12: The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers

[00:00:00] Ah!

[00:00:02] Ah!

[00:00:03] Huh.

[00:00:04] The Cast of the Rings

[00:00:10] It's like in the great stories Mr. Frootle, for ones that really mattered,

[00:00:17] full of darkness and danger they were,

[00:00:20] and sometimes you didn't want to know the end,

[00:00:23] because how could the end be happy?

[00:00:26] How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad had happened?

[00:00:37] What in the end,

[00:00:40] it's only a passing thing.

[00:00:43] The shadow, even darkness must pass,

[00:00:47] but the day will come,

[00:00:50] and when the sun shines it'll shine out the clearer.

[00:00:56] Those were the stories that stayed with you,

[00:00:59] that meant something,

[00:01:00] even if you were too small to understand why.

[00:01:04] But I think Mr. Frootle,

[00:01:06] I do understand,

[00:01:08] I know now,

[00:01:11] folk in those stories had lots of chances of turning back when they didn't.

[00:01:17] They kept going,

[00:01:20] because they were holding on to something.

[00:01:25] What do we hold at long two sand?

[00:01:39] There's some good in this world Mr. Frootle,

[00:01:43] and it's worth fighting for.

[00:02:26] And I'm Penny.

[00:02:28] And this is the cast of the rings, episode 12.

[00:02:32] This episode we're covering the Lord of the Rings,

[00:02:34] The Two Towers,

[00:02:36] the 2002 film by Peter Jackson.

[00:02:40] I'm so excited to be talking about this,

[00:02:42] maybe with you, Penny, how about you?

[00:02:45] It's been a while.

[00:02:46] Yeah, it has been a while,

[00:02:49] over a month,

[00:02:51] since we talked about Fellowship of the Ring.

[00:02:53] I love The Two Towers movie,

[00:02:55] and it was never my favorite of the books.

[00:02:58] But it...

[00:03:01] This is the movie where the darkness really takes hold,

[00:03:04] and all the characters just get a little bit more interesting,

[00:03:07] because they have more to do.

[00:03:10] Exactly, yeah.

[00:03:11] It's isn't fantastic.

[00:03:12] It's also one that's grown on me.

[00:03:14] I think at the time it wasn't my favorite either.

[00:03:19] Just going into it.

[00:03:20] But when you look at the three as a whole,

[00:03:22] I just really love it so much,

[00:03:23] and so much happens.

[00:03:25] Like you say, the characters develop,

[00:03:26] and they all move off to different things,

[00:03:29] and it's fantastic.

[00:03:31] Also a little bit close to my heart because I'm in this one.

[00:03:34] So yeah, I'll be out and talk about that a little bit later on.

[00:03:37] It's so exciting.

[00:03:39] Yeah, it's really, really cool.

[00:03:41] And we have got some really good feedback from our listeners as well.

[00:03:46] I think people seem to be really enjoying doing this rewatch

[00:03:49] of the films with us, who have followed us through

[00:03:51] with the rings of power and now doing our little revisit of the movie.

[00:03:54] So it's fantastic to have all of that feedback from people.

[00:03:58] And yeah, this film,

[00:04:02] we talked about it in our last episode,

[00:04:05] they filmed all three movies at once,

[00:04:08] which was pretty groundbreaking at the time.

[00:04:11] There are other films that have sort of done that since,

[00:04:14] but maybe two of them at once.

[00:04:17] But this one here, they did all three at once,

[00:04:20] 14-month principal photography.

[00:04:23] And they filmed them mostly in sequence.

[00:04:26] So a lot of the first parts they did

[00:04:29] film all the fellowship stuff.

[00:04:31] And when you listen to or watch some of the extra footage

[00:04:36] or the interview type stuff on the extras of the extended edition

[00:04:40] either DVD or streaming, however you're watching it.

[00:04:43] They do talk about that.

[00:04:44] That a lot of the time in the first, you know, for the first film,

[00:04:48] they were all together. There was this fellowship of nine

[00:04:50] and they were all having this journey of filming together

[00:04:52] and going to different locations together.

[00:04:54] And then once they kind of split off into two towers,

[00:04:57] they're all separated.

[00:04:59] So marrying Papua not off with Orcs

[00:05:01] and you've got Aragorn Legolas and Gimli

[00:05:03] running, running through Rohan

[00:05:05] and then you've got also Frodo and Sam off on their own too.

[00:05:10] So they found the filming experience quite different

[00:05:11] and that they were a little bit separated

[00:05:13] and then came together again at the end, which is cool.

[00:05:16] Because it kind of reflects, you know, what's actually happening

[00:05:18] with the fellowship in the movie too, which I thought was really nice.

[00:05:23] I got to go to the premiere of this movie in Wellington.

[00:05:27] This was in December 2002.

[00:05:31] And the reason I got to go to that was because

[00:05:35] I had been chatting to, I've been trying to find out

[00:05:39] when the premiere was.

[00:05:41] I talked about this in my last and the last podcast, but oh well.

[00:05:44] I've forgotten so maybe some other people have too.

[00:05:47] I don't think so. Yeah.

[00:05:49] I really wanted to, because I was an extroiner,

[00:05:51] I really wanted to go to the premiere in Wellington

[00:05:55] and you know they did the whole red carpet thing

[00:05:57] and they had all the stars there and everything,

[00:05:59] which is really cool. But I couldn't find anywhere

[00:06:01] that said when, you know, what exact date the premiere was,

[00:06:05] except for the website for red carpet tours

[00:06:08] and so I ended up emailing Vick who owned the red carpet tours

[00:06:13] and said hey, you know, can I, can you tell me when this premiere is?

[00:06:19] And he told me the date and I said oh that sounds awesome.

[00:06:22] Is there any chance I could get tickets to the midnight screening

[00:06:26] with you guys? And he said oh no, I'm really sorry

[00:06:29] but we've just got a set number for our people.

[00:06:32] And then I said I think that's awesome.

[00:06:34] I'm really looking forward to seeing it because it was an extra in the movie

[00:06:36] and it emailed me back immediately to say,

[00:06:39] and when this changes everything, you must come and meet people on the tour,

[00:06:43] our passengers and we'll get you into the midnight screening

[00:06:46] and it's going to be awesome. So it was really cool.

[00:06:49] That's been a long time since.

[00:06:51] The introduction to red carpet tours

[00:06:53] and of course I went on later to end up being a tour guide

[00:06:55] for them for two years, which was fantastic.

[00:06:57] But I got to go to this midnight screening

[00:07:00] and it was really fun because they had this big red carpet

[00:07:03] along Courtney Place in Wellington.

[00:07:06] All of the hobbits were there, quite a few of the other actors were there as well.

[00:07:11] And we got to sort of watch that and they did speeches and things like that

[00:07:15] and then got to go to the midnight screening so that was really fun.

[00:07:18] And then a year later I got to go to the massive world premiere

[00:07:24] in Wellington, I'll be back to the King, which I'll talk about on our next episode.

[00:07:27] Lots was happening.

[00:07:28] I've got Wellington very fresh in my mind.

[00:07:31] I was just there a couple of days ago, me and the family went up to go and see Ed Sheeran play.

[00:07:36] That must have been so great.

[00:07:38] It was so great. The concert was amazing.

[00:07:41] The whole kind of atmosphere in the town was really cool.

[00:07:43] Wellington's one of my favourite cities to visit.

[00:07:46] It's the spiritual home of the films of Lord of the Rings.

[00:07:49] I won't say Lord of the Rings to be a total book as a course in England.

[00:07:52] But for the films, for the Peter Jackson versions,

[00:07:55] it is the spiritual home and so much to see and do.

[00:07:59] Lots of remnants of filming took place more than 20 years ago,

[00:08:04] but it's still light-hounding there around Lord of the Rings, which is really, really cool.

[00:08:09] So they still have in the airport these giant eagles

[00:08:14] and one of them has Gandalf riding on them and this is just like as you walk through the airport

[00:08:19] they're just suspended from the ceiling, which is really cool.

[00:08:21] They put them there for the premiere and then they're just like, yeah, we're going to leave them.

[00:08:25] I mean, why wouldn't you?

[00:08:27] Yeah, exactly.

[00:08:29] So I've never been to a big fancy movie premiere and I really want to.

[00:08:36] Yeah, it's so fun.

[00:08:38] It's just getting to see...

[00:08:41] It's not like anything else. It's kind of interesting because you sort of line up on the red carpet

[00:08:48] and then they have these barriers and you kind of line up and the cast come down

[00:08:53] and they often do signings and stuff so they'll screw or something on it

[00:08:56] or you can get a photo with them, things like that or they have a wedged chat

[00:08:59] and it was really, really cool.

[00:09:01] I actually went to the Hobbit one as well

[00:09:05] and Martin Freeman was there playing Bilbo

[00:09:08] and he came along the red carpet and it's really funny photo of him because I said to him,

[00:09:14] I hope you really enjoy the movie and he goes, oh, thanks.

[00:09:20] I'm sure I will and I said, yeah, but if you don't, can I have your ticket?

[00:09:26] I gave me this look and I managed to get a photo of the exact look.

[00:09:30] It's really funny. It's the classic like, you know what Martin Freeman looks like when he just looks like...

[00:09:34] Purple eyes.

[00:09:35] It's like that office face to camera kind of like...

[00:09:39] Oh, that's so cool.

[00:09:41] Yeah, he was so fun.

[00:09:43] That's cool.

[00:09:44] Alrighty, so let's get into it. What did you want to talk about first?

[00:09:49] I wanted to talk first about Gollum and Andor Smegel.

[00:09:57] They seem to be two different identities and Andy Circus.

[00:10:04] You know, in fellowship, we see Gollum a couple of times and he's just like a slinky sort of

[00:10:14] a little bit of a black-and-white, but it's just a small figure in the dark.

[00:10:20] But in this movie we really get to meet him and spend time with him and we get some of his backstory.

[00:10:26] And Andy Circus jokes in interviews that when he was first being considered for the part,

[00:10:33] he was like, I don't want to be a voice of a funny-looking cartoon character in this movie.

[00:10:39] He was one of the big parts in Lord of the Rings.

[00:10:44] But it turned out to be so huge for his career because he basically invented the art of motion capture performance.

[00:10:52] And the technology was brand new at the time and evolving as they were on the set.

[00:10:59] So from shoot to shoot, he was using better and better technology to get his motion cap.

[00:11:05] And they were inter, what's the word I want?

[00:11:10] Cooperating with whoever owns the technology, you know, with feedback and saying it would be really great if you could get it to do this or that.

[00:11:17] And, you know, it made Andy Circus a household name.

[00:11:23] It led to him being the lead in all those Planet of the Apes movies because he's acknowledged widely as one of the best motion capture performers in the world.

[00:11:35] The performance is really startling.

[00:11:40] Golem is, you know, there's the visuals of Golem, right?

[00:11:45] He's like scrawny and his skin looks like waxy or something.

[00:11:50] And he's got like four hairs and those giant eyes.

[00:11:54] That, the look of Golem is really impressive.

[00:11:58] But for me, what really brings it home is all of the variation that he brings to the vocals.

[00:12:06] There's, you know, hissing and spitting and choking and whispering and purring and clicking and sometimes screaming.

[00:12:18] It's a very visceral performance.

[00:12:22] He also said that, you know, when Golem coughs and says like go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go.

[00:12:29] Like that, that Andy Circus got the inspiration for that from watching his cat cough up a hairbeam.

[00:12:36] And now I can't unsee how similar that is to my cat.

[00:12:41] Oh yeah, that's exactly what the cat looks like because it like moves through its whole body.

[00:12:45] I was like, God, that's freaking brilliant.

[00:12:47] At one point towards the end, he was performing with 96 different sensors just on his face.

[00:12:57] Which is why the character is so expressive because they captured all of the human facial movements and applied them to the animation.

[00:13:08] It's one of the best CGI characters ever even now with like, you know, rocket raccoon and grute.

[00:13:15] And Thanos and some of the other, you know, high budget, high profile mocap characters.

[00:13:26] Is Mangle still stands out?

[00:13:30] It really does, eh, and I was watching it in just...

[00:13:34] There was part of me that was kind of wanting to look for faults like, okay, 20 years later is there still, you know, does it still look good?

[00:13:40] It still looks amazing, like the way the light kind of shines on him or sort of reflects off him.

[00:13:47] And the way his eyes glisten, these huge, huge eyes and the expression.

[00:13:52] And like you say, the way that they're caught all of that, that's not just...

[00:13:56] You know, it's a huge collaboration.

[00:13:59] It's teamwork between the digital artists and Andy Circus' performance themselves.

[00:14:04] So it's not just like voicing a cartoon character or voicing a fully animated,

[00:14:10] kind of character which often, you know, previously with animated stories, they would just go in and do the voice later.

[00:14:18] Or they'd do the voice and they would animate it to that.

[00:14:21] But I think now even with fully animated films, they do do to an extent do some sort of motion capture on the actor.

[00:14:31] And they make all they make, at least digitally make the characters look like the actors who voice them.

[00:14:36] Whereas this was that combination that we hadn't seen before.

[00:14:40] And it kept evolving as they didn't like you say, they kept evolving and creating new technology as they were going.

[00:14:46] Initially they did want to...

[00:14:49] They were considering just trying to cast a really scrawny, skinny actor in the role,

[00:14:54] and actually have it be a real person.

[00:14:56] And they realised really early on they couldn't do that because it's just not gonna be enough.

[00:15:02] It's not gonna be golemmy enough.

[00:15:06] But they came up with this idea and initially they just had Andy Circus on set in kind of a white kind of leotard jumpsuit thing rolling around

[00:15:17] with the Hobbits Frodo and Sam doing the scenes and then they would take him out and then they would replace and stuff.

[00:15:22] And then eventually they got to the point where he, they were actually filming,

[00:15:26] doing the motion capture live as he was acting the scenes with them.

[00:15:29] So like you say he's got all those dots on his face, all the dots all over his body and those dots are used to pick up by the motion sensors.

[00:15:36] And the cameras and then they, they could actually like almost live animate some of it was sort of happening at the same time.

[00:15:44] Then obviously they go back into post-production and they add a lot more but the technology is incredible isn't it?

[00:15:49] They can actually do that and make it a real proper actual performance.

[00:15:53] And yeah for him to go on to everything he did, he did Kong and then he does, yeah.

[00:15:58] He played Caesar in the 8s and it was just, yeah I love him.

[00:16:03] And we were so used to seeing him do that, that it's an exciting surprise when we get to see his face like we did in Andorra recently for those of you who've been listening along and watching Andorra.

[00:16:13] Yeah.

[00:16:14] That was so cool to see his face. I love, I want to see him more. He's just captivating.

[00:16:18] I hope we get a spin off series just about that character. I loved him.

[00:16:22] You know, Lloyd.

[00:16:24] Yeah, if you're interested in this topic listeners,

[00:16:27] there is so much content available on YouTube about behind the scenes aspects of the production of these Lord of the Rings movies.

[00:16:39] Some of that content is just like chopped up versions of what the DVD extras were, just chopped into smaller videos but some of it I had not seen before.

[00:16:48] And I spent a lot of time last night watching videos of Andy Circus in various Leotards,

[00:16:57] converting in front of a green screen or tumbling around on the ground with Frodo and Sam just enjoying the movie making technology because it's just really cool.

[00:17:09] Smagel is also an interesting character just narratively because he is a physical embodiment of what Frodo is facing.

[00:17:24] Like, he's a constant reminder that the ring if you take it will corrupt you and destroy you.

[00:17:31] And so it makes it so that the audience keeps being reminded like, no, nobody should use the ring. Don't use the ring. Look what happens.

[00:17:40] He's like being Frodo being followed around by a manifestation of his fear.

[00:17:47] It's like, you know every time he looks over he's like, oh, that's what could happen to me but it makes you see this side of Frodo that is so beautiful and compassionate that he doesn't hate Gollum.

[00:17:58] He identifies with Gollum and he wants to try to save him and their relationship is really beautiful.

[00:18:06] And that's contrasted with Sam and Smagel who really hate each other just hate each other because Sam doesn't really understand what Frodo sees at least not until the third movie.

[00:18:21] I think he gets it by the third movie.

[00:18:22] Yeah, I think he gets it later. And that sort of sympathetic portrayal as well that Andy Circus manages to do and you know there's this scene, there's a quite famous scene where Gollum and Smagel are having the conversation together and trying to decide sort of what to do.

[00:18:41] We need to mask have the precious.

[00:18:49] This darling from us.

[00:18:53] Seated little obnoxies with it.

[00:18:57] Tritzy first.

[00:19:00] No, no.

[00:19:02] Master?

[00:19:03] Yes.

[00:19:04] Yes.

[00:19:05] Precious.

[00:19:06] First, they will cheat you.

[00:19:10] I'll cheat you.

[00:19:11] No.

[00:19:13] Master is my friend.

[00:19:16] You don't have any friends.

[00:19:19] Nobody likes you.

[00:19:22] Not listening.

[00:19:24] Not listening.

[00:19:25] You're a liar.

[00:19:27] And this is...

[00:19:29] Nope.

[00:19:31] Murderer.

[00:19:35] You know, there's quite cleverly done in terms of two different sort of slight camera angles.

[00:19:39] So you can kind of see initially which is which but then it just stays on to one camera angle where it's just him and you can see instantly by the expression on his face whether he's Gollum or Smagel.

[00:19:50] Yes.

[00:19:51] His conversation with himself and it's so well done and everything from the facial expression to the voice to the posture.

[00:19:59] It's so vastly different between the two kind of sides of himself.

[00:20:04] And I think that also lends itself to us feelings and pathetic term.

[00:20:09] You know, if he was just Gollum the whole time you know you probably wouldn't be but you get to sort of see a little bit what he was and that he's a bit of a victim as well of what happened to him with the ring.

[00:20:19] And that that helps us to empathise with Frodo who sees that in him too.

[00:20:24] So it's really effective isn't it?

[00:20:26] Yeah, he's the most important character I think in this movie.

[00:20:31] At least on the Frodo Sam narrative track.

[00:20:36] He's really interesting after Frodo makes him promise on the ring to serve him.

[00:20:44] Gollum is almost relieved and happy.

[00:20:47] He's like his body language changes.

[00:20:51] He starts to love Frodo and he starts to be like kind of happy leading them through the dead marshes.

[00:20:58] He's like this way, hobbits is like he's he's got a different quality to him.

[00:21:04] He's like he's he's playful almost.

[00:21:07] And even when he's arguing with Sam about potatoes and not cooking fish to ruin them, he seems like he's sort of happy in that moment as well.

[00:21:20] Like talking about food.

[00:21:22] He loves food right?

[00:21:23] He loves to talk about food and Sam wants to talk about food.

[00:21:26] And I think he does that thing where he says about give it to me raw and wriggling in Sam's face to be funny.

[00:21:35] Like he knows that's funny.

[00:21:39] But we need a few good taters.

[00:21:42] What's this?

[00:21:44] What's this?

[00:21:47] Potatoes?

[00:21:49] Boil them mash them stick them in a stew?

[00:21:53] Lovely big golden chips with a nice piece of fried fish.

[00:21:59] Even you couldn't say no to that.

[00:22:03] Oh yes we could.

[00:22:06] Spoon as fish.

[00:22:10] And the meat to us raw and wriggling.

[00:22:16] You keep nasty chips.

[00:22:19] It's pretty amazing and his body language is so amazing.

[00:22:23] Sometimes he's a hunter.

[00:22:26] Sometimes he's like dancing around.

[00:22:28] Sometimes he's writhing in pain.

[00:22:31] It's just such a variety in the performance.

[00:22:36] I'm so impressed by it.

[00:22:38] Every time I watch this movie, I'm like oh my god.

[00:22:42] That's just like oh my god.

[00:22:45] I've rarely seen live action performances that expressive.

[00:22:51] Yeah, yeah.

[00:22:52] So I love Gollum.

[00:22:54] I love Smagel.

[00:22:56] Smagel saves Frodo's life at least twice once in the bog,

[00:23:00] once by the gate to Mordor.

[00:23:04] And also one of my most favorite scenes is the one where Faramir shows Gollum

[00:23:11] to, or Smagel to Frodo when he's singing his song about fish.

[00:23:16] Oh yeah, rock and pole.

[00:23:18] Yeah, I intend to insert a clip about that right here.

[00:23:22] To enter the forbidden pool bears the penalty of death.

[00:23:43] You wait for my command.

[00:23:52] Challenge should.

[00:24:00] Rock and pole was my song called,

[00:24:04] Jesus, sweet.

[00:24:06] I rarely see the penalty of death.

[00:24:09] So Jesus, sweet.

[00:24:19] Wait.

[00:24:21] This creature is bound to me and I to him.

[00:24:26] The song is just so joyful.

[00:24:28] He's just like a little happy dude, like eating some fish.

[00:24:31] And he's just like a little happy dude.

[00:24:34] And I'm just like,

[00:24:36] I'm just like a little happy dude.

[00:24:38] Which makes it so sad that he feels so betrayed afterward and then turns on Frodo.

[00:24:43] Yeah, because he was,

[00:24:45] it was like he was on the road to healing and it was completely ruined by his experience with Faramir and Faramir's men.

[00:24:51] Yeah, it's interesting because I think the ring has such a hold on him that even if he was

[00:24:57] like, I don't know if he would have not come back anyway.

[00:25:00] Do you know what I mean?

[00:25:01] Like come back to being able come back to being, to being the ring.

[00:25:03] It's just so intoxicating and he's so addicted to it that I think for a time he likes the relief from it and to be, you know, for Frodo to be his master.

[00:25:14] But yeah, I don't know.

[00:25:16] I think it definitely.

[00:25:17] If I said with Faramir pushed him over the edge but I don't know that he would have not come to that anyway.

[00:25:24] And in all the things I read online, they kept comparing his story to a story of addiction.

[00:25:33] And I don't know why I never connected that in my head before that it's like heroin or something.

[00:25:40] I think you're right that he would have eventually come back to the ring and wanted the ring.

[00:25:45] I think as soon as he figured out that Frodo meant to destroy it, I don't think he would have been able to resist trying to fight Frodo at that point once he understood what was going on.

[00:25:57] Yeah, that would have broken him.

[00:26:00] It's like Gandalf says in the fellowship when he's talking to Frodo about, about Gollum when they're sitting having that rest in the minds of Warren.

[00:26:10] And then he said, he loves, he both loves and hates the ring as he loves and hates himself.

[00:26:16] And I think that's quite a poignant kind of echo of what addiction can be like that somebody would love and hate this thing that they're addicted to.

[00:26:28] So yeah, it's pretty sad really.

[00:26:30] Yeah.

[00:26:31] And I think there's a really sympathetic character.

[00:26:35] Yeah, and it gets even better in return of the language we'll talk about in the next month.

[00:26:44] Yeah, that's awesome.

[00:26:46] Yeah, so back to you.

[00:26:48] I wanted to touch on the locations and the two towers.

[00:26:52] Yes.

[00:26:53] I love, like it's almost all outside.

[00:26:56] It's almost all in these incredible locations.

[00:26:59] So when we watched fellowship with the ring, you had all these magical kind of constructed sets that was partly outside but it had a lot of set dressing to them.

[00:27:09] So you had Hobbiton which is a real place.

[00:27:12] You can go and visit it now.

[00:27:14] And it's on a farm and it's dressed with these amazing, you know, hobbit holes and little pathways and houses and buildings and fences and things like that.

[00:27:25] It's, you know, it's dressed.

[00:27:26] It's constructed.

[00:27:27] It's a set.

[00:27:28] You had Brea as well which was built on a little tiny back lot in Wellington.

[00:27:34] You had Rivendell which was this incredible set.

[00:27:37] Part of it they filmed outside but almost all was on a set inside a studio that they built.

[00:27:43] Lothlorian was the same.

[00:27:44] They had a little bit outside.

[00:27:46] You can go and visit this really cool place.

[00:27:48] And Featherstone just found an hour out of Wellington.

[00:27:51] It's a beautiful kind of stately home and they have this kind of wee river pond thing with a bridge over it.

[00:27:59] And that's where they filmed all those scenes outside in Lothlorian when the fellowship was planning.

[00:28:05] But again, all of this stuff up the trees and around the trees was on a set in a studio studio.

[00:28:12] And then Moria was the same.

[00:28:13] Moria was all constructed inside.

[00:28:16] And what I love about the two towers is that they're now out in the world.

[00:28:21] These are real places that have looked like that for hundreds of thousands of years and they still look like that.

[00:28:28] When they went to go scout the locations for the Lord of the Rings movies,

[00:28:32] they wanted to find areas that were kind of untouched that they wouldn't have to do much too.

[00:28:37] That they could film 360 degrees and do very little alteration in terms of taking things out or putting things in.

[00:28:45] And so a lot of the scenes that we see in this movie are literally that you can go to those places now,

[00:28:50] stand there and look around and look exactly like in the film.

[00:28:53] Which is really cool.

[00:28:54] And one of the reasons why the two are so fun to do because you can go into these locations and reenact the scenes and it's really fun.

[00:29:02] Yeah, there's a song that really jumps out at me is when...

[00:29:06] It's early in the film when Erigorn and Legolas and Gimli very briefly pause in their run

[00:29:14] and Legolas says, you know, the sky's red blood has been spilled this night.

[00:29:19] And then the camera does a 360 around them and is clearly a helicopter.

[00:29:26] What would now be done with a drone but that must have been like a really good helicopter pilot

[00:29:32] with some kind of gyroscopic stabilization device for the camera.

[00:29:38] And it's really beautiful because the pacing of the swoop around and they start running again, the three figures is like...

[00:29:49] It almost makes you a little motion sick because it happens in opposition to each other.

[00:29:55] And it's really stunning.

[00:29:56] And I'm like, I bet Onwyn's been on that mountain.

[00:29:59] I've been on quite a few of the helicopters as well.

[00:30:04] When we did the tours, we used to take helicopter flights to a lot of the locations

[00:30:10] and it was sort of like an extra to the tour that you could do.

[00:30:13] You could book this helicopter flight.

[00:30:15] And we did that with a couple of the companies that they actually used for the filming.

[00:30:19] So there's one in Tiano and one in Queenstown that they used to do a lot of the filming.

[00:30:23] And these are incredible, incredible helicopter pilots

[00:30:27] and a lot of them do all kinds of flying.

[00:30:31] So they do the tourist, scenic flights and everything like that.

[00:30:35] But they also do mountain rescue as well.

[00:30:39] They'll do...

[00:30:41] They drop hunters off in the middle of nowhere to go and hunt deer

[00:30:48] and some of them even do some of the deer culling that they do.

[00:30:55] So deer introduce species to New Zealand and they can be a bit of a pest.

[00:30:58] So they actually sometimes do a bit of culling of them up in the high mountains

[00:31:01] and they'll actually either drop nets onto the deer or they'll drop the hunters down

[00:31:08] like really close next to them on a really high-red jewellery.

[00:31:11] So they're incredibly skilled pilots.

[00:31:14] And yeah, they said they had these big...

[00:31:16] Like you say, a big kind of gimbal thing rotating camera that sort of...

[00:31:22] So it's just slightly below in front of the helicopter that they can do these huge sweeping views of.

[00:31:28] And yeah, those are all real locations.

[00:31:30] Those are what looks like in New Zealand.

[00:31:32] So amazing.

[00:31:33] And a lot of the locations, you know, they're kind of hard to get to

[00:31:37] because of course they wanted it to look really remote.

[00:31:40] There's a lot of remote space in New Zealand.

[00:31:42] We only have five million people in a space that's bigger than the UK

[00:31:47] which has about 70 million people I think.

[00:31:50] So to give you an idea, yeah, it's the simple remote areas.

[00:31:54] But you have to get to some of these locations.

[00:31:57] You do have to drive maybe an hour and a half down a dirt road to get to them.

[00:32:01] And so I think when they did the filming that was a challenge as well

[00:32:05] is getting these trucks in this huge base camp.

[00:32:07] They needed to film everything to these remote locations.

[00:32:11] But it paid off because you can see it on screen.

[00:32:14] It just looks untouched, looks incredible.

[00:32:17] Also, I think a huge number of these, most of the locations in this film

[00:32:25] are in the South Island as well where I live.

[00:32:27] So I've not only been to them on the tours like 25 times but also just traveling around

[00:32:34] myself or with my family whatever.

[00:32:36] You just drop in until we load the rings location and have a little look.

[00:32:40] It's kind of cool.

[00:32:42] And I love the whole area that they kind of use to film, to show Rohan.

[00:32:49] So we see there at the start like you say you've got

[00:32:52] Arrigón de Gillesen Gimli running, running, running, running and looking at the sunrise

[00:32:57] and running some more.

[00:32:58] And that was all filmed up near a place called Paul Burn.

[00:33:02] It's about just under two hours drive from my house

[00:33:06] and it's in the area called the Rock and Pillar Range.

[00:33:09] And you just get these huge rocky tours.

[00:33:12] So you've got this kind of sweeping mountainy landscape but no trees,

[00:33:16] it's just all these incredible rock formations.

[00:33:19] And it just looks so great on film.

[00:33:22] You know, so many different anguars that they can use for the characters to run and hide

[00:33:25] in between the rocks and to run around them.

[00:33:28] And there's been kind of sweeping saddles that they can run down and run up

[00:33:31] and just translated so well to that area.

[00:33:36] And we used to go up to that area on the tours and it was one of the most fun locations

[00:33:43] because it's really so obvious where you are.

[00:33:46] And we used to go to what we used to call it the Orc Gully.

[00:33:49] So the bit where Mary and Pippin are being carried by the Orcs

[00:33:53] and remember Pippin takes the bites as Alvin Broachoff and drops it

[00:33:59] and then later Arrigón finds it.

[00:34:02] And it's really cool because it still looks like that.

[00:34:04] And you just basically, you know, you renex scene and you run through there like the Orcs.

[00:34:08] It's really fun.

[00:34:11] I don't know if it's in the extended footage or in the extra footage

[00:34:17] that didn't even make it into the extended version but there is definitely at least one bit

[00:34:23] where Gimli takes a tumble into that Gully when they're chasing.

[00:34:30] And I was like, oh, I knew he couldn't keep up.

[00:34:35] It's like twerflex and all that.

[00:34:38] It's a very lethal overshot distances for cross country.

[00:34:44] Natural sprints.

[00:34:45] It's cool, isn't it?

[00:34:46] Yeah.

[00:34:47] It's a dark story but the little sprinklings of humour are really cool with that.

[00:34:53] And that's one of them.

[00:34:55] Also, I think that same area is the part where you see it's kind of...

[00:35:01] I think there's a little bit.

[00:35:04] It's kind of a little bit in the prologue.

[00:35:06] I'm not quite sure what are we talking about for the prologue in this film

[00:35:10] while we just had a Gandalf and the Barrog.

[00:35:12] There's a section where you see, I think it's when Saramana is talking about what's happening

[00:35:17] and you see the orcs kind of basically pillaging the Westfold

[00:35:24] or pillaging this area of Rohan.

[00:35:26] And you see them go through this village next to a wee lake

[00:35:29] and they're kind of burning everything and chasing the villages out.

[00:35:33] And that's also filmed up there at the pulburn area.

[00:35:35] That's a little tiny, little lake that people got by go fishing up there and things.

[00:35:42] And that was a really cool location because the...

[00:35:45] the huts and everything are real huts.

[00:35:48] They're like little fishing huts, little holiday homes that people have up there.

[00:35:51] And all they had to do was just dress the outside of them.

[00:35:54] So, you know, the set dresses went up there and they just put that strove

[00:35:57] and some old kind of boards on the front,

[00:36:00] put out puts some old looking baskets around and everything

[00:36:03] and a little kind of fence

[00:36:05] and then suddenly you've got this village.

[00:36:07] So it was quite a simple kind of thing for them to do

[00:36:10] rather than having to construct an entire set.

[00:36:13] And you could go up there and install set and swim in that lake

[00:36:17] and I've been up there in all seasons, you know,

[00:36:19] when it's really hot, we get some pretty hot weather up there in summer

[00:36:23] and then I've been up there where the lake is actually frozen.

[00:36:26] You can walk out on top of the lake.

[00:36:28] So it's a really, really cool space to go and visit.

[00:36:31] How far from there was where they filmed Adirats?

[00:36:35] Now, so that's an interesting thing.

[00:36:37] So they kind of used Central Otago,

[00:36:41] which is the era that I've just mentioned to film most of Rohan.

[00:36:45] But Adirats was actually filmed in Canterbury,

[00:36:47] which is the next kind of region a few hours north of us.

[00:36:51] So that is at a place called Mount Sunday

[00:36:55] and Mount Sunday is literally the little mountain

[00:37:00] that they built Adirats on.

[00:37:02] And it's on a place called Mount Pot Station.

[00:37:04] It's in the Rangatata River Valley and it's about two and a half hours

[00:37:08] from Christchurch, which is the bigger city on the South Island.

[00:37:11] And that is quite a kind of mission to get to again

[00:37:16] a couple of hours on a dirt road.

[00:37:19] But just this incredible, incredible valley.

[00:37:23] And it blends quite well.

[00:37:25] And like I think if you don't know that they're filmed several hundred kilometres apart,

[00:37:29] you wouldn't know because they've kind of mixed the locations really nicely

[00:37:33] and you can kind of get their feeling that it's in the same kind of area, which is really cool.

[00:37:37] Yeah, the geography is similar with the sort of round top hills

[00:37:43] and lots of boulders everywhere.

[00:37:46] What they did with Adirats was incredible.

[00:37:50] I was lucky enough to get to go to that set when it was there

[00:37:54] because that's the scene that I was an extra in.

[00:37:57] And during the filming everything was so secret.

[00:38:01] There was nothing released at all about what everything looked like.

[00:38:04] So we had very strict non-scrozier agreements, which you know, 20 years later

[00:38:08] I'm allowed to talk about it now.

[00:38:12] But yeah, it was just an amazing introduction to the location

[00:38:16] because we got picked up in Christchurch at our pickup time

[00:38:20] with the bus was 3am in Christchurch and we got taken out there

[00:38:25] so you get out there by about 5.30am still dark

[00:38:28] because it was towards the end of winter, it was sort of spring.

[00:38:31] It was like late August early September

[00:38:34] and you get out there it was still dark

[00:38:37] and there was this massive base camp

[00:38:40] so there was sort of like 600 people there including crew, extras, army extras

[00:38:45] a whole bunch of people.

[00:38:47] There's huge, huge marquees set up with costumes and makeup

[00:38:51] and it was probably about 20 trucks, maybe 20 trailers as well

[00:38:58] and this giant catering tent too.

[00:39:01] And so you go in and you get your intercostume and makeup first

[00:39:06] and they give you your outfit and a makeup consistent of smudging some dirt on your face

[00:39:12] and then you'll be able to go and have breakfast

[00:39:17] and around this time it was starting to get light

[00:39:21] and I remember the first day that I was up there

[00:39:24] and I popped out side together a bit of fresh air

[00:39:27] and the sun was just coming up, it was just pre-dorn

[00:39:30] and turned around and looked over to where Edda was

[00:39:34] and it was just jaw dropping like they actually built that town on top of that little mountain.

[00:39:41] Absolutely incredible.

[00:39:43] Some of the houses are digitally added later but they did build

[00:39:47] the entire village at the top there's about 12 houses that you can see

[00:39:51] in the location at the top of the mountain

[00:39:53] and then there was about four or five down at the kind of gate entry level

[00:39:57] and it was just mind blowing, it was really incredible to see

[00:40:01] and then of course you have your big giant breakfast

[00:40:03] they had the most lavish food there, so much food

[00:40:06] I was like everything you could imagine on the best hotel buffet there for hundreds of people to have

[00:40:12] and then we got sort of blocked into our scene

[00:40:15] so we got travelled up to the set, they called it travelling the extras

[00:40:20] and the little money buses and jeeps

[00:40:23] and little army trucks and things we got taken up there

[00:40:25] and put into different scenes

[00:40:27] so there are a couple of scenes where I can see myself

[00:40:31] so I'm thinking why it's interested, I'll put the timestamps in this show notes

[00:40:35] That's so cool.

[00:40:37] The main scene where I can see myself is when

[00:40:41] Thaird is being brought back into Edda's by AMIA on the horse

[00:40:46] so they found him dead or the fountain dying

[00:40:49] by the river with the orcs

[00:40:51] and they bring him back into Edda's

[00:40:53] it's about 24 minutes into the extended edition version of the film

[00:40:57] and there's a shot with AMIA riding through the gate

[00:41:01] towards the camera

[00:41:02] and there's two people on the left of the screen

[00:41:05] there's a blonde lady on the far left

[00:41:07] and then I'm the second one on the left

[00:41:09] and I've got like a shawl over my hair

[00:41:11] and I can see myself

[00:41:12] and I'm like, oh my god, that's so fun

[00:41:15] I was an extra on a movie once

[00:41:18] but it was not like a really big cool movie like this

[00:41:23] it's nobody saw it

[00:41:25] so I'm really jealous

[00:41:27] It's a fun experience though

[00:41:29] like you don't realize what goes into it

[00:41:32] until you're there

[00:41:33] until you sort of see how complex it is

[00:41:36] and this of any movie to be an extra on

[00:41:41] or to be able to visit the set of

[00:41:43] this movie was such a grand scale

[00:41:46] that it was all of the things

[00:41:49] that go into making a film

[00:41:51] they didn't just do a few of the things

[00:41:54] it was like this film took everything

[00:41:56] and so many people

[00:41:57] everything, yes

[00:41:59] so incredible

[00:42:01] and I think you know

[00:42:03] there was some really huge

[00:42:05] locations in huge

[00:42:08] kind of areas

[00:42:09] but this is one of the days

[00:42:12] that I was there

[00:42:13] was one of the biggest shooting days

[00:42:15] at their head in terms of scale

[00:42:16] and number of people

[00:42:17] so there were 600 people on location

[00:42:19] they had 100 crores

[00:42:20] it was the main crew, 100 of them

[00:42:22] 200 extras

[00:42:24] and then 300 army extras

[00:42:26] so what they did when they went to make this film

[00:42:28] was they're like okay

[00:42:29] we've got, we can get a number of extras

[00:42:31] to come and be

[00:42:32] you know these Rohan villages

[00:42:34] but we need a lot more people

[00:42:36] and we need them kind of on tap

[00:42:37] we need to be able to go

[00:42:38] okay on this day we need 200 of you

[00:42:40] and that's quite hard to do

[00:42:41] you know like finding a

[00:42:42] especially in a place

[00:42:43] with not a huge population

[00:42:45] finding people

[00:42:46] that can just drop everything

[00:42:47] so either have to have no job

[00:42:48] or have a really flexible job

[00:42:50] or be retired

[00:42:51] or you know there's not

[00:42:53] on there's not a

[00:42:55] pool of hundreds

[00:42:56] or thousands of people on tap

[00:42:58] that you can just do that for

[00:42:59] so what they actually did is they

[00:43:01] enlisted the New Zealand army

[00:43:03] they basically paid the army

[00:43:05] to supply them with soldiers

[00:43:08] to play the Rohan soldiers

[00:43:12] so great

[00:43:14] they got the day that I was there

[00:43:15] there was 300 of them

[00:43:17] and they're kind of like

[00:43:18] well you know if you just want to get

[00:43:20] a bunch of people

[00:43:21] and tell them to go over there

[00:43:23] and stand still

[00:43:24] and then 20 minutes later

[00:43:25] tell them to go over there

[00:43:26] and do this thing

[00:43:27] and then stand still for a bit

[00:43:28] and then go over there

[00:43:29] the army is quite good

[00:43:31] because they used to fall in orders

[00:43:32] and they probably used to

[00:43:33] stand around being a bit board

[00:43:34] sometimes

[00:43:35] and you know they're these big

[00:43:37] fit guys

[00:43:38] so they dress them all up

[00:43:40] in the Rohan armour

[00:43:41] and there they were

[00:43:42] it's really interesting

[00:43:43] it's really perfect

[00:43:44] and it's a good use of

[00:43:46] the military frankly

[00:43:47] because these films have

[00:43:49] done so much good

[00:43:50] for New Zealand

[00:43:51] right like they've

[00:43:52] they've been such a huge

[00:43:54] boon for the country

[00:43:55] oh absolutely

[00:43:57] the the tourism numbers

[00:43:59] I mean it's hard to measure

[00:44:01] but I have seen

[00:44:02] statistics

[00:44:03] you know on and off

[00:44:04] over the years

[00:44:05] but it's incredible

[00:44:06] the difference that it's

[00:44:08] made and how many people

[00:44:09] come here

[00:44:10] just simply because of it

[00:44:11] which is really cool

[00:44:12] because it's great

[00:44:13] one of the things

[00:44:14] that I did notice a lot

[00:44:15] when I was leading

[00:44:16] the tours was that

[00:44:17] you would often get

[00:44:19] people coming in

[00:44:20] a couple or in

[00:44:21] a small group of friends

[00:44:22] or you know maybe

[00:44:24] a mother daughter

[00:44:25] or father-son or whatever

[00:44:26] kind of groups

[00:44:27] and often one of them

[00:44:29] would be really

[00:44:30] super into the

[00:44:31] rings so they know

[00:44:32] the movies, they know

[00:44:33] the books, they're

[00:44:34] really into it

[00:44:35] and the other one may

[00:44:36] be not so much either

[00:44:37] doesn't

[00:44:38] isn't into it at all

[00:44:39] or is just kind of

[00:44:40] like, yeah that's fine

[00:44:41] and what was really

[00:44:43] cool was seeing

[00:44:44] the people who came here

[00:44:45] for you know

[00:44:46] the purposes of

[00:44:47] doing this

[00:44:48] Lord of the Rings tour

[00:44:49] but they would just

[00:44:50] be blown away

[00:44:51] by the beauty of the

[00:44:52] country so you'd be

[00:44:53] there by this lake

[00:44:54] and the

[00:44:55] hardcore Lord of the Rings

[00:44:56] fan will be like

[00:44:57] that's the exact

[00:44:58] spot where Frodo

[00:44:59] and Sam left the

[00:45:00] fellowship

[00:45:01] and I've seen the

[00:45:02] DVD extras so I know

[00:45:03] that Sean Aston went

[00:45:04] into the water

[00:45:05] and he cut his

[00:45:06] foot open and it happened

[00:45:07] right there

[00:45:08] and then you've got

[00:45:09] the other person going

[00:45:10] this isn't a really

[00:45:11] beautiful lake

[00:45:12] look at that mountain

[00:45:13] wow, that's incredible

[00:45:14] so you have

[00:45:16] a bit of both

[00:45:17] so it's actually

[00:45:18] a really cool way to see

[00:45:19] even if you don't

[00:45:20] care that much about

[00:45:21] the Lord of the Rings

[00:45:22] to see the off-the-bitten

[00:45:23] track kind of

[00:45:24] beauty of New Zealand

[00:45:25] is a really cool way of

[00:45:26] doing it

[00:45:27] so Peter Jackson

[00:45:28] like handpicked

[00:45:29] the most beautiful

[00:45:30] places he could find

[00:45:31] in that country

[00:45:32] yeah, exactly

[00:45:34] I would want to see

[00:45:35] all of them even

[00:45:36] if I didn't

[00:45:37] love Lord of the Rings

[00:45:38] but Lord of the Rings

[00:45:39] just makes it more fun

[00:45:40] so when are you booking

[00:45:42] a flat pinnacle

[00:45:43] because you're

[00:45:44] welcome any time

[00:45:45] thank you

[00:45:46] I was kind of thinking

[00:45:48] about maybe April or May

[00:45:52] because that would be

[00:45:55] autumn for you guys

[00:45:57] right and it would be

[00:45:58] my favourite

[00:45:59] April is a beautiful time

[00:46:01] absolutely beautiful

[00:46:02] time to see the country

[00:46:03] and we do have

[00:46:05] in Central Otago

[00:46:06] there's quite a few

[00:46:07] introduced trees

[00:46:09] that do, you know

[00:46:11] so our native forest

[00:46:12] here is all

[00:46:13] evergreen

[00:46:14] so you don't really

[00:46:15] get autumn colours

[00:46:16] with the native bush

[00:46:17] but we have a lot of

[00:46:18] introduced trees

[00:46:19] as well like poplars

[00:46:20] and willows

[00:46:21] and all that kind of

[00:46:22] stuff and autumn

[00:46:23] is just stunning

[00:46:24] and it's still quite warm

[00:46:25] April is still quite warm

[00:46:26] but yeah, it's

[00:46:28] starting to get shorter

[00:46:29] days so you get

[00:46:30] these beautiful sunrises

[00:46:31] and sunsets

[00:46:32] April and September

[00:46:34] are both

[00:46:35] beautiful times

[00:46:36] to visit for sure

[00:46:37] awesome

[00:46:38] if you're ever

[00:46:39] coming to Boston

[00:46:40] September and October

[00:46:42] are the best times

[00:46:43] to visit us here

[00:46:44] okay

[00:46:45] we do have a lot of

[00:46:47] autumn colour

[00:46:48] and you get

[00:46:50] these crisp

[00:46:51] sunny days

[00:46:52] and chilly nights

[00:46:54] and I personally

[00:46:56] love a good

[00:46:57] like fire pit

[00:46:58] you know

[00:46:59] be out so

[00:47:00] waters

[00:47:01] like you can smell

[00:47:02] the autumn leaves

[00:47:03] and burning stars

[00:47:05] it's really nice

[00:47:07] so if you're here

[00:47:08] if you want to come

[00:47:09] you're welcome

[00:47:10] I've plenty of space

[00:47:11] your whole family could

[00:47:12] stay with me

[00:47:13] fantastic

[00:47:14] I've been to Boston once

[00:47:15] and it was just

[00:47:16] for a day

[00:47:17] I was doing a tour

[00:47:18] around the year

[00:47:19] and yeah, it was August

[00:47:20] so it was pretty hot

[00:47:21] and humid

[00:47:22] I bet

[00:47:23] sticky

[00:47:24] yeah

[00:47:25] come back in October

[00:47:27] it's beautiful in October

[00:47:29] there's another

[00:47:31] shot

[00:47:32] another scene

[00:47:33] at Edoras

[00:47:34] that I can see myself in

[00:47:35] as well

[00:47:36] and it was really cool

[00:47:37] because my dad

[00:47:38] was also an extra

[00:47:39] so we got to have a couple

[00:47:40] of days on set

[00:47:41] together which was really fun

[00:47:42] and they

[00:47:44] the attention to detail

[00:47:45] that they had

[00:47:46] they basically said

[00:47:47] is there anybody here

[00:47:48] who's actually related

[00:47:49] will put you together

[00:47:50] like your family

[00:47:51] you know

[00:47:52] this is background extras

[00:47:53] you're not going to

[00:47:54] really see them much

[00:47:55] but they still

[00:47:56] wanted that attention

[00:47:57] to detail which was really

[00:47:58] cool so it meant

[00:47:59] that we got to be

[00:48:00] blocked into the scenes

[00:48:01] together which was fun

[00:48:02] nice

[00:48:03] and one of the

[00:48:04] crazy things about

[00:48:05] there

[00:48:06] and about being there

[00:48:07] is

[00:48:09] New Zealand

[00:48:10] is pretty multi-cultural

[00:48:12] we have a large

[00:48:14] parkie-ha

[00:48:15] or white European

[00:48:16] population

[00:48:17] but we also

[00:48:18] have a lot of

[00:48:19] Māori people

[00:48:20] we have

[00:48:21] surveillance

[00:48:22] we have a large Chinese

[00:48:23] population

[00:48:24] and quite a big

[00:48:25] middle eastern

[00:48:26] population as well

[00:48:27] we take a lot of

[00:48:28] Syrian refugees

[00:48:29] and there's a whole

[00:48:30] bunch of people

[00:48:31] that live in New Zealand

[00:48:33] and so you know

[00:48:34] you're used to

[00:48:35] seeing different

[00:48:36] skin colour, different hair

[00:48:37] colour, different eye colour

[00:48:38] wherever you go

[00:48:39] and what was really

[00:48:41] fascinating about being

[00:48:42] extra at Eteris

[00:48:43] was that all

[00:48:44] of the people

[00:48:45] had pale skin

[00:48:47] and light eyes

[00:48:48] so everyone had

[00:48:49] grey or green or

[00:48:50] blue eyes

[00:48:51] and everybody had

[00:48:53] pale skin

[00:48:54] and either

[00:48:55] blonde

[00:48:56] or light red

[00:48:57] and that was really

[00:48:58] weird

[00:48:59] I'm not used to

[00:49:00] that at all

[00:49:01] was quite

[00:49:02] disconcerting

[00:49:03] just looking around

[00:49:04] and seeing

[00:49:05] everybody looked

[00:49:06] exactly the same

[00:49:07] it was really

[00:49:08] unusual and quite strange

[00:49:09] but yeah

[00:49:10] their attention to

[00:49:11] detail was incredible

[00:49:12] my hair was slightly too

[00:49:13] dark

[00:49:14] to be a row-hung

[00:49:15] and I was

[00:49:17] looking at the

[00:49:18] shawl on my head

[00:49:19] yeah so me and dad

[00:49:20] got blocked into

[00:49:21] this one scene

[00:49:22] it's where

[00:49:23] our

[00:49:25] gorn legalist

[00:49:26] and gumbly are walking

[00:49:27] down through

[00:49:28] the village

[00:49:29] on their way

[00:49:30] into the

[00:49:32] stables

[00:49:33] and they're

[00:49:34] talking about

[00:49:35] how I'm deep

[00:49:36] and defending

[00:49:37] and so on

[00:49:38] and everything

[00:49:39] and there's this

[00:49:40] one scene

[00:49:41] where I'm

[00:49:42] lucky

[00:49:43] there's a

[00:49:45] gas pipe

[00:49:46] that basically

[00:49:48] had real flame

[00:49:49] he hit

[00:49:50] up this

[00:49:51] cauldron

[00:49:52] and it started to

[00:49:54] steam

[00:49:55] and everything

[00:49:56] had water in

[00:49:58] it

[00:49:59] and my dad was standing there

[00:50:00] so I was

[00:50:01] sort of

[00:50:02] cauldron

[00:50:04] and I was sitting there

[00:50:05] handing out

[00:50:06] these bowls

[00:50:07] or whatever

[00:50:08] to people

[00:50:09] they're

[00:50:10] Erragorn, Legolas and Gandalf walking through the village.

[00:50:13] So you printed that and it's framed in your house, right?

[00:50:18] Yeah.

[00:50:20] I think I should do that.

[00:50:21] That'd be cool.

[00:50:23] No, it's screencapped in my photos.

[00:50:26] But what was really cool about that was that first of all I got to sit down.

[00:50:32] Second of all, it was quite cold up there so it was quite cool having this little fire right

[00:50:36] in front of me.

[00:50:38] And then also the actors, they film a scene coming down past us and then they cut and

[00:50:45] then they have to go back and do it again.

[00:50:46] And we probably did 10 or 15 takes of most of these scenes.

[00:50:52] And so I just got this front review of Vigo Mortensen walking past and his costume

[00:50:58] and Legolas and Orlando Bloom there and it was just really, really fun.

[00:51:03] And every time they came past Ann McCall in her place, Gandalf would grab a little handful

[00:51:08] of straw or a little shape of corn or something and he'd throw it in my culture.

[00:51:13] Really?

[00:51:14] And then he'd come past the next time he was like, how's the stoo going?

[00:51:18] And I'm like, oh it's bright.

[00:51:19] And it actually started to smell quite good.

[00:51:21] That's really funny.

[00:51:23] That was really cool.

[00:51:25] Yes.

[00:51:26] And this mischievous side to him that comes through all of his characters just a little bit.

[00:51:33] You know, it's one of those things you're on a big film set and the instruction is not

[00:51:37] to talk to any of the actors.

[00:51:39] You're not allowed to talk to, you know, if you see Peter Jackson and I talk to him, most

[00:51:43] of the extras were kind of directed by the assistant director until you didn't really have much

[00:51:51] to do with him.

[00:51:52] But yeah, you're under all these instructions to do, you know, stay where you put, do

[00:51:56] what you're told, don't come up with any suggestions.

[00:51:59] Yeah.

[00:52:00] And don't talk to anyone but if they talk to you then of course it's all fine.

[00:52:06] And my dad had this really cool memory of sitting on the steps of the Golden Hall with

[00:52:11] Anne McCallan talking about talking, which was really cool.

[00:52:14] Oh that's a really special memory for him.

[00:52:16] So yeah, and you know, you don't obviously go out of your way to talk to people but they

[00:52:20] were everyone was pretty friendly and it wasn't sort of, I didn't feel like where the cast

[00:52:24] and you're the extras kind of thing.

[00:52:26] You know, it was actually just a really respectful kind of set, which was really nice.

[00:52:31] They had no idea at that point how big of a success it was going to be.

[00:52:36] And how crazy their lives were going to be after the release.

[00:52:41] Yeah.

[00:52:42] Oh yeah, and it was so, I think, you know, dawned on them later once they got to start doing

[00:52:47] some of the recent things like that.

[00:52:50] While it was all secretive, though the cast were just here living their lives, you

[00:52:54] know, it's far too long to stay in a hotel so they all had apartments and houses that

[00:52:58] were rented for them by production and they just basically lived their life in Wellington

[00:53:01] and on their little trips around and became part of the community.

[00:53:06] And then suddenly this thing blows up and these huge world tours for the priests and

[00:53:12] for the premieres and everything.

[00:53:13] It must have been incredible because they're all pretty young, you know, like we talked

[00:53:17] about before.

[00:53:18] Elijah was 17 when he first got here.

[00:53:22] The other Hobbit boys were sort of between early 20s and 30 or so.

[00:53:26] I think Billy Boyd was 33.

[00:53:28] You know, they were just having a great time.

[00:53:30] They were the last and partying.

[00:53:33] Yeah, I remember at the time a lot of press coming out about the four Hobbits being like

[00:53:39] best friends and partying together and hanging out together all the time and it seemed

[00:53:45] so fun and I was like, I just want to be a part of it.

[00:53:50] I know.

[00:53:51] Yeah, and watching those DVD extras, you know, you can tell they just, they just had so

[00:53:55] much fun and it's a really special part of their lives.

[00:53:59] And I think you often hear about people when they're filming a movie, they become a

[00:54:05] little family at the time and then sometimes people stay in touch later but often they

[00:54:09] don't.

[00:54:10] It's just a really insular kind of time capsule of what's happening right then and

[00:54:14] then you know, you have that memory and that's fine and you move on.

[00:54:18] But this really was so special for them and so pivotal and really made an impact on their

[00:54:24] lives.

[00:54:25] You can tell it even now 20 years later when they chat about it, how special it is

[00:54:28] for them.

[00:54:29] And I think it's a great time to come back and visit and absolutely love it so it's

[00:54:33] really, it's really special.

[00:54:35] The other thing that's cool about this movie is there are as well as the main cast,

[00:54:39] there are heaps on New Zealand actors as well which most people listening to my voice

[00:54:44] who are not from New Zealand would not recognize it all but we have a TV show here called Short

[00:54:50] in Street which is kind of our version of Coronation Street in England or maybe I don't

[00:54:55] know.

[00:54:56] It's not quite days of our lives levels but it's kind of like a soap style drama.

[00:55:01] It's called itself a drama but it's a soap and that's been going for about 30 years

[00:55:06] now and a huge number of actors get their start on Short in Street and it was really fun

[00:55:14] to see hector those in here.

[00:55:16] I mean one of the more major characters, Carlo Barn is New Zealander and he plays AMA

[00:55:24] and he's more of a well-known Hollywood actor I guess and you've seen him in lots of other

[00:55:29] things.

[00:55:30] Well now, but back then.

[00:55:32] And yeah, back then it wasn't, it was just oh there's Jamie the ambulance driver from Short

[00:55:36] in Street.

[00:55:37] One of my notes is babyface, Carl Urban that's just all it says.

[00:55:42] Yeah.

[00:55:43] Because he's so young and on the boys the character he plays is you know grizzled not necessarily

[00:55:51] from age but just from life.

[00:55:53] Like he's had a rough life and he's a rough person and he just looks old and pessimistic

[00:56:00] and he's cranky all the time and it's so weird to see him as Eomer, this like noble you

[00:56:10] know Rowan Warrior, Future King.

[00:56:12] I deal with stick.

[00:56:13] Yeah.

[00:56:14] It's such a funny like it messes with your head.

[00:56:17] He also was, he's in the Star Trek reboot.

[00:56:22] He's a, yeah of course.

[00:56:24] Yeah, yeah.

[00:56:25] Oh yeah, he's great.

[00:56:27] He's got the eyebrows for it.

[00:56:28] I first saw him as Julius Caesar in Zena so when he showed up in this I was like hey

[00:56:36] I know him.

[00:56:37] It was like way down the curve.

[00:56:39] Yeah, it's sort of like in the 90s it was like you start on Short in Street and then

[00:56:44] you go to Hickie Lee's in Zena and then you go to Lord of the Rings.

[00:56:47] Yeah.

[00:56:48] It's like this track that you can see.

[00:56:50] It's like in Great Britain, you have to be in a Harry Potter movie.

[00:56:55] Like yeah, you had to.

[00:56:57] Yeah.

[00:56:58] Exactly.

[00:56:59] It's like you can see all the faces just pop up.

[00:57:01] There's a couple of other cool New Zealand actors that are in the the Eterus scenes and

[00:57:07] then later the Houndstep scenes.

[00:57:09] So you know Gambling, he's the guy who puts, he puts, he puts, he adds armor on and he's

[00:57:15] having that talk when he does that speech sort of about going out into, to battle.

[00:57:21] That's him.

[00:57:22] And he's, he's Corbis Hopkins.

[00:57:25] He's a really cool New Zealand actor as well.

[00:57:28] And he also played Marcus on Short in Street.

[00:57:32] If you, if you're interested it's actually really Corbis Hopkins did a really cool thing.

[00:57:37] There's a tramping track or trail I guess you guys call them in America, hiking trail which

[00:57:43] runs the whole length of New Zealand.

[00:57:45] It's called Tararoa as the long walk and it is a track that goes all the way from the

[00:57:50] very top to the very bottom.

[00:57:52] It's something like 1500 kilometers or something like that.

[00:57:56] And he actually walked that with his father's ashes to go back to where he was from and

[00:58:05] he does a podcast on it.

[00:58:06] I can't remember the name of it off the top of my head but I'll look it up and I'll pop

[00:58:09] it in the show notes because it's really fascinating and really interesting.

[00:58:12] And he sort of recorded a lot of it as he walked or you know when he stopped in between

[00:58:18] for a rest and things, it's really fascinating if you like those kind of you know spiritual

[00:58:23] and physical journey type things have a lesson because it's really interesting.

[00:58:27] He's a really cool guy.

[00:58:30] That's amazing.

[00:58:31] So yeah fun to see him on screen.

[00:58:32] And then you also have Hamma.

[00:58:34] So Hamma was the one who took their weapons off them when they first entered the Golden

[00:58:38] Hall and made the mistake.

[00:58:42] Made the mistake of letting Gandalf still have his sword.

[00:58:45] Or intentionally allowed Gandalf to still have his sword.

[00:58:47] Maybe.

[00:58:48] Yeah, perhaps.

[00:58:51] And so he's played by John Lee.

[00:58:53] He's another great New Zealand actor and we also know him as Lionel, the vet turned

[00:58:57] to KFA owner on Short and Street.

[00:58:59] Actually, yes, he was really cool to see as well.

[00:59:02] So it's really fun to see these New Zealand faces pop up as well.

[00:59:06] Cool.

[00:59:07] Very cool.

[00:59:08] Yeah, I don't know where we're at.

[00:59:11] We've talked about some locations.

[00:59:12] We've talked about interests.

[00:59:13] What have you got next?

[00:59:15] I want to talk about my favourite talking theme of Nature versus Technology.

[00:59:22] We get to see Saruman really just diving into destroying the environment in order to create

[00:59:32] monsters.

[00:59:34] He makes them somehow, the forges are involved and mud.

[00:59:40] It's not completely clear how he makes the Urokai.

[00:59:45] I've come to think that maybe he takes existing orcs and does something to them because it

[00:59:51] doesn't seem like he makes them from a whole cloth.

[00:59:54] It's all very confusing.

[00:59:56] And I want to talk about orcs too, but I love the symbolism and not that subtle symbolism

[01:00:03] of the ants destroying Eisengaard and the forges with the power of these tree herders.

[01:00:12] In the book there are some great descriptions about how they would put their hand on stone

[01:00:16] and the tendrils would grow out of their fingers and destroy the rocks and tear them apart.

[01:00:25] They take the dam out and flood the forges, putting out all the fires and killing tons

[01:00:31] orcs.

[01:00:32] So many orcs get killed in that flood.

[01:00:34] There's that hilarious moment when the one ant that's on fire sticks his head in the water.

[01:00:39] It's one of my favourite moments on the whole movie.

[01:00:41] Oh yeah, that's so good.

[01:00:42] It's really funny.

[01:00:44] I love the ants.

[01:00:45] I love everything about the ants.

[01:00:48] Early on, tree beard says, I'm not on any one side because nobody is on my side.

[01:00:55] And then when he realizes that he regardless of whether he has allies, he has enemies,

[01:01:02] he mobilises the ants and he says even if we're going to our doom, we're going to go

[01:01:07] and it's the last march of the ants.

[01:01:10] And fortunately they don't all die.

[01:01:12] Spoiler alert.

[01:01:14] So there's still hope that the ants may someday find the ant wives.

[01:01:17] But I can't get enough of the ants.

[01:01:20] I'll watch the ants scenes over and over and over again.

[01:01:23] I wish there were real ants in the world.

[01:01:26] I love being deep in the forest where you feel like there's nowhere else except the

[01:01:33] forest.

[01:01:34] And the best place to do that in the United States is really the redwood forests that are

[01:01:39] on the west coast.

[01:01:41] You know, those trees are hundreds and thousands of years old.

[01:01:45] And they're like skyscraper tall.

[01:01:47] And the feeling that you get when you're in those woods is of a living being.

[01:01:53] Like the woods have ascensions to them.

[01:01:57] Yeah.

[01:01:58] It's really extremely beautiful.

[01:02:01] And I try to visit whenever I'm in California to just get that feeling of like moisture and

[01:02:08] green and the height of it is so impressive.

[01:02:12] I never get tired of like comparing, like, I'm this big and the tree is like 45 times

[01:02:19] as tall as me.

[01:02:21] It's just amazing.

[01:02:22] It's incredible, isn't it?

[01:02:23] Yeah.

[01:02:24] And you get that feeling of it's a kind of simultaneous feeling of being completely insignificant

[01:02:31] but also completely connected.

[01:02:33] Yeah.

[01:02:34] When you're in a forest like that where you feel so small and you're next to this tree,

[01:02:37] I got to go to the, I haven't been to the redwoods but I went to the sequer forest

[01:02:43] part and there's a tree there called General Sherman which is the biggest living thing

[01:02:51] on earth.

[01:02:52] So it's like 2000 years old or something and it's bigger than a blue whale.

[01:02:56] Like it's just unbelievably huge.

[01:02:59] Like I couldn't, this was the days before iPhone so I couldn't take a panorama.

[01:03:04] But I had my old clicky camera back in the day and you had to take three photos, one looking

[01:03:09] at it, one looking at the middle but one looking at the top.

[01:03:12] And it's incredible to feel this sense of scale and what it feels like there and yeah,

[01:03:19] those huge huge trees.

[01:03:20] And then yeah, I guess in New Zealand when you've got this, the place where they filmed

[01:03:25] some of it on location but a lot of the scenes were filmed in the studio and they used

[01:03:32] miniatures, they built these really kind of quarter scale or half scale forests and filmed

[01:03:39] those and then sort of dropped tree bed digitally into them.

[01:03:43] But that's like really ancient New Zealand rainforest.

[01:03:46] You know it's just this really incredible dense kind of forest and we still have a lot

[01:03:52] of that, a huge amount has no longer there but we still have a lot of it here in New

[01:03:57] Zealand and to go to those forests too, to feel that kind of sense of this just this ancient

[01:04:04] place it's always looked like there and people come and go but the forest remains and it's

[01:04:10] incredible.

[01:04:11] Yeah I have been to the rainforest in South America not the Brazilian side, I went to

[01:04:20] the Argentine side but it's a very different vibe because that's a tropical rainforest

[01:04:25] and so it's got jungle lead plants and lots of vines and it's what's remarkable about

[01:04:35] that forest is the constant sound of birds and insects, it's just like loud.

[01:04:41] You're like what is that?

[01:04:43] And then the guide is like that is and they'll like rattle off like 10 different birds

[01:04:47] and 20 different insect names and you're like oh now I can hear that that's what it is

[01:04:53] and it's constant and it's really beautiful once you get used to it and hot, really hot

[01:04:58] and steamy but now I want to come to New Zealand and see your forests, your old growth forest.

[01:05:09] Well the co thing is here there are the only thing that can kill you in New Zealand and

[01:05:15] the mountains of the forest is the weather.

[01:05:18] We don't have any snakes at all, we don't have any poisonous spiders I think there's one

[01:05:24] little tiny poisonous spider that lives in the sand dunes and nobody ever sees it.

[01:05:28] Yeah we don't have bears, we don't have yeah it's like a pretty much ordinary.

[01:05:35] Yeah, avalanche or a river or the weather closing in you know that's kind of it but yeah you

[01:05:41] can be outside and not feel in danger of any critters which is cool.

[01:05:46] So funny because the birds song yeah it's just beautiful too.

[01:05:48] Americans tend to say Australia and New Zealand like they just lump the two together and

[01:05:54] there are such different countries and I feel like in Australia everything is trying

[01:05:59] to kill you.

[01:06:00] Yeah well Australia has the 10 most poisonous things that can kill you in the world,

[01:06:08] all of them, they will live there.

[01:06:11] It's really scary and as a key we go into Australia you know of course we have an affinity

[01:06:17] with them, you know we're kind of like siblings so you have this kind of banter you know

[01:06:24] where in competition with each other but if we see each other on the other side of the

[01:06:28] world it's like a long lost brother or sister.

[01:06:29] Oh my god you're from Australia.

[01:06:33] But when we go there it is really different and feels exotic and you know we were just

[01:06:37] over there in December and visiting family and you know we're so used to just being out

[01:06:44] of walk around all the time with BFF and you don't do that in Australia, you don't walk

[01:06:48] through some trees and you know some undergrowth with BFF because there could be a brown snake

[01:06:53] there ready to kill you within 30 seconds.

[01:06:57] What?

[01:06:58] It's Americans are sort of oblivious to other countries in a lot of ways so it doesn't

[01:07:05] surprise me that they don't for the most part understand that Australia, New Zealand are

[01:07:09] separate countries.

[01:07:12] And also and you can see why they love them to get there sometimes you know it's just

[01:07:15] yeah we have some similar history and some similar kind of feeling to it in some ways

[01:07:24] but yeah New Zealand is way way better now just different.

[01:07:30] I think it's really kind of hilariously ironic that this story that is very much about

[01:07:39] nature should be respected and should triumph over technology was brought to life by cutting

[01:07:47] edge technology.

[01:07:50] Like it's extremely dependent on technology to tell the story and the story is don't trust

[01:07:56] technology and it goes around in circles in my mind because a lot of technology is

[01:08:03] good and helpful and makes the world better and helps people live healthier but it's

[01:08:10] also dangerous and we don't always think through the ramifications as humans.

[01:08:17] All right it's taking it too far so you start out with something that could be good or

[01:08:22] positive and then taking it too far for someone's own nefarious ends or for monetary gain

[01:08:28] or that kind of thing.

[01:08:31] But I do like that theme in this story and it is bringing it down to the kind of grassroots

[01:08:38] local kind of way of thinking and that scene where Mary and Pippin are talking when they've

[01:08:45] just been to the Entmute and Pippin's like oh we're you know the story but this is bigger

[01:08:50] than us we're just small and we can't do anything about it and Mary I just want to go back

[01:08:56] to the Shire and Mary says there won't be a Shire and that's I really like that's a

[01:09:00] really good representation of what the message is here that you know first the message in

[01:09:05] the first film was the smallest person can change the course of history and in the second

[01:09:09] one it's like actually if you notice something that's not right then you have to stand up

[01:09:14] for it and you can't think of yourself as not having an impact or being too small because

[01:09:19] it's still going to continue on and you know you might not have you hype anymore.

[01:09:23] It's really powerful.

[01:09:24] I always identified and was identified with Mary and Pippin more than any other character.

[01:09:32] They you know they're not the chosen one, they don't have they don't have the burden

[01:09:39] of the ring.

[01:09:40] They aren't you know the heir to a you know mythic throne.

[01:09:45] They don't have magical powers, they aren't a prince among elves all these things.

[01:09:51] They're in this because their friends with a dude who needed to go and deal with this

[01:09:56] and they just like went along with them.

[01:09:58] I feel like that's something that would happen to me right?

[01:10:01] Like a friend of mine would be like I have to go take this horrible burden to the elves

[01:10:09] can you come and I'd be like yeah okay I'll go with you and then you know I'd get wrapped

[01:10:12] up in adventure and I love the moment when Gandalf says the coming of Mary and Pippin

[01:10:20] to Fengorn Forest will be like a stone in the mountains that causes an avalanche or

[01:10:26] a pebble that causes an avalanche or something.

[01:10:28] Yeah.

[01:10:29] I love that they ended up being pivotal in a lot of moments in the fight for middle earth

[01:10:35] even though they were just sort of their accidentally.

[01:10:39] Every more than Pippin was my favorite in the books because Pippin's always been kind

[01:10:43] of a dummy but Mary is right.

[01:10:46] Full of a took.

[01:10:47] Yeah full of a took.

[01:10:49] Mary is right that if you know you can't afford to stand on the sidelines and that's

[01:10:53] what the ends had to figure out for themselves as well that you know evil needs to be fought

[01:10:59] and it needs to be fought wherever you find it and at every level.

[01:11:03] And that this film you know as a whole but also specifically for Mary and Pippin it kind

[01:11:11] of marked that transition between them being at the start of the journey they're just

[01:11:15] kind of going along for the ride and they quite like the adventure and it's fun.

[01:11:19] You know they're stealing the the farm of maggots crop and then they're just with a kind

[01:11:23] of like comic relief and so on.

[01:11:26] Most of the way through the fellowship and then in the two towers they've kind of got

[01:11:30] this they don't know what they're doing they've escaped suddenly escaped from this kidnapping

[01:11:35] by the Orcs and they're in Fangorn Forest and they've been up with Treebared and then

[01:11:39] they kind of notice that they can maybe make a difference or help to make a difference

[01:11:43] and like as much of a full of a took Pippin is I noticed again just when we were watching

[01:11:49] last night.

[01:11:51] When Fangorn says no the ends have decided not to help we're going to keep to ourselves

[01:11:55] and we'll take you to the edge of the forest and Pippin says no take us south and they're

[01:12:01] like what do you mean why would you do that kind of thing.

[01:12:04] And I think he did it on purpose so that fat so that they would be able to see the destruction

[01:12:09] would be able to see the devastation and that would be the deciding factor.

[01:12:13] So I think Pippin is cool because he's you know he's a bit silly but every now and again

[01:12:18] he'll just come up with his little gem.

[01:12:20] They complement each other so well and you can tell that the actors were such good friends

[01:12:24] and a still best friends now.

[01:12:27] And that Dom Wanahan who played Mary was incredible I love him in this particularly those

[01:12:33] scenes with the ends he's so expressive and sort of gets across Mary's passion for

[01:12:38] what he's talking about.

[01:12:40] And that's actually echoed a little bit in Dom Wanahan in real life he's pretty into

[01:12:45] the environment and sustainability and so on so it's pretty cool that they may be

[01:12:50] kind of echoed all learnt from this experience that they had making the film which is really

[01:12:54] nice it's really beautiful.

[01:12:56] And he did go on to play Charlie in Lost and he was a lot of people's favourite character

[01:13:02] on Lost.

[01:13:03] Oh yeah, oh it's so great.

[01:13:05] You all everybody!

[01:13:07] He was awesome in there.

[01:13:12] Such a good character.

[01:13:14] Yeah so yeah that's what I had to say about Ence I think let me see.

[01:13:18] Did I have more ent information?

[01:13:22] Oh just one of my favourite lines you must understand young habit it takes a long time

[01:13:28] to say anything an old entish and we never say anything unless it is worth taking a long

[01:13:33] time to say.

[01:13:34] It's like you must have decided something we've just finished saying good morning.

[01:13:42] And when they're walking he tells them that poem about a Rowan so it's so sweet.

[01:13:48] And the looks on their faces are like really another poem about a tree okay.

[01:13:53] And they're falling asleep it's like yeah.

[01:13:56] And the tree bed was voiced by the same actor who plays Gimli so John Ristavis voiced

[01:14:03] tree bed and it's quite cool in some of the extra scenes you can see when Mary and

[01:14:09] Pippin are up the tree being carried around he was actually on set reading the dialogue

[01:14:14] out to them there instead of just adding it in press production he was there reading

[01:14:18] it which is pretty cool so he got to do a couple of things there.

[01:14:22] It's cool.

[01:14:23] Yeah Fangorn Forest when they first come up to Fangorn Forest I love that scene you

[01:14:29] know when so Mary and Pippin obviously get there in the dark and they're kind of crawling

[01:14:33] through the forest and that's when they find tree bed but I love the part where Aragon

[01:14:38] Legolas and Gimli come up to the forest and they see that burning pile of orcs.

[01:14:44] And Aragon does his incredible tracker kind of stuff you know seeing telling the story

[01:14:48] of what happened and a hobbit lay here and another one and they called and they got to

[01:14:53] the forest everything and then you see this huge big foreboding forest.

[01:14:59] That location is near Mavora Lakes which is also quite close to where they filmed the

[01:15:03] breaking of the fellowship, the last couple of scenes in the first movie and it's a beautiful

[01:15:10] location it's really gorgeous and that sort of little tussle key kind of rolling hills

[01:15:16] there and there is a forest right there like a really stark kind of edge of a forest.

[01:15:21] It doesn't look like in the film they've spooked it up and made it look all scary and

[01:15:25] kind of things it just looks like gorgeous trees when you go there but it still looks exactly

[01:15:29] the same kind of in the area and everything and I just love that shot of the burning pile

[01:15:36] of orcs and they think that they first of all think that Mary and Pippin are dead.

[01:15:40] And Vigo plays Aragon kicks a helmet and he actually broke his two toes when he kicked

[01:15:48] that helmet.

[01:15:49] You told me that and so I was looking for it.

[01:15:51] That was like that.

[01:15:53] And then he stays in character, he falls to his knees he's like ah screaming in this

[01:15:58] grief but it was actually yeah broken toes and it shows you method actor A.

[01:16:05] I would not have stayed in character and what you would have heard coming out of me

[01:16:09] would have been.

[01:16:11] Yeah, it's complete.

[01:16:14] Yeah I just had a couple of notes on Trebea's I just thought it was such an amazing again

[01:16:21] a mixture of kind of effects, real effects, models, miniatures and then digitally added

[01:16:28] and then of course all the sound effect as well.

[01:16:30] I think it was really well done and really portrayed this character.

[01:16:33] It's pretty, I imagine it's pretty challenging to do that without it being cartoony or fake

[01:16:40] looking or silly.

[01:16:42] You know like they have to get across the gravity of this being that's however many thousands

[01:16:48] of years old, I don't know but just the serious nature of them but also that he did have

[01:16:55] a playful side term as well.

[01:16:56] I think they got that across really well and yeah it must have been interesting for Billy

[01:17:04] and Dom to be acting against this big model, this big tree and I'm having to sit up in

[01:17:09] these little kind of harnesses being carried around for ages by this tree.

[01:17:14] I saw one video where they were creating the robotic part of the model that they would

[01:17:22] actually interact with and they had like put little bicycle seats in for Dom and Billy

[01:17:27] to sit on inside the the ant arms.

[01:17:30] I was like oh that's clever, that will work quite nicely.

[01:17:35] Yeah, a little bicycle seat.

[01:17:38] And Billy goes oh it's very uncomfortable.

[01:17:41] He's me of a garlic yesterday, she was very rough.

[01:17:46] Those guys are always joking around it's so cute.

[01:17:48] Oh no it's so funny.

[01:17:50] I'm gonna just jump here to talk about pharomia.

[01:17:54] Oh awesome, yeah let's do it.

[01:17:56] An introduction of pharomia, who I just love but I think pharomia is just such an amazing

[01:18:03] character.

[01:18:04] I have small bones to pick and I think a lot of people felt this if you're a book reader

[01:18:13] and you see this film, it was a little frustrating.

[01:18:17] It's not too spoilery, I'm sure, to say for a book that's been out for 70 years or something

[01:18:24] but pharomia does not meet up with Frodo and Sam and Gollum in the book and they don't

[01:18:33] take them to Oskillyeth and I think a lot of people were annoyed with them taking

[01:18:41] them to Oskillyeth because it doesn't happen and it seems a little bit too extreme like

[01:18:48] they're kind of taking them off their path.

[01:18:51] And it also made pharomia seem more of a villain than he, for me anyway at least, it's

[01:18:58] seen more of a villain than he did in the book.

[01:19:00] So he doesn't seem as tempted by the ring to me in the book anyway.

[01:19:08] And I like what he became and I like way more what he becomes in the third movie so I kind

[01:19:14] of forgive it because I know what's to come but there are parts in this that I just think

[01:19:18] oh that's not really, that's not the pharomia I know when he's being so kind of savage

[01:19:23] to Gollum and harsh with Frodo and Sam but you know it does come right later and I just

[01:19:30] think he's such a great character and just so sad and tragic you know and in the extended

[01:19:36] edition we get this incredible flashback scene of him and bottomer and their father Denith

[01:19:42] Thor.

[01:19:43] And for those of you who haven't seen the extended edition please go and watch it.

[01:19:48] You can get them on DVD and you can also stream them.

[01:19:51] The whole series of six extended edition movies so that's a lot of the rings movies or

[01:19:58] three and then the three Hobbit movies is available on Apple or iTunes as a package.

[01:20:04] So I think it's like $70 or something for all six extended editions which I think is

[01:20:10] pretty good deal because you also get all the extras as well.

[01:20:15] For each film there's about four hours of extra footage and behind the scenes and

[01:20:19] to use all kinds of stuff which is really cool.

[01:20:24] But in this extended edition scene I really wish it had been in the theatrical version

[01:20:28] because it gives you more background to Faramir and to why he's so kind of looked down upon

[01:20:34] by his father which lends itself to understanding the return of the King scenes better.

[01:20:43] But also it gives so much more impact or value to Baramir as well.

[01:20:48] You see Baramir in the fellowship with the ring and we just see him he's been sent there

[01:20:55] to the council of Al-Rond.

[01:20:56] He wants to get the ring to aid in the fight for Gondor and he spends most of the movie.

[01:21:03] He's obviously defending them but then in the end the ring takes hold of him and he tries

[01:21:07] to get it off the road and so on.

[01:21:08] We know the story of Baramir and then he dies tragically.

[01:21:11] But in this flashback we get to see a small victory is just taken place in Osgiliath

[01:21:18] and Baramir and Faramir meet up but they're obviously very fond of each other as brothers

[01:21:26] but then they've got this really strained relationship with their father.

[01:21:29] So we know that Denethore, their father values and respects Baramir and basically thinks

[01:21:35] of Faramir as worthless pretty much.

[01:21:38] It's pretty painful.

[01:21:39] It's horrible to watch and Baramir tries to give Faramir some of the credit.

[01:21:45] This victory is Faramir as well and Denethore says do not speak to me of Faramir.

[01:21:50] I know his uses and they are few.

[01:21:53] And like that's what he says to Baramir but then he says just as mean things to Baramir's

[01:21:56] face as well it was just horrible.

[01:21:58] It's heartbreaking.

[01:21:59] David Wename plays Faramir just has the most beautiful expressive eyes and you can see

[01:22:03] the sadness there that he's being rejected by his father and yet he still wants to prove

[01:22:07] himself.

[01:22:08] You know, he's still, I think that's what Spurs him later to take Frodo and Sam Tuhem is.

[01:22:14] He wants to prove that, you know, obviously Baramir got sent to go and take the ring and

[01:22:19] failed and he wants to be the one to bring the ring to his father because he feels like

[01:22:23] that will redeem himself in his eyes.

[01:22:26] And it's so sad, it's so tragic.

[01:22:29] But it also, you know, it gives so much more depth to Baramir's character that he was

[01:22:36] reluctant, he didn't want to go.

[01:22:38] He was horrified that Denethore asked him to get the ring for Gondor.

[01:22:43] He knows how dangerous the ring is, he doesn't want anything to do with it.

[01:22:47] But he feels all this kind of expectation and responsibility thrust on him by his father

[01:22:54] to go and get the ring.

[01:22:55] And it's really emotional, really moving and it's a short flashback but I think it gives

[01:23:01] so much more.

[01:23:03] And I kind of wish that there's, you know, it's only a couple of minutes long maybe they

[01:23:07] could have trimmed a little bit of int mood or trimmed a little bit of the Hamsteek battle

[01:23:11] or something just a couple of minutes to throw it.

[01:23:14] I think it's pivotal and absolutely love it.

[01:23:17] I wish it was in the main film so please if you haven't seen Extended Edition go and

[01:23:21] have a look.

[01:23:22] Or if you don't have time, I'm sure there's a clip of it somewhere.

[01:23:25] I'm sure it's on Utanl scene.

[01:23:27] Yeah.

[01:23:28] A lot of people don't like that scene because it's not in the box but I agree with you

[01:23:35] that it adds a lot of depth to all three of those characters, Boramir, Faramir and

[01:23:40] Denathor.

[01:23:42] Denathor not to his, I mean it doesn't make him look good but nothing really ever makes

[01:23:48] Denathor look good.

[01:23:50] That's pretty villainous.

[01:23:53] It does bring him into the second movie whereas you don't see him until the third book.

[01:24:02] I really enjoy the scenes between Faramir and Frodo where Faramir slowly comes to realize

[01:24:11] that Frodo is on a more important mission that he has to enable.

[01:24:19] He can't help himself but feel compassion for Frodo and Sam and even Gollum because

[01:24:25] he's at heart this warm loving person.

[01:24:29] When I was a young lass, I had quite the crush on Faramir.

[01:24:33] It was like that's the dude for me in this story.

[01:24:36] I don't want to be the queen.

[01:24:40] Yeah.

[01:24:41] And then he was so handsome and handsome.

[01:24:43] And David Wynnum, it's interesting because he also plays quite a lot of villains.

[01:24:49] If you see some of the other work, he often shows up as a not so nice guy so it's

[01:24:54] quite interesting when you say him.

[01:24:56] He must have been excited to play that sympathetic character.

[01:25:01] Yeah, yeah.

[01:25:03] And the actor who plays Denathor, John something, John Neibovl, he was in a show that I feel

[01:25:12] like doesn't get enough attention.

[01:25:13] It was called Fringe and it was JJ Abrams I think.

[01:25:21] I just hardly anybody watched it when it was on.

[01:25:24] I always felt like all alone watching it and then now Anator has made a big splash in

[01:25:29] the last of us so I'm hoping people are going to start rediscovering Fringe.

[01:25:33] And John Neibovl is great in it, really great.

[01:25:38] I want to talk about A.O.N.

[01:25:44] I have a lot of mixed feelings about A.O.N. and her character and her role.

[01:25:51] The one bummer about Lord of the Rings as a young person reading it was like where are

[01:25:57] the women?

[01:25:58] Like there's no girls, there's no women in this story.

[01:26:01] Galadriel is basically like an angel.

[01:26:05] She's not a real person in this story, the way she is in Fringe's power.

[01:26:11] And the Arwen parts are ad for the movies.

[01:26:14] So back when I was reading the book there wasn't very much Arwen either.

[01:26:20] So A.O.N. is really the character that I grabbed onto.

[01:26:23] I was like okay, here's my girl.

[01:26:25] There's a girl in this story.

[01:26:29] We meet her and she is sad.

[01:26:31] She's taking care of the it in, the it in is a mess.

[01:26:36] And he's being controlled by Grima Wormtong and then Wormtong has like a creepy fixation

[01:26:42] on A.O.N.

[01:26:43] He clearly wants, you know, for Thadan to die and him to marry A.O.N. and become the

[01:26:49] king of Rowan.

[01:26:50] That's his plan under Sauramun.

[01:26:52] He serves Sauramun but he wants Rowan for himself and he mostly he wants A.O.N.

[01:26:59] And she's completely grossed out by him of course.

[01:27:02] And then who can blame her?

[01:27:04] She falls for Aragorn hard.

[01:27:07] I mean, he's so bimbe, kingly and beautiful and noble and heroic.

[01:27:13] And you know she is a person who laments that as a woman she's not allowed to win Valor

[01:27:20] in battle.

[01:27:21] And you know so of course like she fixates on this larger than my figure of Aragorn but

[01:27:26] it's so sad that she can't have him and I just feel like she spends the whole movie

[01:27:30] like pining for love and then the scenes they added of Arwen are also all about her

[01:27:37] sort of pining for Aragorn and as a feminist it's annoying.

[01:27:44] A.O.N. gets a lot cooler in the third movie.

[01:27:49] But she's kind of a bummer in this one like she doesn't want to go to Helm's Deep, she

[01:27:53] doesn't want to lead the people.

[01:27:55] She doesn't want to stay behind and she complains a lot and all she wants to do is hang out

[01:27:59] with Aragorn and I don't blame her but she's you know she's got responsibilities as

[01:28:04] a member of the royal family.

[01:28:07] Yeah she's just a bummer.

[01:28:13] One of the reasons I like rings of power is that they've introduced women that are real

[01:28:17] people.

[01:28:19] There's gladrilla of course but like Disa is so lived in and real and fully realized

[01:28:29] I really enjoy her character and I think there's a lot of room for Bronwyn to become

[01:28:36] really cool too.

[01:28:38] Definitely yeah it's a lot more balanced in it and you know I guess with these films

[01:28:45] you're working with the source material which didn't have a lot of women in it.

[01:28:51] There are a lot of we've talked about it before I think on a previous episode the 10

[01:28:56] most badass women of Tolkien and in the histories and the rest of the books there are

[01:29:02] some amazing female characters but in the story of Lord of the Rings it's very male orientated

[01:29:06] and so I think Peter Jackson did a good job of including the women that we have in

[01:29:12] the story and yeah just making them a little bit more real and a little bit more have

[01:29:19] more impact on the story than they maybe had in the books.

[01:29:24] I kind of found that for us to be around there when she's trained to fight, she can

[01:29:30] fight but she's not allowed to.

[01:29:33] I was having a little look into the history of that because they talk about who being

[01:29:38] a shield maiden of Rohan and she made in this sort of an ancient term that's believed

[01:29:44] that the Vikings had them and a lot of different cultures had women fight alongside them

[01:29:48] and apparently in the sort of history of Rohan this was a thing, a lot of the women did fight

[01:29:56] alongside them in but by the time you got to the age that we're looking at in the story now

[01:30:01] the third age it kind of had been a bit relegated to history so they didn't,

[01:30:07] that wasn't active but she kind of held this tradition for herself and she trained herself

[01:30:12] to want to be like this and so when Thadin says you have to go and look after the

[01:30:19] women and children she's really upset about it because she wants to fight but it's not

[01:30:24] part of the current tradition for them which is kind of sad because obviously she's

[01:30:29] fierce and strong and wants to be able to do this for her country and like you say

[01:30:35] we do get to see the results of that later in the third film which is fantastic.

[01:30:39] But yeah it's um oh so sad which is just like looking at Aragorn with the puppy dog guys

[01:30:45] and you know she knows that she can't have him and he's getting to be aware that she likes him

[01:30:51] and oh it was really sad. Yeah and he gives her a look at one point like

[01:30:57] I'm in the middle of a war here like I don't have time for your emotions

[01:31:02] like yeah it's like oh god like I get it you have a thing for me like it's so complicated

[01:31:10] I can't talk about it right now. I don't even know if the woman I do love is even still in the

[01:31:15] country like uh yeah yeah because because he's pretty much broke up with him like see you later

[01:31:23] for her own good even though he loves to oh let's stay tuned. Well I think they did a really

[01:31:27] good job of um continuing the love story between Aragorn and Aragorn. You think about the fact

[01:31:35] that they don't see each other from when he leaves when he leaves Rivendale which is kind of I guess

[01:31:43] like a third of the way through the first film right up until the very very end they don't see

[01:31:50] each other at all and it's this main you know one of the main love stories I guess that goes through

[01:31:55] through the all three films but they did do a really good job of maintaining that and showing us

[01:32:01] how important that was and continued to be to Aragorn with these flashbacks that we get as well so we

[01:32:06] get the flashback of them talking in Rivendale flashback of them sort of breaking up then also the

[01:32:12] flashback of them you know talking about the future and things as well and some more flashbacks of just

[01:32:19] Arag sorry just Aragorn and Al Rond I'm talking about having to go to into the West and

[01:32:25] everything and yeah it's that's pretty emotional too and a nice connection that they manage

[01:32:30] to carry through all this time the Aragorn's out running around in the wild.

[01:32:35] Yeah I think that's my whole Aragorn game.

[01:32:46] Yeah we haven't even touched Helm's DPI. All right well let's go there next

[01:32:52] we haven't even touched one of the longest battle scenes in film history.

[01:32:56] So Helm's Deep was filmed in a location just north of Wellington it's actually only about 10

[01:33:05] minutes from the city centre and it was filmed in a quarry which was it's just off the

[01:33:11] off the main road like literally you've got this sort of highway and then you take a little

[01:33:16] driveway and then right there and the side of a hill is this quarry and they built this set for

[01:33:22] Helm's Deep in there and they actually built that whole thing pretty much like apart from the

[01:33:29] really tall tower they built that whole ramp the lower ramparts the upper part as well

[01:33:37] and filmed it there they did film some of the studio but a huge amount of it was filmed there

[01:33:42] over three months of night shoots so a lot of feature films only take three months or at least

[01:33:49] to shoot the entire thing and this was just one scene basically one sequence in a film

[01:33:55] and that took that long to film and a lot of the guys who were there the extras or the orcs

[01:34:03] they had T-shirts printed that said I survived Helm's Deep but they crossed out the M and put an

[01:34:09] L so it says I survived Helm's Deep so they're there every night all night they have to sleep during

[01:34:16] the daytime and they're there in the dark this you know really physically draining shoot because

[01:34:23] even when you're not doing the actual fighting parts there's a lot of standing and walking

[01:34:28] wearing really heavy costumes if it was either raining for real or they had rain towers so they made

[01:34:34] it look like it was raining and it sounds like an absolute hellish thing to go through in a bit

[01:34:38] of a bootcamp style thing where afterwards they were really bonded to each other through this

[01:34:43] experience but what it comes out with is just this incredible sequence this amazing battle that we

[01:34:49] see and you know obviously when we saw this for the first time it was really mind blowing and

[01:34:54] it's huge huge battle little did we know that we were going to get the Battle of Pell and all

[01:34:58] Fields and the third film which we'll talk about next time but at the time this was absolutely huge

[01:35:02] and I loved how how it was filmed you know it was dark and it was at night that you could see

[01:35:09] what was happening oh that's another day I'm going to see Franchise at all yeah yeah um they had

[01:35:20] really good close-ups and character moments and you know parts of of it that were humorous as well

[01:35:27] like legalist asking Gimli if he wants to get him a box or Gimli saying to Erragorn you'll have

[01:35:33] to toss me um and you know breaks breaks up the tension but also the tension was so beautifully

[01:35:40] built up when you're waiting and they're just waiting there on the battlements for the

[01:35:45] Errakai to arrive and it's so tense they also had some really great wide shots of the battle

[01:35:51] um to sort of keep you knowing what's happening you know overall which was really good I liked that

[01:35:58] you could sort of see from above you know where where the Orcs had got to amongst their

[01:36:03] breakthrough the wall and everything like that those siege ladders those huge siege ladders that

[01:36:08] would carry like hundreds of Orcs though were incredible watching them like ramp up to the top

[01:36:13] of the battlements it was amazing any other points from you Penny that stuck out about Helm's

[01:36:20] state the battle I enjoy the burgeoning competition between Gimli and Legolas this is when their

[01:36:27] relationship starts to really gel and you get to see them sort of good naturally competing with

[01:36:35] each other for the most kills they have that moment at the end where Gimli has outdone Legolas

[01:36:42] by one and so Legolas shoots the Orc that Gimli is sitting on and he's like there I got 43 also

[01:36:50] and Gimli's like he was dead already and Legolas says he was twitching and then Gimli has that

[01:36:57] great line he's twitching because he has an axe embedded in his nervous system um

[01:37:06] it's just it adds a little lightheartedness to what is a very like grim and dark sequence

[01:37:13] that we've just gone through there's also the like one of the most memeable moments that I see all

[01:37:19] over the internet is Theodin saying so it begins um people use it for everything and it cracks me

[01:37:27] up constantly and when it came on the screen when I was watching this again I was like oh like I

[01:37:32] first out laughing and it's the wrong moment to laugh but it's just because I've seen it

[01:37:38] oh yeah I've seen it so many times used for Tintus used to describe like Christmas decoration

[01:37:44] showing up in stores way too early yeah um I've sent it to people when they're like oh do you

[01:37:51] want to try you know this whatever I'll be like so it begins um yeah it's just incredibly memeable

[01:37:58] not as much as Sean Bean in the first movie and his whole one does not simply walk into Mordor

[01:38:05] uh yeah which I did get to use recently because um there's a version of it

[01:38:11] there's a town near where I live Salem Massachusetts it's it's a pretty well known town it's

[01:38:16] where the famous witch trials happened and the town itself uh goes completely bananas for Halloween

[01:38:25] and there's a version of the Sean Bean meme that says one does not simply drive through Salem

[01:38:30] during the month of October and uh one of our Z head friends is planning to come to Salem

[01:38:37] this coming October and so I happily sent him that meme um oh that's fun because locals

[01:38:43] I've seen I've seen I've seen wrapping paper with um with Baurimia saying to the gift

[01:38:52] oh yeah I really want some of that it's so great oh it's so great but yeah the theater uh so it

[01:38:59] begins is a is another one that's just memeed constantly um there's great moments of

[01:39:05] air-gorn acting as like a life coach for Theodin right like Theodin has all kinds of doubt and

[01:39:12] despair he gives up before the battle even starts and air-gorn is like yeah going around delivering

[01:39:18] hope to everybody um including that touch you've seen with that uh young boy um oh yeah Theodin's

[01:39:26] kind of a bummer like in general you know he starts out being I mean he's he's spent a lot of years

[01:39:33] being under ceremony months thumb and and he's only just kind of come back to himself and I think he

[01:39:39] must find it hard to get that open that kind of valor back you know because he is he's just oh well

[01:39:45] it's over now and when they're broken and he's like we're just going to give up an air-gorn so

[01:39:49] let's ride out you know like he's still got that um that hope and glory kind of thing it's

[01:39:56] it's quite moving to see again I think you know we get we get um third and redeeming himself

[01:40:03] in the in the third movie too yeah um yeah there was a moment at the end where he kind of goes

[01:40:08] goes victory after Gandalf and and the rest of AMR and his crew have come down the hill he's

[01:40:14] like victory and I'm like yeah but like you just kind of gave up yeah like you didn't earn it

[01:40:20] one change from the books that I don't know how I feel about is that in the movie an army of elves

[01:40:28] shows up to help and they say uh we're here to reaffirm you know the alliance between men and elves

[01:40:35] and in the book it's arrogance people the dune dane from the north and just a couple of elves

[01:40:42] yeah who are like his best friends yeah um I always really liked it that arrogance people show up for him

[01:40:50] and I was wanted to meet the other rangers of the north you know from the very beginning I was

[01:40:56] like who are these people he comes from and now with the movies we never meet them

[01:41:00] and it's like he was just like this lone human who lived alone and didn't have any people like it

[01:41:07] I something is lost for me in that but some people think it's an improvement

[01:41:12] I don't really understand the choice I think it was to simplify things like they didn't want to

[01:41:17] introduce yet another whole group of people so why not just use the elves as a stand-in but

[01:41:23] I am not happy with it yeah a lot of people were annoyed at that definitely um and in fact they even

[01:41:34] filmed our win showing up at Helm's deep they actually filmed the live title went there and they

[01:41:39] filmed a whole sequence with her and they they cut that which I think was probably wise um I don't

[01:41:43] think that would have necessarily worked um but um yeah I mean uh it works in the film I guess and

[01:41:56] I guess it's one of those things where you can think you can apply the shippie test we've talked

[01:42:01] about the shippie test before which is um does it fit with the theme and is it necessary for

[01:42:09] the story in this version of it in this telling so in this the film rather than the book as it

[01:42:15] doesn't help does it aid the story I think it does fit with the theme in that um you know one of the

[01:42:20] main themes of the whole story is um as people uniting against against something bad or against

[01:42:27] something evil so you've got different people from different backgrounds coming together so that

[01:42:31] differently fits um I don't know that was necessary for the story but potentially you could argue

[01:42:39] that it is in a in a book if you're talking about a few hundred people defending this um this kind

[01:42:47] of keep or this um you know this fortification against 10,000 orcs uh you you can get that across

[01:42:56] and you can get across the hopelessness of it but also that it's sort of realistic that they're

[01:43:01] gonna try to fight I think in the film when you see you literally see this massive horde of

[01:43:09] orcs coming and you see the state of the army you see these young boys and these old men and

[01:43:15] and these untrained um soldiers it does seem very hopeless um and I think it does help with the

[01:43:22] elves arriving that it adds this level of hope um that they might be able to to take on this this army

[01:43:30] visually it looks really cool just the way that they show up and they're their fighting style and

[01:43:33] everything like that and then of course we get to see Haldair as well um played by Craig Parker

[01:43:38] otherwise known as Guy from Short and Street um and and that was really cool and heartbreaking when he

[01:43:45] dies you know because of course we know that the elves are uh functionally immortal except they

[01:43:50] can be killed in battle so um so that was really sad we died in arrogance um yeah um I love Craig

[01:43:57] Parker I wish we'd seen more of Haldair and the movie like I think he was quite a cool character

[01:44:02] and I like that actor as well he was in um five few years ago he was in Spartacus there was a

[01:44:07] stars tv series of Spartacus he was really good in that I never watched that but um a lot

[01:44:12] of people I know really like that yeah yeah so it was it was cool I love that scene also like you

[01:44:20] mentioned with the arrogant giving hope um he's talking to that young boy and it's not really

[01:44:27] obvious if you don't pay a lot of attention to the names because there are a lot of names in the

[01:44:31] the ring's batch his haleth son of hammer so he's actually the son of the of the um the gatekeeper

[01:44:37] Ederas who was attacked and killed by the the wag in an earlier scene um that's quite a nice little

[01:44:43] tie-in and he says to him this is a good sword haleth son of hammer there is always hope

[01:44:48] I love that it's really nice um and that the actor who played the young actor who played that

[01:44:55] um character is actually I believe was the son of Philip of Williams who co-wrote the screenplay with

[01:45:02] Jackson and Fran Walsh that's quite cool that is cool yeah home steep is an amazing

[01:45:09] sequence I don't think seeing is the right word for it because it's it's kind of lots of scenes

[01:45:14] um one thing from the books I miss also is gimmelly discovering the caverns and

[01:45:22] talking to legolas so excitedly about how beautiful they are

[01:45:26] um because then legolas of course is like no you don't understand fangorn is beautiful i'll show you

[01:45:32] and it you know you you get a payoff of that at the end of the third book of the two of them

[01:45:37] like going off to tour beautiful places in middle earth together and I love this sort of

[01:45:42] circle multi-cultural appreciation aspect of that yeah uh we just sort of don't get it

[01:45:49] uh but we do get really fun legolas scenes where he likes surfs down some stairs on a shield

[01:45:57] while he's shooting arrows um it's pretty awesome so cool I wonder if or or Lindo will probably

[01:46:03] has kids right I wonder if his kids see that and they're like duh you could never do that

[01:46:10] yeah no he does he has uh his son is similar age to my son i think it's like 11 or 12

[01:46:17] and then he has a daughter just a couple years old i think with Katy Perry so that yeah he's got two

[01:46:24] kids oh i always wondered that like what are people's kids think when they see them in these in these

[01:46:28] movies or shows you know do they how where are they of it and obviously some of them are allowed to

[01:46:33] watch until they're older yeah um yeah his son must be the right age to show him these now

[01:46:40] and be like yeah there's daddy look at how cool he is he can walk on top of the snow

[01:46:47] yeah except like from my perspective having a 12 year old then we're like to say oh my god

[01:46:51] that's so fringe yeah yeah i imagine that's true oh kids watching their parents act

[01:47:00] yeah although i saw this really cool thing and that was uh let's just a little video

[01:47:07] and it was this this mom and she goes nobody prepares you for the transition from

[01:47:12] mummy to mum to bra

[01:47:15] yeah that's true i mean you start getting called bra by your kids it's like oh god

[01:47:21] that's horrible um i saw a really funny interview with my cocaine one time where he was talking about

[01:47:28] you know he sort of famously has made like just jillians and movies and he seems to be working constantly

[01:47:35] and never turn anything down yeah and uh he was giving an interview about why he signed on for

[01:47:41] i think it was journey to the center of the earth two and he was like oh my grandchildren picked

[01:47:49] that out for me they wanted to see grandpa ride a giant mosquito yeah it's different for a parent

[01:47:57] than for a grandparent right like kids could appreciate a grandparent being cool the way they

[01:48:02] can't appreciate their parents um yeah i thought it was so cute i saw another one

[01:48:07] microcane it must be must be similar um his his his attitude towards why he does stuff i can't

[01:48:14] remember it was a sequel for something it was some dreadful sequel i can't even re-emport the film

[01:48:19] was and they're like oh uh maybe it was at jaws four or something maybe yeah there was something

[01:48:24] that he was in and they're like um oh but have you seen it and he's like no but i've seen the house

[01:48:30] that i bought my mum with the money that i made and that's quite nice exactly yeah he just takes

[01:48:36] every roll um it was a big running joke between me and my dad when my dad was still alive but like

[01:48:42] every time one of us would be watching something on tv the other one would go oh it's microcane in it

[01:48:51] the rest of our family would always look at us like what are you talking about but the two of us

[01:48:54] thought that was hilarious yeah yeah that's right i love it all right that's all i got for helm state

[01:49:02] was there anything else that you wanted to talk about the end no all right i've only got one more

[01:49:10] real main point just a couple of notes but um i just wanted to mention about the alvish object

[01:49:16] that we see in this story which is um you know some of the things that the the fellowship we're

[01:49:22] given by Galadriel and in the first movie um right near the beginning we see um the rope that Sam

[01:49:30] remember when he got given the ropes and he's like oh you got one of those nice shiny daggers because

[01:49:34] he didn't think the rope was such a big deal but it really helped them here in the emin wheel um

[01:49:40] you know they've just climbed down this this big cliff and uh uh but it untyes exactly when

[01:49:46] you need it to it's like oh there's no way that's coming off it's one of my knots and then he

[01:49:50] just gives it this little tug and boom this magical alvish rope untyes and then he gets the back i

[01:49:55] was really nice yeah and then Frodo says real alvish rope yeah exactly yeah um and then there's that

[01:50:03] other touching little moment there where he's got um he's got this a little pact of salt

[01:50:08] that is this treasure for him and um you know he kind of feels a little bit embarrassed about

[01:50:13] carrying the salt around but then Frodo says to him no it's it's incredible it's a taste of home

[01:50:18] you know it's a little piece of home which is really cool um and then the other the other alvish

[01:50:24] object which is quite um actually do you say elven? Elvish might relate to the language

[01:50:30] let's say elven for the elven leaf brooch um unfastens really easily for for pippin so these uh

[01:50:38] elven made um broochers in the shape of a leaf that are given to the fellowship to tie their elven

[01:50:43] cloaks on them and um when it's the right time for that to come off he was easily able to grab it

[01:50:50] off with his teeth and this throw on the ground and our our gone finds it a little later on and

[01:50:55] says not idly did the leaves of lorian fall so he knows that there was a purpose for that to be um

[01:51:01] to be dropped in that um he found it and so they know that pippin amery it's a little live

[01:51:07] which is really nice um and then we also have the the uh elven cloaks hiding Frodo and Sam

[01:51:16] from the hurrah drum at the at the black gate there and they're struggling to get Sam out of the

[01:51:22] rubble and and so Frodo just whips the the cloak over and then of course it looked like a rock

[01:51:27] which is really awesome for these really special cloaks made by the alves in real life though

[01:51:34] made by a company called stansbrough which is just there in just near wellington they had a really

[01:51:40] special breed of sheep that they used um specifically to weave these ropes and these cloaks sorry

[01:51:46] and the cloaks were woven on Victorian looms and you can actually go and visit their um their

[01:51:52] little factory there and see how they make them it's really specific weave um they're not

[01:51:59] dyed at all they use this um really special wool from this breed of sheep that's got some black

[01:52:05] some white and some kind of gray uh and they they just weave it in a certain way so that it's got

[01:52:11] this real colour and sort of depth to it and this this incredible pattern so those are really cool

[01:52:15] I love those oh no I want one yeah yeah the cloaks spits it are they're really cool a lot of people

[01:52:23] come to New Zealand on the tours and they want one but buy one because it's pretty amazing um and then

[01:52:28] you know wear them in the location stuff that's fun um and yeah um I think that's all I got on

[01:52:37] the alvish objects uh yeah and I just have a few you know little things here and there

[01:52:44] to talk about left um I mean Gandalf comes back from the dead an aragorn kind of comes back from

[01:52:52] the dead so there's definitely some sort of Jesus metaphors you can make um I don't think that

[01:53:00] you need to there are people I know who are very adamant that those are Christ references

[01:53:07] I don't know having someone come back from the dead is just kind of a cool story device as well

[01:53:13] yeah and we've talked we've talked about that before I think with a little bit with um

[01:53:19] you know that Tolkien was adamant that this is not an allegorical story and yet his history of

[01:53:25] being Catholic and the way he grew up and things there are definitely elements or themes that

[01:53:30] you can see that relate so I think you can take take from it what you will I guess in that in that

[01:53:37] sense and Gandalf coming back you know I think the more we delve into the history of Gandalf and

[01:53:44] and the Maya and if you if you're into reading um the Somerillion or looking into the background of

[01:53:50] the potential character that may or may not be Gandalf in the rings of power um we know that he's

[01:53:56] it's not just a wizard he's a Maya which is an all powerful being um he was sent to middle earth

[01:54:03] to aid in the the war of the ring um and so when the bellrog defeated him and he did die um he

[01:54:10] was sent back and I love his little he doesn't talk about it that much in this film but he does say

[01:54:15] um I was sent back and he comes back in it in a more kind of pure sort of fire form um there was

[01:54:22] an amazing reveal too wasn't it did you notice they when they first meet him and they actually used

[01:54:27] Christopher Lee's for the Saramun and they blended it so it sounds like it's actually Saramun so

[01:54:34] that's such a cool effect yeah yeah so they recorded it both saying the lines and then they kind of

[01:54:41] blended them so it was a little bit of each and then kind of morphed more towards being in the

[01:54:45] Kalans voice it's really special that's really cool uh I love the the opening scenes with Gandalf

[01:54:54] and the bellrog um there's one particular shot that's my favorite when they're you know they're

[01:55:00] falling and falling and falling and then the camera shows the cavern that you think they're

[01:55:05] gonna fall into and there's like a hole in the ceiling of this cavern and you're like oh they're

[01:55:09] gonna fall through there and you fully expect Gandalf and the bellrog to sort of be like more or

[01:55:16] less the size of that hole and then they come through and they are tiny compared to the cavern

[01:55:25] and it surprises me every time and it's so beautiful because also the light of the ballrog's

[01:55:32] fire appears first and then the ballrog and uh I can't get enough of it I think it's just gorgeous

[01:55:40] and as an opening for the film it's amazing right it's like yeah yeah wonderful that

[01:55:49] um if you want to know more about the history of the wizards and the maya and all of these

[01:55:56] you know token backstory elements and you don't want to read the simulian I found a great

[01:56:03] channel on youtube called Tolkien Untangled where they do like five to ten minute videos about

[01:56:10] different topics that fill in a lot of the detail and they do it with you know a nice voice

[01:56:15] and illustrations and it's it's really lovely to listen to and we will link that channel in the show

[01:56:21] notes sounds great um yeah I just one night I would I just like watch like eight of them in a row

[01:56:30] and I was like whoa I've been doing this for a while yeah yeah it's so much to delve into and so

[01:56:38] much that adds to the stories both of the Lord of the Rings and then also the Rings of Power as well

[01:56:44] but it can be daunting people to to get stuck into the simulian the first um future actors particularly

[01:56:49] quite dry so it's um yeah it's nice to have these kind of accompaniments that we can listen to or watch

[01:56:56] or read they help us understand which is really nice I just I had a little note about some of the um

[01:57:07] the fake outs that we see um just remind me of it when you said about Gandalf you know how we think

[01:57:13] it might be Sarah Martin then we see that it's Gandalf um there's a couple of other just really nice

[01:57:17] little um pieces of filmmaking I thought one was when golem pulls Frodo out of the marsh so when he's

[01:57:25] fallen into the dead marsh and you think that it's Sam rescuing him and then you suddenly

[01:57:28] see that it's golem that's quite a little double take where you go well okay that's actually him

[01:57:32] rescuing him um and then the other one was the black rider when you first see them flying over

[01:57:40] you don't see that you just see the black riders um hands on the reins and then you see that

[01:57:47] it's not a horse at pans back out you see that it's actually the foul beast that he's riding on

[01:57:51] a flying on I thought that was really cool and really scary little moment first it out for me

[01:57:56] really scary because that beast shows up again in us gilliaf right and Frodo faces it down

[01:58:02] and it is a scary scary beast oh yeah it's horrifying and then you just think Frodo's gonna give the

[01:58:09] ring to it and almost does yeah that's quite horrifying isn't it yeah what were you gonna say about

[01:58:17] um reading the bells oh yeah when I would reread the books you know in my youth I would almost always

[01:58:22] skip the second half of the two towers um all the parts about Frodo and Sam and golem and the marshes

[01:58:31] and all of that stuff I would just skip over it because I thought it was kind of boring and in

[01:58:36] the movies it's not boring at all it's really compelling but in the books it just seems like

[01:58:41] oh they're camping some more oh they're hungry and they're camping and I realized it's a lot

[01:58:47] like Harry Potter the seventh book of Harry Potter where they just like camp for like 300 pages

[01:58:53] oh yeah it's pretty boring and I was like oh yeah I kind of skipped the Harry Potter part too

[01:58:59] but the movie makes it so much more compelling and I think it's the performances um

[01:59:05] Sean Austin the third movie is where he gets to do his really best stuff but this is where he

[01:59:13] really starts to come into his own and and show his his love for Frodo and I like watching his

[01:59:23] you know arguing with smagol it's it's sort of like bickering children and it's kind of fun

[01:59:29] brilliant all right well we will take a little break this motor comes so stay with us

[01:59:35] we need a few good taters

[01:59:59] oh

[02:00:29] boy لمational week

[02:00:51] and we're back. Oh my God! That song is so fantastic

[02:00:55] That's hilarious, I have to thank you forever for introducing me to it.

[02:01:01] It's the best and whenever I see the film it's like you just have to break into songs as

[02:01:06] you said the line that's just brilliant, absolutely love it.

[02:01:10] Alright so we have a little bit of news this week.

[02:01:15] Nothing particularly new news about the rings of power.

[02:01:19] I did find a couple of articles that almost said nothing.

[02:01:22] They basically said no the rings of power is not coming out in February 2023.

[02:01:27] Like is there anyone thought that it would be ready by now?

[02:01:29] I don't even know, it was articles about nothing so we won't read those.

[02:01:34] But there was a really great article on the one ring dot net

[02:01:37] that is kind of a bit of a compilation of a bunch of different interviews

[02:01:42] and kind of chats that they've had with the showrunners over the last little while.

[02:01:47] So it was quite a nice way to kind of catch up with some of what they've been up to.

[02:01:51] So we'll read a few of those for you now.

[02:01:54] So Patrick McKay, the showrunner, says I hope after the last episode is

[02:01:59] viewers watch the whole season again which is now a different experience.

[02:02:02] We were concerned about a situation where the part of the audience steeped and Laura

[02:02:05] as six or seven episodes ahead of the characters.

[02:02:08] Afterception is an important part of the journey we wanted to preserve that experience

[02:02:12] for book readers too.

[02:02:14] Another article was from Vulture who asked why introduce Sauron

[02:02:18] through the form of his human disguise.

[02:02:21] And Patrick McKay responded, one of the earliest ideas we had for the storyline

[02:02:26] came from the moment in the fellowship of the ring when Galadriel is tempted by

[02:02:30] Frodo's offer of the ring.

[02:02:32] She talks about how well she knows and understands Sauron

[02:02:35] and there's a quote where she says, I know his mind and he groves ever to no mine,

[02:02:41] but still the door is shut.

[02:02:43] She clearly has a darkness that turning down the ring is a test.

[02:02:47] She feels she has to pass to finally go west and that the darkness in her

[02:02:51] is linked with her feelings about Sauron.

[02:02:55] Patrick tells the ringer podcast that the entire concept of Galadriel

[02:02:59] and Hallbrand meeting at sea is based on the neoclassical romanticist

[02:03:03] painting, The Raffed of Medusa which hangs in the Louvre in Paris

[02:03:07] and he is surprised that nobody picked up on the connection.

[02:03:10] The painting depicts the real-life story of an actual boat named The Medusa

[02:03:14] that crashed at sea and led to cannibalism among the survivors on the raft.

[02:03:19] And this hurt my feelings a little bit because I totally noticed it

[02:03:23] and I didn't say anything about it on the podcast because I didn't think anyone

[02:03:28] would care.

[02:03:30] So I just felt like now I made it to set the record straight.

[02:03:37] Yeah, it's interesting that he says nobody picked up on it.

[02:03:41] I mean I'm sure plenty of people are there to spell in that he...

[02:03:45] Oh yeah, I know.

[02:03:47] And then this is Morphid Clarke's interview she says,

[02:03:53] I think we're quite used to the elves doing exactly the right thing

[02:03:57] and knowing exactly what to do and that's not necessarily the case here.

[02:04:01] Galadriel knows that if she reveals Sauron to Kellebrimbore

[02:04:05] wouldn't get made. She needs the rings to be made so that the elves

[02:04:09] can stay in Middle-Earth and continue to fight him, but I don't know

[02:04:13] whether that's the right thing to do.

[02:04:19] We also have some responses from the Sauron as to some of the common criticisms

[02:04:23] that they heard following season one.

[02:04:26] So they give a brief answer to these.

[02:04:28] So one, the first one is dwarf women have beards

[02:04:31] and they say Tolkien has answered this particular question both ways.

[02:04:35] That's cool.

[02:04:37] Alves have all have long hair.

[02:04:39] If Tolkien ever wrote a comprehensive style guide to her styles

[02:04:43] I would love to see it.

[02:04:45] I love that. I think there was some criticism that some of the elves had

[02:04:49] short hair in the rings of power and I think yeah, it's just because

[02:04:53] we've seen it portrayed one particular way.

[02:04:55] It doesn't mean it's that all that way so I like that.

[02:04:59] The next one, Galadriel is too masculine and their answer to that was

[02:05:03] her nickname by Tolkien is Neroen which means man maiden.

[02:05:07] So there you go.

[02:05:09] And the final one, the costumes are too new.

[02:05:13] Guess what? Sometimes clothes are new.

[02:05:17] So this one was from Vulture as well and again

[02:05:21] from the showrunner.

[02:05:23] He says the storytelling will be different next time not because

[02:05:27] of the response to the show but because of the experience of making this show for us.

[02:05:31] We're certainly listening to the critics and to our audiences.

[02:05:35] You don't want to give any one voice too much weight but figure out what people are responding to.

[02:05:39] That's good. I think you...

[02:05:43] That I want to say, oh we're changing it totally just because the audience

[02:05:45] but I think they're acknowledging that they've taken that into account as well.

[02:05:49] Which I like.

[02:05:51] It would be ridiculous to say, oh we don't pay attention to what the audience is saying.

[02:05:55] We're paying attention to it and of course that will color their decisions.

[02:05:59] It just makes sense.

[02:06:01] He goes on to say we felt it was very important that season one be about

[02:06:05] reintroducing Middle-earth in this new era.

[02:06:07] Introducing all of these kingdoms and all of these people

[02:06:11] and all of these characters and knowing what was important to them

[02:06:13] and what they had at stake.

[02:06:15] Patrick McKay said who still needs to introduce 16 leaders of men

[02:06:19] and dwarves to be corrupted by the rings of power.

[02:06:23] Yeah it's going to be really interesting to see how they do that

[02:06:27] and yeah how much they touch on that I guess.

[02:06:31] We'll remain to be seen in which season they look at it.

[02:06:35] Brilliant.

[02:06:37] So we got quite a bit of feedback this week.

[02:06:41] Thanks so much everybody.

[02:06:43] We'll start out with one word feedback from Bianca Vargas

[02:06:47] and it just says Tharamier

[02:06:49] and then there's a smiley face with our love heart eyes

[02:06:53] and a smiley face with the little.

[02:06:55] What is that?

[02:06:57] It's like a little...

[02:06:59] It's like a drop of sweat.

[02:07:01] I think it's supposed to indicate that it's like...

[02:07:03] She's feeling a little warm.

[02:07:05] Yeah she's a little overwhelmed by the amazingness of Tharamier.

[02:07:07] Thanks so much Bianca.

[02:07:09] Veronica Hood says,

[02:07:11] My partner and I have been doing a rewatch along with you guys on these.

[02:07:15] Thank you!

[02:07:17] I think one theme that keeps coming up for us is how well everything still holds up 20 years later.

[02:07:23] I also am astounded at how, no matter how many times I watch these movies,

[02:07:27] I'm still so emotionally invested each time.

[02:07:29] There are so many moments of triumph in the two towers.

[02:07:33] The reveal of Gandalf reborn,

[02:07:35] the release of King Thiodin from Saramun's control,

[02:07:39] Errorgorn barging through the doors of Helm's Deep at Peak Houghtonus.

[02:07:43] I have to agree with that.

[02:07:45] Gorn and Thiodin riding out of Helm's Deep into the battle,

[02:07:49] Gandalf showing up in the morning light with the writers of Rowan,

[02:07:53] the ends marching to destroy Eisengaard,

[02:07:55] honestly just seeing the ends in general.

[02:07:57] It's just so good.

[02:07:59] I struggle the most with enjoying Sam and Frodo's story in this movie.

[02:08:03] I think because there are less moments of triumph for them,

[02:08:06] and more of a feeling of growing dread and heaviness

[02:08:09] as their story closes in on entering Mordor.

[02:08:12] Watching Gollum and Smeggolum slash Smeggol's struggle in this movie

[02:08:16] also makes me feel so sad for his character.

[02:08:18] They do a great job of tapping into some pity and understanding for him.

[02:08:22] I really think the two towers movie was such a beautiful adaptation,

[02:08:26] done with such love and respect for the source material.

[02:08:30] I think it might be my favorite of all the movies.

[02:08:32] I look forward to hearing you both discuss it more on the podcast.

[02:08:36] Thank you Veronica.

[02:08:38] Oh thanks Veronica, that's fantastic.

[02:08:40] You've got over two hours so far to digest.

[02:08:44] I hope you enjoy the coverage as well.

[02:08:46] We have a message from Mark McBurnie,

[02:08:49] as stated in the comments of the Fellowship episode

[02:08:52] that I was too late to leave feedback for.

[02:08:54] Me and my teenage son recently did a binge watch

[02:08:56] of the extended versions in one sitting,

[02:08:58] which was also his time watching,

[02:09:00] and it was so much fun.

[02:09:02] These movies never get old for me,

[02:09:04] and two towers is my favorite and now my sons.

[02:09:06] He also loved the Battle of Helmstead

[02:09:08] and stated it reminded him of some of the games that were Thrones Battles,

[02:09:11] which is also a big fan I can't wait to listen.

[02:09:14] I thanks Mark and what an absolute mission that you managed to watch them all

[02:09:19] in one sitting.

[02:09:20] I mean that takes an entire day.

[02:09:22] I think it's about 12 hours almost in total.

[02:09:26] I'd love to know how old your son is.

[02:09:28] Let us know when you hopefully you can send in some feedback for Return of the King,

[02:09:32] but how fantastic to get to see it with you and to see all three together.

[02:09:38] I remember when we went to see the Return of the King premiere,

[02:09:41] the midnight screening,

[02:09:43] we watched the extended editions of the Fellowship and the two towers that evening.

[02:09:48] So we timed it all out so we'd have time to get to the theatre

[02:09:50] and we knew what time to start each film

[02:09:52] and watched both of those.

[02:09:54] And honestly by the end of all three you just emotionally run out

[02:09:58] and it's such an experience watching all three at once.

[02:10:01] So well done, that's amazing especially for his first go.

[02:10:04] That's fantastic bonding.

[02:10:06] I love introducing books and movies and things that I love to the next generation.

[02:10:12] And when they take it on,

[02:10:15] it's such a wonderful bonding feeling of being like now we share this thing that I love.

[02:10:21] I haven't shown the Lord of the Rings movies to my nieces and nephews,

[02:10:26] but I have shown them some other great movies like Princess Bride

[02:10:31] and Monty Python, Holy Grail

[02:10:34] and had that experience of them being like now I love it too.

[02:10:38] It's wonderful.

[02:10:40] We got an email from David Turner who says oh I'm going to butcher this.

[02:10:45] It's Kyora.

[02:10:47] Here? Kyora.

[02:10:49] Yeah.

[02:10:50] Onwinin Penny.

[02:10:51] Thanks so much for the podcasts and the chance to reflect on these three amazing films.

[02:10:55] I really enjoy your Fellowship podcasts

[02:10:58] and hear my thoughts on the two towers.

[02:11:01] I used to think of the two towers as in third place among the trilogy.

[02:11:05] I thought of it as just a long dreary battle in the night, i.e. Helmsteep.

[02:11:09] That was the pre-release hype, epic battles.

[02:11:12] And I am not a fan of overwrought battles.

[02:11:15] Hence don't ask me about battle of the five armies.

[02:11:18] But every time I watch the two towers I realize how great it is with so many epic scenes and iconic lines.

[02:11:25] The colon.

[02:11:27] The marvel of the three hunters chasing the Uroqai.

[02:11:30] I always think of that when driving through central Aotego in the summer.

[02:11:34] So beautifully shot and funny as well.

[02:11:37] So that's he's a New Zealander, he's a Kiwi right?

[02:11:41] And Aotego is what you were just telling me about.

[02:11:44] Gandalf's reappearance.

[02:11:46] I come back to you now at the turn of the tide.

[02:11:49] Gollum.

[02:11:50] We take the technology for granted now but at the time he was like a miracle

[02:11:54] and he's much better than Dobby whom nobody liked.

[02:11:57] Great complemented complicated characters like Wormtong and Theodan.

[02:12:02] Looking to my coming on the first light of the fifth day at dawn,

[02:12:07] look to the east and the epic payoff to this quote when Gandalf arrives to save the day.

[02:12:12] And so many more.

[02:12:13] There was also the ends.

[02:12:15] I was not sure about them, not being too hasty to decide.

[02:12:19] The burning ant who extinguished himself in the broken dams.

[02:12:23] Not sure about WTF moment but still fun.

[02:12:26] Treebeard was amazing though a little awkward and slow,

[02:12:29] but his relationship with Marion Pippen was very nice.

[02:12:32] David goes on to say,

[02:12:33] I think my appreciation for the two towers and the ends

[02:12:36] also improved after I read the books which was after the towers was released.

[02:12:40] I appreciated their attempts to add in the scene from the fellowships Old Forest

[02:12:44] with the Willow swallowing the Hobbits.

[02:12:46] When I first saw that scene, I didn't understand why it was there.

[02:12:49] Now I have read the books, the chapters with the Old Forest,

[02:12:51] Tom Bompadill and the Baradowns are among my favourites.

[02:12:54] But it is easy to understand why they were not in the movie,

[02:12:57] because fellowship was the first film I had to race along.

[02:12:59] No time to dour through the shy on the Old Forest.

[02:13:02] I think with the two towers, Peter Jackson must have felt he'd earned some longer scenes

[02:13:06] and tried to make up a little for leaving out the Old Forest from the first film.

[02:13:09] Speaking of the fellowship, can I make a quick reference back to that

[02:13:12] even though this is a two towers episode?

[02:13:14] As I've just been reading it after your last podcast,

[02:13:17] specifically the scene in the Baradowns with a dismembered skeletal hand

[02:13:20] of the Baradowns falls down the passageway on its way to chop off some Hobbit heads.

[02:13:24] Kure horror, so-for-vid, gripping and frightening.

[02:13:27] My comment is I think we should appreciate how tempted Peter Jackson

[02:13:30] of all people must have been to film that scene.

[02:13:32] Not affirming it was an act of restraint.

[02:13:34] Almost matching Gendos refused to take the ring,

[02:13:37] but it would be great to sit on film one day.

[02:13:39] So back to two towers, a great movie, definitely in the top three.

[02:13:42] And when you put all three together, many of the two towers scenes are among the most pivotal

[02:13:46] and iconic. Thanks again.

[02:13:48] Oh, thanks so much to over there. It's fantastic.

[02:13:51] I love how much time and care you put into writing your thoughts down there.

[02:13:55] And I can't wait to hear what you're going to say about returning to the cake.

[02:13:58] Yeah, fantastic.

[02:14:01] And we got a couple of voice mails.

[02:14:05] So here is our good friend Steve Brown.

[02:14:09] All right, here we go.

[02:14:11] The Lord of the Rings, the two towers, the extended edition,

[02:14:14] starting up right now.

[02:14:16] Do they give us like a previously honored anything?

[02:14:19] Because you know, some of us didn't watch the fellowship with the ring

[02:14:21] right before this rewatch.

[02:14:23] It's been a while since I watched this one.

[02:14:25] So I don't know.

[02:14:28] Just kidding. I'm not going to live Steve this movie.

[02:14:30] It's like six hours long.

[02:14:31] It's like three blue ray desks or something like that.

[02:14:34] I don't know. It's been a while since I watched it.

[02:14:36] But I remember loving all these movies.

[02:14:38] I went to the Return of the King actually with a co-worker.

[02:14:41] Like the day it came out.

[02:14:43] I was like, when you do that one.

[02:14:45] And I think my first exposure really was probably the cartoon.

[02:14:49] So many, many years ago, the Hobbit cartoon.

[02:14:52] Was there a cartoon for the Hobbit?

[02:14:54] The dragon and the arrow shooting to its weak spot.

[02:14:57] Something like that.

[02:14:58] All I guess there is kind of a previously on that they're doing here.

[02:15:01] I have to hold fight with the ball rock and Gandalf.

[02:15:04] But anyway, like I said, I'm not going to do a live Steve of it.

[02:15:07] I do love the movie.

[02:15:09] I'm going to hear you guys.

[02:15:11] You all talk about it because it's going to excite me.

[02:15:14] Probably inspired me to rewatch all of them again, the extenditions.

[02:15:18] So anyway, can't wait for the podcast.

[02:15:20] Talk to you later.

[02:15:21] Thanks Steve.

[02:15:22] I sort of challenged him because I said on Facebook,

[02:15:27] oh, I'm watching the two towers to get ready for the podcast.

[02:15:30] And I'm just wondering how long a live Steve would be for a four hour movie.

[02:15:35] He did not disappoint.

[02:15:37] Thank you.

[02:15:38] I love it because you can still hear the same with the power of a Gandalf.

[02:15:41] Yeah, fantastic.

[02:15:42] It's really nice.

[02:15:43] Katie.

[02:15:44] All right.

[02:15:45] And we got a voicemail from Katie.

[02:15:47] I don't know Katie's last name.

[02:15:48] It doesn't really matter.

[02:15:49] And I'm going to play that.

[02:15:51] Hey, I'm Adam Penny.

[02:15:53] This is Katie and I just want to call in and let me know how much I am loving your podcast

[02:15:58] about where the rings.

[02:15:59] Your rings of power coverage was amazing and helped me understand and appreciate

[02:16:04] the details of the show so, so much more.

[02:16:06] And I also want to say that I loved hearing about your first experiences with

[02:16:11] Fellowship and your coverage on that that I wanted to call in and share my first

[02:16:15] experience.

[02:16:16] So my daddy's treated me the habit growing up even as a baby when I probably didn't

[02:16:20] understand anything that was going on.

[02:16:22] But the person who came out was just three years old.

[02:16:25] And my parents were a little nervous that it might be too serious, my brother

[02:16:29] and I just went to my brother and I had to wait until he came out and DVD.

[02:16:32] And the only thing that was scary about it for me was Gollum.

[02:16:36] And very soon I would admit that my parents had a check for toilet for about two

[02:16:41] months after that to make sure Gollum was not in there because as I was in there.

[02:16:46] So luckily we got to go see two towers.

[02:16:49] I'm sure in the king, I'm opening night when I was four and five years old

[02:16:52] and I absolutely loved the movies.

[02:16:55] Unfortunately, I don't really remember much about the opening night.

[02:16:58] So so young.

[02:16:59] So that's one thing I wish I could do is just go back and have that experience all

[02:17:04] over again and really experience it for the first time.

[02:17:07] So Penny, I love the little power you have about waiting and having that fresh rewatch.

[02:17:13] I don't know if I have enough little power to wait that long but it inspired me to try it.

[02:17:17] Let's see, I watched them annually.

[02:17:19] So it was kind of weird taking that out of my year tradition.

[02:17:23] But we'll see, I'll try it and I'll let you know how it goes.

[02:17:26] Or if I'm even able to do it, I'll probably be watching it anyway each year.

[02:17:31] But as long as I think you again for all of your coverage on everything,

[02:17:35] you both are amazing and so knowledgeable.

[02:17:37] And more of the rings has just been a big part of my life.

[02:17:40] My whole family is really loving it and so it's a great for us to connect and talk about

[02:17:46] something a lot.

[02:17:48] And I also love Stone Scores and Howard Shore.

[02:17:51] It was kind of my first ancient action into that and Bear McCurry did an amazing job

[02:17:55] with rings of power at second most name to the score over and over again on loop.

[02:18:00] So I really look forward to season two and also more of your coverage on everything.

[02:18:05] So thank you so much again, you guys are amazing in Iraq and I look forward to hearing more.

[02:18:11] Bye.

[02:18:13] Thanks Katie.

[02:18:14] I hope you all call it again.

[02:18:16] Hey, that's so sweet.

[02:18:17] That was fantastic.

[02:18:18] Yeah, that means so much to hear that.

[02:18:21] Thank you so much Katie.

[02:18:22] I really like to hear your thoughts on Return of the Kings.

[02:18:25] So we'll back again.

[02:18:26] You've got probably about another month to rewatch.

[02:18:29] It might take you that long for Return of the Kings.

[02:18:31] Yeah, it's a lot of relief.

[02:18:32] I can't believe she saw them in the theater at four and five years old.

[02:18:36] There are some really scary parts.

[02:18:38] Like when Frodo falls into the bar and those ghosts come after him, it's terrifying.

[02:18:43] Yeah, she did well.

[02:18:45] That's just a really strong little kid.

[02:18:48] Uh-huh, I think kids get exposed to more scary stuff now than when we were little.

[02:18:54] I remember going to see Jurassic Park in the theater and shocked that there was like five and six year olds there

[02:19:02] and when the lawyer guy gets eaten off the toilet and they're laughed.

[02:19:08] And I was like, what the heck?

[02:19:10] That was my back.

[02:19:12] That's a cynical kid's man.

[02:19:15] Yeah, totally.

[02:19:16] That's brilliant.

[02:19:18] Fantastic.

[02:19:19] So if you would like to write in or leave us a message for our next episode, please do.

[02:19:24] We'd love to hear your feedback and you can find all our contact information at podcastcant.com.

[02:19:29] And while you're there, be sure to check out some of our other shows.

[02:19:34] There's a lot of exciting stuff going on right now, but also a huge back catalog of shows that you maybe didn't watch before and now would be a great time to pick up.

[02:19:44] There's a wide variety of types of shows as well.

[02:19:47] Everything from horror to comedy to drama and right now the big one is last of us.

[02:19:57] That show on HBO's.

[02:19:59] Fantastic.

[02:20:01] We're all obsessed with it.

[02:20:03] Yellowjackets is coming back in March as is Mandalorian.

[02:20:07] We've got a couple of movie podcasts.

[02:20:10] There's Run For Your Lives where they cover disaster movies where you have to run for your life.

[02:20:15] And it's Showtime folks where podcast a host of any of the different podcasts can just pick a movie and record a podcast.

[02:20:24] So the variety there is going to be pretty amazing.

[02:20:28] We're also covering Pokerface which is a new show on Peacock.

[02:20:33] And I am working on a podcast for Extraordinary, which is a hilarious new show on Hulu that is not getting enough press but it has been picked up for a second season already and I recommend it because it's really funny.

[02:20:48] Like Belly laughs.

[02:20:50] Oh fantastic.

[02:20:52] That's all my list and so is Pokerface.

[02:20:54] I haven't started that yet but it does look really great in fact actually on Free to Air TV here.

[02:20:59] Oh no.

[02:21:00] Which is pretty good.

[02:21:02] So just means that you do have to deal with ads but never mind, it's I'm looking forward to that and to the coverage as well.

[02:21:08] So that'll be great.

[02:21:09] Yeah so much to listen to.

[02:21:10] You can check all that out on podcastka.com as well and see all of the shows that we cover and have covered.

[02:21:18] On the next episode of this podcast we'll be covering the Lord of the Rings, the Return of the King extended edition.

[02:21:24] Oh I can't wait.

[02:21:26] It's going to be great.

[02:21:27] Alright then that's our show.

[02:21:29] Yeah.

[02:21:30] Thanks everyone.

[02:21:31] You know what we need Penny?

[02:21:32] We need some titers.

[02:21:34] What's titers precious?

[02:21:36] Po Taitos, Boiler Masham, Stickham and Astu.

[02:21:39] Boiler Masham, Stickham and Astu.

[02:21:47] Thank you.

[02:22:17] You