15: Season Two Preview

[00:00:00] Podcastica Podcastica Podcastica Podcastica

[00:00:47] Podcastica Podcastica Podcastica Podcastica Podcastica Podcastica Podcastica Podcastica Podcastica Podcastica Podcastica Podcastica Podcastica Podcastica some general thoughts about season one and what we are hoping for from the second season of Rings of Power. I am so glad to be here it has been ages Penny.

[00:02:42] I know I've missed you so much. I feel like I hang out with you all the time because I listen to all your other podcasts. Well you know I have been

[00:02:52] keeping myself busy covering some other shows. Yeah so for those who aren't so sure what shows have you been covering recently? So very recently on this podcast I covered Shogun with our friends Jonathan and Sam and that was amazing. Right after we finished

[00:03:13] recording they announced that they're working on a season two so when that happens there may be a full Shogun episode by episode podcast that happens along with it. Oh that'll be great so your coverage for the last

[00:03:27] one was just one episode for the season? Yeah and it was so hard to like trim down our thoughts because the show is so rich but yeah there was something kind of also great about covering the entire series in one. It changed the way that

[00:03:42] we cover it like covering a series episode by episode you talk a lot about plot development and character development but when you're covering the entire series like the whole story like that it becomes a much more of a

[00:03:55] conversation about themes and lessons and morals. Yeah. And Shogun is so good I can't wait to even watch it again I love it so much. Oh great I haven't I haven't seen it that'll have to be on the list but there is so much to

[00:04:10] watch at the moment it's actually crazy. It is and then of course I'm doing a rewatch of Buffy the Vampire Slayer with Kara over on our podcast Still Slaying and that has been a blast. Anwen guested with us

[00:04:24] during the season two coverage we're now in season three and hopefully you'll be able to come back on again sometime soon and we're almost at the end of season three and we're having a blast doing it. Buffy holds up amazingly well

[00:04:40] after 25 years it's unreal how relevant some of the storylines still are and the things that don't hold up are sort of blatant and consistent across every episode so you can kind of be like yep there we are again with the

[00:04:56] no diversity. Like it's it's not like new stuff every episode that doesn't hold up it's always just the same stuff. Yeah exactly or some of the stuff that that what's his face says oh my god his name is just Zander.

[00:05:11] Yeah I can't wait for Angel too I'm so excited that you guys are going to be covering that as well. It's gonna be great we're gonna go in the there's an order you can find online that's like the optimum order to go

[00:05:25] back and forth between the two shows and we're gonna follow that order. Yeah that's the best I did that several years ago I watched rewatched the whole thing and with Angel and it's really cool because they kind of do

[00:05:37] it like you know you might watch four episodes of Buffy and then one of Angel that's the crossover and then five more of Buffy so it's not too skippity around like you still get the good story from each side but

[00:05:46] when it's important it crosses over so that's really fun can't wait for it. It's gonna be great. Awesome what else have you been watching? So I recently was obsessed with Hacks on HBO Max it's a comedy show it just had

[00:06:03] its third season and it's about a sort of Joan Rivers type comedian you know she's in her I don't know 70s she's very successful very wealthy but she's sort of in a rut and she gets this writer this young up-and-coming comedy

[00:06:21] writer named Ava and the two of them have this electric creative chemistry but also this antagonistic but sort of loving family type dynamic between them and it it's just non-stop fun to watch the two of them wrestle with

[00:06:42] their relationship with each other their relationship to comedy their place in the world as women that's still a male centric world especially comedy and entertainment it's such a good show. Well this sounds cool I haven't really

[00:06:56] heard much about it sounds great. Love it and I'll just plug one other thing that I'm recently obsessed with there's this comedian Alex Adelman who has a special or slash one-man show that is on HBO now I had the good

[00:07:12] fortune to see it live and he does this show and the premise is that he as a young Jewish American man goes to a meeting of white nationalists just sort of to see what it's all about and manages to be at the meeting for

[00:07:30] like over an hour and and until somebody is like hey aren't you Jewish and he's like oh yeah and has to leave and he tells this story in the most interesting way and it's funny and it's heartfelt and it's educational

[00:07:46] and I just I think everyone should watch it. Sounds great. It's fantastic. That's really cool. I could go on and on about all the great stuff I'm watching. It's the golden age of television. There's so much we've been watching

[00:08:03] week to week which is really cool and it is a way that I do enjoy watching shows but some of the shows that drop week to week Dark Matter is one. That's fantastic. It's on Apple Plus. I happened to read the book a few

[00:08:17] months ago and I read it in a day and a half. It was so gripping I couldn't put it down and then right after reading it I found that they had a show coming up and so I was super excited about it and it has Jennifer

[00:08:26] Connolly and Joel Edgerton who are great in it. Also Interview with the Vampire watching that week to week as well which is really cool. That drops that we just have it on our our free to air TV here which is pretty

[00:08:38] cool and then I've been getting right into Bridgerton too so I like a lot of really dark gory shows and then like a bit of light fluff as well so lots happening. Yeah you need balance. I find that I need sort of one

[00:08:53] of each at all times. I need a dark show and a light show. Yeah you have the palette cleanser. Ted Lasso's our palette cleanser as well. We're still working our way through that so that's quite good but sometimes for us it kind

[00:09:04] of depends on how long a show is. We're sort of like okay how many minutes have we got until we have to go to sleep? Is it gonna be a 40 minute show or an hour show? It's yeah it's a bit random but it's cool

[00:09:15] there's so much to watch which is awesome and so we do actually this time have a little bit of sad news that one of the very well-known actors from the Lord of Rings world Bernard Hill passed

[00:09:29] away last month at the age of 79. He was a really renowned British actor we remember him mostly as King Phaedon of Rohan but interesting he was actually the only actor ever to appear in two films that won

[00:09:43] 11 Oscars so Return of the King and Titanic of course he played the captain of the Titanic and yeah two very successful films and two incredibly moving death scenes as well in the films that he had which is amazing and there's lots of people came out with tributes for

[00:10:01] Bernard. Peter Jackson wrote it is hard to imagine a world without Bernard Hill in it to say he was full of life as an understatement he was one of the funniest and quickest witted people we ever had

[00:10:12] the good fortune to work with his performance as Phaedon King of Rohan is beloved by millions and stands testament to his brilliance as an actor but we will also remember him as a deeply loyal and loving friend. The hearts go out to his partner Alison and son Gabriel

[00:10:27] during this time. Farewell mighty warrior on behalf of the entire cast and crew of the Lord of the Rings trilogy we'll miss you so very much Peter, Fran and Philippa. And Peter Jackson heartbreakingly signed off this post with a quote from Tolkien's

[00:10:40] book Lord of the Rings Return of the King from the funeral of Bernard's character in the book. life unto long glory. So that was really some sad news to see and it was quite sudden as well sometimes I think you hear about

[00:11:02] someone being unwell for a while but that was a really a sudden thing that I sort of had Facebook flooded with on that particular day. We have one clip from the film of one of his he had several

[00:11:14] just amazing iconic speeches. It was hard to choose one but I'll play this one. And you trust your men, my Lord will follow you to whatever end. To whatever end. Where is the horn that was blowing? They have passed like

[00:11:59] rain, like wind. The days have gone down in the west. Oh, now I really want to watch Return of the King again. The music is so powerful. Just like that little clip of it and I just like all the emotions started coming up in

[00:12:44] me. Like I'm remembering how it felt in Helm's Deep and that in that particular scene. Gambling is putting is helping Theoden put on his armor and it cuts in between them and a little kid getting armored. Oh yeah. He's 11 or something and he's getting this like helm that's

[00:13:04] too big for him and a sword he could barely lift and it's so solemn. Oh, yeah. Such a powerful scene. So good. I can't wait. I'll have to rewatch the whole lot again. And in the meantime, we have got season two of The

[00:13:20] Rings of Power coming back and it seems it'll be two years since season one and for me, I think so much has happened but that time has gone really fast when you look back you go. Wow. Okay, cool. Season two. It's

[00:13:31] coming on August the 29th. So I'm super excited. Yeah. In my mind it's only one year but it definitely is two isn't it? Yeah. It's just what what just happened. It's very it's very very cool. I'm so excited and I'm definitely going to rewatch season one before

[00:13:52] yeah me too starts because I really want that refresher. I did only watch it the once well I watched each episode two or three times when we're recording but I haven't gone back to rewatch the whole season so I'm excited to do that and have

[00:14:04] it be really fresh when we go into season two. My main sort of memories I guess of season one just you know before I rewatch obviously just sort of flashes of the big impressions that I had at the time like being super satisfied to

[00:14:21] find out that that how brand was Sauron was a big one because I called that quite early on and I was super excited to find that out that they that they got to that by the end of the season and anything with the dwarves so like Deesa and

[00:14:36] Duran were just my favorite. I could just watch them all the time though. They were great comic relief but they had some really serious intense moments as well which I thought was fantastic. They didn't just use them as the as the kind

[00:14:47] of funny guys and yeah yeah just just super excited to see what season two is going to bring. What are your thoughts on season one looking back this far in. I fell in love with the dwarves the dwarf kingdom the dwarf culture. I am very much

[00:15:05] looking forward to spending more time with them and getting to know especially Deesa more at the end of season one she revealed herself to be more than a mother and a you know a wife. She had her own political aspirations and agenda you know and she was

[00:15:25] pushing Durin in certain ways and it was it's just so much more interesting than someone who's just like I support my man which is kind of how it seemed at first. And then there's more and more and more as you get

[00:15:38] to know her and I love that. And I love the friendship between Elrond and Durin. I think that's really interesting and I'm looking forward to seeing more of that. And I remembered that that Isildur is missing and believed dead. And I was like oh that's

[00:16:00] going to be so interesting. Like at some point his father is going to find out he's not dead and then like what's going to happen. Exactly. Yeah. And that's the thing too when you know the lore and you know that you know certain characters do stuff

[00:16:12] later you kind of sort of like what's going to happen but the way they're going to reveal it is going to be quite cool I think. So I'm excited. We will go over the trailer but I think we'll do that in our spoiler section the gladiator's mirror

[00:16:24] because there might be some things that we want to talk about that would potentially come up and we've got a little bit of news in that section too just around casting which might affect if people haven't read the books and they don't sort of want to know what

[00:16:36] might happen in the future we'll just leave that for that section so you can skip ahead or just miss that part altogether if you like. But we do have quite a bunch of news coming up about season two. Penny do you want to give us

[00:16:50] a bit of a summary about where we sort of start with season two? Sure. The upcoming episodes will find Sauron cast out by Gladriel. Without army or ally the rising Dark Lord must now rely on his own cunning to rebuild his strength and oversee the creation

[00:17:06] of the Rings of Power which will allow him to bind all the peoples of Middle-earth to his sinister will. That's the official synopsis. The upcoming episodes plunge even its most beloved and vulnerable characters into a rising tide of darkness challenging each to find their place

[00:17:23] in a world that is increasingly on the brink of calamity including elves and dwarves orcs and men and wizards and Harfoots. The description continues as friendships are strained and kingdoms begin to fracture the forces of good will struggle ever more valiantly to

[00:17:40] hold on to what matters to them most of all each other. I love those little synopses because they kind of say a whole lot of stuff without saying anything. It's kind of it's a bit of a bit of Gimple speak if you know

[00:17:53] the The Walking Dead universe it's a bit of Gimple speak. Say a lot of rich flowery words but you're not actually giving anything away and just yeah it's got some great sort of Tolkien concepts just in this little bit of language here there's like calamity, vulnerability, rising tide

[00:18:11] of darkness, you know like valiant there's all these Tolkien concepts just like baked right in from the beginning I love it. It's awesome I love that that's really cool so we're having a huge number of the cast are returning and the roles that we've come

[00:18:27] to know but there are some changes as well so there's two sort of main actors I guess or you know main secondary actors not returning in season two so Joseph Maul has departed ahead of its second season and he played the orc leader Adar

[00:18:43] and he's going to be replaced by Sam Hazeldeen who was from Peaky Blinders I don't really know him well I think I've seen you know pictures and they've made him look really similar but yeah it's going to be interesting to see how that changes the role of Adar

[00:18:59] because you quite liked Adar didn't you? Yeah I thought he was a fascinating character. Yeah yeah and something that was so new and he was quite mysterious too we sort of didn't know where he was coming from and what was happening so hopefully they explain a little bit

[00:19:12] more about that as well. And then another person to be leaving the show is Nazanin Boniadi who played Bronwyn in the first season she won't be in the upcoming episode and if you remember she was the healer who was the mother of Theo

[00:19:26] and she had a forbidden romance with our beautiful elf warrior Arondir played by Ismael Cruz Cordova and so Nazanin Boniadi she posted on her Instagram a while back that she took a step back from acting to focus on activism she said I stepped away from acting in

[00:19:43] September 2022 to focus solely on the hashtag woman life freedom uprising in Iran and to advocate for the people of my homeland who've been risking everything for freedom so she's off doing amazing things there and we will definitely miss her on the rings of power

[00:20:00] and Theo and Arondir are definitely coming back so it's going to be very interesting to see what they do there with Bronwyn but she'll definitely be missed I really enjoyed her. Yeah that character was interesting and she was very good

[00:20:11] in the role but I can't say that I don't agree with her priorities. Yeah absolutely how amazing. Even when the show was was airing she was doing a lot of activism and following her on social media has been very inspiring so you know

[00:20:30] good for her we'll miss you. Yeah yeah and that's the thing too I think with the rings of power with a lot of these characters who are not canon characters they kind of can you know work around that and do what

[00:20:42] they like in the in the show with a story. Other ones who are more pivotal I guess to the main plot that could be trickier but I'm sure they were able to write around that so yeah that yeah that will be

[00:20:55] I mean they could have if they wanted to recast her I'm sure they could have found someone who was yeah yeah I guess they're going to focus on different parts of the story um yeah that's fine from there. The Forbidden Romance was never my

[00:21:09] favorite of all the plots because I feel like we've seen Forbidden Romances before. Yeah it's been done before. The relationship between Aro and Deer and Theo is very interesting to me. Mmm that'll be good to see that um that develop definitely.

[00:21:26] Yeah and then we have a huge number of um new actors coming in for season two which is fantastic. I'm gonna go through and name them all there's a several that I don't know there's several that I do know but I'll

[00:21:39] just go through and I can also say where they're from as well. I'm not certain who each of them is playing at this stage but that will all be revealed. We have Gabriel Akewo-Diniki that's from he's from Hanna. We have Yacine Yates-Atuah from The

[00:21:52] Witcher, Ben Daniels from The Exorcist, Amelia Kenworthy, Nia Tau from Persuasion, Nicholas Wooderson from Rome, Oliver Alvin Wilson from The Bay, Stuart Bowman from The Pact, Gavi Singh-Chera from The Undeclared War, William Chubb from The Vampire Academy, Kevin Eldon from Game of Thrones, Will Keane from Ridley Road,

[00:22:14] Selena Lowe from Boss Level, Callum Lynch from Bridgerton, Karen Hines yay from Rome and Game of Thrones, Rory Kinnear from Skyfall Spectre and Tanya Moody from Motherland and Sherlock have all joined the cast which is pretty amazing new bunch of people.

[00:22:29] A few of those I don't know I've heard of all of the tv shows but I don't know all of the actors and then the main ones that I do know are Ben Daniels. I've just recently been really enjoying him an interview with The Vampire he plays

[00:22:42] the most amazing portrayal of the vampire Santiago. He's so intense and so camp and just delicious I can't wait to see him in this. Karen Hines, love him as well he was Mance Rayder in Game of Thrones, really popular character on that show. He plays Aberforth Dumbledore

[00:23:02] our professor's brother in Harry Potter and then Rory Kinnear as well I first saw him in Black Mirror and if you guys have seen Black Mirror the very first episode there's a whole thing with a pig. If you've seen you know what I mean

[00:23:16] if you haven't watched it first, don't watch it first. Just skip it. There's a um there's this really cool infographic about Black Mirror on Summer on the interwebs and it tells you which episode to start with and then it gives you this whole kind of flow chart.

[00:23:30] Do you want it lighter? Do you want it darker? And it tells you which ones to watch next and because they're all it's an anthology they all stand alone it doesn't matter what order but don't watch that one first it's disturbing.

[00:23:41] Anyway he was great in it, he's great in the Bond movies um but I love him the most in Our Flag Means Death. He is fantastic in that show so funny and he'll be playing Tom Bombadil so we'll tell you a little bit

[00:23:55] more I think about Tom Bombadil in the spoiler section but for now we can just say he's he appears in the book of The Fellowship of the Ring and he hasn't been on screen before because he wasn't in the 1978 film or the Peter Jackson films

[00:24:08] so we'll go into a little bit. What about any of that casting for you Penny? Does that ring bells for you? Are you excited about anyone in particular? Uh most of these actors are going to be new to me I haven't seen

[00:24:20] hardly any of these shows. I am familiar with Rory Kinnear and Sharon or Karen Hines and both of them are just you know sort of actors that always deliver so I think that's going to be great. I trust these producers with casting. I thought the casting in

[00:24:40] season one was excellent so I'm here for whatever they think is a good idea. Yeah excellent I totally agree it's going to be really cool and I think as well once you've got that first season so established with all the different worlds in the different

[00:24:54] communities I think you can bring characters in new characters in more quickly to sort of slot into those worlds and like you say you trust the casting and they've already coming into an established world or you know universe it's it's probably going to be easier to kind of

[00:25:08] embed them into those characters when we do see them. There is some news um in the larger Tolkien universe there are two new feature films in the works one will be out at the end of this year which is The War of the Rohirrim

[00:25:24] and that's going to be the first this isn't really true because there was an animated film before I don't know why so collider.com said it's the first animated feature film in the Lord of the Rings universe but that's not really true because there's

[00:25:38] there's a animated hobbit but uh it takes place several hundred years before the events of the Lord of the Rings trilogy and instead of focusing on the One Ring or Sauron it's about uh the ancient tales of Helm's Deep. If you remember in The Two Towers

[00:26:00] the Rohirrim and our heroes all retreated to Helm's Deep for a defense against Saruman's orc army so it's going to be the story of sort of how Helm's Deep came to be and it will also follow the early days of the Riders of Rohan which is

[00:26:17] sort of the elite warrior class of the Rohirrim and their king Helm Hammerhand, Helm who Helm's Deep is named after that's going to be played by Helm Hammerhand it's going to be played by Brian Cox he is most recently known for succession but he is an actor that

[00:26:34] when you see him you'll be like oh I've seen that guy in like 25 things like he has been in so many movies um I like him in the the Bourne Identity movies he's just he's just uh got a lot of gravitas I'm

[00:26:46] I'm excited to see what he does with the king role I don't know what role he'll be playing but there is an actor in the show Extraordinary which is another show I podcast about named Belil Hasna and he is voicing a character

[00:27:03] in War of the Rohirrim so I'm happy for him Who does he play in Extraordinary? He is um I can't believe I can't remember the character's name he is the um young Palestinian boyfriend of the character Carrie oh yes the the one who keeps winding time back

[00:27:21] yeah he has the time power yeah I know him yeah oh cool oh that'll be great and he's he's very funny on Extraordinary but I saw him also in a one-man play that he wrote and produced that was about it was about Palestine and it was semi

[00:27:37] autobiographical but also about some of the history of Palestine and it was before the most recent war started in October that I saw this play and it was incredibly moving and I felt gave me a new appreciation for the history of that region of the world and oh

[00:27:57] fantastic I just really want this actor to succeed in life I I'm I'm rooting for him that's great some exciting news about War of the Rohirrim is also that Miranda Otto will be returning to Middle Earth uh she is known for playing King Theoden's daughter

[00:28:14] Eowyn the slayer of the Witch King you know the famous I am no man I am no man line um it's assumed by every journalist that she's going to be narrating or something because obviously she's not born yet when the film takes place

[00:28:30] so but I couldn't find any like official confirmation she's the narrator but that makes the most sense yeah I think it does um and and just given the time yeah that um I guess we don't have you know it's it's animated so there's no issues with

[00:28:45] someone appearing and looking 20 years older than when they last filmed but again it's it's like you say it's a very different time frame so I would imagine that's what they would do and her voice is so distinctive too so I think it would really tie it

[00:28:55] into that world that we know yeah I think it's it's going to be wonderful the film will be headlining the upcoming Onassis International Animation Film Festival but it will be available in theaters December 13th 2024 I can't wait to see some more Lord

[00:29:11] of the Rings in the theater it's gonna be great yeah there's another film coming out and this one doesn't have a release date or anything like that it's going to be called or it's currently called The Hunt for Gollum and there's not a lot of information

[00:29:25] about it out there I believe that it is it takes place before or sort of during the events of Fellowship of the Ring and it has to do with Aragorn and Gandalf looking for Gollum to confirm you know what their theories are about the One Ring and

[00:29:44] about Gollum's history there was a fan-made film that was made in 2009 and it's a like a 39 minute film and it's up on YouTube and we'll put the link to it in the show notes it got taken down by YouTube right after the announcements were made

[00:30:02] about this Hunt for Gollum movie being in the works but that's been there was like a copyright lawsuit all this stuff it's all been worked out the film is back up online and available to watch it's unclear if the fan film inspired

[00:30:19] The Hunt for Gollum film but they they have similarities one interesting piece I saw an interview with Viggo Viggo Mortensen where uh you know journalists asked him he was promoting some other movie but journalists were like oh would you go back to Middle Earth would you

[00:30:34] play Aragorn again and he was like well he's totally taken aback by it like he clearly was thinking like that's a prequel film they're making and I'm old now but he uh he said that the experience he had making the Lord of the Rings films was wonderful and

[00:30:52] he would you know love to go back to work with those people again and he liked playing Aragorn he liked the character and he was like I don't know Peter Jackson and his team they're all geniuses maybe they'll come up with a way to make

[00:31:04] me look young again well I I think what I'd love to see is for them to recast for younger Aragorn but I'd love to see Viggo come back and the kind of flashing back so again that kind of narration style where he's maybe telling his son about what

[00:31:18] happened because he's now the age that you know those flash forwards that we see with Arwen um mourning him you know and he's all gray and grizzled he's that age now and he would just look so cool he's actually the age now

[00:31:32] that Ian McKellen was uh when he played Gandalf in the original movies I know I love that that's how far we've moved forward in time but he's still so beautiful and so um just so incredible to watch that I think

[00:31:44] it would be really cool if we did get to see him be long-haired kind of gray-haired grizzled um kingly Aragorn looking back and talking about his early days I think that would be fantastic and there are so many good actors out there

[00:31:57] Pete I've seen a lot of speculation about who might play um young Aragorn I would like to see someone that we don't know a fresh face that looks kind of like him that we could get into I don't want to see you know

[00:32:06] there's been lots of stuff bandied around that is just outrageously silly I'm not going to name names because I don't want to shame any any actors that I don't think could do it still I think yeah I think it would be really cool to see someone new and

[00:32:20] and uh and young you know in that role yeah and then to have Vigo in it in some way would be I mean forget fan service like it people would just go bananas for it they would love it yeah I mean Ian McKellen could come back

[00:32:36] he didn't age the character didn't age um you know and he's thousands of years old so you know 80 years before won't make any difference for for him and he wouldn't look much different but again it's that kind of thing he's now the age that

[00:32:51] um Christopher Lee was when they filmed and there's quite a big difference between being 64 and in your mid-80s um when you're filming on set so um he's still busy and he's still active he's doing a lot of stuff but yeah coming to New Zealand for

[00:33:04] months and doing that kind of stuff again might be a different story for him so we'll see but we'll see I think uh the fandom is going to be served no matter what exactly I'm excited to see somewhere you know Tolkien in the theater and

[00:33:20] to see just new stories in this universe that I love yeah it's going to be fantastic so we had um a couple of comments on Facebook um just about the upcoming season two of Rings of Power uh we had a message from Mark McBurney hi Mark

[00:33:36] um Mark says I really enjoyed the first season the visuals and music were especially were fantastic and although it was a little slow at times I'm okay with that as I know they are story building and have faith that it will all be worth it in the end

[00:33:50] we also heard from Nevada Randall who says wow that trailer looks epic I will definitely be watching I enjoyed the first series there were a few moments I recall where I thought the pacing was a bit slow this seems to be a consistent comment

[00:34:04] I've never read the books but I have watched all of the movies so that's where I get my love of the ring big grin emoji after that that's great thanks Nevada I'm not sure if we've heard from you before forgive me if

[00:34:16] if we have but it's really nice to hear from you thank you and I'm excited to get some more feedback from you once the show begins no pressure yeah so look I think um we are going to go into a spoiler section

[00:34:30] and uh if you don't want to listen to spoilers we're going to dissect the trailer a little bit and talk about a bit of casting news that may have some spoilery implications so if you don't want to listen to that then

[00:34:44] I think just sign off now and we will catch you on the next podcast but if you're keen to hear all of that stick around in the meantime if you do want to write in or leave us a message you can find all our contact

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[00:35:55] check that out at podcastica.com and you can go directly to each of the different shows from there or you can just search them up individually as well from any of the podcast apps of your choice so if you don't mind listening for some possible spoilers please stay

[00:36:12] with us and you can join us right now for Galadriel's Mirror will you look into the mirror what will I see things that were things that are and some things that have not yet come to pass so we are going to discuss a little bit about

[00:36:34] how the show compares to the book and obviously you know we've talked about this in previous episodes they don't have a huge amount of the source material that they're allowed to go on so a lot of it is sort of not quite made up but based on some

[00:36:48] other parts of the lore and we'll have a little chat about the trailer as well but first off I wanted to talk about Tom Bombadil and Tom Bombadil is one of those characters who if you are a hardcore Tolkien fan you probably have strong feelings about him

[00:37:04] if you are a hardcore just seen the movies and never read the book you'll be saying Tom Bomba who because he didn't appear in the movies he didn't appear in the 1978 film either but he's a very beloved character and quite an important character

[00:37:19] in the books as well I have a confession yeah when I have reread the book I often skip the Tom Bombadil section because I think it doesn't have any bearing on the plot yeah and I and it takes a bit of a sidestep doesn't it's like a side

[00:37:37] quest yeah yeah and look I think that's why Peter Jackson you know he's talked about that's why they they took him out they were aware of how important he was to the fandom but it didn't move the story ahead and it was very sort of

[00:37:50] separate to the story so they just weren't able to do it and he had he's talked about they wanted to film a little a wee section where the hobbits are in the old forest and they just look over to the side and they see this blue hat

[00:38:03] kind of skipping through the trees and then they sort of go in the other direction just as a bit of a nod to the fans they didn't end up having time to do it so they didn't but there we go he's not in the movies

[00:38:13] so what do we know about Tom Bombadil he's he's known by all creatures in Middle Earth but by different names for all the different civilizations the elves call him Men call him and dwarves refer to him as faun but the hobbits call him Bombadil

[00:38:30] his powers are undefined but he does have this unique ability to resist the effects of the one ring so we know the one ring has this massive effect on people it calls to them it tries to possess them when you put the ring on you disappear

[00:38:44] but when Frodo's wearing the ring Tom Bombadil can see him which is interesting and then when Tom tries it on he doesn't disappear so he doesn't have it has no power over him which is incredible it shows that he's super powerful because not even

[00:38:57] Gandalf who's one of the most powerful beings in Middle Earth is is immune to it in that same way he's got this sort of power of singing he's able to control Old Man Wello and the Barrow Whites in in the Fellowship of the Ring

[00:39:12] some people believe that he's Vala or one of the Maya and other people describe him as being the living embodiment of earth or time he speaks about himself in the third person and he refers to himself as eldest and he claims to have witnessed the

[00:39:27] first raindrop and acorn so that i mean if that's if that's the case that would make him the oldest living being in Aura, older even than the Valar so you're if you remember the Valar we talked about them in the first season those kind of god-like beings

[00:39:41] and he hosts the four hobbits as they travel through the old forest so like we said it's kind of a bit of a side quest and and they kind of uses his singing to banish the Barrow Whites and yeah it's it's pretty cool

[00:39:52] I'm kind of interested to see what they what they do with it because I think for me Tom Bumberdale in the books is kind of a combination of really powerful and mysterious and has a lot of weight to him but he's also really comical as well

[00:40:10] so I'm interested to see how they find that balance and I think if anyone can do it Rory Keneah can because I've seen him in really serious and comical roles as well yeah he has a lot of gravitas I think I think what always

[00:40:23] kind of bothered me about Tom Bumberdale is that he is so powerful you know you can tell from the little that you find out about him in Fellowship of the Ring that he has a lot of power but he has opted out of the big events happening

[00:40:40] in Middle Earth and there was a part of me that was like hey why aren't you helping you know like I was like get get in the fight man but as I've gotten older right that was that was like pre-teen and teenage me

[00:40:54] as I've gotten older I'm like well maybe he already did his fight and like I have a whole different perspective on him now so I'm excited to have more time with them yeah I mean that's a little bit like Gandalf isn't it some people say

[00:41:06] why didn't Gandalf do more and why didn't the Eagles do more and all that sort of stuff but it's sometimes it's about people having their own journey so yeah it's going to be cool to see I've seen some images and it does look pretty cool

[00:41:18] what they've done with costume and so on so yeah that would be exciting and we also have some more casting news as well this is from IGN.com so season two is going to introduce a new character played by Nia Tau or Tau'li I'm not sure if I'm

[00:41:33] saying that right and she plays a character called Estrid and there's some images that have been released and so again spoiler alert Isildur does come back those of us know the story know that he's got a lot still to do in Middle Earth

[00:41:51] and she does look quite cozy with Isildur there's a couple of images of them looking a little bit close to kissing so we'll see what happens with that the article that I read there from IGN.com suggests that we might have just been introduced to Isildur's wife

[00:42:08] so they say characters in Tolkien's work are most certainly capable of having multiple love interests throughout their respective stories of course but Isildur's wife has never been named in Tolkien's stories and it sure seems possible that this might be the beginning of their romance in season two

[00:42:23] which makes her Aragorn's great-great-great-great-great-grandmother yeah times several exactly based on existing law we know that the fall of Numenor is in our future and that same law also tells us that Isildur has a wife and his first son Elendur before that fall comes

[00:42:40] so given that the clock seems to be ticking for all the realms now seems as good a time as any to get that boy married up and I agree with that I think you know they as we know they're crunching the timelines with this

[00:42:50] series things that happen hundreds or even thousands of years apart are being condensed into one sort of storyline so I think that makes sense that that would happen so yeah let's see what they do with her it's going to be quite cool that's awesome I can't wait yeah

[00:43:05] fantastic so how many times have you seen the trailer have you dissected it Penny or if you just watched a couple of times what's your thoughts on the trailer so far I've watched it three times yeah I have not dissected it I thought about it I

[00:43:21] was like should I just sit down and like tear it apart frame by frame and I don't know that kind of bummed me out I liked absorbing it as a whole it it had a lot of exciting little bits and emotional little bits

[00:43:38] and ending on that shot of Sauron sort of done up as an elf with his like straight long blonde hair I was like oh I can't wait to see that just looks so awesome how about you yeah um yeah I've watched it a few

[00:43:52] times and I also watched a bit of a breakdown you know you can always find them on youtube someone has already else has already done it so I think that's quite cool yeah um I guess the main thing for me was

[00:44:03] it was interesting there was sort of the the absence of the Halfwoods the Halfwoods played quite a big part in season one and we didn't really see them in the trailer there's one shot that could have been um uh Eleanor Brandyfoot

[00:44:17] in the sort of a looks like in in the eastern lands with a whole bunch of sand flying around you can kind of just see her holding on to something but it's like it's really vague you wouldn't even know that it's her

[00:44:27] um and the other big thing that really struck me was um Charlie Vickers as Sauron and um there was some news there was some casting news a while back maybe a year ago where they said there was someone else new cast as Sauron I

[00:44:43] can't remember who they said it was but there was somebody who was going to be Sauron and everyone kind of went hang on what why has that happened is Charlie Vickers not coming back what's happening there that seems to have sort of faded

[00:44:53] away and we now know that he is back as as Sauron but when we see him in the trailer we see him basically as Annatar so Annatar is his alvish form that he or elven form that he comes back to Eregion as to um help you know to

[00:45:09] tell them how to forge the the rings of power basically um so you see a few shots of him in the in the trailer you see him sort of pacing through smiling towards the camera as people sort of flying around behind them looking a bit panicked

[00:45:22] and you see him being surrounded by a bunch of elves with swords and um sort of like they've they've sprung him and they surrounded him and they're going to do something um and Cala Brimbor is in the background of that scene too looking very

[00:45:34] um ragged and um and quite rough so i don't know what's happened up in the lead-up to that scene but um again it looks like it could be something more towards the end of the season i don't really know but he looks pretty cool as Annatar and

[00:45:49] i think they've made him look different enough that maybe it's to show us how they were fooled or is it a flashback where he was amongst them all this whole time as someone else and they didn't know that he was him i don't know how they're

[00:46:02] going to work that but it was pretty striking in the in the trailer maybe it's like a Clark Kent situation like with the glasses without the glasses oh it's a different person the pointier in the long blonde here he's an elf of course he's an elf so yeah

[00:46:16] i'm sure they'll tell that in a good way but it's yeah it's going to be interesting um the other the other thing that i a very cool shot i liked was um the great eagle coming down into Numinor and yeah Faris Farazan

[00:46:31] drawing his sword in front of this eagle looked pretty cool so that'll be really cool to see what they do with that in the lore um eagles had actually left um by that time because the elves had sort of turned their back on the on the

[00:46:44] valar and on the old way so um the at that time in the story there weren't really any eagles around so it's interesting again they've crunched the story so we'll see kind of what they do with them there were a couple of shots that were

[00:46:59] underwater and i couldn't tell if the person who was underwater was meant to be in distress or like a person who lives underwater and i was like are there like mer people in middle earth like i don't i don't know but i got kind of excited about it

[00:47:22] that was an interesting one um the the breakdown that i saw was they were pretty sure it could be mariel so you know the the queen of noumenor um there's a there's a shot of it's actually a bit hidden behind some of

[00:47:35] the um the writing like when you see rings of power just come up on the screen or it might even be the the date or something but there's a shot looking towards the cliffs of noumenor and there's a bunch of people standing on the edge of the cliffs

[00:47:46] and one of them is dressed in white and there's another scene where you see mariel dressed in white and then it cuts to the underwater scene so people are saying that it's probably her um but then you see the sea creature but they're

[00:47:59] wondering as well is it a sea creature or is it the watcher in the water like could this be near kaza doom you know where um when in the fellowship when the the the nine about to go into mauria and that oh and the thing

[00:48:11] attacks them comes out yeah um so they're wondering could it be could it be near there because we see stuff happening around um around that area later on so that yeah that's interesting i always think with trailers they have to have

[00:48:25] you know they have to have a an emotional scene a couple of battle scenes they have to have some mythical creature you know there's the prerequisites of what you have to have um also it it's often revealed that you know once you get into the season

[00:48:38] that the scenes in the trailer are all from like the first two episodes and yeah and we don't even have any idea what's coming exactly yeah yeah it's um but it is interesting there's a whole there is a lot of stuff about the ring so i think

[00:48:51] they're going to kick the story up because you see um yes there's a shot of the three rings um three elven rings and then you also see a shot of um calabrian bore throwing rings into the fire as well and it looks like it definitely

[00:49:04] looks like there's nine rings um it could be seven could be the dwarven rings or it could be the nine rings of men um it's hard to tell but again he looks super like broken down and dirty and stressed out in that shot as well so

[00:49:17] what's he trying to do? I think there was also a shot of durin's father holding a ring yeah so the dwarf ring he had like the blue ring so yeah it's um that's going to be interesting too to see what happens there because i think

[00:49:32] um the uh whether he gets that given to him directly from the elves that make it or whether it's one of the things where um you know Sauron forges them and and the the history is that he gives them the rings but yeah it would be very

[00:49:48] cool to see what happens there um and then you have all this there's a lot of black creepy stuff yeah at the beginning that looks like it's that blight that affected the trees in linden um but there's another scene with a tree that looks like it's sort of

[00:50:02] healing as well so rather than having the black stuff it's kind of got golden or lava kind of going through it it's a very quick shot um but again i think they're they're using that as that symbol of kind of evil coming through the land

[00:50:17] and there's a there's a line where um durin talks about um a great evil returning and so it's not clear whether that's meant to be Sauron or whether they're talking about the balrog you know the balrog um was was shown in the end of the last season

[00:50:33] yeah and and again crunching the timeline in the lore that's actually quite a lot later um but is the balrog going to come back and start destroying um kaza doom you know we see there's a shot there with the one of the bridges and kaza doom being um

[00:50:50] being destroyed and so it's hard to tell whether that's going to be the balrog or is it going to be they started mining too much for the mithril and it all starts to crumble i mean it's really early for the distraction of mauri but i i don't

[00:51:01] know what they're going to do there either it's just all exciting yeah i uh loved that the trailer opens with durin's fantastic like resonant scottish accent voice i was like oh i forgot how much i love this like yeah it was it was so instantly evocative of the

[00:51:24] world and then you know all the images and um the elves and their armor and it was it was fun to see elrond in armor because he's portrayed quite often as this sort of academic type right he's like very smart and he's you know he's in

[00:51:41] charge or whatever but to see him like armored up for battle i was like oh that's right he's also a warrior that'll be yeah and they've also i don't know how when you're thousands of years old i don't know how hair works but his hair is a bit

[00:51:55] longer in this season um so obviously they're they're trying to get him closer towards our our lord of the rings um elrond with the long long hair so they might be doing that he does look really cool in his battle gear

[00:52:06] and it looks it looks like there's a bit of good action happening there i saw another interview with um the actor who played elrond in the movies and again i have forgotten his name yeah um who i always want to huge hugo weaving

[00:52:23] you go weaving yeah so i saw an interview with hugo weaving and somebody said like oh would you ever want to come back and reprise your role as elrond and he was like oh the guy they have now he's he's great like he's

[00:52:36] doing a really good job and he's like and i really didn't have a lot of fun on that movie i was the exposition i didn't get to do any of the good stuff and i was like oh that's true yeah he just had to stand around with his

[00:52:48] eyebrows and say really portentous things yeah um he had a bit to do in the flashbacks um in terms of you know the that first the last battle of men and elves and trying to make a seal to throw the ring in the fire and stuff like

[00:53:00] that but it was pretty quick so yeah most of it was him standing around in his silken robes telling people off at the council of elrond so yeah and again it's an age thing you know he he was um kind of close to middle age

[00:53:13] then and he's older now so i think yeah it could be it could be interesting trying to do that yeah i think we're fine with the the new actor playing elrond he's great and i just thought it was a really funny interview because actors hardly ever

[00:53:29] say like yeah that wasn't a great time or whatever yeah they don't they usually go it was incredible and da da yeah it is interesting but i think they also must just get if you're really well known for one role they just must get so sick of being

[00:53:40] only asked about that role as well and maybe it comes from a bit of that it's probably like look that was 20 years ago and i've done other stuff but you just want to be rude to them like why don't you ask me about the

[00:53:49] matrix oh wait no i get asked about that all the time too yeah exactly yep um the couple of other little points about the trailer there was some excellent arundhia acrobatics when he sort of jumps out of his wagon and spins around a few times

[00:54:04] and lands um that was very cool so i'm looking forward to seeing some more of him again loved him in season one and um we did get a quick shot of the stranger as well so coming off season one a huge number of

[00:54:17] people are still pretty sure that he's gandalf it's not confirmed um it's going to be great to see what they do with him in season two apparently in some of the press releases they were talking about wizards not wizard so um some speculation that maybe he

[00:54:32] is going to be one of the blue wizards and we get to meet another one when he's out there in the east so let's see what happens i'm not sure what's going to happen with that but do you do where are you sitting on

[00:54:43] the who the stranger is at this point it seemed like they were all but confirming that he was gandalf at the end of that season but there are all these other wizards right so who knows yeah yep i would yeah kind of prefer for it to be a

[00:54:59] completely different wizard just because why not have one more wizard that we know but yeah i'll be okay either way yeah yep no it'll be good i mean no one can be ian mckellan ever but yeah we have to move on in the world

[00:55:15] and have other people exactly and if he is if he is young gandalf or early gandalf i can definitely buy it i think he he he has echoes of of the mckellan gandalf that we know so if that's who he turns out to be

[00:55:28] then i'm fine with it i think they'll make it work um yeah i'm more interested in learning more about the mysterious other magic users that were pursuing him ah yes yep um i heard a really cool name for them um i wanted the trailer

[00:55:47] trailer breakdowns they call them the nascals so you know how we're hilarious we've got nascall the nascall who are the the black writers but they call them the nascals and i just thought that was hilarious again something in the trailer that maybe shows that they might be coming

[00:56:02] back you know when um the stranger kind of destroyed or smoked them down um in season one and they kind of turned into like white moth butterfly kind of things flapping about um in the trailer you do see a shot of some uh creatures like that um flying

[00:56:19] around so it was like a swirl of a swarm of them yeah yeah yeah so i wonder whether they're going back to that i haven't seen any shots of them but yeah that'll be that'll be interesting to see what they do with that too so

[00:56:30] yeah i'm pretty excited overall it's one of those things where when it's on the hiatus for two years he kind of goes to the back of your mind a little bit and then once it all kicks in again it's just super exciting

[00:56:41] yeah it's going to be so fun yeah and we'll be here for you guys through the whole thing yeah so do a re-watch again if you if you need to refresh yourself you can always go back to our old episodes and check those out

[00:56:53] if you don't have time to do any of that i think we'll probably come back um for an episode before we cover the show and we'll just do a bit of a season one recap so that if you guys don't have time to re-watch or listen to all

[00:57:06] of our coverage then you can just pop back into that and i think we'll just kind of go over what happened um either episode by episode or yeah or maybe just we'll go through the little strands of this of each story and remind ourselves and you guys

[00:57:18] what what will happen so um stick around for that that'll be um coming sometime i would say in kind of early to mid-august um and in the meantime if you've got um any uh feedback that you want to send in just join the chats on

[00:57:32] facebook and head over to podcastico.com as well and i think that's probably it for today that's our show fantastic everyone thank you so much for listening we will see you next time in middle earth back again before season two returns and in the meantime remember

[00:57:52] you shall live to see these days renewed no more despair yes the horn of helm hammerhand shall sound in the deep one last time yes let this be the hour when we draw swords together fell deeds awake now for wrath now for ruin and the red dawn