Rumination Analysis on The Lord of the Rings, The Fellowship Of The Ring

ladies and gentlemen welcome to something I've been dreading for about 2 years now uh just a quick note I was hopeful to have the new uniform ready to go for these but I have limited times in which I can record so I had to go ahead and go with the uniform I have now uh hopefully by the time I finish this Six movie series I'll be able to go ahead and have the proper uniform ready to wear for you guys now I've Done big ruminations in the past but I I'm actually really curious how long this one's going to be let's see here we go we've got one two three four five six six pages of notes I don't know if that's a record or not cuz I don't keep track of that kind of thing but holy hell I've been daunted by this that's why I say I'm not quite looking forward to it as much as I call these some of my favorite Works ever uh right up there in the top five kind of a thing this is this is something that is a little bit daunting to go through is an overwhelming task and if I'm being 100% blunt I'm not actually physically capable right now with time limitations and the requirements of my show and my real life obligations to actually do the full no really indepth treaties on these movies like I want to so I apologize but you know I'm hopeful that me doing my best here to do the best that I can in order to give you my usual rumination analysis thing is going to be sufficient these movies have been requested for about 3 years now off and on back uh if for those of you paying attention historically speaking a little over three years ago I wasn't actually taking like I didn't have The Floodgate system in place and the previous cycle there were a few people who requested the movies but some of them were willing to wait until the hobit trilogy was fully ready on on extended blu-ray and some of some of them were like you know maybe you just look at this one so it wasn't quite enough backing to go through all six movies this cycle several of those people and several other people banded together and basically put all their requests into one and I even got a few side donations specifically to fund the next six weeks of videos that you're going to be seeing yes we'll be going through all six movies to make that clear this is going to be a little bit of a preamble by the way if that's not obvious and this is probably the only movie I'm going to give a preamble to other than the first Hobbit movie Just making that clear let's cover the biggest thing right off the bat this is an analysis of the movies not the books now I am aware of the books obviously in fact I'm going to tell you a little story about that in a minute but this is specifically an analysis of the movies I'm not sure I would be capable of doing an analysis on the books as I've said before I tend to disallow book rumination requests in general since books don't really fit the format of my ruminations in general and well I'll get to the other reason later but I want to make one thing clear aside from a few specific points I will bring up here and there I will not be referencing the books nor will I be discussing how the movies are different from the books in fact I'll be going out of my way to remove the books from my mind while I am going through these movies now I want to make really really abundantly clear why I'm doing that first of all this is not Star Wars the Star Wars books the EU books were a functional part of fleshing out the movies and diersing them from each other was something that I felt I was not capable of doing because one rested on the other rested on the one was like this right so to remove the books from from consideration when it came to Star Wars was something I I just couldn't do so much of the theory crafting so much of the analysis of characters and motivations and setting and locations and Technology all of that rested upon things that had been fleshed out and gone more into depth in in the book books here this is a completely different situation I I often like to think of The Lord of the Rings movies as remakes of The Lord of the Rings books as opposed to you know the Lord of the Rings books put into movie thing now of course the technical term is an adaptation but usually an adaptation means trying to stay close to the source material and while this does stay close to the source material anybody who knows the books knows that the movies diverge rather significantly from the uh know the books and movies diverge rather significantly when it comes to several key points most notably being tone and themes and a lot of the characters are completely functionally different Aragorn comes to mind immediately as a character who is almost completely different from the books to the movie and so does Boromir for that matter so in order to properly do my own form of analysis on this I needed to to focus on what it is that we have here so there are several things and you know speculations and comments that I have in my notes here over the next few pages that I'll be commenting on which some people will be tempted to say oh well the books disagree with that or that's explained in the books I'm ignoring the books I will only be bringing it up when I consider it to be relevant okay I want to make that clear right up front I might even say that at the beginning of each video just to make it abundantly clear that I'm ignoring the books for this now the next thing I want to talk about is why I'm doing this particular order of the films originally I was going to do hobbit 1 2 3 and then Lord of the Rings 1 2 and 3 you know in chronological order in other words but after some thought on the matter I decided to do it in production order because in many ways The Hobbit trilogy was specifically designed to be a functional prequel to The Lord of the Rings trilogy now that that may sound like a duh but what I mean by that is it's a part of the movie trilogy it adheres to things that happen in the the of Ling's movies and sets up and foreshadows and otherwise certain scenes work better because they are directly referencing or establishing matters that will come up in the movies in ways that are completely against the way the books worked kind of part of my earlier point right and I feel that as a proper prequel you know a properly done prequel my opinion should be seen after you see the thing it is a prequel to And I stress that properly done part and I do feel personally that The Hobbit trilogy is a properly done prequel to The Lord of the Rings trilogy but this is basically the MCU situation for those you don't know what I mean by that the MCU is the Marvel Cinematic Universe which has no real continuity connection to the actual comics and that brings me to my next point I might as well get this out here right now I I thought about literally saying this first I'm just going to drop the bombshell I don't like the Lord of the Rings books that much or The Hobbit bomshell dropped if that is something that you feel is is going to make you not watch the rest of my analyses for the next 6 weeks or not watch the rest of the V this video or ban me or hate me forever then you welcome to do so but it is the truth and I'm not going to shy away from it I love the setting of Lord of the Rings I absolutely adore it in fact the you'll notice that of the books I listed the selon is not one I listed because I actually enjoyed reading that I find tolkin I know it's I know some people pronounce it tolken and some people pronounce it tolken I'm probably going to divert to tolken cuz that's what I've said my whole life and that's what other people have said to me my whole life tolken works and and setting building are phenomenal he knows how to make a fantastically in-depth setting and to really make the why things happen not just what happened which is a critical uh thing that many people many setting Builders many world Builders don't don't seem to grasp and it's something that I try to Aspire to myself and has been a huge inspiration for me when crafting the Imperium so I have a huge respect for the Lord of the Rings setting you know the the Middle Earth setting and everything about it and the the the concepts and the cultures and the food and the art and the architecture and the languages and all that fantastic reading the books H not so much I actually want to share a quick story with you because why not I remember the first time I read Lord of the Rings and in fact it was one of the books alongside the original Jurassic Park and uh I actually can't remember the other one all of a sudden wow I've been going off a very little sleep to get these these videos done it it was it was one of several series of books that I read that led me toward oh and mcaffrey dragon dragon writers of per that was it it was it was one of several series of books I was reading for a contest in school when I was quite younger than this and it was I don't know how many of you ever had this you have to each page that you read for a book was like one mile and then like your your class would race and add up all the pages you read and race across the country this is not bragging because I don't really even at the time I didn't really think I deserved this but I actually got an award for that contest because I by myself I'm not kidding by the way the word's right there I'm not going to bring it out and show you because it that'd be stupid but it's it's for like 14,000 Pages or some ridiculously huge amount I read tons and I'm not bringing this up to brag but I'm bringing this up because it was the first time I really became to quote Twilight Zone A reader it was the first time I really wanted to read for entertainment sake rather than just oh it happens to be something that I'm reading I was always very literate that was thanks to my mom and the way she raised me but this is the first time I was like ooh this is fun to read and that's when I was exposed to a huge variety of literature I basically ate that Library alive and then went to another library and started consuming those books as well but like I mentioned there was three uh series that in particular caught my attention Lord of the Rings relevant to this one of course and the other two that I mentioned earlier and Lord of the Rings I didn't like it but it sparked my imagination like reading through it was I remember distinctly reading through it was a chore but I actually had a sheet of paper with me that I was just scribbling notes on ideas because it was such an invocative setting even then as a child it struck my imagination one thing I started doing many years ago uh at this point about a decade ago now is I decided to go back and start reexamining things that I either liked or didn't like as a child to see if you know the advantage and perspective of age would change that it's something I did recently with uh the Star Trek movies and the original Star Wars movies actually and I talked about that on my show as well and I went back and reread Lord of the Rings trilogy actually I guess this would have been over a decade ago now damn I actually can't remember my exact years it it was before this movie came out and I went back and reread them and no they were I actually disliked them even more than I originally did because they were just so dry so I am sorry uh for that opinion I mean I guess I'm I'm sorry because I know that that opinion is going to push a lot of people away from me and from my videos and you know what that's just something I'm going to have to accept I'm not going to lie to you but that leads me to something that I mean there's a fair number of people who have that General type of opinion I've noticed in my years of talking about lord of the ranks because I am reasonably versed in the setting reasonably the next thing I'm about to say is going to make a lot of people hate my guts and I've already actually said it but I'm just going to lay it out there to make it clear I love these movies these are among my favorite movies of all time and I am quite a bit of a movie geek in addition to being a video game geek and a music geek and a literature geek and a racing geek and a couple other things anyways point being of all the vast majority of movies I've been exposed to these three are right I I consider them one film just like I consider the original Star Wars Trilogy one film and they're right up there they have been battling it out with the original Star Wars Trilogy for the number one slot for many years that's how much I hold these films up there as true works of art not just enjoyable but well-crafted thematic thematically significant excellent showcasing of setting of characterization of directing of of writing of of everything everything that that that got went into the crafting of these movies was phenomenal in my opinion I mention this because I have gotten a lot of flak for like the movies more than the books and I have actually had live on stream I've had some of my own streamers basically you know get upset at me and anger me and basically say I just got to walk away from this because of how uh Divergent the opinions were on that one now that I've dropped all that why don't we talk about a couple other things before we get into this so I'm not doing a 100% full indepth no really behind the scenes rumination I kind of already referenced that before one of the reason reasons is for the ridiculous amount of behind the machines materal just in the Blu-ray I've got right here in front of me in addition to the movie we have no less than three Blu-rays hours multiple hours of content of behind the-scenes stuff of building up of talking about tolken of talking about the construction of the work of talking about the adaptation of the work of talking about the implementation of the work an absolutely ridiculous amount and that's just in this one and that's true in all three of these and then there's the other behind the scenes and then there's the other making ofs and there's the documentaries that went into it and the the little uh the book I can't even think of the name of that was written just about the making of these films a ridiculous amount of behind the-scenes material is available for the Lord of the Rings which is actually kind of unusual uh for most works that I look at most of the time when I look at a fictional work for this show I struggle to get any information on it it's something I've talked about recently it's something that'll be a problem in the future too especially when we have contradictory information cuz people weren't all writing it down or documenting exactly what went into it this is the exact opposite problem and I'm not sure how to deal with it other than I'm going to do kind of a my usual pass of the behind the-scenes stuff pretty much right here and I'm going to be talking about some of the behind the-scenes stuff right up front in this film and then we're basically just going to talk about two towers and Return of the King separately then we'll have another kind of a passive a behind the scenes when we get to The Hobbit trilogy and then just talk about hobbit 2 and Hobbit 3 okay I want to talk about the attention to detail I I want you to picture a video game real quick okay I know that's hard especially for some of my viewers I want you to picture a video game in which a camera is panning across a scene really quick in an establishing shot okay now most video game art departments will basically make tiled backgrounds it may not literally be tiled but what I mean by that is repeatable you know it's just here's a looping series of buildings or a looping series of crowds and that way they only have to actually make like this much space and then tile it out to fill out this right that's the norm that's how you usually approach that kind of a thing however one thing I've noticed in my career and just before that as well is that the really good video games tend to actually bother to personally craft all that stuff so when the camera shot pans over there's actually a different crowd a different series of buildings different mountains you know it's not tiled it was hand designed to for this one panning shot right now logically speaking it's understandable by most by most people do the the tiled approach to that it's because of the fact that it's not necessary it's just for an establishing shot you don't need to go to that level of detail for something that is basically just a background character it's actually something that led to a common thing in especially in earlier RPGs when you could always tell when the major characters were because the major characters actually had real art design put into their Sprites whereas all the NPCs were very generic looking you know and and that kind of highlights one of the problems with that approach too because it's basically a big glittering sign to the audience saying this is unimportant and more to the point your eye catches it you notice it because it's not quite right by contrast if they did the full in-depth thing for the Panic shot you'd probably never even notice it I know this is an old saying and worthy of repeating but or has been repeated many times but is worthy of repeating it really good visual design is the stuff you never notice unless you're paying attention same with audio design so the fact that you don't notice it means they did their job well and so when that camera pan shot is happening you see like this guy over here and there's a dog in the distance and these people walking over here and there's some kids doing whatever planing on popscotch and there's a building and all of that registers in your mind and it doesn't trigger any Flags because to you it's normal but that helps sell the scene for you the viewer the player because now you are more immersed you are buying the fact that what you're seeing is a thing actually happening rather than in the tile situation where it kind of pushes you out of it just a little bit it's like oh well this this is just whatever this is just a scene in a video game you with me Lord of the Rings all three of all six of them really but all three of these Trilogy especially do that in Spades there are so many shots where the camera pans over an area or there's an establishing shot or there's a background shot or there's a one of the one of the earliest examples of this actually there's there's like 50 examples of this right at the beginning but let's go to one of my favorite examples this right at the beginning is there's a camera that's centered around uh excuse me it's it's just kind of slowly roaming through Bilbo's home okay in Bag End and I want you to rewatch this movie sometime I wish I could just have it up on the the green screen here I want you to rewatch this movie sometime and just pause as the camera's panning through Bag End I bet I I would I would bet money that most of you never even really took it in for a moment but the sheer level of detail that went into that set that's basically just there to be background is astonishing and Lord of the Rings does that all over the place there is an an immense incredible amount of detail to the backgrounds of this stuff to the chain mail to the weapons to the to the Rune scripting to the architecture to the trees it's it's mindblowing and I could I could if I was actually going through this it would be interesting to do a a separate playthrough of this EP of this of this movie where I just pause every like five seconds because that's about how often it would be and say look at this detail look at what they did look at it look at it just take it in cuz it's everywhere next time you watch these movies I encourage you if you haven't already to to Really soak in the level of detail cuz it is phenomenal now um let's talk just a little bit about uh tolken himself born in South South Africa of course linguist of course the World War I situation lost all of his friends um I'm just kind of hitting some quick points on this because tolan's life and story is very well-versed there are people who have done full detailed essays and thesises and analyses on tolken in his life I'm not really going to go into that right now but from my persp particular anal analytic perspective there's two big things I wanted to talk about with regards to tolken himself number one watching the path of his life a story like this felt inevitable it it felt like the kind of thing that would emerge from a creative mind like his based on the circumstances he went through the overall presentation of I'm trying to think of how best to put this the overall presentation of the path forward being difficult and harsh and brutal and then concluding but not concluding in a happily ever after kind of way just kind of concluding and having succeeded the victory therefore being the removal of further bad rather than the inclusion of good and there's a lot of uh elements of that in the books specifically which are actually absent from the movies the movies tend to end on a much more hopeful and positive note not the least of which being the most obvious scouring of the show which reminds me actually uh of the second thing I wanted to bring up tolken mentioned how he was very against allegory in his works and there's some obvious and logical reasons for that I actually tend to have the same perspective unless I am specifically intending an allegory I dislike it when someone's like oh obviously he's talking about this thing when I'm not that being said he specifically called out the scouring of the Shire as non allegorical even though he also is freely admitted that it had to do with his experiences in the postor War I Climate about how after the great Victory they went home and things were crap and that Al I mean I'm maybe it was an unintentional thing or maybe it was just his view on life in general maybe he just wanted to use the experience in order to push it Forward I don't know I just bring it up because it is in my opinion the one true allegory that exists within the original books I told you we'd bring up the books a couple of times so this is one of them Lord of the Rings was intended as just a story amongst the Mythos that was going to be you know England's myos which is uh part of why this these books were considered unfilmable for a very long period of time I know I know there were actually a couple of animated films uh prior to this and the rights were owned by I can't remember his name to do those works and that brings me to Peter Jackson looking back Peter Jackson was the perfect fit for this but at the time it was the weirdest thing I'm just going to say this as bluntly as I can you know how we got the Lord of the Rings movies luck no I'm sorry that luck okay a thousand different things lined up just so to allow the Lord of the Rings trilogy to happen and it's actually mindboggling when you really sit back and look at it I'm not going to go into full depth into it but let me just talk about Jackson for a moment let's look at his uh movie career so we had bad taste which was a gross pseudo humor uh humorous sci-fi horror film meet the feebles which was a dark and cynical take on The Muppets Dead Alive also known as brain dead I'm checking my notes for the names here so I don't forget them uh which was basically a splatterfest film Heavenly Creatures which I don't even know what to say about that one and The Frighteners which was also a kind of gross comedy horror not a bad film actually in that list the only one of those films and I've actually seen all of those uh that I actually liked is The Frighteners and even that's just kind of a you know it's it's better than not neutral kind of a situation for me so you look at that list and it's like how the hell did the guy behind those films make this and Peter Jackson's one of those director producer writer combos um I make that point specifically because a lot of times a director is just a director they're the director they let other people write they let other people produce um sometimes they tend to do some writing credit sometimes not but he was obviously while other people worked on the script and other people help to produce he was someone who was actively involved in every step of the making of the films and that's why the first reason why I say in hindsight Peter Jackson was the perfect fit for this because he was the kind of director who would personally involve himself in every step of the film making uh a couple of the behind the scenes things I actually did bother to watch for this were uh just cameramen following him as they were filming a scene over here and then filming a separate scene over here and then editing a scene over here because they were doing all this stuff pretty much s ously um and just watching as Peter Jackson goes from spot to spot and and puts his own touch in and tries to help and work through all the issues on the editing side on the directing side on the second unit directing side all that stuff and he's that kind of director who who's like we're going to we're going to make this we're going to do this 50 takes 100 takes we're going to push this through until it is exactly what it needs to be and I think that was necessary for a kind of film like this like I said the Lord of the Rings books had a rather strong reputation for being unfilmable and the movies go out of their way to try and crisscross uh Exposition and basically background Exposition which is actually something that Star Wars did if you pay attention many aspects of for example A New Hope have things where they'll just mention things in the background and unless you know what they're talking about it's just a name or just a place or just a nonsense word but what they're doing is they're just kind of acting as though those things are normal and therefore establishing them and the context of them for the viewer it's a very passive form of exposition which is actually quite hard to pull off properly they do that a lot in Fellowship of the they do that a lot in the lording trilogy in general to try and push all the information necessary through this and of course there's the massive tonal shifts which I've actually already mentioned but then there's the fact that Jackson needed to get his hands on the rights to do this and then he needed to sell a cinema on making this again in Hind it he was the perfect fit let's look at the things that Jackson had a reputation for at the time he was he was Notorious for being over budget for having critical critically successful films that weren't really that were financially solvent but not really financially successful and this last part is really strange but it is something he had a reputation for and is critical if you look at it from the perspective of someone making the Lord of the Rings movies he was known for using special effects as a tool of of of the movie rather than a crutch of the movie remember at the time that Peter Jackson was developing his career in in the early mid late 90s he a lot of special effects Studios and directors and producers were all leaning on special effects to the point where in some cases quite a few movies came out that were special effects the movie without any real substance to the characters or the theme or the plot or anything else like that Jackson nevertheless had a reputation especially amongst new line of being a guy who could use those special effects as highlights for the main piece it's one of the reasons why he was so critically successful at the time because critics and the studios rather liked his stuff and that leads us to him somehow miraculously getting the work and him somehow miraculously conventing the studio to give him the money up front to film all three at the same time to push through the way he wanted it to do it now here's here's where we hit a little snag all of this information I've just dumped on you all be all came from a question I had how the hell did he pull this off I don't mean the movies as whole I mean starting how did Jackson get the rights and how did he convince the studio Executives to get him the money to do it the way he wanted to do it because that's what it was about he he was like this was something Jackson wanted to do this was a project that he had been building up for in his mind and that he had been and he this was something he endeavored towards this is something he it was an ambition of is to to make a film adaptation of The Lord of the Rings and he wanted to do it in this way and he felt this was the way to do it and he somehow sold the exective on it and in all my research I've never actually found out the specific reason of how he sold them on that I don't know it's a freaking Miracle the fact that he got the rights in general was kind of a miracle because the guy was kind of squatting on them until that so here we go we have these movies yay I'm just going to run through the rest of my uh making of notes really quick like Howard Shore excuse me I'm saying that wrong Howard sha brilliant music brilliant music he knew how to pull a great deal of emotion out of this out of the out of the music that he presented and he knew how to vary his music a little bit he doesn't have the reach or the range of say John Williams or anything like that but he knew how to hit specific points and to really pull a great deal of emotion out of those uh they got John how and Alan Lee to go on to help design the the some of the sketches and the visual design of the film which was hugely important for those of you who do not actually recognize those names those are two people who have been involved in being illustrators for tolken works for years long before the movies came out and therefore with the people who were basically the experts on what Lord of the Rings should look like and help to produce things like caros galador just to name one example right off the top of my head and uh you know the they did some and this is probably one of the most well-known things so I'm only going to touch on this briefly the number of Tricks they they pulled to make the difference between the humans and the hobbits were phenomenal they did a lot of very inventive very creative stuff with perspectives uh they had some of some uh I actually can't remember his name he's actually a really good uh actor and he does a lot of stuff when you need someone who's smaller and he and his his family were there and they were performing The Hobbits in Long Shots and they had these like masks on for the long shots and they they just did a lot of stuff I I can't even put it multiple sizes of props was one of the ones I loved most like they had stuff that was props for the human size and they had the same prop basically redesigned in smaller size for The Hobbit stuff uh or actually I should say it was actually Hobbits and then humans I'm saying that wrong they had people in suits watch the movie again sometime there's a uh I'll give you a specific example when they first reached the in of the prancing pony in Brie and the hobbits are down there and butterbeer is up here and he's looking down at them obviously that's a perspective trick but then you see a human just kind of say excuse me and walk through the hobbits as the scene's going on that's a guy on stilt in basically a large human a giant human suit and and it's and it's actually really funny watching them you know normally because there was no masks thing it was just the human suit and then you see a normal sized head popping out of this giant suit so that it would look like human were stomping around amongst the little Hobbits it's they did a lot of stuff to really pull it off and they did some really good work on it my only regret is having seen all of that nowadays I can kind of see the cracks if you will it's kind of obvious when Gandalf is actually looking over here and Bilbo's actually over there and they're trying to make it look like they're he's looking like this because the perspective thing I almost wish I hadn't seen it but I do give them tremendous props for the creativity of of pulling that off they also as I mentioned here they did lots and lots and lots of takes of certain scenes any scene that uh Jackson felt really needed to have a significant impact he was not afraid to do 10 20 70 takes in order to get the exact right uh performance out of it and of course as I hinted at earlier they were usually filming multiple usually they were basically always filming multiple scenes at a time and so an actor could literally go from a scene at this point in the film to a scene at this point of the film to a at this point of the film to seen at this point of the third film you know uh and they actually had continuity experts on on site who would run around being like okay at the point in time in the scene you're about to have you should have this prop because you got it after this point and just keeping notes to keep track to make sure everyone was in the right outfit because they were doing so many things out of order I also want to give huge props to the casting decisions I I don't know who their casting director was off the top of my head I could look it up but whoever it is deserves a damn medal because the actors have tremendous chemistry amongst each other while I'm not a huge fan of most of the individual actors involved in this film I mean I'm a huge fan of John rice Davies and uh Ian McKellen and and Christopher Lee the rest are just kind of you know take them or leave them but the the really important thing is all of them gel well together all of them actually have it's something I've talked about so much in my Voyager stuff they have amazing chemistry there's just an automatic spark of dynamic between the actors that helps to make this Fellowship work and helps to keep the flow of the characters and helps us to be invested in the characters because they appear to be invested in each other it's very well done and I also want to say it's it's funny because they got of course Christopher Lee and Ian McKellen who are huge Lord of the Rings fans there's this wonderful uh thing where uh a a woman I I forget her title but she's someone who's basically he's doing uh Christopher Lee is doing voice over stuff they had to separate the audio and the visual for a lot of scenes in this film for Budget Reasons I'm not going to go into the specifics and so a lot of times the actors would then come in and and basically dub over their own lines so he's there and he's do the amazing making his his his lines and the woman's explaining to him the the significance of the ring and he's basically he turns around he just starts say saying it to saying this this this thing to her by memory because of how much of a fan he is of the thing as as kind of a yes I know I get the significance of the poem I understand you don't have to tell me this it struck me as very funny the uh they did something else they did a lot of blocking with regards to models to figure out exactly where they were going to do what they did amazing onsite set design uh the logistics involved lots and lots of miniature use uh that actually brings me to uh something else I want to talk about here really quick and that's the second unit group now I've actually mentioned the second unit before I'm going to bring Star Wars and George Lucas into this again because I usually say that George Lucas is an excellent second unit director and I mean that he does that kind of stuff well there are certain things that George Lucas is a good director for second unit I want to fully discuss this because I've never actually sat down and discussed what a second unit really is a second unit has its own director and its own crew of people and basically doesn't interact with the big budget individuals the main director and his big salary and the main actors and their big salaries are basically never going to be on camera when the second unit is doing their thing that means the second unit can use a lot of the same props a lot of the same setting you know the the uh not setting uh sets a lot of the same sets a lot of the same equipment at effectively a lot cheaper cost because every time you know a bigname actor out there they're getting paid so they're doing distance shots establishing shots battle scenes um really detailed uh shots you know that kind of a thing any a lot of the intro where they're fighting uh in Mordor was a second unit stuff uh anytime you see a shot where it's like there's just a panning shot of an area and you see some people in the distance that's probably a second unit shot that kind of a thing it's most it mostly exists as a financial decision that's part of the thing I wanted to bring up here with regards to these films in particular usually the second unit is a operating a lot cheaper than everyone else I mentioned they have the same equipment but what I really mean to say is they have access to the same equipment just less of it they have less lights they have less cameras they have less they have smaller sets they have less sets they have less props so they have to make do with what they have basically trying to do these things for on the cheap because that's the point of a second unit director unit is to do things on the cheap and the second unit director's job is actually very difficult because that person's job is to maintain the feel and the look of the film that the director's making while not being able to actually put any of their own footprint on it the thing they did differently with the Lord of the Rings I mean other films have done this but this was really important here is the second unit had full support full access to everything the main unit had full access to all the equipment full access to all the sets full access to all the money all the lights this also went off into the uh Miniatures group because that's the third uh usual function of the actual filming you've got first unit second unit Miniatures and these usually are separate all three of these had full access to equipment and full funding and full budget to be able to make every single scene just as high value as the main scenes that had the main characters in them and in my opinion that was hugely important for reasons I've already told you remember I mentioned earlier the panning shot and the details versus the tile mentality the fact that they put so much into the second unit and the Miniatures divisions of this film is one of the biggest reasons why those establishing shots those beautiful panoramic shots those awesome battle scenes are so awesome and so detailed because they had that backing to do it properly and I think that was a phenomenally brilliant decision and also a very cost and a very a very difficult decision to make in hindsight you look at that like well duh of course you should spend all that money there but in the moment it's not actually that easy or obvious of a choice because that's a lot of freaking money being burnt on basically just an establishing shot like I mentioned in the video game example earlier it is easy to understand from the perspective of someone who has budget and time concerns while you don't want your animators to be working on all the details of one shot but when you're making a work of art and I'm just going to say like that when you're not making something to make money but when you're making a work of art those Details Matter and that's again why I say Peter Jackson was the correct person and his crew was the correct crew for this film for these films because they were interested in putting their stamp on history and surprisingly surprisingly enough they did there is absolutely no denying that cinematography was pushed forward in many different ways as a result of this Trilogy and the sheer amount of popularity that these films enjoyed is in no small doubt in no small part due to the amount of effort that went into every single shot of these films that's ignoring stuff like Mo uh motion capture the map industry existed before these but after two towers and after the whole Golem thing the map industry exploded they had people whose jobs it were to hang out at the nearby airport and to just watch for airplanes coming so they can call in and say hey a plane's coming so that they would know in advance when they have to cut off shots just to make absolutely sure that there was no no interruption whatsoever just think about that for a moment and this ignoring the sound design I want you to do me a favor sometime I know this sounds weird pick a a a part of the film it doesn't actually matter where just a part that you really like and then listen to it don't watch it you know either have it covered or have a game up or just close your eyes and listen to the scene if you're if you're watching on your TV or whatever and truly so soak in the amount of sound design that went into these films they also used a lot of traditional effects um I I mentioned this with relation to sound design because a lot of that stuff can be digitally reproduced even at the ERA this was coming out but the sound designers involved were like no we we can do this with real sound so when you're hearing things in that film what you hearing is a sound that was actually produced as opposed to a digitally reproduced sound which in my opinion especially in in this era in the era when these films came out is a noticeable difference and then on top of that of course like I said a lot of practical effects mixed with special effects probably my favorite example of this this is the last thing I'm going to say about the behind the scenes I swear and then we're going to go a and move on to the movie proper I have no idea how long I've been talking for throat hurts um is there's one scene where the kbane are coming back from uh the I can't remember the name of the mountain they're going over the mountains they're going over Moria and the kbane are coming back to sodon right and they come around Eisen guard and then they go down into the pits for a bit and the camera follows them and then it goes up and then it cuts to Saron that's actually three separate locations that have been spliced together they had a miniature shot you know small scale which the camera goes into and then goes basically into a green screen and then it cuts to a larger scale miniature area and when I say larger scale I'm talking bigger than my room here where the camera then moves through this cave and then it cuts to an actual set where Christopher Lee is standing against a green screen and they blend all three of these together I want to stress that regardless of the green screen stuff and a few touch-ups this is almost entirely done with practical effects with people actually running around literally hand painting The Cave walls and and the things that that that that are built there the Bridges and and the pics and whatnot and the and the molten now most of the things that are animated in that section are CGI but that's my point using CGI to emphasize practical effects has always been my preference and this film demonstrates why furthermore they just I just want to share this because this was cool they actually had a detector a little uh smoke not smoke detector but it is effectively a smoke detector I don't mean one to go off like I mean registering the exact level of fog within an area and making sure that it stayed exactly even why well because what they're doing is they're having the camera do a pass through and it's a programmed pass so it's always going to hit as long as nothing goes wrong the same point at the same frame all right so the camera does a pass with the fog and it's always at the static level then they get rid of all the fog and then they do a pass without the fog why do that because they need to build density the human eye is understands the fact that the further way something is the more indistinct it is because there's more stuff literally in the air between us and it right so what they would do is they would have the foggy pass and as the camera moves elements of the non- foggy pass would be blurred in as they get closer so you the fog basically goes away as you're moving through it creating the illusion of the fact that you're moving through a place that's that's hundreds of feet wide when in fact you're moving through a place that's dozens of feet wide it's a brilliant thing I love it if if you're at all interested like I said uh some of this is on the actual uh Blu-ray here extended edition Blu-ray some of it is available just online there's a lot of behind the-scenes stuff if you want to look into it Fellowship of the Ring I want to remind you again we're going to be discussing actually hang on I'm going to take a quick Tim stamp uh or actually I'm going to make a note to make a quick time that's what I'll do timestamp and I'm going to put a Tim stamp just for viewers there made a note about it big note I love the visuals of this film I know I've kind of already said that but what I mean is the initial battle is fantastic uh the second unit work there is amazing all the different elves fighting all the different Orcs fighting all the different humans and the battle is just wow I don't know what else to say about it I do want to say this though one of the things that Lord of the Rings again I want to stress this again we're talking about the movies the books are gone as of this moment okay one of the things that's interesting about the Lord of the Rings is that it's very low tier what I mean by that is uh you know usually certain settings tend to be higher or lower tier in terms of the shall we say relative power level of a setting a setting where everyone is a mage who can destroy buildings is is fairly High tier right a setting where there's like one Mage in an entire country and he barely has any magic at all is very low tier Lord of the Rings is actually quite low tier here in the movies and but and I'll be pointing out certain examples of this as we go through it but I like that because it helps to emphasize it is done correctly because in this case any form of magic or magical effect at all even it's something that would be completely weak or pathetic compared to other settings is therefore much stronger here due to the absence of any kind of of comparative power level so I bring this up because Sauron is so damn strong and yet if you think about it if you put him up against like so many other different settings he would be a complete weakling but his ability to go out to the front lines and just just smash away huge swaths of troops and by huge swaths I mean like half a dozen with each swing is considered significant because of the tear now Sauron zilles heel in the movies is and always will be his arrogance his the the crafting of the Ring itself was of course his greatest you know his his greatest weak is Achilles heal it's ironic in its own right because the ring itself empowers him magnifies the abilities of who is using it in this case him and and response to his call but it it serves as a simultaneous it's a weird blend of being something that weakens him and strengthens him at the same time because through it he's empowered of course and has power over the other wings and through it he has the ability to endure as his body is Destro destroyed the ring endures and therefore he has the ability to keep going however it is also his great weakness this is one of the I bring this up because it's very relevant um it is often considered rather pathetic that isor is able to defeat the Great and Mighty Sauron with basically just a Lucky Sword swing with a broken sword no less but in hindsight with analysis mode turned on and ignoring the books it actually all makes a degree of sense because Sauron had basically won as of that moment and he was in full ha I can do whatever mode and when you're being that cocky you tend to overextend yourself quite a bit so rather than just and moving on with it Sauron was relishing the Victory and reaching out with the gloved fist I I actually picture this is in part inspired I admit by uh Shadows of Mordor I picture him literally just reaching down and grabbing him by his by his his head and just pulling him up and just beating him against a rock because Sauron is is brutal like that but as he's reaching down that desperate swipe separates him from the ring and therefore separates him from his life Source the thing that actually is both his strength and his weakness simultaneously so it makes a degree of sense especially since it was basically a lucky break which I mean let's be 100% blunt a lot of battles especially in real life are one or Lost based on Lucky breaks the Ring's true strength is something that's interesting to talk about in the movies it's made very clear that the ring basically has three Powers the first and most obvious is the ability to make you invisible regardless of if you're a hobbit or not the second and also very obvious is the fact that it extends your lifespan it did this with both Bilbo and Gollum and was actually in the process of doing this with Frodo there's a reason Frodo was able to endure basically about a year with almost no sleep and almost no food cuz it was sustaining him if you could call that sustaining I I like to think of it more as a particular form of poison but the true power of the ring is something that I've always found interesting and it's probably one of the things that really made the film stand out for me because the true power of the ring is the fact that it doesn't actually have any power it's said many times even just in this film The Ring there is only one Lord of the Rings only one who can bend it to its power right and he does not share that power right it has only one master it it serves no other right and yet people constantly talk about wanting to use the weapon of the enemy constantly they're like I will use the ring and not to segue into the books too much but in the books soromon wanted the ring to use it against Sauron everyone wants to use this damn thing but they can't either because they don't fully realize they can't or because of the very nature of that power itself which is the fact that it has the call the sirens call is what I like to think of it as where just the idea of wielding the the great power of the ring is just intoxicating in general but then being in close proximity to it it more or less literally poisons you seeps into your brain and makes you think about it and notice that especially in the movies that is very clearly a matter of proximity the closer and the more exposed you are to the ring the more you are likely to think I could use this great thing I could be the great person and yet it is it is repeatedly presented that they actually can't that all the ring would do would be to to function to bring them back to Sauron and then Sauron to take the ring and then actually freaking use it there's some flashbacks where Bilbo finds the ring which of course does not actually match The Hobbit scenes bit of a shame uh oh I'm sorry I have a quick side note here I have so many side notes uh to give you an idea of what I mean by that poisoned mind thing the movie does a great job and so does the actor playing Bilbo of demonstrating the level of fixation that the ring imbus upon people around it there's a great scene right at the beginning where bbo freaks out and and the music is building and building and Temple in the background he's just searching everywhere up and down oh oh oh it's it's in my pocket I want you to picture this for a moment just not knowing where this thing was just not knowing where it was bothered him so much that he was in a panicked state actually probably having an anxiety attack because he wasn't sure where it was nothing else not that it was stolen just because he wasn't sure where it was that speaks volumes to the level of fixation that this thing imbus on people it's kind of messed up when you think about it so this film is the slow boil incarnate I've actually heard that as one of the bigger complaints about it but it's also one of the reasons why I prefer the extended edition oh I guess I didn't even mention that we're going over the extended edition also known as the only Edition of these films because there is only one edition of these films and it's the extended one uh but some people complain how it takes freaking forever it takes the entire first disc for the fellowship to be formed but I like that because it's all establishment there's no padding in Fellowship of the Ring it's all some aspect of character development or character uh not excuse me characterization or character development or setting building or advancing the plot or pushing the themes every scene serves some purpose and is pushing forward something even the more light-hearted scenes are woven directly in the narrative and therefore have some relevance to what's happening as much as I do like the original hob the the The Hobbit trilogy I do have to admit that's one of the flaws of The Hobbit trilogy there are several padding scenes in those whereas I could not point to even a single scene of padding in this film specifically we'll see if there's any in Two Towers of Return of the King I love the ideal of the hobbits I've talked about this before there are two places in fiction and three actually but the third one doesn't count where if I had the choice to retire somewhere you know I've done it all I've conquered the universe and Emperor of everything where what I retire one of the places is the Shire the idea of living in a place where people just Farm their own food and and cook and then everyone's a cook and there's great food and there's great fun and there's like Farm land and Green Hills as far as the eye can see and everyone knows each other and just hangs out and celebrates life there's actually a quote that I like to pull out of this many many times it's uh it is no bad thing to celebrate a simple life and I like that because it also for informs one of the major themes of the work because simple I usually use the word simple as a negative and that's because when it comes to writing it usually is for example a simple reason for someone to be a bad guy is because he's evil and that's bad from a writing perspective there's no depth there whereas a more complex reason for someone to be evil would be you know insert many many reasons and layers and build up and Etc right therefore the latter the complexity is is clearly and definitively superior to the former the simple but I'm going to be using the word simple several times throughout this and I don't mean it in the sense of the bad sense I mean it in the simple sense of the word there's nothing really wrong with being simple when it comes down to it from a certain perspective when it comes to being a person as opposed to from a writing perspective anyways there's several pre-existing friendships that are demonstrated right off bat Gandalf of course has a huge OB obvious fondness for the Shire I imagine for the same general reason that I do when you've dealt with as many world changing events and and great fights and Orcs and dragons and all that stuff it's got to be just relaxing to go to the Shire and have to worry about the biggest thing you're worried about is is what am I going to eat tomorrow and what am I going to wear for the big dance that's happening at the Inn tonight you know there's got to be something incredibly relaxing about that by the way I'm going to be looking down a lot because I've got a lot of notes to check here I don't want to miss anything early on Bilbo is demonstrated to not be like other Hobbits which I like it helps to establish him as a more human character more like us cuz the hobbits aren't actually like us really and and I like that because it also helps to contrast versus Frodo see Frodo for all of his his actions in this film and and all three films really ultimately is not really that much of a heroic character and he's also not that not that much of a Viewpoint character he is a fairly normal character but he is a fairly normal Hobbit whereas Bilbo comes across as a much more normal relatable character that a you know one of us could relate relate to someone who wants the kind of things of Adventure and excitement and doing stuff and the kind of person that we really think we would be like the kind of person we would want to be like if we were in extraordinary circumstances it also helps to emphasize the like I said the difference between Bilbo and all the other Hobbits through Frodo and a little bit through Sam Mary and Pippen we see the difference between you know we we we get an understanding a Viewpoint of how Hobbits work their culture their society and thus Bilbo stands out from that it is especially noteworthy that in so many of the scenes the hobbits are all and they're always together you pay attention to this there's there's always a group there's always at least a few of them and there's some in the background or they're talking or they're playing the little chess games or whatever there's always groups except Bilbo is almost universally alone except when he's with another main character or at the actual party of his birthday these are the two exceptions and I think that helps to distinguish him as well uh and his mindset from everyone else we got the low fantasy thing again fireworks mere access to firework technology um there's a very brief insight into Hobbit politics which true to form is very small scale in the form of lobelia lobelia from the Sackville bagginses again I'm not going to go too much into the books uh there's something else I'll be referencing later on by the way and I'm just going to tell you about it now it's called Lord of the Rings Online it's an MMO uh it's a good MMO it's based on the books but it ties in many ways into the movies so I'm going to be referencing ing it a few times and I reference it here because lelia is demon demonstrably the politician of the Shire and if you just compare her to like a real life politician or a politician from like Final Fantasy 12 or something like that the contrast is striking because her biggest ambition is to have his house that's it and she's not really like doing anything underhanded to get it she's just pestering him and that's about as far as uh Hobbit politics goes again very small scale appropriately enough and then there's the party yeah party great great stuff I don't have much to add it's a lot of detail again soak it in it's great early on we established Mary and Pippen uh and there's two things that are well established about them one is that they are troublemakers and the other is that they're a team now that's kind of relevant actually that's extremely relevant but I want to keep it you to keep it in the back of your mind cuz the very first scene we introduced to them those two facts are well established troublemakers and a team it's always marry and Pippen it's not just Mary and it's not just Pippen it's the two of them and this is true for every scene in this entire film Mary and Pippen are always together to some extent or another and the two always do things together for examp just to name one example off the top of my head when one of them is like oh quick let's do this the other one immediately jumps in or when one person's like quick throw rocks at the Orcs the other one immediately jumps in they always function as a team that'll be relevant later so keep it in your mind so now we talk about the ring so of course you know billbo puts on the ring I want you to note Gandalf's reaction because I want to explain something a lot of people have made light of the fact that Gandalf was was an idiot and didn't actually recognize the the one ring when it was there but in hindsight I shouldn't even say in hindsight with analysis mode on in the confines of the movies it makes perfect sense because it would be kind of like let me use a weird example I know I'm borrowing this from Eddie isard so forgive me but I imagine you're just you're vacuuming right now okay and you hear this you're like huh what's that and you go and check it and you don't really expect it to be anything right even though you heard the and you know there's something there and you check it and it's the it's the Treasure of the Sierra madren but imagine if it actually is but you're not going to think that even if it actually is some gold piece or something that's not going to be your first thought when you see it is it because it's so out of the ordinary and so unusual to find that there that you're thinking oh that's not that and your mind will automatically start thinking well it's got to be something else right I mean because it can't be that and so Gandalf sees this as a magical ring and basically nothing else now it is worth noting that thanks to ringl I know I know and uh the way that the setting works again any magic is significant low tier right so any magic ring regardless of status is the one ring or not is a big deal it's one of the reasons why Gandalf got on him about that and of course put two to two two and two together with regards to Gollum in his ring and the whole extending of his life thing there are several scenes in this movie where Gandalf shows a bit of uh shall we say insight into past and into future and he'll do this consistently throughout all three film well all six films actually and only bring that up because I've always the way it's been presented the way I think of it is it's not that he is always known it's that as events unfold he gets like glimpses of things that connect to what's happening I don't think it occurred to him that that was gollum's Ring who had called it precious until he heard him say my precious and that's the moment when it basically the light bulb goes off and he says it's been called that before but not by you yes I know Gandalf of my and all that let's not get into that that's not even discussed in the film so we're not we're leaving that out of the film discussion so I mentioned here you know any any ring is is significant I love the shock value of of Gandalf having to kill B bargain to get his attention there's two really great things they do with these coming scenes first of all the way it is so severely poisoning his mind is really driven home on the the off chance that you've never heard of Lord of the Rings or this is the first time you're exposed to the series or whatever even for someone who knows nothing it becomes very apparent what this ring is doing to Bilbo because we have had many scenes where Bilbo is this crotchy Shen okay Bilbo is established as this crotchy loner except when Gandalf shows up he runs out and hugs Gandalf this is his good friend and he's so excited his mood instantly uplifts and he's running around trying to get food for his friend and it's fantastic oh I can't believe my friend's here and then we cut to this scene not that many scenes later and he's actually ready for fist to cuffs against this guy that really helps establish just how much this is poisoning his mind and then he drops it they do a great thing with this by the way they actually had a model of the Ring that's like this big to get across this effect so the ring drops and it doesn't bounce that's a brilliant visual touch there because instantly we now visually recognize the weight of what this ring is we have a visual acknowled of just like a brick and the moment Bilbo leaves having done that he take he he he just his whole body posture changes and he lets out this sigh and he says I thought of an ending for my book The the actor does a great job of it you can see the weight just lifting off of him it's very well done and then Gandalf barely touches the ring it has actually been debated if he literally touches it or not because the editing is not not quite clear uh I didn't do a frame for frame for this sorry but whether he touches it or not just being in close proximity to the ring and I mentioned the proximity thing earlier really hits him hard completely knocks him for a loop and I want to stress that point because simply being in proximity to that level of malevolence his malice his cruelty his hatred his will to dominate all life completely throws Gandalf the normally unflappable Gandalf who has been the wisened old man up until this point is is is ranting rambling into a fire but I always thought there was a second reason for that I thought that was the best thing Gandalf could do to himself to prevent him from actually picking up the ring and then and this is really important Gandalf the Great wise powerful wizard who can't even go near this ring without freaking out froo walks in and just picks it up as if it's nothing brilliant little point there that's emphasized CU of course it is nothing to froto and that's something that's that's very thematically pressed throughout the course of the film which I'll be getting it more into later note by the way that Gandalf absolutely refuses to touch the ring in the next several scenes he goes out of his way to ensure that no part of him touches it and that he doesn't even get as close any closer to it than he has to he's just okay put it in the envelope and we'll seal the envelope and then keep it away from me one of the things that I like is in the following scenes which actually take 14 months in the books uh or is it 14 weeks I actually can't remember it's a while maybe it's 14 days it's 14 something it's a while anyways the next few scenes kind of fast forward a little bit and Gandalf finally comes back to the house again oh God oh God oh God and tosses the ring in there and he is it's it's something that's so true with Gandalf's character and I need a drink I'm sorry give me just a second it's so true with Gandalf's character in many cases Gandalf is right about something and desperately doesn't want to be because being right means things are bad this is probably the first time this happens but that's a recurring theme throughout the course of the work Gandalf is like oh God please don't let it be the one ring Please Don't Let It Be the One Ring Please Don't Let It Be the One Ring and then he gives a visual just oh thank God it's not the one ring and then froto says wait and then he just he tenses all the way back up and then froto starts you know sees the form of Elvish the black speech haha by the way and Gandalf's mood just just you can just see him slump as it's just oh crap if this was a more comedic thing I imagine one of the more common phrases Gandalf would say would be God I hate being right so Gandalf is completely overwhelmed at this point doesn't know what to do this is again there's going to be an un curring theme of this for quite a bit and I don't know how to phrase it other than the difference between knowing and not knowing many of the individual this is very important uh with especially when it comes to uh I'm sorry my mother just texted me when it comes to the next few scenes that happen uh with regards to Saron because how do I put this Gandalf Gandalf doesn't know how to step up yet Gandalf is on his own character Journey actually all the characters have their own arc through this sto through the movies uh Aragorn was actually invented for the movies cuz he didn't have one really in the books uh but his character Arc is him he doesn't want to be the guy in charge he doesn't want to be the big guy the one who knows everything the one who makes all the big horrible decisions he doesn't want to be that guy he he's he finds out this truth slumps under it and it's like I'm I'm going to go to my boss I know I know s's not literally his boss but the point being I'm I'm kicking this one upstairs I'm I'm going to go after this one uh and I cuz I can't deal with this I can't deal with this oh God I can't deal with this and I'll talk a little bit more about that in a moment but I want to talk about Sam really quick Sam wise gamji who is by the way probably my second favorite character in these movies overall uh I'll talk about my favorite character later Sam is of course the real hero of the trilogy we all know this this is not this is not new everyone knows that fact he is the real hero because he is a completely O'Brien character he is is as down toe simple as it gets but simple does not mean stupid and simple does not mean lacking in personality it just means that he's simple it means he's O'Brien he's just kind of simple compared to the other characters and yet and I will point this out as we go he persistently and consistently stands up to the call time and time again where others either don't or hesitate or can't he's also interesting in his Dynamic compared to the other Hobbits Bilbo of course is well Bilbo I already kind of gave his Divergence Frodo for all of his you know love of the Shire and whatnot is actually very knowledgeable it's one of the things that separates his character from the others he has a great deal of knowledge and understanding of the world beyond the Shire which uh Sam wiise does not have we on a page two guys um and I'll talk more about Mar and PPP and later so I have a note here I just want to say really quick I am so glad Tom Bombadil was not in this film I'm sorry for those of you who like Tom Bombadil but I hate Tom Bombadil and I'm glad he's not in the film mered to um moving on so I have a note here why are the elves leaving keep in mind we're not talking about the books just in the movies they never actually sit down and explain the specific reason why the elves are leaving in the books but they do give several thematic reasons for the elves to be leaving in the movies did I say books earlier what you know what I mean in the movies they never say the elves are leaving cuz blah blah blah but it's it's there for us to interpret why they're leaving some people I've actually heard some interpretations that they're literally basically going on to heaven like they're done they can't die so they just pass on to Heaven uh my personal interpretation I'd love to hear yours of course if you're still watching this at this point my personal interpretation is that they are passing the torch that they've done everything that they feel that they can do here and they're ready to let the other younger races do their own thing we we we've done our bid for king and country we're going to bed and they're basically going into retirement and moving on to either new things or to stop take your pick just my take on it um so I'm going to kind of skip forward a little bit my notes it's hard to discuss specific points in a movie like this while still going in the order of the film because so many things jump around here or there so I'm actually going to be discussing Four Points which cross the next two pages and all of them are about Saron first of all Christopher Lee also Christopher Lee moment of silence even early on uh Saran comes off as much more Mali much more harsh than Gandalf does even before we have the reveal that he's a villain of course anybody who's a fan of Christopher Lee says well of course he's a villain he's played by Christopher Lee although I will point out Christopher Lee has played non villains before and in fact will in the future in The Hobbit trilogy but I digress obviously this soromon is significantly different than the Saron in the books they did a completely different take on them and I like it better I'm just going to say that I already pull this out so one of the big themes that I've already talked talked about is that greater understanding and greater power lead to shall we say more risk when it comes to this setting if you're this great powerful armor or or Soldier General King Wizard elf you know if you're this Mega powerful person you can do big Grand sweeping things and great Deeds this is actually something that'll be flat out said by Mary uh later on in Return of the King I think but you know big Grand sweeping things but those people while they are very important and crucial to the pushing forward of the force of good and just the development of the setting in general there's certain things that they just can't withstand like someone else who's big powerful and strong like oh I don't know Sauron and that leads me to the thing that they do very well and Christopher Lee I think Nails this because Saron in the movies is not a simple villain he is someone who is stuck in a nowi scenario he is the most knowledgeable and the most powerful and he is the wi he's San the wise for God's sakes and he doesn't have a rainbow cloak on and he's like he sees the Power of Mordor he sees the Power of Sauron and he capitulates because he understands it is his understanding his josco his knowledge his wisdom that enables him to recognize just how bad things are again Gandalf never quite hit quite hits that point Gandalf always has that frankly foolish hope he actually himself calls it a Fool's hope later on again I think in Return of the King Gandalf never hits that point but Saron has that kind of logical deductive ability to look at the situation says this is hopeless we can't beat Sauron we can't and he is struck with complete and utter Despair and it is in that despair that he capit Ates and agrees to serve Sauron as it is the only thing he can do to survive and so saran's character throughout the movies is someone who is not necess who does not begin evil and it's unfortunate he should have had more scenes to show this so Christopher Lee does a good job of what he has but there should have been more development of this my opinion he doesn't start as evil he starts as someone who's stuck up against a wall and so we scroll down a bit here on my notes later on he goes into contact with Sauron and the next scene has Christopher Lee bundled up like he's just done something horrible and he's chilled and when they ask you know what what does the eye command he says we have work to do the way he says that there's so much bitterness in his tone like he doesn't want to do this like he resents the fact that he has to do this but he feels he has no choice cuz again he is smart enough to recognize how incapable he is of withstanding Sauron and as the scenes go on the more he does it the more he capitulates the more he interacts with the Orcs the more he he he destroys the land the easier it gets for him Saron actually has a fairly decent I'd say like like a half or maybe a third of the alphabet progression of villainy really quick for those you don't know what I mean by that um a really wellone progression of villain is not someone who's like hi I'm a good guy a and then I'm an evil villain Z right but instead goes it when you go from A to B the difference in those acts is small right it's just this little difference and then B to C and C to D and you can see how it progresses and as your perspective changes you're only doing one thing slightly worse it's not until you get to Z way down here at the end that you can really compare and contrast where you started over on a the progression of villainy descent if you will of villainy soromon goes through about eight or steps of that because again we don't see that much on the camera but you do see him getting worse progressively each time and the urai are a perfect example of why Saron is so dangerous if you're paying attention the great villain of the first movie is actually not Sauron in fact we don't fight anything of saurons except for the ring rats in the First Act they are defeated as part of the first quest which I'm actually talk about more later um because I'm kind of jumping around my notes a little bit here Sauron is not the enemy here it we we some random goblins we fight the balog bar Duran's Bane but we don't actually the the main villain of the first movie and ironically have a decent part of the second one too is Saron and the urai and it showcases why that capitulation is so horrible because it can be debated that saon would have had a significantly harder time and the fellowship a significantly easier time if they'd gotten San on their side but of course he couldn't bring himself to do that if I can bring Star Wars into this one more time the whole point of that final shot of getting the torpedo into the Death Star vent was that it was a literal one in a million shot that it was it was an impossible shot that should have never happened and it was the sheer Mir miraculous and force that enabled it to happen right I mentioned that because you know we could look at them and say oh anybody would would would bet on the rebels they'd just win against the empire but that's not true in character nor in the moment in the moment in the character siding with the rebels was the really stupid thing to do that nobody should have done because it was doomed to fail they had a literal one in a million chance of success that's the same situation for the heroes in these movies they are doomed Boromir later lays it out pretty clearly just going into Mordor is a challenge once you're in it gets worse One does not simply meme into moror I'm just getting it out of the way I know yall love those memes um you know he lays it out exactly what how perilous and terrible of a quest this is so someone as intelligent and long thinking and Powerful as Saron looks at it and says that's not happening and that's why it's a Fool's hope because only a fool would hope to a one in a million chance and soromon is not the fool he is the wise and the soromon makes everything so much harder and so much worse for Our Heroes it is a very classical style of literature the way Saron is presented here in these films and I love it I'm actually reminded of sarin over in Mass Effect one actually as weirdly as that sounds because it's a similar situation if sarin had actually joined with Shephard oh s better start running but he was too smart to do something like that and my last Point here really quick later on Gandalf of course gives his wonderful speech there's only one lord of the ring and he does not share power and then he is rescued by an eagle by the way I'm not going to bring up the Eagles in these videos other than to mention them twice after this point I'm going to mention the Eagles three times ever okay not getting into the Eagles everyone in the universe has talked about the Eagles okay so he's rescued and then Saron looks at him and he's just like and he says this wonderful line and so you have chosen death because that's exactly what San has not chosen because from San's perspective with the despair he feels and his knowledge of the situation there are only two choices capitulation or death and so he looks at it and says all right then you have chosen death and it's funny because for whatever reason maybe fear maybe Pride Saran never chooses death not once actually this is true all the way through all three films so rewinding quite a bit now that I've talked about San and his character let's talk about uh a great scene that happens much earlier when they are first caught by the Noz goul on the road okay the ring RS are unleashed the nine are chasing after them and we see immediate contrast between what troubles are like for Hobbits and what troubles are like for the heroes because we go straight from running away from farmer maggot after stealing some crops and getting away Scott clean because he stumbled down a cliff to running away from ring wraiths who are trying to kill you because you happen to have something that their Master likes the this and the two scenes are literally right next to each other so it's a direct contrast it's brilliant I love the way it does it but I got to say it I'm finally up to one of my first real complaints about this movie are these movies The Ring RS are flat incompetent in this film I'm sorry they are I know they're weak to fire I know they're weak to water but they put in a poor showing many times and this first instance is not helpful where he's like okay I feel the presence of the Ring somewhere nearby sniff sniff sniff sniff sniff sniff sniff sniff sniff sniff sniff a noise I mean come on I have never really been able to take them particularly seriously as a threat uh in in in this film specifically later on they get a little bit of a better showing and in the hobbits uh they actually get a pretty good showing too go figure anyways excuse me hang on just a moment pardon me I like how it's Mary who picks up immediately on the danger and the fact that they're chasing uh froto because Mary's the one who tends to pick up on things and Pippen's the one who just kind of tends to blunder along and follow also the coward although he does overcome his cowardice a surprising number of times when whenever every single time throughout this movie I want you to pay attention every time Mary or Frodo or or Hell any of them really is in some kind of danger Pippen does not hesitate even a second to do something about it the moment he's prompted like sometimes he'll stare in shock like but then when he when he overcomes the shock he picks up a rock and starts throwing it you know it's interesting because one of his character arcs which hasn't even really begun yet is him finding his courage sorry I'm going to text my mom really quick the next thing I want to talk about is the weakness to water thing now the specifics of whether or not the nzo was able to actually capture them or not while they were on the little craft they were on is debatable to me I think it's a little ridiculous that this super doomed undying ring wraith can't deal with them now that they're a little bit out on the water however I pointed out because it's actually with analysis mode on it's actually a bit of foreshadowing their weakness to water which we get into more later so here's the quest thing I mentioned so the quest keeps expanding throughout the course of this work the first Quest is get to Brie but once they get to Bri they find out things aren't great so okay we got to go from Bri to well actually no the first Quest was actually hide the second Quest was get to Bri the third Quest is get to Rivendell the fourth Quest is actually to get to Mordor but that Quest kind of changes and diverges a bit we'll get to that more later but I bring that up because uh the like the nature and strength of the quest escalates gradually and I think that was mandatory for in character reasons imagine for a moment if you approach Frodo in the Shire having done none of this stuff and say go to Mount Doom come on let's go he's not going to freaking do that he's like no no no no no no no no no I can't even begin to do that no same thing with probably most of them really but instead they are introduced to a local threat which then becomes a semilocal threat which then becomes a we need to get to Brie to hand this off to someone more competent remember they were going to breed to interact with Gandalf it's like okay we need to get this to Gandalf then it'll be safe uh in fact froto himself flat out has a line take the to the Village of Bri and froto says the ring will be safe there like almost hopefully because that's as far as he has to go just to Brie and even going to Brie is an adventure for a normal Hobbit and remember we have four normal Hobbits with us fro Sam Mary and Pippen Bilbo was the adventurer and even he didn't start off as one so the quest keeps escalating because otherwise I don't think they would ever even started so then they get to Brie now I know I I'm going to bring up Lord of the Rings Online again here and the books because brie is usually presented as one of the last bastions of good people I mean there's Bandits and and screw-ups there as well but it's generally a nice place in the movie It's portrayed as this dark horrible hobble of Filth and death everything rainy and mck and death and all these dirty derin scrabby looking people guzzling down booze you know that kind of a thing however going back through this with analysis mode on I I I can't believe I never picked up on this before it's being portrayed that way because our Viewpoint characters are Hobbits to them this is a big dark scary place to the humans it's probably just Tuesday and I and in hindsight that makes perfect sense and I like that I like that presentation of oh my God this big dark scary place which just happens to be out of the norm for them where where where am I I need to start keeping try I have so many notes um I also uh it's this is also further emphasized by Aragorn consequently to the normal folks he's dangerous and so to the hobbits he's absolutely terrifying and then of course I cannot help but point out that they they have no hesitant both Mary and Pippen and Sam all rush to confront Aragorn despite their Terror I think this is the second time now the hobbits have shown their willingness to band together in in Desperate situations which will be a recurring theme throughout all six movies so then he puts on the ring and by puts on and he accidentally slips in the ring just kind of lands on his finger okay that's ridiculous I'll admit it but it's nice because it's our first real shot of Sauron after the armor and how Sauron will be perceived throughout the entirety of the rest of well all six movies really but especially this trilogy The Eye of Sauron lidless wreathed in flame um would you believe that I was surprised to learn that that was just an interpretation of the original description what I mean by that is when I used to read the books that's pretty much exactly how I pictured the eye of Sauron and then I watched the movies and I was like yep and then I studied this a little bit later in my life after seeing these movies and was like oh that's not huh okay there's actually several things like that the Watcher and the water for example or the balrogs are not really described in all that much detail so most of it's just kind of been inferred and then kind of kept going anyways so again the NZ goul are BL I'm very disappointed by them I want to bring something up from Lord of the Rings Online though that lotro does very well it has a mechanic called dread which probably wouldn't work in most other settings dread lowers your max HP and your max MP effectively you're Max I want to stress that so if you have a th000 health and you are at a significant amount of dread you actually have 500 Health you're not injured you're still at full health it's just your full health is now 500 it's a great way of emphasizing the nature of certain creatures in Middle Earth the nzou usually have a dread rating of freaking nine which I think is actually the second highest in the entire game at least up till uh when I was when I was playing last in other words if you're around a nozal you have trouble even moving because you're so terrified The Dread level is so high I've always liked that impression of the nzou that they aren't actually that great in a fight that they're not actually that strong but the sheer Aura of wrongness that they put off literally debilitates everyone else around them it helps to emphasize certain aspects of their character and is kind of shown in the movies in several scenes there's this great bit where butterbeer the bartender is is just shrinking behind the the thing just shake just oh God please don't let them see me and I love the idea that all of those people on that end are are terrified as these ring are moving through there just because they're there small little Point by the way just little character Point notice that Sam wise is of course asleep because he's O'Brien really it's it would probably be more accurate to say that O'Brien is Sam wise but anyways and then he wakes up oh God he jerks awake and he's the first one to jerk awake and then Maran Pippen jerk awake and then Frodo was never asleep at all I only point that out because it's an interesting Little slice of how their different mindsets work Sam was the first one up ready to do something Mary and Pippen immediately follow froto couldn't sleep at all that's very in character for all four of them froto has a great line and it helps to emphasize that knowledgeable nature of his that I mentioned he has a weird sort of wisdom to him he says a servant of the enemy would look fairer and feel Fowler and I love that especially given you know the the the fact that Sauron first actually uh the deceiver you know that whole thing thing but again that's books it makes sense to me that the enemy would try to appeal to you and seduce you through through conniving rather than and of course Aragorn kind of has that grizzled chisled women flinging themselves at him look going for him and some men also the metabolism on Hobbits has got to be crazy I'm just saying so there's it's a little bit silly the campfire scene there have at amanul but I like it because it helps hammer in a point again really but at this point it still needs to be hammered in we're still in the establishment phase of this movie that the hobbits just do not understand what they're doing they don't understand the scope the gravity or the threat remember the last major threat they dealt with was farmer maggot and his crops and then they kind of escalated to Immortal ring race trying to murder them it's kind of hard to do that leap up there and so they start the fire and they start cooking and it it's just such an innocent thing ah yeah yeah you want some bacon and then the ring WR show up and they're like oh crap enemies right that thing so then the ring WS approach and are incompetent and are and are defeated by just Aragorn now I know Aragorn had fire I know they're weak to fire but in the again in the scope of the movies it kind of makes me go but I actually have a theory purely in the scope of the movies that helps to explain several aspects of the incompetent of the the incompetence of the Ring race most notably the witch king of ammar himself he could have just walked up stab grabbed the ring walked away he didn't he does this he he's they all slowly approach they don't actually attack until Sam wise who is the first to attack of course attacks and then like disarm fling grab fling and then the witch King grabs one of the mor gold blades now obviously there's a level of Cruelty involved here because you know this will basically turn him into froto into a wraith like they are a half living half dead creature of horribleness but the way he goes for the ring it makes me think that they are how do I put this as bluntly as I can that they are not immune to the siren's call of the ring that if these truly were creatures of no will that existed solely to serve Sauron and were were Terminators to to use that terminology who whose only thought was get the ring get the ring then they would just walk up stab grab and leave and they would have succeeded at it like three times already but they don't do that in addition to the cruelty they display the witch King Flatout walks out and tries to just take the ring straight off of his finger like it's calling to him you see why I have this Theory because the presentation of him and the way he the the the the guy in the suit does his body movements it's it's clear that he was just as entranced by it as everyone else is that he's not immune to its effects and it wouldn't surprise me if he thought he could claim it for himself just like every freaking else everyone else does and it's not until the ring is removed from his perception entirely that he actually starts serving his Lord again and that's all the way in the third movie so checking down my notes Here Aragon defeats them y I kind of wonder where Saron got all the metal to AR arm his urai I've always wondered that everything else makes sense where do I get the metal from another nice touch our first shot of well un elf really that isn't in a massive battle Arwin of course we have no glor fendel I've got three more pages I have three more pag of notes guys uh Arwin basically takes the place of glorfindel which I'm okay with I'm not a huge fan of the actress they got to play arowin but the difference is inconsequential to me even though glor fendel is a freaking badass I like how they perceive how we see Frodo's perspective of her while he is half merged into the spirit realm uh I want you to keep in mind that they do some good visual stuff with the spirit realm every time it shows up it's obviously not quite the same later on he actually the camer he's standing there and then like he sees basically a camera pan up badur and then he sees the eye of Sauron like 10t in front of him um to give you an idea of how the spirit realm works but every time he goes into the spirit realm it's horrifying it's it's shaking and dark and horrible I want you to keep that in mind for when we get to The Hobbit movies because it'll be relevant but I also want to keep it in mind that he tends to see things kind of as they are and when he sees arowin he sees someone who is basically Angelic glowing literally glowing white it's not until we shift away from Frodo's perspective that we see how she actually looks Which is far more normal in down to earth she just happens to have the ears and I like that because it helps to emphasize the the more uh for lack of a better term spiritual nature uh of the elves within the setting so then they'd start running out and it's probably the first time that I felt the wraiths were actually a threat as they chase after her for what is about six or so days nonstop imagine if you will for a moment the tension and and stress of riding for six days knowing that if you slip or if you fall or if you fall behind too much you lose instantly because they're literally a few feet behind you that finally got across the real threat of the Ring race probably for the first time for me uh so then the weakness to water thing pays off thanks to the earlier foreshadowing I also want to talk about something I've mentioned how this is a low tier setting I know what the books Let's see the way it's presented it seems clear that she is basically activating a pre-prepared enchantment in order to help defend her realm basically calling upon the magic that's already been woven into the river itself and she's just the activator the spell was already cast if you will so it that actually makes a degree of sense and of course is thus a much larger spell than most of the other ones we've seen to date and has a rather dramatic impact on things that have already been establish to have a weakness to water and leads to a really cool Quest chain in lotro actually but I I'll I digress I have a he I have a weird question here why does Arwin care about froto so much I also have an a casual thought here rivendel is gorgeous I know I would retire in the Shire but oh I would love to visit rivendel it's is beautiful looking absolutely beautiful so the visuals of Rivendell the music of it the framing of the SC the dialogue every single aspect of the presentation of the rivendel scene seems to indicate as if the journey is over Quest complete you know and everything seems to indicate that equally and we've just had our first big win you know with with the river thing I just mentioned Gandalf has escaped the rats are repelled and what's funny is this persists for a couple of scenes until everything goes just a little bit darker and then we have Elon and Gandalf discussing just how bad things are because it's actually worse than we already thought it was now I have an odd question for you elron mentions how men are weak now again within the confines of the movies I think that is hypocrisy hear me out elron is someone who you know took isor to Mount Doom to the place where he could toss it in cast it into the fire destroy it and AER says no and casually walks away why does Elon not stop him I actually do have an answer for that and I think it's the same answer as to why Gandalf refused to touch the thing Elon who was a large knowledgeable powerful individual was probably terrified of handling the ring so he was so terrified of it he was willing to let it go rather than try to risk falling into it himself in other words he was weak and yet his big thing is about how the men are weak and it is because of men that evil endures focusing away from his own culpability within the problem and I think that's actually quite in character for Elon is portrayed in the movies he's not exactly a you know a bad guy in fact he's quite a bit of of a good guy but he seems to be very very very prideful and very well we're Elvin so we're just better than you and I'm Elvin so I'm just better than you kind of a portrayal and it's not until his daughter basically hits him across the face with it that he starts to acknowledge that maybe okay fine I'll I'll actually do something about this but that's of course third movie there's a persistent theme that starts to show up at about this point now that Boromir my favorite character in the films by the way in the three films uh Boromir finally enters the picture and he's not just my favorite character because he's Shawn Bean he is a very fleshed out character and honestly I think that's pretty much unique to the movie and at least in part because of sha Bean's style of acting because he knows how to put Nuance into the way he says something at first it seems like he's you know a bad guy because he's portrayed in this kind of bad guy light I'll talk a little bit more about that later but even early on you see that kind of Despair in the way he's acting you could see the desperation behind his eyes and you could see the well the same thing that Saron went through Boromir is not stupid and he's on the front lines and we see more about this in a flashback in I believe the second film but he knows exactly how bad things are he knows exactly what it's like and exactly what they're up against and it is that knowledge that is crushing him under its weight he constantly talks to other characters about how we have to keep hold of Hope how we have to not let go of fear we cannot surrender to Despair and each time he is really trying to convince himself because he is doing the opposite of that within himself ah hang on so one of one of the themes related to Boromir is brought up is the nature of men quick clarification point if I say the word men like in the next three or six movies for the next couple of weeks what I mean is the race of men humans okay they always call them men capital M and that's what I'm going to use just like I'm calling them elves rather than P years or knife years or something like that okay I'm using their terminology moving on oh the race of men is portrayed as weak and this becomes very clear later on as well and it took me a while to really get a handle on where they were going with this which is funny considering how basic it really is all of the races are portrayed as being fairly strong in their own right an individual Haba can do great things an individual elf can do great things an individual dwarf can do great things and yet the race of men are scattered and weak and leaderless and they can't do great things even the great powerful men tend to lose when they go out on their own and this is hammered in at the end of this movie I'll just skip ahead of my notes here actually three pages ahead uh uh yeah I'll I'll get to that I'll get to that that's way ahead so it's funny because what the men need is each other they need to be unified when the men are together they can accomplish things the other races can't and when they have a strong leader they can accomplish even more that the others can't this is funny if you think about it because there's one other race that has that same attribute and it's the uls oh and also debated with the goblins and yes I know the the difference between Orcs and goblins is kind of a movie thing let's just move on so some politics comes in during the Council of Eland and of course it's it's a nice showcasing because even the good guys even Gandalf and lealos and Aragorn are all up standing and shouting and gesturing and gesticulating and I mentioned here more stuff about Boromir he he's the one who shows the Folly of the quest that they posit again Frodo in ignorance says I will take it to Mordor Boromir is the one who says you can't do that and starts to outline just how bad it is because he's been there he's been fighting on the front lines for basically his whole life and he understands what they're up against and again it's that understanding of the threat that holds him back just as it held Saran back and held Elon back I also like the fact that the black speech actually hurts Elon uh just to listen to it it's a nice touch I also like Gandalf's reaction to froto once again Gandalf was right and wish he wasn't he he he knew he knew that froto was the right choice to take up this Quest and he hated it and he didn't want that and he wanted to try anything else instead of that and I think if I may pause for a moment I think that's really the biggest difference between Gandalf now and Saran now San would look at the situation and say froo is the only choice go and probably send him off and probably send him to his death Gandalf is like no I I can't I can't do that I'll do anything but that it doesn't matter if I'm right it doesn't matter I need to find some other way because he desperately wants to do things the right way his sense of of compassion basically overwhelming his his intellect and it's not until it's forced that he's like okay fine but as an amusing side note because he spends so much time trying to do anything else now there's more to help the quest actually succeed but also of course note the order of the fellowship rising up Frodo first of course Gandalf right after that Aragorn legol Los is the next one that makes a degree of sense we know that lealos is close to Aragorn and close to Gandalf and the elves pledging their support is kind of a duh gimy pledges support immediately after that now I actually like gimy and I love John rice Davies but it's funny because the impression is given that gimy who at this point the only thing we know about him is that he dislikes elves only joins to spite The Elves and then the last one to join not counting the hobbits is Boromir the one who more than any of them understands just how doomed this Quest is then the hobbits join Sam wise and then Mary and Pippen the usual order there I'm I'm never going to finish this ration you guys are prob going to be like yeah I'll watch this over the next week I love so I've mentioned how Bor up until now has been kind of portrayed as if he's a bad guy but what I mean by that is it's easy if you're not thinking about it if to to look at the situation and presume he is a bad guy he's a villain H dark scary and at the very next scene is him just laughing and playing with the hobbits and teaching them how to fight it's a very important scene because it helps to emphas to the audience that this isn't a bad guy he is actually one of the good guys he's just a little more conflicted than everyone else I like that uh it also helps he has a great line that helps show his perspective it is a strange fith that we are to suffer so much fear and doubt for such a little thing I mean it's a great line and it helps to Showcase how in his mind things have become Beyond despair at this point again we see the low tier fantasy nature of Magic the low tier nature of this magical fantasy setting where it takes Saron standing on top of his Tower you know chanting for God knows how many minutes as as he casts the storm up in order to be able to do basically one well well- aimed lightning bolt and that's it that's all he accomplishes but again in a low magic setting in a low tier setting any magic is significant and that one well- aimed lightning bolt happens to completely screw over the fellowship arguably they could have actually died right there and probably should have and so then gandal wants to avoid Moria you're noticing a trend here in Gandalf being right and trying everything to avoid it because Gandalf is right in the fact that the only real path forward is through Moria and he knows this and he's afraid of it and I like that I like the simple for lack of better term human weakness of him being afraid of dying it's probably the exact same feeling that Saron has and the reason why Saron has been doing so many of the things he has because he's afraid of dying he doesn't want to die Gandalf doesn't want to die and Gandalf doesn't actually think he can take on you know Duran's Bane by himself it is sad to me that we don't get to see the Dwarven Kingdom at its height it's really weird playing lotro in the minds of Moria expansion and then watching this film because in the expansion minds of Moria is of course this vast huge awesome area that has already been resettled by people following after the fellowship a whole group of dwarves goes there to reopen the place and to reclaim the the Kingdom so you can see it kind of a little bit more as as it should be of course in the movie we see dark caves and abandoned M shafts and all that fun stuff which doesn't quite get it across I feel of course very sad for ballin's I have a question for you though do you think the dwarves at the door died there as one of the initial waves of the herd of the goblin herd or do you think that they were like one of the last Defenders one of the last groups of people holding out against the goblin Advance there's food for thought it's interesting to me too because I like the latter idea more it's more Dwarven to me the idea that they could have opened the door and fled out but that would have meant letting the Goblins out and the Goblins don't have the ability to open that door H the heroes barely did so they sealed the door shut you activated the magic enchantment and then had their Last Stand ensuring that the rest of the world wouldn't have to deal with the goblins it's very Dwarven uh there's also a line later on that kind of uh adds to that where uh I forget where it is I think it's in the second movie but gimy mentions to Legal Los I wish I could you know have a whole Army of dwarves at our disposal for this and and legoas says I fear that war already encroaches on their lands uh it gives the impression that the dwarves are all fighting their own battles right now in order to try and help the greater war against the forces of darkness and you know Lord of the Rings Online also gets that across too so we have a brief showing of The Watcher and the water probably my favorite visual representation of the thing actually very krakenes and it's not described or explained ever so I'm not going to talk about it anymore just wanted to mention it and it was cool looking they quick thing though he actually has less tentacles presented than he should literally because they couldn't render that many at the time funny funny fact so what is mithil I've actually brought this up on stream before uh some people still argue to this day what exactly Mythril was or is we don't know uh tolken was never properly asked and obviously we can't ask him now is Mythril a completely fantasy element was it inspired by real life metal we don't know U the best guesses I've ever heard are of course uh iridium uh idium TI uh idium platinum and aluminum are the three guesses I hear most often my personal guess is actually platinum or no not excuse me titanium my personal guess is titanium uh if it was based off of real metal and Tolen would know about those Metals whether it is or not who knows I mean we just kind of think of it as mithil nowadays or mithil if you prefer there's a great line by there's several scenes that just play out as is I don't have much to talk about them much of Moria I don't have much to say but there's a great line about the pity of Bilbo May rule the fate of many and I like that line because it's it it's critically important and indeed is actually the Crux of the finale of the entire Trilogy in showcasing how just one tiny little thing can affect everything that is probably the single biggest theme of the movies as a whole little things having a big impact you know even the smallest person can change the world and it's the most obvious theme and it's the one that's most predominant throughout the work but of all the ways it's presented that line is probably my favorite way it's showcased the fate of the the the the pity of Bilbo May rule the fate of many then there's the great buildup we cannot get out also one of my favorite quests in lotro we cannot get out and I wonder how long they were there too and there's so the buildup the grave the noise gimy is shattered this is probably the first time gimy gets any real characterization is during Moria and then Pippen accidentally sends off the noise and then there's silence and everyone gives a visual visual oh thank God and then War drums now they do something really cool uh first of all we see like I said we see a little bit more into gim's character his his grief obviously at the loss of his kin but also his his rage at the situation his his insistence on doing something and not just sitting here and grieving he picks up his act and says I'm going to go after these bastards I'm going to be the last Bastion of the dwarves there is still one dwarf in Moria that draws breath you know um It's actually kind of a foolish disposition but it's understandable and it helps to explain his character and that'll be mentioned later as well but then the whole almost the entire battle has no music and it's an interesting choice because there's this wonderful buildup and then the battle happens and it's just chaotic and everyone's fighting and smash the choreography of this fight is fantastic in the behind the scenes stuff and there's no music until the the the O uh troll starts to go after the non-combatants that's the first time any actual music starts playing to emphasize the scene change the fact that the battle has now shifted to its second and Final Phase which is actually nice question for you do you think the troll just happened to want to kill Frodo just because or do you think he was maybe drawn to something that he couldn't help being called to the ring like so many other creatures are like so many other things and people are they went out of their way to try and make the troll come across as not evil too they wanted it to feel like a caged Beast that was just blindly lashing out against everything around around it and I think they did a really good job of that so Props to the animators what happens next is probably one of the most textbook examples of inverse enforcement I've ever seen um I've called that a few things uh negative enforcement or negative uh establishment is another way I've I've said that before what I mean by that is when you have to establish something as in this case something big and powerful you can have it show up and be like smash and show it being big and powerful or you could show something else big and powerful and then have the thing you're actually establishing either terrify them or defeat them effortlessly and thus the power of this bigger thing is established thanks to the power of the smaller thing right that that's what that's the concept I'm referring to but this is probably the most textbook example I've seen of this in a long time we have a massive Army of goblins and they have we have just barely won a battle against them and there are so many of them that are swarming us they they've killed all the dwarves we're doomed there is no winning the situation and then they hear a roar in the distance and then they Flee for their lives the look on Ian McKellen sells it the look on Gandalf's face says it all it's just oh my God whatever that is that is coming terrifies an entire herd of goblins think about it in keeping with the theme of the the film The Way That Duran's Bane is presented is very much a slow build first we have the Roar and this chanting music begins to play and we'll be playing for the next several scenes and then there's these goblins harassing them clicking away at them from arrows from the crevices trying to get at them and trying to stay away from them we don't actually see the thing we see occasionally the camera will shift over and you see the the terrain shaking and and and it like it's breaking through the very foundations of the earth and then there trying to defeat this bridge basically to get across which is falling apart around them as they're going through it and then they manage to defeat it and then the music shifts we did it yeah and then it shows up after all that buildup the balog actually shows itself and I want to give a medal to the people who animated and designed Duran's Bane because it's perfect it is exactly the right combination of Shadow and Flame it's brilliant and it is exactly as large and horrifying and terrifying as it should be and especially after that buildup it just gives me chills even still it actually also inspired uh some of the design from one of my own characters uh hatred based on just the idea of this living furnace and and the the the smoke the black smoke constantly billowing off the thing and I hate to go into the books again but keep in mind this thing is of equivalent power to Gandalf it's also a myar just like Gandalf is so yeah but even regardless of the book it's pretty clear Gandalf is not certain he can take this thing in fact he's almost positive he can't and that brings me to a great scene and a great setup obviously it's a great scene for all the obvious reasons but the literary reasons are even better because what Gandalf does is again classic literature he outsmarts it he prays upon its arrogance and upon its overconfidence because let's be honest the the balog probably could just defeat Gandalf in a straight one-on-one fight I know what ends up happening but all if everything else was equal and Gandalf didn't have that initial Advantage I think the B rug could take him just my opinion even if that's not 100% true it's pretty close to being true because even with the advantage gandal still freaking died so the bog is fully confident in its power and then gandal flat out tells him you cannot pass you shall not pass right and then we see the thing just like oh we'll see about that and it oversteps itself and then it falls into the Trap right that's brilliant in its own right because Gandalf literally out thought his opponent what makes it better is the fact that Gandalf then makes the exact same mistake that Duran's Bane did because he lets his guard down just like the balrog did and he relaxes and he he oversteps himself he isn't paying attention and the balro gets him right the last last second and that's why Gandalf loses too for the same reason I love the symmetry of it as an aside even to this day that scene hits me even rewatching it however many minutes ago it was now that still hits me everyone's reactions to Gandalf's death are telling the hobbits are paralyzed with tears incapable of even functioning it's just oh God they have to be literally picked up gimy has to be physically held back from charging back in there just like he was on that again this is establishing his character just like he was earlier he wants to go in he wants to do something about it doesn't matter if it's suicidal he wants to do something about this he wants to show them how wrong and legol Los is in total shock he's actually in complete shock he's showing no emotion of any kind other than just I can't believe that happened Boromir is of course empathetic he this is a very important part of boromir's character actually he cares he cares about his people he cares about his City he cares about his Fellowship his group and so he's the one who argues give them a moment for pity's sake he's the one who sympathizes with them it is Aragorn who has to step up to the leadership mantle and attend to the reality of it and yet the great part is even as he is becoming a leader he is also wearing a mask because Aragorn is it just as emotionally damaged as everyone else and we'll see this actually in the second movie uh better presented and so he is handling his grief by locking it away in a Cupboard and dealing with right now which again is what a leader would do and then there's Frodo who is in tears and alone Boromir tries to comfort froto and it's funny because he himself has no Comfort at all he has this wonderful quote that I've actually said in my real life before it is long since we had any hope he loves his people and he loves his land but he is a man he's he's one of the men right and like all men he is weak by himself and it is really hammered in here he needs others his core is simply too weak to deal with this now I don't actually have that much to say about the rest of the film most of the battle I could just mention by saying the battle but we'll get to that in a moment I want to talk about gadriel uh we get a decent amount of of examination of gadriel here she is clearly the strongest of the elves the strongest the wisest she's basically the Saron equivalent and what's funny is she has this quote where she says the fellowship uh dances on on the knife's edge stray but a little and it will fall now what's funny about that is before she said that as I was rewatching it this time around I wrote a note about how gadriel herself was on the knife's edge and if she strayed she would fall and then she said the line and I'm like ha I think that was done on purpose because that is exactly where gadal is she understands exactly what that mentality is like she is tremendously powerful and she has Nya magnifying that power like all the Rings do and yet it it is it would be so easy for her to take one step in the wrong direction and turn into Saron give in to the despair that he has give in to the Hopeless and shift towards start going from A to Z basically and so she is I I picture gadriel in this constant state of struggle and discipline and trying very hard to stand on this knife edge and not stray from it I also love how she says to what she mentions Peril to froto uh or hang on first she mentions froto you know you bring great evil with us she mentions peril to gimy grief to Boromir and hope to Sam and given how the movies go I think that's pretty accurate gadriel has some very clear levels of Clairvoyance it's probably one of the most clear-cut examples of SE being a sear within the course of the movies while she can't see everything exactly she can see how things might end up but there's an interesting point she goes to the well now she tells she she basically forc es froto to confront reality it's a very harsh and brutal thing to do but she does it because she knows he has to toughen up in order to deal with the in the trials coming ahead right he has to confront the reality of failure what I find interesting about that is it's never stated outright at least in the movies but the vision that he receives is the vision she's been receiving is the same vision that San See Saw is the same vision that Dennis Thors saww anyone who has the access to either the tool or the technology excuse me or the magic or the seeing or whatever has perceived this Doom that Sauron intends upon everyone and I find it amusing because from my own interpretation it's not a possible future it's just something Sauron is beaming into everyone's brains that he is actually projecting this possible future into people to inflict inflict them with despair to poison them with with hopelessness and fear it would be a very sour on thing to do wouldn't it but she nevertheless forces him to confront this this is the consequence of failure and then he offers the ring to her this is the second time he's offered the ring to someone stronger and better than him first was to Gandalf who who struggled to say no gadriel then does the exact same thing to herself that she just did to Frodo she says all right time to man up see if I can do this and she confronts reality the one ring is right in front of me and it's being held out for me and she goes full ballistic too I've often felt it was in the hopes of frightening Frodo away but Frodo doesn't frighten away he still holds it out to her so she has to decide she has to confront that reality just like he did and see if she can withstand it she does she does pass the test she doesn't Stray From The knife's Edge and that is arguably the first moment at which we see that one in a million thing kind of come be rewarded I think is the way I want to put that because speaking realistically that's kind of the situation she was in she was vastly more likely to stray vastly more likely to to to fall off the knife's edge to become tempted by this great power and all that she could do with it for good or for ill but the unlikely thing happened and she stayed right there in the middle and she passes into the west and diminishes it's a great scene it's a great scene and I really like gadil as a character too it's a shame she doesn't get more screen time either Sam's poem uh about the fire oh I'm sorry hang on real quick real quick she also gives the speech to froto to be a ring bearer is to be alone what I like about it is several people uh Aragorn later Gandalf mentions this as well and of course Gad here says you you must be alone you must take this task alone only you can do this and they say that from a perspective of wisdom and strength like so many other times I've been bringing this theme up and yet they're absolutely wrong if Sam wise hadn't ignored all that and gone after him anyways it would have been doomed from the beginning like they he would have never accomplished anything but Sam goes with him and that's how he succeeds because and this is one of the things I like about the way this theme is portrayed throughout the Lord of the Rings movie there's the perspective of you know the wise and the powerful and the big and the impacting and then there's the perspective of the small and the little and the simple right and in every case in the movies the truth the real path forward to really make things better is a combination of the two when both of these ideas merge into something greater that's when things actually happen he did need to leave the Fellowship but he did not have to be alone remember well I'm getting ahead of myself I really want to end on that point so so getting back to Sam and the in the fireworks thing he gives this little tiny little poem about his fireworks were great and kind of cool and every now and again I'd say they rule you know it's just like that it's kind of bad right it's very amateur but I love it it's very Sam it's the exact kind of thing like one of us like I just did actually would probably come up with on the spur of the moment and I love it because it showcases again how both can work together because these elves have this great beautiful kind of chanting song hymn celebrating Gandalf and he just gives this simple little song this simple little poem excuse me and yet both of them have the same impact both of them have the same heart behind them in other words you don't have to be some great magical mystical elf to be able to have an impact on those around you again that's the most obvious theme in the whole sexology so then she gives them the supplies now almost all of these are check off guns we've got the lmus that'll come in later and of course Hobbit metabolism again we've got the cloaks those become mandatory later on the bow that legol Los uses a lot of in the next three films the daggers given to the little Hobbits who also get a lot of use out of that the Elven which is extremely useful to Sam in the future and then galadriel's hairs which is the only one that doesn't really pay forward now to break from things a little bit I know about the whole lock Bearer thing and I know about the whole gimle finally goes into the West thing and I think that's awesome by the way like the only dwarf ever allowed to go is gimy he he's earned it he's awesome gim's a fantastic guy but uh I find it interesting that they left that in the movie it's a nice scene don't mistake me but it it seems completely out of place considering everything else everything else is something that is direct foreshadowing and something that will be used in the future as far as gimy the only significance it could be considered to have and this is theoretical is that it showcases how he's starting to open up as a character remember his first character trait and his only character trait for several scenes was I hate elves and even there's actually quite a bit of Elven and Dwarven bias on both sides when they're in lloran and yet now he is actually you know I shall call nothing Fair uh if it except it be her gift to me and emphasizing that he now has value in something Elven and which will also help to foreshadow his eventual friendship with legal Los I know in the books he becomes friends with legal Los in Caris galador but in the movies he will grow to become friends with legal Los over the course of the next few movies and I think that's the closest thing I've got to signific of the gift for the for the development story-wise so I mention here the threat you know all the threats I I kind of talked about this already we've got you know the the ring wraiths and then some Goblin scattered tribes and then the orai we haven't actually fought Sauron we haven't even really fought saaman yet this all buildup and then uh froto offers I want to talk about the Aragorn thing first really quick cuz froto the for the third time time offers the ring to someone stronger than him and for the third time someone strong someone better than him uh rejects it Aragorn is tempted you could tell he's tempted but he he manages to resist it he gives it to him and he has the will to let froto go again the the the the wise perspective there I need to let froto go contrasted with Sam wise's simple perspective I need to go after him but what I really want to talk about is Boromir the final battle is good stuff I don't have any real thoughts about it it's it's your usual good second unit stuff and some first unit stuff as well but it concludes boromir's character Arc it'll actually get a little more fleshed out in flashbacks in the future but obviously by his death he does finish his character Arc is finished but the good news is his death his death happens after his character Arc finishes he is weakened by his caring by his desire to help people by his desire to uh to do his his immen despair at the reality of the situation he's in if he had seen that Vision that froto had seen he would have buckled under the pressure of it it's the proximity that really pushes him over the edge though he is a strong enough person to resist until it's literally him and froto alone and the ring is right there in visual range and it's that proximity that finally poisons him to the point where he acts completely irrationally and then he screams out and rages and then there's a couple of different interpretations of what happens next cuz either froto hits him and he trips and stumbles or he just trips and stumbles on his own right I personally like the second interpretation better even though the former is more likely because what it it's a literal visual metaphor for what he's going through he trips then he gets up and the Spell's broken the Poison's gone and he is Boromir once again and he realizes his own weakness and it's probably the first time he really acknowledges his weakness because everything up to this point has been you're the strong one you're the tough one you're the one who has to be the Great Captain of Gondor now again some of this is fleshed out in flashbacks future but he's the one his father's relying on he's the elder brother he's the one all the men salute to he's the one who has to be the strong great Mega Man you know it is only now that he finally acknowledges his own weakness and in so doing Embraces that as part of him and decides screw it I'm doing something anyway thereby becoming a hero by refusing to let his own fear stop him while not actually fully defeating that fear it's a nice little thing there and he fights and he he charges up and and it's it's his shock that that pushes him forward and it's a great contrast to the earlier scene where it was Boromir and Mary and Pippen and they were doing this little play fighting thing now they're fighting for their lives and Murray and Pippen are cannot abandon him any more than he can abandon them what's the first thing he says when Aragorn comes over they they took the little ones it's the first thing out of his mouth because that is truly his most defining trait his caring for other people and he keeps fighting even weakened after being hit in three times with arrows that would hurt like hell the Sha Bean do a great way of portraying the shock as he's literally losing proper control of his limbs as the fight goes on and then he says I have failed you all and that is truly probably his greatest pain knowing that he was not able to overcome his own weakness and do good and yet Aragorn reassures him you have reclaimed your honor and I will not see the White Tower fall nor our people fail and that just hammers the point home for Boromir and in his final moments he is comforted and of course this is how the the the the theme of how men work plays for plays plays out and will be a very strong Port part of both of the next two films because Aragorn by himself didn't really manage that much and borr by himself didn't really manage much but into in when they actually managed to unify they accomplished great things and we see the spark of what could be I would follow you my captain you know my brother my Captain my king and that bond that the two have as Bor mir's dying showcases What Might Have Been if they had been unified from the beginning which also makes boromir's death quite a tragedy and then despite all the wisdom and experience they even bother to have the the voiceovers going so that you understand that what Frodo is doing is the wise choice he's abandoning the others and he's leaving and I have to go and he is doing it for the wise reasons and the intelligent reasons and Sam chases him because he made a promise a simple reason not an incomplex reason not a dumb reason a simple reason and thus the movie ends on that great point I mean there's a couple more scenes after that they're going to go after Mary and Pippen and you know we'll never see them again and blah blah blah but I really love that effectively the movie ends on the point of that I mentioned earlier that with simple reasoning and complex reasoning together we now have an actual path going forward and real hope the movie does end on a note of some optimism and hope as froto and Sam now have a choice just as the remainder of the fellowship will not abandon Mary and Pippen I have no idea how long this video is I'll find out in editing I suppose my throat is killing me I thank you for joining me with this and I will be seeing you guys next week for The Two Towers

Channel: Lorerunner

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Id: 5SEzEjkgjTY

Length: 137min 5sec (8225 seconds)

Published: Fri Mar 17 2017