg, this board.

He is actually- I say Smorg after Smorgies. Oh yeah, yeah. The sizzler knockoff that- Yeah, yeah. That no longer exists. Or maybe he does. Maybe there's one in Bendigo or something.

Maybe. Yeah. Schmaug is actually the richest fictional character to ever exist. He has 62 billion worth of gold, which is kind of crazy that that's less than real people have now. Sure, right?

That's bizarre, right? So that includes priceless elvish armor and other various baubles and trinkets and whatnot. Now, he also comes ahead of Richie Rich, Tony Stark, and Carlisle Cullen from Twilight, who's apparently a billionaire through interest alone. He's interested in various financial markets, no doubt. That's terrific. Great. Anyway, Mason,

let's talk ruining a film industry. Oh boy. I know. We have to do another one. Here we go. It's hard because we love these movies and to come in and just go there's actually some negative stuff associated with this. I would say whatever you're going to say now absolutely not worth it for the movies we got.

Having recently seen the first two and having a vague memory of the third, huge mistake. Okay, here we go. Now, I just also want to clarify a lot of this, but not all of it comes from three videos by Lindsay Ellis, and they go deep into the production behind this, various thoughts and feelings related to these movies and the

original trilogy. She even has a great interview in it with John Callen, who played Oin in this. Oh, Oin. He's like, I'm Oin. And I'm like, you probably. Anyways. You might be lying, but I'm not willing to watch these again and check. So it was rumored that one of the reasons that Peter Jackson actually stepped in is

because that would keep these movies in New Zealand. But then, of course, as opposed to the first movie where he was mostly answering to New Line, there's like five different production houses behind this. Warner Brothers got a piece of it and others. Who knows? There's like five. It's part of the viewers universe.

It might just be, exactly. So the thing is, though, off the right? It's part of the Viewers universe, et cetera. It might just be, exactly. Sure. So the thing is, though, off the back of the original Lord of the Rings movies, if you were a resident of New Zealand and you were in those movies, say like a Carl Urban, for example, you didn't get any residuals. If you were like an Elijah Wood, they came to these movies under different conditions. They still get some kickbacks, or did for a time at least. So Peter Jackson initially wanted to change that to ensure that this didn't happen for a second time right

so before these movies went into production the new zealand actors equity union they were pushed by a similar australian union to ensure better conditions so there was a stop work order issued until things improved right so everybody every actor who was going to be in this was like no we're not doing anything until you until we get a bit more coin. We actually properly paid for our work. But in doing so, there was a bit of pushback because that put everybody else's jobs at risk. So if you were, say, a set builder, an artist,

or you were in costuming. The best boy. The best boy, for example. You're like, I worked hard to become the best boy. I'm not going to become the worst boy ever. That's right. Because Warner Brothers were like, well, we'll just move. We'll go somewhere else.

And then all of the other jobs get yanked. Yeah, right. And it's terrible for the New Zealand economy, et cetera, and so forth. So Prime Minister John Key, who was New Zealand Prime Minister at the time, he wanted to make this right. Now, actually, he worked for Merrill Lynch, which is a subsidiary of the Bank of America. It's part of a wealth management firm.

And then he was prime minister, as often happens, because, you know, everything's fucked, Mason. Anyways. I'm not seeing a conflict of interest at all, but go on. So he was also known as the smiling assassin after cheerfully sacking potentially hundreds of employees with his position at this bank, whilst earning around $ 5 million New Zealand

dollars per year in the late 90s and early 2000s. So that's who we're talking about. So he met up with Warner Brothers and all the studio heads and then he decided to push through a legislation which resulted in tens of millions of New Zealand subsidies going to Warner Brothers for filming them and also all film workers were then considered independent contractors, so they didn't have any ability to organise or unionise or any of that. Great. So all that fell apart. And you might be like, well, everything must be fine now, Mason.

That's what you're probably thinking. I'm not thinking that. You're probably like, that's trivia-tastic or whatever. No. No? No, I'm going to... You're going to do one of your famous vetoes. I'm going to veto that being trivia-tastic.

I think that's bad, actually. Okay. But the thing is, this still affects things in New Zealand today. Like, for example, you know, Amazon are obviously doing that $1 billion Lord of the Rings prequel series, right? It's the most expensive show to ever be made. But initially, or maybe, you know, since they're coming back here, the Lord of the Rings will alter these laws, all right,

and will make everything fair again. So there was rumblings of that. And so Amazon were just like, hey, what if we film these in Scotland? Oh, sure. And so none of that happened. So that's where we're at. Wow. And that brings us to the modern day, which is the year it is now.

Anyways, Mason, box office time. That all sounds bad. No, no, it is bad. We'll film the Lord of the Rings in Scotland as if. Fuck. Right. Thank you. That's bad, I think.

Right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. If you're Scottish, let us know if that's bad. Yeah. Anyway, box office. Obviously, Warner Brothers did very well out of this, as did everyone else, except for the people. We didn't.

And the people in it. I guess. I lost 20 bucks on the last one because I had to see it in the cinemas. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It cost $250 million, but it, of course, made $959 million, which was slightly less than the previous one, which made a bit over a billion. But still, people are happy to go out and see a dragon

scuttle about with a big hole in him. That's very true. Anyways, we're going to be back next week, aren't we, Mason? I guess. Because we cannot stop talking about The Hobbit. We've stopped at two before in a trilogy. We can do whatever we want. Well, that's true, I guess.

But I'm kind of excited to see what the third one brings. Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely. And, of course, next week I'm going to be talking about the original version of this, which was going to be made by Guillermo del Toro. His two movies. That's a fascinating story in itself. I think I remember the last one has a lot of like weird CGI people doing CGI flips. A lot of people like.

Yeah, you remember that correctly. I think I remember somebody like running on like bits of rock that are just floating in the air. Yeah, that are falling. Yeah, I remember that. Yeah, that was bad, I think. That was Legolas. Yeah, he's actually got a,

I feel like he has a fun little brawl in the town in this. Okay. You know, and that's good. And then at the end, it ends with him chasing that orc or whatever. I'm like, well, I hope this guy's not supposed to be in that, this movie, gets that other guy or whatever. Oh my God, he's here!

Yeah. The audacity to kill the dragon in the first 10 minutes of the next movie as well. My goodness. And then do more movies? Then it's just three hours of people shuffling around. What are we doing with this bloody dragon? Can we roll it?

Probably not. Should we roll it back into the ocean? It didn't come from the ocean. It's a dragon, you sure? It's not like it belongs in the ocean, honestly. It's got scales. And then there's a vote and a song. Yeah.

Anyways, if you do want to see that early you can head over to bigsandwich.co where it will absolutely be there won't it Mason it absolutely will be there it'll go up a day early also if you do sign up there it's like our private Patreon

there's also bonus podcasts there's movie commentaries our podcast The Weekly Planet where we talk movies and comics and TV shows that actually comes out there a day early on Sunday

as opposed to Monday doesn't it well if you're early on Sunday as opposed to Monday, doesn't it? Well, if you're bored on Sunday, go to church. Yeah, go to church. And then listen to our podcast on speakerphone. You've done the right thing. All right, thanks, everybody. Grabbed our jam, you guys. We'll see you next week.

I thought this whole thing was trivia-tastic, Mason. You going to veto that? Yeah. So that's a veto, is it? It's a hard veto for you. Yeah, yeah, whole video, actually. All right, then. Okay, bye, everyone. As women, our life stages come with unique risk factors, like high blood pressure developed during pregnancy, which can put us two times more at risk of heart disease or stroke. Know your risks. Visit heartandstroke.ca.

FX's The Veil explores the surprising and fraught relationship between two women who play a deadly game of truth and lies on the road from Istanbul to Paris and London. One woman has a secret. The other, a mission to reveal it before thousands of lives are lost. FX's The Veil, starring Elizabeth Moss, is now streaming on Disney+.