transcript

Speaker 1:
[00:00] Buy one prescription pair and get 20% off any additional prescription pairs at warbyparker.com/kindafunny. If you want to get our shows ad-free and our exclusive shows, go to patreon.com/kindafunny.

Speaker 2:
[00:12] Nick, Nick, Nick, Nick, Nick, Nick, Nick, Nick, Nick, Nick, Nick, Nick, Nick, Nick.

Speaker 3:
[00:19] What can men do against such reckless hate?

Speaker 2:
[00:22] Ride out with me, ride out and meet them.

Speaker 3:
[00:26] For death and glory.

Speaker 2:
[00:29] For Rohan. For your people.

Speaker 3:
[00:31] Yes, yes. The horn of Helm Hammerhand shall sound in the deep one last time. Let this be the hour where we draw swords together. Fell deeds awake. Now for wrath. Now for ruin. And a red dawn.

Speaker 2:
[00:46] What's up, ladies?

Speaker 3:
[00:47] The Helm of Hammerhand?

Speaker 2:
[00:50] That's the most metal made ever. What's up, everybody? Welcome back to Nick Scarpino's In Review. This time we're talking about Back by Popular Demand. The Lord of the Rings, The Two Towers. I didn't think we're going to get here. I never thought we'd talk about this film ever again.

Speaker 4:
[01:04] But the people were adamant about it.

Speaker 2:
[01:07] I have no...

Speaker 5:
[01:08] You mean Andy.

Speaker 4:
[01:09] Yes, Andy and the audience.

Speaker 3:
[01:11] Yeah.

Speaker 5:
[01:12] Andy mobilized the audience.

Speaker 3:
[01:13] The viewers showed up.

Speaker 4:
[01:15] It's true.

Speaker 3:
[01:16] They showed up. They showed up. They showed up.

Speaker 2:
[01:18] And I could not be more excited about that. I was on vacation for a week and I got the Slack saying, hey, we're switching gears a little bit. Nick, are you down to watch Lord of the Rings, the Two? And before you even stopped typing, I was like, absolutely. Because I love watching these movies with Andy. I like revisiting them. And I'm super excited to hear what Joey and blessing Eddie OEA. Jr. have to say about this. Because you guys were pleasantly surprised with the fellowship of the ring.

Speaker 5:
[01:42] Definitely.

Speaker 2:
[01:42] Yeah. And you were very much wondering if Gandalf was going to come back.

Speaker 5:
[01:45] I got so much to say about Gandalf.

Speaker 2:
[01:48] We're going to talk about Gandalf before we do. Of course, ladies and gentlemen, we couldn't do this without you over on Patreon and all of your support. We appreciate you very much. We actually post all the movie commentaries for these movies ahead of doing the reviews. If you didn't know that, we've got one up for Lord of the Rings, we got Robocop, we got Back to the Future, we got Pulp Fiction, we got all sorts of cool commentaries and reviews to go along with this fun series that was supposed to end when Tim came back. But spoilers, we sent Tim away again. We just kicked his ass right out the office so we could talk about this.

Speaker 4:
[02:15] We were like, no, we can't do this again.

Speaker 2:
[02:16] Shout out to our Patreon producers, Carl Jacobs and Omega Buster. Thank you guys so much for being the best around. No one's ever going to take you down. Let's talk about tax backs in this film. The Lord of the Rings, The Two Towers, release date, December 18th, 2022, one day before 2002. 2002, excuse me.

Speaker 4:
[02:33] I was like, dang, this came out during the movie.

Speaker 2:
[02:35] 22, crazy. 2002, one day before the prior year's film, Fellowship of the Ring came out, which is December 19th. So they were coming out a year apart from each other.

Speaker 5:
[02:44] 164 days.

Speaker 2:
[02:45] The runtime of this film is two hours and 59 minutes. One minute more than the Fellowship of the Ring. Don't worry. Return of the King is way longer.

Speaker 5:
[02:54] You were in 7th grade.

Speaker 4:
[02:55] 2002, I think so.

Speaker 5:
[02:56] I think I was in 2nd grade.

Speaker 3:
[02:59] I was 6th.

Speaker 5:
[03:00] Actually, December. December, I was in 3rd grade. Because 9-11, I was in 2nd grade.

Speaker 3:
[03:06] Yeah.

Speaker 5:
[03:07] We had a conversation recently.

Speaker 2:
[03:08] That's a good milestone on the map there.

Speaker 3:
[03:12] This is the first time I saw in theaters.

Speaker 2:
[03:15] Wow.

Speaker 3:
[03:16] Christmas vacation, had family over, it was beside with a cousin, yeah.

Speaker 2:
[03:19] All the other tech specs are, of course, the same as last week. This had a budget of $93 million, a box office of $897 million. This is for all 3 of the films. It's hard to gauge how much the budget was for any of these because they were shooting them at the same time for a few years together. Directed, of course, by Peter Jackson, music by the venerable Howard Shore, and the DP is Andrew Lesney, who did all 3 Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit movies, I Am Legend and King Kong. Let's jump right into it. Joey, let's start with you. What did you think?

Speaker 4:
[03:49] Why do you always got to start with me?

Speaker 2:
[03:51] Because Blessing is going to bring the hype, but you might be the naysayer. I don't know. You have the, you know.

Speaker 4:
[03:56] Yeah. I will say this is where fantasy gets a little hard for me in terms of the first movie, we had the fellowship. We had the moment of like, oh my gosh, they said the thing. With this one, the group that you've made me dear to, the entire first movie is now separated.

Speaker 2:
[04:15] Sure.

Speaker 4:
[04:15] And I just want, I just want the gang back together. They're off on all doing their individual side quests. And this is where fantasy loses me of like, we meet so many new people with each individual group that I'm like, which one are you and who are you related to? And your names sound the same, but you're not the same.

Speaker 2:
[04:31] Yeah.

Speaker 4:
[04:31] But that part gets a little confusing. I feel like I had a lot of questions when I was watching that I. So I think I'm going to like it and appreciate it more once we all talk about it and I get some of those little connections made. I also think it's the second movie, arguably one of the harder, the middle section, I think of even just any movie. Act two, I think can be tough. Is one and three years younger. That's where I'm at. I had a great time. I am losing track of who is who very quickly because everybody looks the same. And then I also get confused because I see people and I'm like, Oh, you're not really a character to me. Yeah, you are just Carla.

Speaker 2:
[05:07] You're just Carla. But not just Carla urban, sexy ass young Carla urban with the blonde wig. Are you kidding me?

Speaker 4:
[05:13] And then, yeah, I have a lot of I have a lot of questions about Gandalf.

Speaker 3:
[05:17] I kind of I kind of crush it on the on the commentary.

Speaker 4:
[05:20] That's what you thought.

Speaker 3:
[05:21] I mean, as we're watching it, Two Towers is my least favorite of the trilogy. I still love it, but I understand it. I totally understand why anybody would feel like it may be the weakest. And I looked at Nick, I said, and there's a moment where he says, you know, we have to defend Osgillith. And I said, this is where I worry about Blessing Joe with the Osgillith of it all with the Rohan. We're introducing a lot of and that's where when you're watching Game of Thrones, you're like, oh, fuck, whose side are they on? And that's that's definitely, I think, a larger worry for somebody who may be a bit more on the outside looking in.

Speaker 2:
[05:56] It's tough, too, because you get introduced to so much stuff in the first movie. And then this right off the rip starts, you get introduced to Rohan. And then there's the writers and the Rohirrim.

Speaker 3:
[06:07] The Rohirrim.

Speaker 2:
[06:07] The Rohirrim, who are the actual name for the writer. And you're like, wait, who is that? And then he's gone, and then he comes back. And then there's Arwen and Eowyn, and they're not the same person.

Speaker 4:
[06:17] I know.

Speaker 2:
[06:18] So there's lots of different things. They do the thing where the name, the name in conventions for a lot of the characters are based on the family names and each other's names. And it's very, very confusing.

Speaker 5:
[06:26] What's Boromir's brother's name?

Speaker 2:
[06:28] Faramir.

Speaker 5:
[06:28] Faramir, which threw me off. I was like, oh, this Faramir guy, who looks a little bit like he could be related to Boromir. And then they said it. And I'm like, I was like, damn, all right, cool. Yeah, this makes sense here. Yeah, which is cool.

Speaker 2:
[06:39] That little touch there, too, will get to what we get there. But they're all Rangers. You know, they're all Rangers. Yeah, that's cool.

Speaker 5:
[06:43] Pretty cool.

Speaker 2:
[06:44] Yeah.

Speaker 4:
[06:44] Yeah. I didn't like this much as the first one, but it's still like a engaging movie. I just feel like my brain is a little shuffled on whoever. I need a flow chart and a map.

Speaker 2:
[06:55] And Andy has actually drawn one for you.

Speaker 3:
[06:57] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[06:57] So he'll do that. Actually, we'll do that live via Photoshop.

Speaker 4:
[07:00] So Andy and I are matching again.

Speaker 3:
[07:01] Oh yeah, that's right. Were there any sort of text correspondences with Lucy and Elise?

Speaker 4:
[07:08] No, because Lucy's in...

Speaker 3:
[07:10] She's in the UK.

Speaker 4:
[07:11] So I'll bring out the big guns again for the third one.

Speaker 3:
[07:14] I like that.

Speaker 2:
[07:15] Blessing. Your first time watching, what'd you think?

Speaker 5:
[07:18] I posted on Insta stories that I was watching this and I did get a response from Lucy James. And then I said something along the lines of like, I'm watching Lord of the Rings, all over the true Lucy James experience. Then she sends me a Nine Inch Nails song called Copy of A. And like, I started listening, I was like, damn, this Nine Inch Nails is pretty good. Lucy James, on to something.

Speaker 3:
[07:39] Wow. She's got some good track.

Speaker 2:
[07:41] She just discovered a new band.

Speaker 3:
[07:43] And Bless actually was kind of watching it almost at the same time as me and Nick.

Speaker 2:
[07:47] You were maybe, you were maybe, what, 20 minutes behind us?

Speaker 5:
[07:51] Oh, which was hilarious. I went home to watch it. And then as I'm texting Indy, I realize you guys are doing the commentary at the same time.

Speaker 3:
[08:00] We were gonna wait and then it's like, well, this movie is really, really long. And so we were gonna wait to do it out here because of the stream and all this stuff. And then we ended up pushing, we brought it forward like a bit.

Speaker 5:
[08:11] So part of me is like, I know the idea of the commentary is to get people who have already watched the movie. But at that point I was like, maybe I could have just stayed and did the commentary with you guys as I'm watching it at the same time. But I did get to watch it on my brand new 4K. Oh, yeah, yeah. And Andy lent me his Blu-ray, the Ultra HD discs to watch on my PS5 Pro. Well, not the Pro because I realized that it didn't have the disk drive. I had to get my actual original PS5 bring it to the whole thing. But let me tell you, this shit looks so good. Yeah, it looked way better than watching it last week on HBO Max on a 1080p TV that we had at my home. So, thank you for all those upgrades that me and Michael were able to make happen.

Speaker 3:
[08:57] Yeah, this is the second reissue because the first issue was the 4K or the first issue was like the just the standard Blu-ray disk.

Speaker 4:
[09:06] Like the extended edition?

Speaker 3:
[09:07] Yeah, with the extended editions. But there was always just something off about the theatrical versions. Not talking about theatrical and extended, the ones that went out in theaters and then it's similar to when you look at old Star Wars movies and color grading which is different and where it's like, why did the VHS version look so much different than the DVD reissue or whatever? There was always an issue with these movies looking very green. And then this more recent remaster, 4K, like the first, the whole package or whatever, came out about a year and a half, two years ago. And it's like, this has the better color grading. This is the one that like, is what you remember it looking like in theaters. When it came out on DVD and VHS or vice versa, I guess it was a bit more green and kind of like grimy looking.

Speaker 5:
[09:53] So I agree with Joey. I think Fellowship of the Ring, I liked more, but I still enjoyed this movie a lot. There's so much here that I can't wait to talk about and I can't wait to break down. I think the main tough aspect for me is in the way that Joey's talking about, the way they split up the crew. The first movie felt very focused. It felt like if I'm thinking back to it correctly, like all A plot would maybe a few, a little bit of B plot here and there. This has the A plot, B plot, C plot, and like a C plot that I don't care as much about when you're talking about the hobbits hanging out with the Ents. The trees. Yeah. Which to be fair, the trees are cool, but it felt like one of those ones where I'm like, we could have done without this plot line. But I do like looking at these trees.

Speaker 2:
[10:37] I remember in the books being like a little annoyed with the tree portions and that by design. Yes. The whole point of the Ents is that they're so old, and it takes them so long to do everything that the conference that they do, which is like this historic thing in Middle Earth because they haven't met in like forever. It takes forever. And they keep coming back to Mary and Pippin and they're like, they just got done with introductions and it's been like a day. And so I think that's by design on that. But it does. There's a lot of stuff is set up in the first movie for this. But then there's just a lot of stuff they just introduce you to. And then you never see the Ents again. Yeah, we're not. We're not really.

Speaker 5:
[11:14] I feel like this is a set piece thing of like, hey, we want to have a cool visual like thing for you to look at and experience. Yeah, I appreciate a lot of what they did with the Ents. But yeah, that part I didn't care about as much as well as going on in other parts of the world.

Speaker 2:
[11:26] We'll get into it too. I think the first time I watched this film, I was like, this is easily the worst of all three of them. And I think it was because I was critical of a lot of the events. When you just look at them at face value that happen in this don't really matter in the grand scheme of things in the story until you start really understanding the politics and the actual like how much of assaults that are going on and how important like Rohan is the overall like world of defending everyone and their relationship with Gondor and all that stuff like comes into play of like having to beat back all of Sauron's forces and then mostly be a distraction so that they're not figuring out what the hell's going on with the hobbits and all that stuff. There's a lot of it that people have explained to me over the years and I'm like, okay, I see the importance of this, but mostly I like this movie because it's a battle that helps the fucking rocks.

Speaker 5:
[12:11] That's so cool.

Speaker 3:
[12:13] That's what I meant going into is like two dyrs has the highest highs and the lowest lows, I think.

Speaker 5:
[12:18] I was going to say because there are four things I want to shout out. One, yes, the battle. There's something they do here where they make the scale of these battles feel so large and they visualize it so well. And I have a blast looking at like, damn, we got all these orcs facing off against all these soldiers. And it feels bigger than life in a way that I want a trilogy to feel. A fantasy trilogy to feel. So they nail that, especially with the Battle of Helm's Deep. Two, Smeagol get a lot more of him in this movie. So much. I'm excited to talk more about him as we talk about the movie, because I don't know what the temperature is on Smeagol, because I'm so used to early 2000s. There's Jar Jar Binks. There's Dobby from Harry Potter. And now I'm watching the Smeagol guy and I'm like, oh, is this where this comes from? Like, is this, I feel like Smeagol feels like the best case scenario for having this kind of character, because there's so much going on with him, but he's very interesting. I'm like locked in on everything going on here. And maybe it's the 4K Blu-ray that I'm watching, but I'm also very impressed by what they're doing with him visually.

Speaker 2:
[13:24] First off, I just want you to not mention Dobby and Jar Jar in the same breath ever again.

Speaker 5:
[13:32] Y'all fuck with Dobby?

Speaker 2:
[13:33] I fuck with Dobby.

Speaker 4:
[13:34] Well, this feels the most analogous to Dobby, like pretty.

Speaker 2:
[13:38] Yeah. I mean, again, so the ongoing joke now that me and Andy have in the commentaries is that when I don't know if you, I don't know if we even told you this, but we were doing the first commentary out here in Cool G. Kind of, you know how Cool G kind of, he's like a cat, right? He kind of wanders out and kind of see what's going on. And he actually sat and watched some of the film with us and midway through he was like, hey, when did this come out? And we're like, well, this came out around the same time as Harry Potter movies, but the book was written way before. And he goes, was it written before? And I was like, it was written way before Harry Potter. And he goes, damn. I was like, she took some inspiration from this. And by the end of the film, he was like, she straight stole all the shit from this. Dobby being one of the characters.

Speaker 5:
[14:17] Yeah, Dobby way more, way more analogous to Smugal. I think I bring in Jar Jar Binks as another example of a character that is just around doing weird shit. He's a weird guy.

Speaker 2:
[14:27] Whereas Jar Jar obviously annoyed the hell out of people. I think Gollum and this speaks to the source material, but also just the fact that Andy Serkis kinda crushed it is that you are annoyed with him, you're endeared with him, you hate him, you want him to die, you don't trust him, but you also feel empathy for him all at the same time. And that will continue to happen as it goes. And how this whole thing, well, no future spoilers, but that's very, very important. It's very, very important and actually very, very crucial to sort of the overarching plot of the whole movie.

Speaker 4:
[14:56] Okay, while we're here, Gollum versus Smugal, how same character, same thing, same thing.

Speaker 2:
[15:01] Yeah, Smugal was his original name.

Speaker 3:
[15:03] Okay. Yes. Smugal is his, you know, his name is his homie. You'll meet later on, Deagle. You don't really meet him. You meet Smugal and Deagle.

Speaker 2:
[15:12] Yeah. And they're not human and they're not Hobbit.

Speaker 1:
[15:15] There's some sort of, oh, I thought they were just Hobbits.

Speaker 2:
[15:17] I don't think they're Hobbits.

Speaker 5:
[15:18] They used to be a Hobbit.

Speaker 2:
[15:20] Did he used to be a Hobbit?

Speaker 3:
[15:20] Yeah.

Speaker 5:
[15:21] That's what, oh, I thought he was something.

Speaker 2:
[15:23] I'll Google this, but I thought he was a different type of.

Speaker 5:
[15:25] Okay, you confirm something for me, because as we were getting the reveal about Smeagol, in my mind, I'm like, is the Hobbit about Smeagol? Because I haven't seen the Hobbit. I don't know what the Hobbit's about. So I was like, are those, am I going to get a review if I watch the Hobbit?

Speaker 2:
[15:37] Okay, my apologies. Was there originally a store Hobbit named Smeagol? He was a Hobbit, yeah. Yeah, so he belonged to one of the three early, he belonged to one of the three early Hobbit types.

Speaker 4:
[15:45] Writing the book?

Speaker 5:
[15:47] Frodo? Or Bilbo?

Speaker 4:
[15:48] Yes. Is that what the Hobbit's about?

Speaker 3:
[15:50] The Hobbit's about Bilbo, and he deals a lot with Smeagol.

Speaker 4:
[15:54] I thought this might have been, like, since we're using Harry Potter as an analogy, Professor Coral Voldemort thing, where, like, he...

Speaker 2:
[16:04] No, what happens is the ring deteriorated him so much, he became the Golem at that point.

Speaker 5:
[16:09] Gotcha.

Speaker 3:
[16:10] It's just like an alter ego, the evil side of him.

Speaker 2:
[16:13] And I think he became the Golem because, and I could be wrong, you can please jump in, when he, like, when he coughs, like, when he's, like, he goes, he goes, he goes, he goes, he goes, he goes, and then, and that has just become the persona of this, like, deteriorated version of himself. You'll see later, it's kinda, a little bit explained how this whole thing came about.

Speaker 3:
[16:32] I mean, the end of the movie has both characters talking to each other and being like, yeah, but we can't fuck, yeah, the fat one's gonna do that, yeah, but they're cool, you know, and you see that sort of, like, he's so, the ring has just totally ruined his brain.

Speaker 5:
[16:46] The fourth thing I want to shout out is the last thing, Gandalf. Oh, man, Gandalf is my guy. Gandalf is, he contains qualities of two people I like a lot. One of them, Jesus Christ.

Speaker 2:
[17:02] My guy, my guy. My friend in the comments there.

Speaker 5:
[17:06] Jesus Christ. The other one, Goku.

Speaker 2:
[17:08] Yeah. That was actually JRR. Cookins inspiration for it like dead ass.

Speaker 5:
[17:15] I remember Easter Sunday at church. Every Easter feels like Super Bowl when you go to church, where it is like the big Sunday, the pastors, they're always giving the sermons that don't feel like they're too in the weeds. You want to hype people up. You want to get the give the sermon that's going to bring people back. And I remember one Easter Sunday, my pastor gave a message that I've always thought about. This is the one that really stuck with me because I thought it was kind of cool where he talked about like what do you all think was where do you all think Jesus was during those three days, right? He got crucified. Where do you think he was during those three days? He was in hell whooping Satan's butt.

Speaker 3:
[17:47] I felt through fire and water.

Speaker 5:
[17:50] He was in hell, beaten Satan up for three days. And I feel like the beginning of this movie when Gandalf falls into the thing, whooping what's his name? The Balrog. The Balrog fighting the Balrog. That's exactly how I pictured it in church. That's exactly how I thought about it.

Speaker 3:
[18:07] That's so perfect you mentioned that because, you know, we have the really high moment of look to the east when the sun rises or whatever. And they look up at the top of the hill and there's just a figure up there on a horse with a light. And I just look at it and I said, that's Jesus.

Speaker 5:
[18:25] He came back to save us. It doesn't get more Jesus than Gandalf. And then on the Goku side, I love when characters have transformations. And now you're just a different guy, even though you're the same guy. Like, that's something that anime does all the time. But I feel like way more live action stuff should do. And so when Gandalf is like, oh, I'm not Gandalf the Grey, I'm Gandalf the White, and he's more powerful. I'm like, that's some animation, bro. That's so funny. I love Gandalf.

Speaker 2:
[18:51] So they don't bother explaining to you, aside from a couple lines of him saying some shit that you would, I never understood.

Speaker 5:
[18:59] Yeah, he said he fell asleep for like a long time.

Speaker 2:
[19:01] Looked it up, finally.

Speaker 5:
[19:02] He was laying down for a long time or some shit.

Speaker 2:
[19:03] This is from a Redditor, but this I think encapsulates what happened to him. So Gandalf is a Maiar, which is basically a demigod. He's immortal, but as one of the conditions of coming to Middle Earth, he was bound to a mortal body and a lot of restrictions on his power. The last time they didn't do this, they accidentally sunk a continent, so they were a bit more careful this time around. He died, his soul was released.

Speaker 4:
[19:23] That was a lot in one sentence.

Speaker 2:
[19:26] It's all the back story of all this stuff, but he died. His soul was released from his body and returned to Valinor. There, the Valar gave him permission to return again in a new body with somewhat more power, moving from the gray to the white, and a new mandate that included taking down Saruman, who presumably had gone rogue from the mission.

Speaker 4:
[19:44] So, was it Saruman the White first? Is that like a class or a title, or is there just one of them?

Speaker 3:
[19:51] That's like an evolution that you...

Speaker 5:
[19:52] It's like Super Saiyan. Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[19:54] It's a different level.

Speaker 4:
[19:56] There can be multiple of the whites.

Speaker 5:
[19:57] Yes. Goku can turn Super Saiyan. Vegeta can turn Super Saiyan.

Speaker 3:
[20:01] Yes.

Speaker 5:
[20:02] Never will he become the white.

Speaker 2:
[20:03] They specifically had to upgrade him to that status and that power level because otherwise he couldn't have taken down Saruman.

Speaker 3:
[20:09] So, the Valar look at that and go, all right, you died. GGs, we're going to resurrect you.

Speaker 2:
[20:15] But more powerful. I always sort of in my head canon, and I don't think I may be able to confirm this too. I always thought that like him beating the Balrog was like the Valor was like, all right, the test. You got the shit. Because if you see your friends like, look, we're all at the bar, right? We're hanging out.

Speaker 3:
[20:36] Well, the Balrog is also at the bar.

Speaker 2:
[20:39] I was the Balrog of Myra.

Speaker 3:
[20:41] The Balrog is also like the Myar level of god. He is a demigod.

Speaker 2:
[20:46] But we're all at the club, right? We're at the bar, right? We're having fun, right? Everyone's getting a little loose. Maybe we've had a couple bourbons. Really fascinating. A couple of white cloths, right? And you see your friend who's just mild mannered dude. The guy that basically makes all the plans, gets the Uber all the time. It's just a cool guy. Just a nice guy that just helps super even kill, right? You see a giant dude bump into him, right? And you go, it's going to be all right. He's going to deescalate, but the guy's not letting it go. And they go out in the streets, and you see your little friend who's five foot eight, who's been studying jiu-jitsu forever. Fuck this guy up. You're going to be like, a little more respect on this guy.

Speaker 3:
[21:22] Become the white man.

Speaker 5:
[21:23] Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 3:
[21:25] Scarpino the white.

Speaker 2:
[21:26] When you see him falling through the depths of hell into the water, fighting the Balrog, I'm like, this movie could have ended here. It's the first five seconds of the movie.

Speaker 5:
[21:34] I think the biggest problem with this movie is that they open with that. Yeah, they open with the coolest scene in the movie.

Speaker 2:
[21:40] They just need to let you know.

Speaker 3:
[21:41] That far shot of just the little body of one of the coolest things ever.

Speaker 2:
[21:45] When we did Interstellar, that was obviously, those are always our favorite shots of that scale of like little thing falling through big, voluminous thing. And then, of course, they just wind up on the top of the mountain slash tower. I don't even know where the fuck they end the fight, but he's just beaten in the Balrog, just falls down and is dead and presumably decaying there on the top of that mountain for years. Just so sick. Anyway, a long story short, he came back.

Speaker 5:
[22:07] But he didn't remember necessarily what that's what I was going to ask is like because they explained in the movie, but I don't think I fully got it of what happened between him fighting the Balrog and him coming back as a lifetime, a lot of space time. Okay, because it seemed like he was laying down.

Speaker 2:
[22:20] He died and he went back to his.

Speaker 5:
[22:22] He's not ascended to heaven.

Speaker 2:
[22:23] Like he's not from Middle Earth. Heaven is Lord. It's I mean, candidly, it is a it is a Jesus story.

Speaker 3:
[22:30] About Valinor is where the elves go to their call. It's called the Undying Lands. And it's like when their time is over, that's where the elves go. So he went back to Valinor with and the Valar were like, damn, you beat that guy's ass. I was pretty cool. We're going to upgrade you because Saruman's gone rogue and he's trying to do some evil stuff.

Speaker 2:
[22:51] But important to note that I think in the elves world, once they go, they can't come back. They're not allowed. Once you go to Valinor, you're not allowed to come back. It's heaven.

Speaker 4:
[22:59] Which is why all of the Erwin, Arwen?

Speaker 2:
[23:04] And that's the big struggle with Arwen is that Elrond's like, hey, shit's going down. We're ushering in the time of man. Saruman might kill everyone. We don't know. The elves' time is done. We have to go to Valinor and Valinor, there is a lot of spirituality and religious undertones in all of this.

Speaker 5:
[23:23] Did it bring up Sam? Sam was one of my points too. I don't think he did. Nick is totally right from last episode where you mentioned that Sam is the true hero of the story. As I was watching this one, I was like, Nick was so right. Sam is the one holding it down this entire time.

Speaker 4:
[23:39] Hero of heart, truly.

Speaker 3:
[23:41] With one of the... I mean, the amount of fan cam edits that I've gotten on TikTok, with just the final speech, you know, it's like the tales they used to tell, where, you know, evil seems like it's going to win, but then the good shines through the clear, and, you know, and people find out that there's something worth fighting for, and what are we fighting for, Sam? That there's some good in the world.

Speaker 2:
[24:07] Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[24:08] And like, oh my God, that's just like pure goosebumps. I usually have tears in my eyes every time I watch that part. I just get emotional about like how the emotional core of all of this is that there is some good out there and it's worth fighting.

Speaker 5:
[24:24] When he calls him Sam the Brave.

Speaker 2:
[24:25] Samwise the Brave.

Speaker 5:
[24:26] And he thinks that he's joking like, oh, you Jess or whatever. And he's like, no, like you are Sam the Brave.

Speaker 3:
[24:31] You're holding the shit down.

Speaker 5:
[24:32] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[24:34] Keep, keep holding on to that thought. We'll see if that same thought rings true after we watch the kind of thing.

Speaker 5:
[24:39] If I can give Sam the ring. I don't know, I'll probably give Sam the ring, you know?

Speaker 2:
[24:44] Of course, folks, we're gonna get into the plot details of this and go through the story because I wanna, we'll pepper in some knowledge as best we can for you guys to fill in some of the blanks. But before we do that, of course, let's take a quick word from our sponsors.

Speaker 1:
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Speaker 2:
[26:07] Fools. We start with the other movie. It didn't end. But the most pivotal scene in the other movie where Gandalf gets dragged down to the depths of hell by the Balrog. And then, you know, you're like, he's done. He's done for. Oh, I'm sorry. Is he just going to fall into hell while fighting the Balrog with his dope ass staff and then beat the Balrog's ass and then go to back to Balinor to become Gandalf the White and come back way later? Yeah, bitch, you didn't see that coming because I sure didn't. And then, of course, we were just talking off air when they do bring it back. Eventually, they fuck with you a little bit because it's Christopher Lee's voice. And, actually, probably Christopher Lee when he comes back in the forest.

Speaker 5:
[26:46] When he's glowing.

Speaker 2:
[26:47] Yeah. And then it goes back to Ian McKellen.

Speaker 5:
[26:50] Yeah, because I was just saying that one of the problems I had the entire movie is that I kept looking at Gandalf and thinking that he was Saruman and vice versa. Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[26:57] Again, going back to the naming conventions and a lot of the visuals here, it is confusing. And I don't know. I mean, imagine reading it and the name Sauron and Saruman getting stuck in your head. Who's doing what? But when you see them, I think they leaned into that. Especially when we get to Rohan, you're like, who are all these people? Why are they all exactly the same? It's very weird.

Speaker 5:
[27:16] It's definitely worth it for both the gag of you mixing them up, but then also to communicate to the audience, oh, he is Saruman level now, like he has ascended.

Speaker 2:
[27:26] OK, so here we go. We're going to off to it. We catch up with Frodo and Samwise. They're lost in the out. I'm not even going to buy one of the woods, the mole. Even will even will near Mordor. They discover they're being tracked by Gollum. This is where the threesome starts. The former bearer of the one ring. They capture Gollum and they and Sam right off the rip is like, we should kill him. We should not be here. And then Frodo is like, no, it's cool. Just throw a very painful elf lasso around his neck. And let's torture him for a while.

Speaker 3:
[27:57] That was one of the gifts that Galadriel gave them when they left Lothlorien, the Cape Blanchett's elf. Yeah, when she gave them like the sting, she gave us no, no, no, no, that was Elrond. Yeah, but she gave them all the same thing. The singer gave them the little capes that like help them. So in the extended edition and in the books, you see every sort of thing like Gimli asked for a thread of or a couple of strands of her hair because he was just like so enamored with like you're this elven goddess or whatever. And then she gave them, she gave one of them the rope, the elven rope that like kind of like lasso truth, but not really for truth stuff. It just kind of hurts bad doers. I don't know. It's all magical shit. And she also gave him the lembas bread.

Speaker 4:
[28:44] Oh, that's what I'm talking about.

Speaker 3:
[28:46] Yeah. The lembas bread is like it's great for long ass journeys because you could take one bite and be full for like for a long ass time. So it's like you could just pack really, really light and that shit will feed you for like a month.

Speaker 2:
[28:59] Yeah, it's basically the GLP one. Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[29:03] One bite and you're like, damn, I am satiated. I don't need to be hungry.

Speaker 2:
[29:06] We I don't know where it comes in here in this movie is very long. So I'll just I'm going to highlight some of the some of the journey here with Sam. Obviously, the big conflict here is that Sam wants to kill him. Photo's like, no, we shouldn't kill him. And also we do need someone to help guide us sort of through to get through Mordor. And he kind of knows what he's doing because he's been there and he escaped and he's been all the stuff we get. The I don't know. I think it's the beginning of the movie. We get the swamp sequence. It's scary, which is terrifying. At the beginning, is it later? It might be after they sneak through.

Speaker 3:
[29:34] It's like almost here.

Speaker 2:
[29:35] Well, we get we get the sequence where he's like, OK, we guys we got to make a run for it with all. We see all the humans that are like the bad guys that are working for Sauron, the gate that opens up with the troll, which I think is cool. They use the trolls to open the giant gate to Mordor.

Speaker 3:
[29:48] And then I think that's definitely that's definitely later because we start closer towards the beginning of the movies where they the sort of like haunted mansion looking scary visuals of people in the don't go towards the light, Frodo, you know, and that was terrifying in theaters. That was that was super scary. It was just always so unsettling. The fact that these dead bodies are right there at the surface of like this marsh swamp really like there's like layers and layers.

Speaker 5:
[30:13] So creepy Frodo is just doing everything he's not supposed to do.

Speaker 3:
[30:15] Yeah.

Speaker 5:
[30:15] Hey, don't look at don't get too close to these freaky ass things in the water and then he's fucking right into my face.

Speaker 3:
[30:21] And yeah, he just put my face in rings doing everything it can to be found.

Speaker 2:
[30:24] Yeah.

Speaker 5:
[30:24] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[30:26] We have a great moment here. One of my favorite moments of just visual effects that's done practically. That's just hilarious is that as they're trying to sneak through the giant wall, of course, one of the one of the soldiers looks up and sees the disturbance in the dust and goes over there, goes check it out and Sam and Frodo throw their elven capes over themselves and it just makes a rock. And so you don't see it at first, but it's just literally like a painted canvas that they did practically.

Speaker 4:
[30:50] Oh, really?

Speaker 3:
[30:51] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[30:51] Yeah. Yeah. It's cool. That is really cool. If you like, if you pause it a little bit, you can see it was just, it's not even their cloak. It's just a canvas they pulled over, but it's cool. Yeah. It's a fun cut.

Speaker 3:
[31:00] Got them elven magical property to it.

Speaker 2:
[31:02] And this is where they formed the relationship with Gollum where he's like, they're like, we're going to make a run for it. And Gollum's like, what? The only level headed one is like, there's five football fields you got to traverse. Nothing in between you. Scouts up there. Everyone, there's no way you're getting through the gate of Mordor this way. But I know another way. And then when we'll see what happens. Let's see what happens. Over across the land, Aragorn, Legolas and Gimli pursue a band of Uruk-hai to save their friends, Marian Pippin. Of course, Marian Pippin. We got this great scene with all the really, really hungry Uruk-hai who also may be fighting for workers' rights a little bit there. Because they're like, you know, we've been marching for a while and we're hungry and we don't want to march anymore. We're hungry. We have rights. Yeah, that's right.

Speaker 3:
[31:43] One of them's like, I'm not going, I'm not running anymore until we eat. Yeah, and it's like good for you, man.

Speaker 2:
[31:48] Good for you. And then they go, oh, wait, we should probably eat the little hobbits we have here. And then Uruk-hai is like, no, you can't do that. Our mandate from Sauron is that we have to bring them back. If we eat them, he's going to kill us all.

Speaker 3:
[31:58] Because they're all in the assumption that one of them has the ring.

Speaker 2:
[32:00] Right. They don't. Well, actually, I don't even know if they know why. They just know they have to bring a hobbit back.

Speaker 3:
[32:04] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[32:05] That's their goal. You don't tell the foot soldiers about the ring. You just tell them to bring back the little guys. Right. They'll end up lobbing one of the goblins' heads off. And then they're like, looks like meat's back on the menu, boys.

Speaker 3:
[32:19] And the number one thing that everybody points out is like, how the fuck do these created beings know what a menu is? These dudes were just born out of the ground. They're not creatures that have been around forever. They were just born or created when we saw that one guy tearing through whatever.

Speaker 4:
[32:34] I hate those scenes.

Speaker 3:
[32:36] Oh, I love it. It's so cool.

Speaker 2:
[32:38] You have to imagine that.

Speaker 3:
[32:39] Why can't we have some meat? That's one of mine. Just vocal takes. Yeah, thank you.

Speaker 2:
[32:44] Here's my counter argument for that, is that they have a lot of Gen Z friends. And so they hear terms like cap no cap, and they just say them randomly. But they don't really know what they mean.

Speaker 3:
[32:55] They don't know what a menu is.

Speaker 2:
[32:56] So they've heard it's back on the menu, and they've heard the turn of phrase, and they don't really know what a menu is. But he used it correctly.

Speaker 3:
[33:01] That's fair.

Speaker 2:
[33:02] So there is that.

Speaker 3:
[33:04] I love the sequence when Aragorn has his ear to the ground. Now like Nick, I would do anything to be able to like pull my ear to the ground and go, they're gaining on us. Like it's so sick.

Speaker 2:
[33:16] I want everyone to know though, as we were doing this commentary, I made a joke where I was like, Andy could put his ear to the ground and know when his Pizza Hut, Pizza Extra Crispy Thin Curd, pizza's getting delivered. And it got delivered literally five seconds later. Cooler, open the door and get in hand.

Speaker 5:
[33:31] I saw it in the trash and I was like, somebody had pizza.

Speaker 3:
[33:34] Yeah, I got pizza.

Speaker 5:
[33:35] I got real jealous almost.

Speaker 3:
[33:36] Somebody cooked it.

Speaker 4:
[33:38] Something I didn't expect was how much I enjoyed Gimli's little comedic throughout the movie, because he has the line here about how he can run really fast for super short distances.

Speaker 3:
[33:52] We're not good marathon runners.

Speaker 2:
[33:53] We're built for sprinting.

Speaker 3:
[33:55] And then at the end, when he's like, I can't see anything and like all of them, they definitely amped it up a lot more for two towers. And because of like the fan feedback, they really enjoyed that in Fellowship. And they heard that and kind of like amped it up for two towers and returning the nice little balance.

Speaker 2:
[34:13] It's drinking a morning beer, a morning beer, a little mid afternoon beer for you.

Speaker 5:
[34:17] I taught Joey about morning beers. Oh, right.

Speaker 4:
[34:19] I thought when I saw people like on the subreddit saying it, I was like, oh yeah, it's just the days when Greg like randomly cracks a beer also happened.

Speaker 3:
[34:27] That's what we thought it was.

Speaker 2:
[34:29] There is that. Of course, the scene is interrupted by the writers of Rohan, the Rohirrim, who come in and just destroy all of them led by, of course, Carl Urban. I think I did skip a point here where, oh no, I didn't. We meet them. They're the writers. Have we been to Rohan yet? Maybe we have, right? We get a scene at some point where we are introduced to Rohan, which is another of the bigger civilizations in Middle Earth. It's Rohan and Gondor, Gondor is way, way bigger. Gondor is like King's Landing. They are the big, big, big city in New York.

Speaker 3:
[34:59] They haven't watched neither of them have watched Game of Thrones.

Speaker 2:
[35:02] Okay, so.

Speaker 4:
[35:03] I was like, cool, it's like another land.

Speaker 5:
[35:07] My apologies.

Speaker 2:
[35:09] They make mention of Gondor. We'll see Gondor in the next movie, but Rohan really is the main civilization here that we're going to talk about. They're known as being like the horse-mounted cavalry. So they're horse people and they fuck people up a lot. The leader of their guard, the Rohirrim, the Rohirrim is Karl Urban's character. He is not the brother. He's not related to Eowyn, right? No.

Speaker 3:
[35:34] Yes, he is. He's the brother.

Speaker 2:
[35:36] He's the brother too. No, he's not.

Speaker 3:
[35:38] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[35:39] Because remember when the brother, actual brother dies, he goes, oh, I don't have any kin left. You're the last of the Theodons, like lineage, right? Google that real quick while I'm talking. Uh, Rohan's good.

Speaker 3:
[35:50] Rohan had a siblings are Aowen.

Speaker 2:
[35:52] OK, so his his sister is Miranda Otto, who is the other, the main like female lead in this.

Speaker 4:
[35:57] Yeah, I was trying to figure out why I know because her face looks so familiar, but I wasn't trying to like Google stuff in the middle of the movie because I didn't want to ruin it for myself.

Speaker 2:
[36:05] She's been in a bunch of stuff.

Speaker 4:
[36:07] OK.

Speaker 2:
[36:07] Couldn't tell you one thing out of this. Her face just looks, but she's been in a bunch of stuff.

Speaker 4:
[36:12] OK.

Speaker 2:
[36:13] Rohan had a big falling out with Gondor back in the day. They needed them. Gondor didn't come to their aid. There's a whole thing they don't think. Rohan doesn't have a lot of friends left. Theodin has had some falling out back in the day, back in the original time when they had to fight Sauron. All the elves and the dwarves and the humans, we all got along. But that's it. That that time. That was the 80s. And now it's 2026. And we're a very divided country here in Middle Earth. So he sends, he sends, because Theodin's fucked up, and we get introduced also to Grima Wormtail here, who's played by the venerable Brad Dorof, who is just always this character. He's the guy that played Chucky. He is this creepy ass soothsayer. He's got the special power we can get in people's heads and just kind of take them over. And also, I believe, I guess, lay the path for Saruman to be.

Speaker 3:
[37:00] Saruman is in his brain.

Speaker 2:
[37:02] In his brain.

Speaker 3:
[37:02] In his brain, yeah.

Speaker 4:
[37:03] And he's in other people's brain.

Speaker 3:
[37:04] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[37:05] Yeah, so he's got a poison tongue. So Theoden sends, Theoden sends Aemur?

Speaker 3:
[37:13] Aemur.

Speaker 2:
[37:14] Aemur away along with all the cavalry because that's basically the main army. And he's like, get out of here because you get that, he basically wants to kill grandma Wormtail and grandma's like, tell us Theoden to banish him from the lands. And so that's why they're just this roving band of mercenaries that eventually just goes and finds these orcs.

Speaker 5:
[37:29] Why do they kill all the orcs?

Speaker 2:
[37:31] Because they're orcs.

Speaker 5:
[37:31] Okay.

Speaker 2:
[37:32] Yeah.

Speaker 5:
[37:33] That was good enough.

Speaker 3:
[37:33] Because it's like, why are they out here? Like they shouldn't be out here. How did they get out here was also another thing because they are mainly Uruk-hai because they were able to travel during the daytime. And that's why they were bred because they don't have that aversion to sunlight or whatever. But yeah, then we know we have Aragorn go up talking to them and they all getting sort of surrounded. And then what's your name? He looks at the fucking gimme. What's your name? He goes, you tell me your name and then I'll tell you mine.

Speaker 2:
[37:59] And Legolas shoots and look like dog.

Speaker 3:
[38:00] Yeah, be cool.

Speaker 2:
[38:02] We're about to get fucked over.

Speaker 3:
[38:03] I'll strike you where you stand and then hit. And then Legolas defends him for the first time. And we see him pull the arrows like, you would die before your sword even swung or whatever. And then Custic gave me like, oh shit.

Speaker 5:
[38:14] Him telling them that like they murdered all the orcs. And like they left no soul alive. Yeah, legit. I was like, oh damn, the hobbits are fucking dead. Yeah, like I believe it.

Speaker 3:
[38:22] Because we already saw the hobbits getting, you know, trying to get away during that big sort of siege where, not really a siege, but where the roheum catch them off guard while they're kind of slipping, you know?

Speaker 5:
[38:32] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[38:33] So they go over to investigate, of course. And they're like, oh my God, everyone's dead. But then of course you forget, you forget. Aragorn, aside from being the once and future king, used to be a high level ranger. He is a traitor. He can listen to the earth. He can look at footsteps. He can use Vin Diesel's detective vision from Fast and Furious.

Speaker 5:
[38:53] This is one of the fantasy things where I was like, I gotta believe in the world.

Speaker 2:
[38:55] Yeah, just believe in it, right?

Speaker 5:
[38:56] There's no way you know all that.

Speaker 2:
[38:57] Just believe in it. He knows the ropes.

Speaker 3:
[38:59] He's also not human, though. Okay, I gotta keep that in mind.

Speaker 2:
[39:02] Vin Diesel can do it.

Speaker 4:
[39:02] I think he can do it.

Speaker 3:
[39:03] He's a new-

Speaker 5:
[39:04] When did Vin Diesel do this?

Speaker 4:
[39:05] In the fourth Fast and Furious movie during Letty's accident.

Speaker 2:
[39:08] You don't remember that?

Speaker 3:
[39:09] When Letty crashed, he did. Vin Diesel looked like he saw the past happen, which is way less believable than a new Minorean who's like an elevated human species who's been a ranger his whole life, so I believe that more than-

Speaker 5:
[39:23] Is this in the beginning of the movie?

Speaker 2:
[39:25] In Fast and Furious? In Fast and Furious?

Speaker 3:
[39:27] Yeah, it's near the end.

Speaker 5:
[39:28] Okay, never mind. I'm thinking of a different-

Speaker 2:
[39:29] I'll send you a clip.

Speaker 5:
[39:30] When did Letty die in Fast and Furious 4?

Speaker 2:
[39:32] She never died. She like disappeared.

Speaker 5:
[39:33] Well, where did she-

Speaker 4:
[39:34] There was an accident at the beginning where she died.

Speaker 3:
[39:36] Yeah, it was in 4, yeah. And that's how he realizes, oh my gosh, she got away, but he looks at the car crashing.

Speaker 4:
[39:42] Skid marks.

Speaker 3:
[39:43] Yeah. I forgot all about that.

Speaker 4:
[39:45] You gotta watch Fast and Furious 4 again.

Speaker 3:
[39:46] Before he goes to detective mode, he kicked the helmet and screamed because he broke his toe. And that's the number one thing that you always point to in Lord of the Rings and say, that's where he kicked his helmet because Peter Jackson said, damn, that was a really good yell he let out. Like, damn, he's really in character, broke his fucking toe.

Speaker 2:
[40:01] Yeah.

Speaker 4:
[40:02] Like early on. I'm so glad to have experienced that now that I've experienced it through every possible meme.

Speaker 3:
[40:07] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[40:08] It was a great piece of trivia that all the running sequences, all three of the actors involved are super injured. So they had them, you know, there's those great aerial shots where they're running across the land and Gimli's always behind because he's like, he's just, you know, a slow and short. Aragorn broke his toe, Viggo Mortensen broke his toe. Legolas had broken some ribs surfing. And the stunt actor who was playing Gimli for that specific moment fucked up his knees doing other stunts. And so by every single take that was done, they were always like, just dying. But, you know, good for the good, doing it for the cause. But they realized that they're not dead. There's two little hobbit tracks that have gone into where Fangorn forests. And if you're asking yourself, did JK Rowling steal that for Harry Potter? She 100% did. Before that, before they can track them through Fangorn, though, they get attacked, right? And this is where Aragorn goes over the cliff. They get attacked by the Uruk-Hai on the wolves.

Speaker 3:
[41:06] Well, we cut it immediately, the Fangorn forest.

Speaker 2:
[41:08] Right, where we see Merriam Pippin.

Speaker 3:
[41:09] And they're like, the trees are making noise. Like, there's some shit making noise out here.

Speaker 2:
[41:13] Well, they're getting chased by an orc.

Speaker 3:
[41:14] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[41:14] Who then, who gets stomped out by Treebeard. We get introduced to Treebeard, who was actually voiced by the same actor, the voice that plays Gimli, John Rhys Davies. Yeah, which is cool. I don't know why they decided to come across that, but they're like, dude, you have the coolest voice ever. You got some time on your hands. Can you want to just play this role also? He's like, yeah, fuck it. Why not? And this is cool. I actually was able to show Andy one. Apparently, they did a lot of the CG, but they actually made a 14-foot animatronic puppet as well. So some of this actually is done practically to save on some costs for the eyeballs and the mouth moving and stuff like that. We get introduced to the Ents. The Ents are a very ancient group of living trees and they're slow as shit. They do not really care so much about what's going on in the world of man. We do see, yeah, that's cool.

Speaker 3:
[42:02] We see a little, I know, a political dudes out there. The Ents are like, they're worn out there. We don't involve ourselves in these fights, you know.

Speaker 5:
[42:13] This is one of those ones where Elen Ring really enhanced my enjoyment of the Ents because I'm pretty sure Elen Ring has hella Ents, right? I'm thinking of something else.

Speaker 3:
[42:20] Trees?

Speaker 5:
[42:21] Tree people. It's like, I'm the Tree Guardians Ents? Crimson Desert has them.

Speaker 3:
[42:26] Oh, like Tree Sentinels? Like, they're not, but they're not trees.

Speaker 5:
[42:31] I thought they said the word Ent. Maybe I'm thinking of Baldur's Gate.

Speaker 3:
[42:34] Maybe.

Speaker 5:
[42:34] There's definitely a video I played where, like, they called them out of, like, these are Ents. And I'm like, oh, these cool moving trees.

Speaker 3:
[42:40] Oh, I remember fighting shit.

Speaker 2:
[42:41] Yeah, I apologize. They actually do go into the forest. Of course, they don't they don't find Marion Pippen, but the trio finds another person who they think is dangerous. And they're like, oh, shit, someone's here. And I think, I think, Viggo Morton, yeah, he knows that he thinks it's Saruman. And he's like, okay, we got to act fast. And the second they turn around, it's just like, go fuck yourself. You just, you got nothing.

Speaker 3:
[43:01] Everybody's weapons like fuck up.

Speaker 2:
[43:03] And then Viggo Morton's sword heats up in the, in something broken there. That's okay. It's just a broken glass. Viggo Morton's sword heats up. They drop. And then of course they see Christopher Lee and they hear Christopher Lee, but it's not Christopher Lee. Yeah. And it's not Saruman. It is now Gandalf. And they're like, Gandalf? And he goes, yeah, that's, that's right. That's what they used to call me. Gandalf the gray, but now I'm Gandalf the white. And everyone just goes, cool. Okay. Next. No more questions. We have no more questions about this. We'll just, we'll just go on. From there, of course, Mary and Pippin are like, hey, you know, there's some shit going on in Isengard and like, you need to go take care of this. And we need your help fighting Sauron. And they're like, okay, well, I'll just convey, we'll convene the council at the end. Something has to happen forever, but I'm not very hopeful for it. Once they pop out, let's see. Oh, Gandalf leads them to Iterus. Oh, they want to go to Rohan, on their way to Rohan, that's where they get attacked. And that's where Aragorn goes over into the river. Yeah. He has that dream about, he has the dream of Arwen, who kisses him. Every boy born in the 80s and 90s crush, of course.

Speaker 3:
[44:21] I missed that, I was gone doing something.

Speaker 2:
[44:23] Tough one.

Speaker 3:
[44:24] Yeah, unfortunately.

Speaker 2:
[44:25] We are, I'll just skip around too as well, we are given backstory of Arwen and Elrond, and Elrond's like, look, if you, you gotta go to Valinor, if you don't, nothing good will happen, it'll just be death, right? It'll just be death. But she goes, but dad, I love him, right? And he's like, fuck, I can't, I can't give you a logical argument for that. Yeah. And then she sends her, or she gave, she already gave me even star, right? Who has the even star?

Speaker 3:
[44:50] She gave it to Legolas.

Speaker 2:
[44:51] She gave it to Legolas to give to him.

Speaker 3:
[44:52] Because he gives it to Aragorn when they meet back up.

Speaker 2:
[44:55] That's right. But she's like, listen, dad, I guess I'll go to Valinor. But then she's like, nah, I'm not going to go to Valinor. I love this guy. I love this guy. From here, we go to Rohan and we are introduced to Rohan. They go back and when do they see Aragorn again?

Speaker 3:
[45:18] I mean, well, he makes it back when he's on the horse all fucked up.

Speaker 2:
[45:22] Is this where the doors open?

Speaker 3:
[45:23] No.

Speaker 2:
[45:24] And sexy Aragorn comes in?

Speaker 3:
[45:25] No. You've been waiting to talk about that. You've been looking real forward to that one.

Speaker 2:
[45:30] They meet up with Aragorn.

Speaker 3:
[45:33] He meets up with them after he makes it back from falling off the cliff. And they're like, damn, you're alive. Fuck yeah. Holy shit. We thought you and then Gimmie's like, I thought you were dead. And then Legolas is like, you look awful. And they kind of have like a good little laugh or a little laugh.

Speaker 2:
[45:46] And then, of course, they meet that he's like, oh, Gandalf's back. That's cool. And they go and they go. They're like, we got to go talk to Theoden. Right. We got to get we got to tell him that the hell's coming. Right. And Theoden's all fucked up with his milky eyes because Grandma Warrington's like, he'll whisper in your ear. And they say, he's like, hey, man, I'm sorry. Hama and Gamlin are like, we can't let you in with all that weaponry. And Gandalf's like, he would not deprive an old man of his walking stick. And I love even Coner because he holds on to Aragorn's arm as he's walking in and affects this sort of like old man, broken down man.

Speaker 3:
[46:16] Winks at everybody.

Speaker 2:
[46:17] Of course, the second he walks in, grandma's like, you didn't take his fucking staff. And he's like, oh, you're not going to fuck with me. And then he starts talking directly to Saruman. I can see you in there. Saruman's like, you have no power here. Gant off the ground. He's like, oh, I'm sorry. Did you not fucking here? Did you not? Were you not on the gram? When I posted that reel, that story, it goes off the shit and he's getting off the white and then Saruman's like, oh shit.

Speaker 4:
[46:42] He's throwing off the paper so dope.

Speaker 2:
[46:45] And he just like, he puts his staff on Theoden's head and then you see Saruman get just smashed back through the. Well, I also love the Palantir.

Speaker 3:
[46:54] I love here that it's, you know, everybody gave up their arms or they're going to beat their asses with their arms as well. And it's just it's it's Gimli Legolas and Aragorn beating everybody's asses. And then you see the guard try to step in, but they're like, nah, yeah, let that like, let him settle it. This hasn't been good for a while. Like they're here for a reason. We don't really fuck with his agreement. Warm tongue guy. He's a weird little like weasel, you know, this might turn out better for us if we let him fight it out.

Speaker 4:
[47:19] And then we figure out, or then I figure out, they would in, I know this man.

Speaker 2:
[47:25] What do you know him from, Joe?

Speaker 4:
[47:26] He's the captain in Titanic.

Speaker 2:
[47:28] Down with the ship.

Speaker 4:
[47:28] I'm so excited.

Speaker 2:
[47:30] Bernard Hill is the actor's name, and yes, he's known for these very two roles.

Speaker 3:
[47:33] What an, I love the transformation of him slowly.

Speaker 4:
[47:36] It's so good.

Speaker 2:
[47:37] Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[47:37] His face turning like, you know, back to livelihood.

Speaker 4:
[47:40] Gosh, it's so cool.

Speaker 3:
[47:43] Amazing moment.

Speaker 2:
[47:44] Great moment. You know, honestly, Bernard Hill, kind of the standout from this whole, in this whole movie. You really, you know, he's a very conflicted character. Of course, he wants to do right best people, and he's like, and they're like, hey, there's a whole Orc army, there's a whole Orc army coming for you guys. They're gonna come, and they're just gonna just ravage this town, and he goes, cool. Well, we should go to Helms Deep, and everyone's like, I don't know if that's the play, because Helms Deep is basically, you're fortifying yourself in a place where there is no escape, and if they make it through the wall, then he's like, no one's made it through the wall. Don't worry about that. And he's like, hmm, okay. And then Theoden's daughter, Eowyn, is like, what's up? And he's like, what's up? And you're like, hey, what's up, man?

Speaker 3:
[48:23] Weird sexual tension.

Speaker 2:
[48:24] Yeah. But you're like, what's up, man? I thought, like, as your friend, Nick, who's putting yourself, his self in this movie, like, I thought you were like down with Liv Tyler or whatever. And he's like, yeah, but like, Liv Tyler, like, we already broke up or whatever. And I'm like, yeah, but you guys might get back together.

Speaker 3:
[48:39] Or, yeah, undying lands.

Speaker 2:
[48:41] Yeah, the undying lands. And then so like then they like start playing with each other swords and like, hey, this is not like not cool.

Speaker 4:
[48:47] Is this code for something?

Speaker 2:
[48:49] I mean, it's it's they got a heat and she obviously likes Aragorn.

Speaker 4:
[48:52] Yeah, right. Who who doesn't?

Speaker 2:
[48:55] Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[48:57] And we obviously fucked everything. We swapped some things up, Chad. Sorry.

Speaker 2:
[49:00] Sorry, Chad. Yeah, I'm moving along.

Speaker 3:
[49:02] Yeah, he fell. He fell off the lap after all of the the the fate and stuff.

Speaker 2:
[49:08] Oh, that's right. That's on the way to Helms.

Speaker 3:
[49:09] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[49:10] Yeah. My apologies. When does he open the doors?

Speaker 3:
[49:16] Isn't that you really want to talk about is opening the door? I think that's when they're at Helms Deep. I think that's when you're right.

Speaker 2:
[49:25] You're right. I'm just going to go. I'm going to go out there.

Speaker 5:
[49:28] Which doors are talking?

Speaker 2:
[49:28] I'm going to go off the wiki here.

Speaker 4:
[49:29] They're really important to Nick, but I don't really remember.

Speaker 2:
[49:32] So we'll go in order. I apologize. I was trying to do off the dome, but I'll just do the wiki. That's right in front of me that I prepared ahead of time. In Rivendell, we go over there. Arwin is told by our father. We've already talked about that. In Fangora, Mary and Pippi meet Treebeard, the end convincing Treebeard that they're allies. They're brought to the end council where the end decides not to participate in the coming war after much deliberation. Pippin and Treebeard are taken toward the Isengard, where he's like, we're going to go north and he's like, he's like, damn it. And Mary's like, hey man, this is great. We'll just go back to the Shire. And Pippin's like, hey dude, you don't understand. Like if we don't get them involved in this, there will be no Shire. There will be nothing left. They will burn every single thing down. That's when he gets the great idea. Hey, wait a minute. What, you should take a south.

Speaker 5:
[50:12] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[50:12] Because if you take a south, then we'll be able to sneak around. And Treebeard's like, that doesn't make any sense.

Speaker 5:
[50:17] Like we're small.

Speaker 2:
[50:17] But you are small.

Speaker 3:
[50:18] You are very small.

Speaker 2:
[50:19] I guess we'll go that. Of course, Pippin has a great idea, or Mary maybe has a great idea where he's like, I'm going to show them what's going on because they've already seen the forest being basically deforested. And then Treebeard is like, absolutely not. Absolutely not. This might be the ruin of the Ents. This might be our last day, but this shit is going to stain.

Speaker 5:
[50:35] I love how quick the 180 is. Where it is like, hey, we got to talk about this. We talk slow, all this shit. To like immediately he signs the, sounds the alarm and everybody pulls up so quick. I'm like, wait, I thought y'all were like far away. How are you guys already here?

Speaker 4:
[50:52] But it's like the classic thing of like, everybody kind of like has blinders on until you realize, or they realize that it's also affecting them. It's not something they can just stay out of.

Speaker 3:
[51:00] It was a not in my backyard, NIMBY sort of moment. And then it became like, oh shit.

Speaker 5:
[51:04] Remember your video game is getting more expensive because of AI. It's affecting you now, care.

Speaker 2:
[51:11] I did skip over a small part where Elrond decides that he wants to send some people, send some elves, to help to honor their alliance to man. In the Wikipedia, it says that Galadriel contacted him. That might have been in the extended version because I don't remember them having a seat in this one.

Speaker 4:
[51:26] I don't think I saw Galadriel in this movie.

Speaker 3:
[51:29] At some point, he said that may have all been extended.

Speaker 2:
[51:31] Yeah, which by the way, was not in the book. The elves never came to Helm's Deep. That was just something that they wanted to put in here to make you know that the elves are still a part of the fight. We get the assault on Isengard, where I, and I mean, I meant to write this line down, but Tree Weird has the best line where he's like, you know what, we're going to war, the Ents are going to war with rock and stone or some shit like that.

Speaker 5:
[51:54] And I'm like, Jesus Christ.

Speaker 3:
[51:56] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[51:56] And they just start hurling boulders at Isengard and all the orcs that are surrounding it. They eventually decide to unplug the dam, like to tear the dam apart, and they flood everything, including the factor that's making all the Uruk-hai, and they have in fact saved the day.

Speaker 3:
[52:09] But when Saruman's up there in the Isengard tower, just like, oh, shit, shit, this is bad.

Speaker 2:
[52:16] We go over to Helm's Deep, and we haven't seen Aragorn in a while. I do apologize. I did say that out of order. At this point, they were assaulted on the way to Helm's Deep. They were assaulted by some hyena riding the orcs. And man, let me tell you, he goes back to Helm's Deep, and you see this. This is so good.

Speaker 3:
[52:34] This is the door opening moment that Nick.

Speaker 2:
[52:36] Wow.

Speaker 4:
[52:36] I don't remember this specifically, but maybe I need to go back.

Speaker 3:
[52:41] It's a slow mo moment.

Speaker 4:
[52:42] They know what they're doing.

Speaker 3:
[52:43] And it's one of those where you're just like, oh, it's looking real good right there, Vigo.

Speaker 2:
[52:48] Just a very defined chin that man has on it. And everyone's like, oh shit, Aragorn's here, that's super cool. We're gonna surely win this fight now. And then Legolas is like, here it is, here we go. Oh, Jesus.

Speaker 3:
[53:01] There's the full one.

Speaker 2:
[53:02] Just blinding light coming from behind him. Like, God, just smiling.

Speaker 3:
[53:07] What a man is a great DNA.

Speaker 2:
[53:10] They're like, hey, man, this is the last aunt that we're coming. There's 10,000 soldiers coming. Got 300 people here. What are we going to do? And they're talking. I like that. I like this back and forth. You pointed out where they're talking in. And this is like we can't we can't we're going to die. Like if we stay here, we're going to die.

Speaker 3:
[53:27] Look at these people. They have never fought a war ever. Yeah, they don't do anything.

Speaker 2:
[53:32] And my favorite thing is there's a bunch of like, you know, it's they're just like normal citizens. They're not really soldiers that have just taken up arms. And Legolas is trying to make the point of of saying, hey, they're just normal people. Like they're going to die if we like we're all going to die. They're going to die. And then Aragorn breaks with the Elvis. He goes, then I'm going to die alongside them. And then there's in the extended cut, there's a little short Italian dude that goes, I'm sorry, die alongside who? What are we talking about there? Because like that seemed pretty serious. I'm like, I want to know, are we them? They take to the wall, of course, but not before they are joined by some of Elrond's elves. And this is just a hype-ass moment. And it's hype for two reasons.

Speaker 3:
[54:08] One, it's an on-your-left moment.

Speaker 2:
[54:11] It's an on-your-left moment.

Speaker 3:
[54:12] You think here's all we have to fight with. And then you hear the horn. And then Legolas goes, that's no orc horn. And it's the horn from the goddamn elves. And they are telling everybody, we got your back. And then there was once an alliance between elves and man. We'd like to continue that. And then Elrod arrives, and he can't even do the formal handshake thing. He's like, fuck yeah, bro, bring it in, hug it. And he's like, you are most welcome. So awesome.

Speaker 2:
[54:41] And I just love that everyone knows who everyone is. All the elves are like, oh, that's my guy. That's my dude. Of course. Come on.

Speaker 3:
[54:47] Yeah, he's dating Arwen.

Speaker 2:
[54:49] Yeah. Oh, yeah.

Speaker 3:
[54:49] They're still together. Oh, nice.

Speaker 4:
[54:51] I thought I saw him with this.

Speaker 2:
[54:53] Yeah, that was a moment. It was a momentary thing. We take to the wall and we get we get the standoff finally. The battle at Helms Deep is about to commence. We also get a little moment of being like Grim and Wormtongue goes over. He's already over at Isengard hanging out with Saruman. He's like, How are you going to get? No one's ever beat the defenses of Helm. He's like, well, of the helm. And he's like, No, there's actually one little tiny minor, you know, little port on this Death Star that if you shoot a fucking torpedo into, it'll blow the entire thing up. And we have this cool thing called gunpowder now. And then after they use the gunpowder, I would raise my hand and be like, can we have some more of that? Because that would have made this whole siege completely and totally easier if we could have just bombarded this thing with these massive bombs. But then we wouldn't have a movie, I digress.

Speaker 4:
[55:34] Did we already go past the part where Orlando Bloom mounts a horse backwards? Yes. Maybe the coolest way possible.

Speaker 5:
[55:42] That show was insane.

Speaker 4:
[55:43] I rewound that like multiple times.

Speaker 3:
[55:45] I'm like, I don't know where he swung, where he swung around the front.

Speaker 5:
[55:48] But you know, they reversed that.

Speaker 4:
[55:50] I was trying to figure out.

Speaker 2:
[55:51] He it's I hate that that shot, because if you look at it, he reaches across with one hand and you think he's going to swing this way. No, but then he swings the other way. And you're like, the moment.

Speaker 5:
[56:05] How did that happen?

Speaker 2:
[56:06] Like, is there a way the horse is coming? The horse is coming toward him and he's on. If he's staring at the horse, he's on the left of the horse, which means you would usually you would grab with the right and swing up the other. But he swings the other way for and it's you have to imagine that someone was like, that didn't look right. But we ran out of time.

Speaker 3:
[56:22] I mean, it's CG. Like, it's not cool.

Speaker 2:
[56:26] But real, they've done that stunt before. That's actually an established horse stunt where a horse coming at you and grab on and you just swing up on to it.

Speaker 4:
[56:33] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[56:34] But he just swings the opposite. It's so awkward looking. It's cool as shit. Don't get me wrong. But elves are weightless.

Speaker 3:
[56:39] It's cool as shit. Like they walk on snow.

Speaker 5:
[56:41] They know. That's how I realize.

Speaker 2:
[56:43] And again, that is 100 percent why it is. I just don't know why they would have him go the opposite way of physics.

Speaker 4:
[56:49] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[56:50] But whatever. That was that was during the part where they get assaulted on the way to Helm's Deep. That's where. Yeah, it's pretty cool. And then we get this amazing sequence that here's a little fun piece of trivia. The battle at Helm's Deep was edited down from 20 hours of footage shot over a four month period with the rain machine battering down on the cast. This is a very long shoot. A lot of footage generated. Very, very cool. At one point, though, there was no that never there was never any point more than 100 Uruk-Hai. The rest of the soldiers that you see were done with CG, which is in that crowd dynamic. See, four months to do this.

Speaker 5:
[57:24] Have we talked about Frodo running into Faramir or whatever his name is?

Speaker 2:
[57:28] Oh yeah, we skipped over that whole thing.

Speaker 5:
[57:30] Yeah. We haven't checked back with Frodo and we have not.

Speaker 2:
[57:33] Let's do that storyline real quick. So Frodo runs into the Rangers led by Boromir's brother, Faramir, a little tension there, considering he knows the brother was kind of an asshole. They captured them and they're like, oh, I know who you are and I know exactly what you're doing and I'm taking you back to my dad. My dad's gonna be so proud of me for once in my life. We gotta take him back to the steward of Gondor, not the king, the steward. Important for later. But before we do that, hey, is this really how many of you guys are? Yeah, there's only two of us. Are you sure? Yeah, there's only two of us. Well, what about this one who's in the sacred pond? To which I would say, where's the sign for the sacred pond? Yeah. How do you know this is a sacred pond? It just looks like a pond. How am I supposed to know that? He's like, well, that's punishable by death. I was like, you gotta put a sign there.

Speaker 5:
[58:13] Yeah, you gotta put a sign up.

Speaker 3:
[58:14] Not everybody lives by your rules.

Speaker 5:
[58:15] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[58:16] What the fuck, dog? I've never been here before.

Speaker 4:
[58:17] I've never seen him.

Speaker 2:
[58:18] I don't know how I was supposed to park there. You know what? It's like parking in San Francisco. So many fuck. It's so confusing. We don't know what's going on. Anyway, he's like, no, don't kill him. That creature is bound to me. That's my homie Gollum. We hate him, but he's our little brother. We take him everywhere. They throw him to change. And this is really where there is that moment of up into this point, we've had the back and forth between Gollum and Schmigel where he's like, we should trust master. Master is cool. And then Gollum's like, no, let's eat him. Let's kill the fat one. He keeps calling him the fat one. I'm like, hey, rude, rude. Okay. But this is really the breaking point for him where he's like, oh, I can't trust master. This is where Gollum really takes over.

Speaker 3:
[58:51] Yeah. But before that happens, heartbreaking because we're close to I feel like Schmigel just be one of the winning out.

Speaker 5:
[58:58] His brother has a moment with him. Yeah. Where he is like, you're Schmigel, which I don't understand where he got that info from. Like Gandalf and talking about Gandalf. Okay. Gotcha. Gotcha. Because he was, oh, yes. I remember because he's like, you're Schmigel used to be a hobbit. I got it. And like, I really love that moment. I don't know why that moment stuck out to me is like, damn, you're reaching out to this guy.

Speaker 3:
[59:19] Yeah.

Speaker 5:
[59:19] You're pulling him back.

Speaker 4:
[59:20] You're not defined by the thing you are now.

Speaker 5:
[59:22] Yeah. Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 3:
[59:24] From everywhere, people fall in tough times.

Speaker 4:
[59:26] And you know, get back to who you were.

Speaker 5:
[59:29] He's like, Schmigel, you can tell on his face is like, yeah, it's been a while.

Speaker 2:
[59:32] Schmigel. Nobody's called me that. It's like when Andy calls me the cool guy. Cool guy Nick. It's like people haven't called me that in a while.

Speaker 5:
[59:40] Cool guy Nick, Schmigel.

Speaker 3:
[59:44] From here, Faramir crawls on the table.

Speaker 2:
[59:47] From here, Faramir takes them over to Osgiliath, which is the river town on the way to Gondor. And that's being siege basically by the Orcs. This is like one of the one of the strongholds before we get to Gondor.

Speaker 3:
[59:57] Top five cool word.

Speaker 2:
[59:58] So hard to say, but cool as shit.

Speaker 3:
[60:00] Just like a top five cool term, like name for something in the world.

Speaker 2:
[60:04] They get assaulted again by the Nazgul. But yes, and Sam saved, this is where Sam really kinda steps up and saves Frodo and you're like, Sam might be my guy going forward.

Speaker 3:
[60:15] Oh, we all, and you were also introduced to the sort of Dragon Rider, the Ringwraiths now got other methods.

Speaker 2:
[60:22] They got upgraded also.

Speaker 5:
[60:24] Yeah, yeah, upgrade man, that ring. Frodo just stayed in there like, just take me. Yeah, and just take me out.

Speaker 3:
[60:31] Like I hate this. Like this is awful to exist with.

Speaker 2:
[60:33] Important to note as well that Sam's like, put the ring on, you can at least get away. He goes, if I put the ring on, I don't know exactly where I'm at. And I can't do it.

Speaker 3:
[60:41] I fucking love so much this moment of Faramir looking at Frodo and being like, we could take that, we could use it for good. We could, you know, that I want that fucking thing. And then Samwise Gamgee having to fucking break this like tension wall and going like your fucking brother died because he was trying to get that ring.

Speaker 2:
[61:06] You want to know what really happened to Boromir? You want to know what really happened? He went crazy and he tried to kill us and he tried to take the ring.

Speaker 5:
[61:12] Same as a real one.

Speaker 3:
[61:13] God damn. That's such a banger like conversation back and forth for Faramir to have this kind of because Faramir, you see it washing over him just like every human. And it kind of like breaks this like, oh shit, he's like, oh my God, you're talking about my brother? Like, damn, that is tough. And I was joking around with Nick that like, your brother died and I'm the one who killed him.

Speaker 2:
[61:38] We ending to Faramir's credit, he snaps out of it. He's like, shit, I see you. I get you now. I understand.

Speaker 4:
[61:42] How are we going on?

Speaker 2:
[61:44] And he's like, take off. And then his fucking lieutenant's like, yo dog, you know, that's like punishable by death. He's like, fuck it, bring it on, right? I get what they're trying to do. He's because Sam is basically like, yeah, we got the ring and we got to go. We're going to go destroy it in Mount Doom. And that's our job right now. And you're getting in the way of our job. And Faramir is like, fuck, I get it. I get duty. Cool.

Speaker 3:
[62:02] And you don't really fully understand why Faramir is so down to just have this punishable by death thing on him of like, we don't let people go like this. This is like your dad is a sewer to Gondor. Your dad will kill you. Like if you and he's like, I don't give a shit. And you don't quite know the context why he doesn't give a shit. But you'll learn in Return of the King.

Speaker 2:
[62:28] Let's see. Oh, geez. This is all over the place. Yeah. Okay. Well, you know, it's not my fault because the Wikipedia, I think now we're just at the is all over. Now we're just at the battle. Yeah. Right. So now the ends have taken the ends have done their thing. Frodo and Sam are on and Gollum are on their way through Mordor. And now we're just we're basically cutting back and forth through all these things in the helm. And it's this siege is fucking awesome. It's the outer wall. Then they go to the inner wall. Couple highlights of the outer wall as it gets sieged. At one point, fucking Legolas surfs down a staircase with a shield. As he's shooting people, we get a continuation of perhaps you would like a box to stand on.

Speaker 4:
[63:06] So funny. So funny.

Speaker 3:
[63:08] And then another amazing moment of the walls have been broken through and goddamn they didn't get stabbed in the shoulder a bit. And Aragorn's like, I can hold it. We can hold them off. How much time do you need? As much time as you can give me. And they sneaker on that side wall and they're like, we can fight them off of this little bridge. And Gimli's look at him and he's like, we can take him. And Aragorn's like, yeah, we can. We have a long way over there. A long way over there. Toss me. Don't tell the elf.

Speaker 4:
[63:42] Never. He's my secret delight of this movie, for sure.

Speaker 3:
[63:46] The throw happens and they battle them off the bridge or whatever.

Speaker 5:
[63:49] I love the relationships within the fellowship. Even the Legolas, Gimli, back and forth of counting how many orcs they're taking out. And Legolas is tearing it up.

Speaker 3:
[63:58] Yeah.

Speaker 4:
[63:59] Something else that I love that's happened a couple of times in the movie so far is the way that they use the music from the first movie to like that they attach it to like these moments where Sam or some of the other fellowship like kind of bring it back to the beginning. And you're like, oh, that's right. Like, cause it's the rest of the music, I feel like is so intense and like battle music. Then you just get the lightness of. And you're like, this is what it's all about.

Speaker 5:
[64:24] Yeah. Friendship.

Speaker 2:
[64:27] They use the bomb to blow up the gates. And now things are looking very, very dire. This is where he's like, we need time to get everyone into the helm. And that's where Aragorn and Gimli are like, we'll stop them from raiding the gate. But none of this works. It doesn't matter. They go to the final stronghold, which is where the king would actually, I guess, set up shop where the throne would be. And apparently where there's just a ton of horses. You don't see the horses at first, but there's always horses in Helm's Deep.

Speaker 3:
[64:54] As they all rode down that thing, Nick goes, where do those horses come from?

Speaker 2:
[64:59] Because they cut, they show the wide of this interior. It's my only gripe with this movie. I know the wide of the interior. And it's like, dude, we're. Everyone's gone into the mountain. They're screwed, and he's like, there's one little way to get them out. He's like, go get all of them out of the mountain. And he's like, what are you supposed to do? We gotta give them time. And he's like, okay, well, I know what we're gonna do. We're gonna ride. And then Theoden's like, we didn't bring any fucking horses. How are we gonna ride out?

Speaker 5:
[65:20] Yeah, we did that right there. When?

Speaker 3:
[65:21] Oh shit, let's go.

Speaker 2:
[65:24] But we get a great moment where all is lost, right? And we have also had, Gandalf has also told us, look to the east on the fifth day when the sun rises.

Speaker 3:
[65:31] Ah man, we also, come on. We also forgot a fucking amazing, where was Gondor when the Westfold fell? Like I love, they had been looking at, you know, he's looking at Aragorn, Aragorn's like, we just gotta ask Gondor for help. And he's like, fuck Gondor, dude.

Speaker 2:
[65:48] Fuck Gondor.

Speaker 3:
[65:48] Gondor was abandoned so many times. Where was Gondor when the Westfold fell? And me and Nick were like, what is the Westfold? It's just cool.

Speaker 2:
[65:54] It's a thing.

Speaker 3:
[65:55] You just know that it was an event. It all let down. That's all you need to know. That's all you need to know. I just love that little world building, but it sets the stage for like, we are all we have. We are all we have. Then the elves help and then look to the east.

Speaker 2:
[66:15] But not before. So they're there. The dawn is about to break, but Theoden has lost all hope. And he said, what can man do against such reckless hate?

Speaker 3:
[66:28] Write out with me. Write out and meet them.

Speaker 2:
[66:32] For death and glory.

Speaker 3:
[66:34] For Rohan, for your people.

Speaker 2:
[66:35] Yes, yes. The horn of Helm's hammerhead shall sound to the deep one last time. Let this be the hour when we draw swords together. And then Gimli's like, fuck yeah. And then he's like, fell dead to wait. Now for wrath, now for ruin. And the red dawn. And that's when the sun comes out. And that's when Jesus comes back. And they look up. And you know, the movie has a budget, right? It's not infinite. We've seen the Rohirrim, the writers of Rohan. We've seen Carl Urban's dudes. There's like 30 of them. But man, when they come over this hill with Gandalf, there's like 4,000 mounted cavalry. And they come with the sun. And as the orcs are like pointing their spears, I love that shot. Cause as they crest the hill, the sun comes up and you can tell Gandalf's like using his powers to blind them. It's just piercing sunlight of day comes and blinds all these Uruk-hai. And they just them up. And they have won the Battle of Helm's Deep.

Speaker 5:
[67:26] Beautiful.

Speaker 2:
[67:28] I'm missing something else. What else happens at the end of this film, Andy?

Speaker 3:
[67:32] Oh, I mean we have the Smeagol Golem moment.

Speaker 2:
[67:36] We do have that where he's like, we're gonna eat him, we're gonna kill him. We do have that wonderful moment too where he's like, what are we gonna do? And he's like, we're gonna, like this is where Sam steps up and he has the great speech too. Where he's basically just saying like, we have to remember this and we have to fight for like, there is goodness in the land and that's what we're here for. And that's when Frodo turns around and lays it on him and he's like, do you think we're gonna tell stories? I'm conflating these two scenes, but as they're walking through the woods, he's like, you know, this is always like those stories they used to tell you. You think anyone will tell stories about us, like about you Mr. Frodo, how you were so, you went out and you did this cool thing. He's like, yeah, they'll tell stories about us. And they'll tell stories about Sam, why is the brave as well? And he's like, don't play around with me. He's like, I'm not playing.

Speaker 4:
[68:16] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[68:16] Like, you're the shit. You're the only reason this is working.

Speaker 5:
[68:19] I got that heavy emotional.

Speaker 2:
[68:20] It's so good. It's so good. And on them they go.

Speaker 3:
[68:24] And that, well, we have the Smeagol Gollum talking to himself. Should we fuck him up? He's like, no, we can't do that. And then, but maybe she could kill them.

Speaker 2:
[68:33] Maybe she could kill them for us.

Speaker 3:
[68:35] And we're like, what the fuck are you talking about?

Speaker 5:
[68:37] I don't trust the Smeagol guy.

Speaker 3:
[68:38] What the hell are you talking about?

Speaker 4:
[68:40] I also kind of, I feel bad for him a little bit. I feel like I'm supposed to.

Speaker 5:
[68:45] I feel like I'm not going to feel that by next movie.

Speaker 4:
[68:48] Probably not.

Speaker 5:
[68:49] I feel like whatever he does next movie, I'm going to fucking hate him. Well, that's my prediction.

Speaker 2:
[68:54] Well, we'll find that out next week when we return once again to The Lord of the Rings, The Return of the King. This has been The Two Towers. Thank you guys so much for joining us. A lot of movie left. Let's see. Well, we didn't do Ragoo Bagoo. We already talked about that, whether or not Christopher Lee was better than Deku. We'll leave it at that.

Speaker 3:
[69:18] By the end of this, I want you all to think about your Lord of the Rings preferred partner.

Speaker 5:
[69:24] By the time we get to part three.

Speaker 2:
[69:25] I like that.

Speaker 3:
[69:26] Maybe a top three of preferred partners. What is a preferred partner? Just your favorite character that's not a main character. Anybody who's just ancillary, even if they are whatever.

Speaker 2:
[69:35] I do have a podcast on a podcast though.

Speaker 3:
[69:37] Okay.

Speaker 2:
[69:38] That I just thought of when we were watching this. Is it we're going to call this new podcast in a podcast, Theodin or Theodum? Andy hit the song.

Speaker 3:
[69:47] Theodin or Theodum, which is it we're going to find out with Nick.

Speaker 2:
[69:52] Hey, what's up, everyone? Welcome to a podcast in a podcast called Theodin or Theodum. What do you think of Theodin at the end of this movie? Because you don't like him much throughout the entire movie. Does he redeem himself or is he a terrible king? Joey?

Speaker 4:
[70:05] I think he does redeem himself a little bit. I feel like he gets the pass for kind of sucking at the beginning because he was like coming out of the Saruman fog. No, he was just like so unaware of what was happening. So I do like him more. Is me liking him also attached to the fact that I like that he was in Titanic? Maybe.

Speaker 2:
[70:24] Yeah, that's fine. They're banking on that.

Speaker 4:
[70:26] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[70:27] Blessing.

Speaker 5:
[70:27] I don't have much of an opinion of Theodin, like after that whole scene where he's infected with the venom virus and they free him. I did like that he was ready to kill that motherfucker. He was legitimately like, I'm about to kill you. And then they pulled him off.

Speaker 2:
[70:40] That was always a weird one too, because I was like, why did he stop him? Like, you know this guy's bad. You know, he's just going to do more bad stuff. Like, why are you giving Saruman back this tool?

Speaker 3:
[70:47] It's like when they let the Nazi go in Saving Private Ryan.

Speaker 2:
[70:51] Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[70:51] And he ends up back on the Nazi. And you're like, God damn it. Why did you fucking let him go? But I do really enjoy that scene where he finds out, he asks about where's my son and they have to tell him. And he's there at the graveyard with Aragorn talking with him. He's like, no father should ever have to bury their son. And that is a really good moment for making his character a bit more, you see his side.

Speaker 2:
[71:16] What do you think, Nick? I love him. I've watched this movie multiple times. And this is really the first time I've really watched Bernard Hill's performance in this, largely because of Titanic, because I was like, oh, it's the Titanic guy. So I just started paying attention. Again, one of the great things about watching these films over and over again is they're so dense and there's so many great actors involved and so many different storylines that it really just draws you in and you get more out of it every single time you go. But this is the first time that I really paid attention to his performance. It's really fucking good because he's so conflicted. He's been around for so long and through so much shit. And then he just came out of this haze and he's lost his son. And now he doesn't really know what to do. And he's too proud to call for help. And they just, because he's got this team of people with him, he gets, you know, they survive by the hair on their chinny, chin, chins. But, you know, Theoden's, he's, yeah, we'll see, we'll see what happens to him in next movie. But until that time, ladies, gentlemen, this has been Nick Scarpino's In Review of The Two Towers. Thank you so much for joining us. We'll be back next week with the one and only Return of the King. Until next time, it's been a pleasure to serve you.