Jen 0:00

While the book handles the barrel escape with brisk efficiency, the film treats it like a 40-minute GoPro fever dream, choreographed by a toddler on a pixie stick bender. It's less of a faithful adaptation and more of a $225 million autopsy performed on a children's classic, proving that if you pump enough gold-plated CGI and fan service filler into a single chapter, you can eventually make Tolkien's legacy unrecognizable and remarkably buoyant.

Joe 0:47

Yeah. Um it's coming out of the way.

Tom 0:54

Um, yes. Uh the music was cool. It was like a it sounded like if if the Fremen were in Tool. Yeah.

Joe 1:02

Um I was surprised that that that was Timothy Chalamet, Guttural chanting.

Tom 1:08

Not as surprised as I was that they they put Momoa in the trailer.

Joe 1:11

He's kind of featured in the trailer. I know. How is he? I I never read Dune Messiah, right? This is gonna be based off Dune Messiah. But it's I don't know, man.

Tom 1:21

It's it was so clear that he really dead in the last one.

Joe 1:24

Yes, he did. Whereas opposed to the book, you don't really see him die, right? He's like he died, he die, quote unquote dies off screen, I think, in the book.

Tom 1:33

Like yeah, he I think he basically dies when he you think he dies in the movie, and then the movie he just comes back and dies extra. Yeah, he just kind of goes off and then he's like, Oh, he's dead. Um, I I I I think I think it's hopefully they won't tell you until you see it. So I don't want to say anything. It's interesting why he's there.

Jen 1:49

No, and then it is It's his twin brother. Yeah, Momoa. No, not the actor's twin brother, the character.

Tom 1:58

It's uh I know, but but Duncan, Ohio is not as funny.

Joe 2:04

Duncan, Ohio. Duncan, Ohio. So they have the same first name, but different things.

Jen 2:10

No, they're like it's like um Munken Idaho.

Joe 2:14

Not Munkin.

Tom 2:16

Tim Horton's Idaho.

Joe 2:18

I'm thinking like country donut Idaho or Starbuck I Starbucks Idaho.

Jen 2:24

Krispy Kreme Idaho. Crispy, crispy Idaho.

Joe 2:29

Oh man, we could only Well maybe it's donut Idaho and it's Duncan and Donut.

Tom 2:33

That's it.

Jen 2:34

Yeah, you're right. There you go.

Tom 2:36

We could have got like the Big Beth route instead of doing other characters from that we all went donuts and go to something a little more recent and say egg egg Idaho.

Joe 2:46

That's true. And stunken egg. That would be there you go. Um I'm excited though. I feel like I I was thinking about this. What when we did Dune, and you know, we knew the movie was gonna be the new movie was gonna be coming out, and I was like, oh, we should we should probably go see it together and then do and then record the episode in the theater while we're watching, I think we should. Um that'll be fun. I was thinking about that and getting excited, and we'll we'll we'll get Brendan, we'll go with Brendan.

Tom 3:14

That's it. Oh, yes, let's do it.

Joe 3:17

Yeah, so we'll have to make a date for it's well when is it? It's the end of the year. Is it December or November? Or I don't remember now.

Tom 3:24

Um you think I would know that, but I don't.

Joe 3:26

Yeah. Well, we just watched the teaser. I just watched it like four times in the last couple of days, so I I don't remember them saying when it's coming out, but I'm excited, it looks really cool. I'm curious because and again, uh you don't have to spoil this, but Paul's sister Ollie is in it, and it's it's you know, Anya Taylor Joy, who's like, I don't know, ear what late 20s, early 30s?

Tom 3:51

Um I would say probably closer to 30 now, yeah. So it's December 18th, by the way.

Joe 3:56

December 18th, perfect.

Tom 3:58

Um, so is this movie supposed to take place like 30 years later, or is she supposed to be like only 20 or well I don't know, I don't know how they're gonna do this in the movie, but I believe that the move the book is like 10 years after. Okay, basically most of the events of the book.

Joe 4:18

So she's gonna be taking place like 10 years after.

Jen 4:23

Well, she she ages quickly, doesn't she?

Joe 4:26

She doesn't age quickly, she's just she comes out hyper intelligent.

Tom 4:31

Yeah, she's she's like a she's a fully mature mom. She's the memories of all her ancestors, yeah.

Joe 4:35

But like physically, she's uh a child. Yeah.

Tom 4:39

Yeah, but I don't I mean they can be doing all sorts of things. Maybe they'll pull like an Enders game kind of a thing where someone travels in space and they come back and she's a little older.

Joe 4:47

Yeah. I guess we'll have to wait and find out. This is shelf to screen, the podcast where we discuss sci-fi and fantasy literary adaptations to the big end or small screen. Joe Perry at your service.

Jen 5:00

Jen Isgrow also here.

Joe 5:04

I feel like this these movies are missing more at your services.

Tom 5:09

Uh yeah, there's no there's nobody, there's no Mr. Mr. Frodo here.

Jen 5:14

Well, that was a joke in the book that they didn't do in the movie with like Bjorn saying, like, stop saying that you're at my service.

Joe 5:21

Well, like they say at your service a lot in the books. Like whoever they meet when they introduce themselves, they say their name. You hear I mean Thorn Oakenshield at your service is and Bilbo Egg is at your service, is probably in the book at least 25 times combined. Um the other thing I felt that that these movies are missing is there's not enough complaining by Bilbo about not having enough food or not eating or not eating proper meals.

Tom 5:49

Yeah, Bilbo is uh at the start of this film fully an action hero.

Joe 5:56

Yeah, I guess so.

Tom 5:57

Yeah, at the start of this film, this film. At the start of this film, he's already like, yeah, I can you know fight spiders and uh create a secret rescue in a elven dungeon. And these are all like mid-level DD character things that he's doing. Yeah, right?

Joe 6:14

Um so we're talking about uh the Hobbit, the Desolation of Smog today, continuing on from last week, uh or last episode where we talked about the unexpected journey. Um, we're charting new territory, I feel like, because none of us have well, Tom, you've seen some of this movie before, right?

Tom 6:32

I've seen some of this movie before.

Joe 6:34

I've I I as I was watching it, I realized I did see some clips from this movie uh in the past. But yeah, this is all new. Um, I can't say it was a great experience. Um was it better than my last the last week or last movie experience? I think so. And I think it was because I didn't know what was coming.

Jen 6:56

I was talking about this earlier. I think I enjoyed it more. Not that I enjoyed it, but I think I enjoyed it more because I knew what to expect out of it, I guess. I knew it wasn't gonna be I knew from the first movie like what it was gonna be. Like, oh, the orcs still look terrible.

Tom 7:14

Right.

Jen 7:15

Like nothing was shocking to me. I still didn't like any of that stuff, but I was used to it. So I think And the dragon, I really I enjoyed the the dragon a lot, Smaug.

Tom 7:23

So I you know, I there yes, I thought there were there were more things in here, like more segments of this that I was like, oh, I think they just got this, like, I don't know if they got anything right, but I think they got things that were like that felt brighter than any than uh than pretty much any part of of the first film. But I also think that Jen, you're right. Like, I was just like, oh well this is gonna be something that's really not that good. And like uh I just accept that.

Jen 7:50

Yeah.

Tom 7:51

I was saying to uh to Joe earlier before we uh jumped on how at one point when I was watching the film I had to pause it for a moment. I think uh I think my family came home. Uh so I just wanted to hit the door for them. And when I came back, I saw like that an hour had passed and I still had a whole movie length of movie left. Yeah.

Joe 8:11

And I was like, oh, oh okay then I I think I did a better job of disassociating when I'm watching this movie. Um there were things though they cut things shorter than they are in the book so they could add other stuff in, which is always frustrating to me. Like if you're trying to extend if you're extending these and making these long, why are you cutting things? You shouldn't you shouldn't be cutting anything.

Jen 8:40

There was some stuff um that I could understand why they changed. Like uh them going into like Bilbo talking to Smog, then coming out, then them like hanging out in the tunnel for like a lot of that was like kind of not cinematic.

Joe 8:57

Well, they had to make more time for the dwarves to fight the dragon.

Jen 9:01

Right, yeah.

Joe 9:03

And not and you know, because they had to extend that so at the end of the movie, Smog's not even dead, which I thought was gonna be the end of the movie.

Jen 9:11

Right back So can we I'll just ask the question, my literal last note is why would Smaug I have to say it like that. Smaug. Is that smog Smaug leave to go to Lake Town after that fight and leave the dwarves there when he knew they were there? Because in the book, he's like, I bet you had help from Lake Town to Bilbo. I'm gonna go burn Lake Town and he leaves. And then the dwarves come in. Right.

Tom 9:38

Yeah. He doesn't know.

Jen 9:39

If he knew that the dwarves were in there, but he kind of knows he smells them. He kind of has an idea that they're there. But yeah, why would he leave after what they just first of all, what they just did to him, which is they tried to kill him and almost got him, kind of.

Tom 9:54

Yeah.

Jen 9:55

Um and they're they know he knows that they're in there to like steal his treasure, so why would he leave?

Tom 10:01

Well, that's why he's owned treasure back. I think he I mean he he does believe by killing Lake Town, like that that that Bilbo at least like likes the people of Lake Town, so that'll emotionally damage him before he gets him. So I guess there's that. Um which I think is interesting because nobody in Lake Town is really that likable except for Bard's kids, I guess. Right. I agree with that. Like there's nobody in Lake Town that you're mean.

Jen 10:29

Everybody in Lake Town was nice. Yeah. I mean, everybody that we meet, uh except for Bard's kids, is mean. But there's a lot of other people there that I I imagine are fine.

Tom 10:40

Like the regular people seem fine, but they also seem okay with the master, who's clearly a scuzz.

Jen 10:46

Yeah, I don't know.

Tom 10:47

And Bard's like, I don't know, starts out nice and then isn't nice.

Jen 10:51

Yeah.

Tom 10:52

And we're supposed to still like him, but that's alright.

Joe 10:54

Yeah, let's go. Well, well, uh let's go back.

Jen 10:57

All right.

Tom 10:58

Let's there's a there's a I have a big problem with with with Lake Town and Bard in particular, and it's not his attitude. We'll get to that when we get to it.

Joe 11:08

Yeah, yeah. Um all right, let's start at the beginning. I guess the eagle the eagles are gone.

Tom 11:15

Drop them off.

Joe 11:15

They just dropped them off. They they changed this whole part too. Um like the way Bjorn gets introduced, and even the time they spent this is an area where they cut, they cut, yeah, dramatically cut the amount of time uh we meet Bjorn uh or spend with Bjorn or at the Bjorn's home or Bayorn, sorry. I always called him Bjorn. Oh I say Bjorn. It's Bayorn, I think Gandalf says.

Tom 11:40

Yeah. Which I'm not I I was definitely I was shocked that he was in it. Like I didn't know that he was gonna be in it. And I was like, well, they cut Tom Bombadil. I can see them cutting Bjorn too.

Joe 11:52

Like he's not yeah, well, they cut Tom Bombadil because they were putting three books into three movies. This is at the same time.

Tom 12:00

That's true. That's true.

Joe 12:02

Peter Jackson put himself in this movie. Let's start with. That's that's what we started.

Tom 12:05

Oh, that's actually the beginning beginning.

Joe 12:07

That's the beginning, right? And and they start each movie with the recognizable uh Howard Shore score. Say that three times fast, which which evokes you know some sentiment from me. And I'm like, uh, this these are the best this is the best part of the movie is the Howard score. Howard Shore score.

Jen 12:26

Howard Shore score, Howard Shore score.

Joe 12:29

Um yeah, so I'm I'm like, oh, okay, maybe this isn't gonna be that bad. Maybe maybe I'm not gonna dislike it. Then Peter Jackson shows up, you know, and I want to punch him in the face. We get the scene of Gandalf and meeting up with Thorne in the Prancing Pony and Brie, which is which is, I believe, canon. It's not something that we we see, but I did I believe it is canon in the story. Um it was okay. I mean, I don't know. I don't know if we needed that scene. What was what did we gain by that scene? I feel like there was nothing gained first seeing that scene.

Jen 13:03

Right. This is how this is how they decide they need a burglar. Like we don't really need that.

Tom 13:08

I think it's giving they're desperately trying to tie the events that happen in the Hobbit right into the Lord of the Ring story. So they want to say, like, they're doing that. I mean the whole movie does this, but like I think this is like this is the start of like in this film, really like, no, Sauron wants to team up with Smaug, so we need you to defeat Smog before Sauron comes back so that we have a chance against him.

Jen 13:34

So like that's that's that's why it's but they don't but that's for us because Gandalf doesn't know yet that that's no, he but that's why he wants to do it.

Tom 13:42

No, even Gandalf knows that he's coming, doesn't know that he's here, but so there's a I don't know.

Jen 13:46

He's a necromancer, which we don't know.

Joe 13:48

No, he says he says it later on, Sauron.

Jen 13:51

In the book, in the movie, not in the scene.

Joe 13:54

No, no, yeah, no, yeah.

Jen 13:56

Right.

unknown 13:56

Okay.

Joe 13:57

Yeah, which is uh I have a note about that because that's that's a continuity error. Because in the Fellowship of the Ring, Gandalf doesn't know that's Sauron because he goes and he finds out that it's so that it was Sauron all along. Right.

Tom 14:09

Although to be fair, in the movies, right, that that's not in the movies, right? In the movies, but doesn't he get the ring? In the movies, Furto gets the ring and then Gandalf comes back like 15 years later or something like that.

Joe 14:23

Yeah, and then isn't that when he says he confirms that it was Sauron? Right. But in the movies in the movies, he it's like go tomorrow.

Tom 14:31

Like it's immediate.

Joe 14:32

No, no, no, but Gandalf disappears and he comes back, doesn't he? Well, he's gone for a while. He's says that it's Sauron.

Jen 14:39

Like they're Well, no, he knows it's Sauron's ring. He's just trying to figure out if this is the ring, the one ring. But he might already know. He's gonna know that Sauron is out there because they're gonna do this hunt for Gollum movie in the middle where Sauron is capturing Gollum. I mean, maybe not him personally.

Joe 14:54

Yeah. Um I just didn't I couldn't help but think, though, in this scene, um, that why would anyone want to kill Thorin because he's so sexy?

Jen 15:04

They're jealous.

Joe 15:06

But yeah, I felt like I didn't. Why? Because he's a jerk. We didn't gain anything. We didn't learn anything from the scene that we already didn't know.

Tom 15:14

Definitively canonically, not the sexiest dwarf in this film.

Jen 15:18

I know.

Joe 15:19

No, he definitely is not. There's more sexy or something.

Jen 15:22

Sacrifice all his friends, separate the party so that we could see what's going on in Lake Town.

Tom 15:29

Yeah.

Jen 15:30

Because we couldn't do it without them being there.

Tom 15:31

Well, and I know why they needed to be there, but I'm just saying a dwarf has hand sex with an elf in this movie.

Jen 15:37

Hand sex? Yeah. Well, maybe I wasn't looking at the screen, but I missed that part. I miss that.

Tom 15:43

I think I think you're going a little bit too far with me. But like there's a when they touch hands?

Joe 15:48

Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's all I meant.

Tom 15:50

Like, I was going to use something that I felt like was even more a euphemism for what you thought I was saying, but I took it back. Yeah.

Joe 16:00

Every time I hear reference of like the seven dwarf families or the seven dwarf arm, I just think of the five families from The Godfather.

Jen 16:08

I think I'm thinking of the seven dwarves. No, I'm thinking is that where they come from? Seven dwarf families?

Joe 16:14

Probably. I'm just picturing a bunch of dwarves sitting around a table at like an Italian restaurant. Um, like the scene in The Godfather.

Jen 16:23

No, I was just gonna say, wait, did which one came out first?

Tom 16:27

The Hobbit was released to the same year, I think, as well.

Jen 16:33

Snow White came out in the 30s, actually, I think.

Tom 16:35

Yeah, the Hobbit did too.

Joe 16:36

Okay, so maybe Snow White taken from like the seven dwarfs. Yeah, the seven dwarfs are in that story? Yeah. Alright.

Tom 16:46

Yeah.

Joe 16:47

Fine. Well, well, you know, Tolkien, you know, upped Disney, they have 13 dwarves. That's right. So uh yeah, so I'm sorry. We get uh Jen's favorite character, Azog, um, gets summoned to So he gets summoned to his master, and the master doesn't t say anything to him. He says, he just says a war's coming. That's it. No uh and then that's all he's like, you've been summoned. The master wants to talk to you. The master's like, oh, war's coming. And then okay, bye. That's all that happens.

Tom 17:24

Well, wait, I think what happens after this, I think you I don't realize it's a later, and I have to I didn't I didn't uh take notes at the time of this, but like he doesn't leave, right? He that's when he like he's kind of stuck there leading those troops now.

Jen 17:37

Yes. And then we have the other bad looking. That's right.

Tom 17:40

So like it's it's not he didn't say that, but it's like a battle's coming, you need to be in charge of this army. So that's when he sends out the he's the the even more disfigured guy.

Joe 17:48

Bolg who's uh Bolg? Volg? No, Bolg, B-O-L-G. He's in the book. Bolg is the goblin, like the goblin king leading the goblins for the in the Battle of the Five Armies. They come down from like the northern mountains or something.

Jen 18:02

I didn't get up to that part yet.

Joe 18:04

Oh.

Jen 18:05

I'm reading it in pieces.

Joe 18:06

God sorry, I'm I spoiled it for you.

Jen 18:10

Um all of my notes say, Who is this guy? No.

Joe 18:14

Okay, but like none of that's communicated. No, it's it's it's just He literally says two lines and then leaves. Right.

Jen 18:21

He's not at his full strength yet.

Joe 18:23

I guess they couldn't fit it in. They probably had to edit that down, that scene. So they could fit it, so they can put in more uh dwarf barrel hopping.

Tom 18:33

I was okay with it until a certain point where it just looks so CGI and fake. Well, the whole part looks CGI and fake. It's when Bomber, I think, is rolling around and then it's over people. Then it turns into a barrel skirt, and then he jumps back in and still able to float.

Joe 18:49

No, he jumps into another barrel. That's not the same barrel. He jumps into the water.

Tom 18:53

Jumps in no other barrels.

Joe 18:55

That's what that was a problem that I have. I haven't known about that. That whole scene of him rolling looks is it looks like a video game.

Tom 19:01

Yeah. Yeah.

Joe 19:02

And then, yes, he pops out of it, he runs whatever, he's he does a spinning Tasmanian devil move, and then he jumps, he he busts out of the barrel that he's in, and then he jumps into the water into another 14th barrel from out of nowhere.

Jen 19:23

There was Bilbo hanging onto the Bible in that barrel. Wait, I like that part in a kid's movie. If this was a kid's movie, that part's awesome. But because it's not a kid's movie, it's stupid. But it like it would have worked for me if this wasn't supposed to be like a serious movie.

unknown 19:42

Yeah.

Jen 19:42

I don't know.

Joe 19:44

Um, we keep jumping ahead. We started to talk about Bjorn, but yes, I feel like we missed. I didn't like the whole setup going to Bjorn's. I don't, I don't, I didn't particularly care for it.

Jen 19:54

No, I don't either. I don't either. So he was like mean when he was a bear, but not when he was following them as a bear?

Joe 20:00

Well, he is in the book he is too. Remember, like when he goes out at night, they say like he says, either he says, or Gandalf says don't open the door.

Jen 20:08

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because I think he's a little He follows them as a bear and protects them when they leave.

Joe 20:16

He does.

Jen 20:17

I thought I thought that when he said don't open the door, it was because there were other bears outside. Because they were having a meeting of bears. Oh. And that was the reason that he didn't want them to come out, because the other bears might get it.

Joe 20:28

But he's the only one in the in the movie. There's only one.

Jen 20:31

Right.

Joe 20:32

I mean, they did put like very little bits of stuff from the book, like Bilbo being awake at night and seeing him. Like that happens in the books, and then he wakes up late and the dwarves are eating breakfast with the bees.

Tom 20:43

I remember the bees.

Jen 20:44

Oh, the bees are huge. Why are they so big?

Joe 20:47

They're little. Well, hobbits are little, so. Yeah.

Jen 20:50

Um I don't know about that later. I thought they were really big bees.

Joe 20:53

I think the bees were also big.

Jen 20:55

Do we see the bees in relation to them? Yeah. I thought we just saw the bees flying by themselves, and I thought they were very big.

Joe 21:03

In the movie? Maybe they're big in the big bees. He wakes up to the bees on him. He works up to the bees on him.

Tom 21:08

The bee wakes him up. Yeah, yeah.

Jen 21:10

Uh, maybe okay. Then I'm just misremembering.

Joe 21:12

I literally just watched this before.

Jen 21:13

So I guess that makes sense then, because they're little, so they made the bees big. Okay. Got it. So I'm not as afraid of the bees anymore.

Joe 21:20

Yeah, I didn't I didn't care for this. I I feel like there was no connection made with Bjorn and No, none. I feel like they just put it in there because they felt like they had to.

Jen 21:31

Yeah. Well, they had to get I I don't know. Actually, I don't know. They could have just walked to Merkwood.

Tom 21:36

Well, I think part of the part of the problem is the Eagles could have just dropped them off at Merkle.

Joe 21:40

Yeah, part of the problem is The Eagles can't do anything they're supposed to do. It makes sense if it's all one stor like all one story. Because this is two separate movies. I think it's very weird to start here. Because I feel like in the book, Bjorn kind of connects them getting out of trouble to them then continuing into Merkley. Like there's like a bit of respite there. Yeah.

Jen 22:03

But since they're there for a couple days. Like, they're there for yeah, they're there for a while.

Joe 22:07

And in the movie, you don't it's the beginning of a new movie, so it doesn't make sense. You don't need a break, yeah, yeah. I don't know. It just didn't yeah, it didn't make sense. That's a problem. That's what happens when you try to take one story and break it into multiple movies without any clear like The Lord of the Rings, you could do that, right? Because each book is broken into two books.

Jen 22:29

Yeah.

Joe 22:30

So you can c there's a clear, like kind of this is the end. Like even with two. Well, even that, but there's time jumps. So you can just boom, next movie there's the time jump. Go ahead, Tom. Sorry.

Tom 22:43

The two towers didn't end where the books end, but it it it gave it gave an ending. Uh that was an effective ending. This is this was like they had to pick a spot. And again, when we talked about this last week, uh when they were making these films, they intended them to be two films, and then as they were making them, they're like, no, it's gonna be three. So like this isn't the best part to to do that. Like getting away uh from the orcs and the barrels and getting to Lake Town, you know, that like that might be an effective way to do it, right? Like an effective break place to actually have a break, and then you have Lake Town, you have the area around the Lonely Mountain to be your your second film.

Joe 23:23

But yeah. Definitely makes sense. Um so yeah, I felt like Bjorn was just almost a waste of time. They need they should have spent a little more time there, and I don't know. Well, this movie couldn't be longer, so it's well no, they would have to cut, you know, some of the other stuff like that.

Tom 23:40

Hey, there's an extended edition that's a love triangle an extra half an hour.

Jen 23:44

Oh my god. Well, isn't that the one with the like naked taking a bath that somebody posted a photo of the first one?

Joe 23:50

Extended edition. Uh maybe more dwarfs. Maybe it's more bjorn. Maybe it's some bjorn nudity.

Tom 23:57

There you go.

Joe 23:58

So we basically so we get into Merkwood. Um, they cut the whole here's something, right? They cut something. They cut the whole river, right? Like Gandalf does it with don't drink from the river. They cut that whole portion of like the river being just it's just it's not scary enough in Merkwood.

Jen 24:15

It's basically like pitch black and I don't know. Also, I I love what does Gandalf say in the movie, like he'll meet them later or something, or don't you know, don't go anywhere without me. Or I feel like in the book he's just like, I never said I was gonna go the whole way with you guys. Yeah. Goodbye. I have my own shit to do. Yeah. It's way more like, I don't know. I guess they just aren't gonna get rid of Ian McKellen. They have to have him doing something else.

Joe 24:42

But yeah, Gandalf can't be there to save.

Jen 24:44

Yeah, I forgot about that whole thing where Bomber falls into the water and he's like they're carrying him.

Joe 24:49

Yeah. I I So as soon as like when they go into the forest and Gandalf doesn't mention don't drink the water or don't even touch the water, whatever, I was like, okay, that's getting cut clearly. I don't I don't know why, because it's not like they don't have enough time. Um, but instead they they go for like Merkwood is very, I don't know, hallucinogenic. It's like a badass trip.

Tom 25:10

That's exactly what it was like. I I as soon as um they got to Merkwood and they started doing like Sam Raimi-esque like crazy angles and like shorter perspectives and stuff like that. I'm like, oh okay, I guess this is how we're gonna be doing this.

Joe 25:25

Bilbo sees himself and it's one of the other dwarves and all that weird stuff, and they get lost and they cut out the whole the the way they're introduced to the elves. I did like the spiders, I think they did a good job of the spiders. Spiders was cool.

Jen 25:38

The spiders were cool. I didn't like that the elves had to come and like save them from the spiders, though. That doesn't happen in the book, right?

Tom 25:45

No, Bilbo gets them out of the spiders, but she does, and then the the elves just there's just more spiders, and then the elves come uh.

Jen 25:54

I can't remember how they actually get captured by the elves.

Tom 25:56

The elves just come out and capture them.

Jen 25:58

They just come out.

Joe 25:59

Well, they keep remember when they're traveling, they keep seeing and hearing the music and seeing lights, and they keep jumping in there and the elves. It is a weird, it's a weird thing in the books because it's just knocked unconscious, and they see light, and then they would go to investigate, and it would everything would go black and quiet. Like it's almost like the elves just vanished and it would happen a couple of times, and then at one point, I think at the end, yeah, like Thorne runs right into because Thorne gets captured separately, yeah, and then the rest of the dwarves get captured.

Jen 26:29

Bilbo never gets taken never gets wrapped up by the spiders because he goes in there and gets knocked unconscious and gets separated from them. And when he wakes up, they're all captured by the spiders.

Joe 26:39

And I didn't mind it so much.

Jen 26:41

No, I mean, whatever, it was fine.

Tom 26:42

I liked it. I I the the shot of him climbing above Merkwood and seeing that with all their wandering, they're actually I actually like that that whole bit. The top of Merkwood, like that's where nature is still okay. The butterflies are there and whatnot.

Joe 26:55

But there were uh there was one weird thing, right? And let me know if you if you uh got the same out of it that as I did. Was Bilbo only able to understand the spiders when he put the ring on?

Tom 27:08

Yeah.

Jen 27:09

Yes, I didn't get that.

Joe 27:10

Yes, that's that's what I got from it because the spiders are making noises, and then as soon as he puts the ring on, he hears them like talking. He could understand that.

Jen 27:20

But they just talk in the book, right?

Joe 27:22

Yeah, yeah, there's nothing to do with the ring.

Jen 27:24

Well, that's why I was just well, I was gonna say, why doesn't She Lob talk in Lord of the Rings? But does she talk in the book?

Joe 27:30

Yes.

Jen 27:31

I'm pretty sure so maybe they couldn't understand her because nobody puts on.

Tom 27:34

Pretty sure she talks. So I just in chat, Danny's saying how like after Bilbo takes the ring off, he can still understand the spiders. Um Oh, he does?

Joe 27:43

Okay. And he takes the ring off to stab the spider. What why does he take the ring off?

Jen 27:47

He wants the spider to see who's killing him.

Joe 27:48

Yeah, I was weird.

Tom 27:50

I mean, later on, for a couple of times he takes the ring off, it does make goddamn lick of sense.

Joe 27:54

Well, yeah, at the end, when when he goes yeah, the whole scene with smog when he takes the ring off. I was like, that really turned me off.

Tom 27:59

Yeah. That that that actually, well, we'll get into that later. But this for this, I think, um, yeah, I think he was actually just relying on the spider being stunned so it can get an attack on his head.

Joe 28:10

Well, it looked like he was didn't it look like he was trying to swing at the spider while he had the ring on and it wasn't like working.

Tom 28:16

He was he was like hitting his legs, he couldn't get a sh a clean shot. So I think he was going for the surprise and then he can get a shot at his head.

Joe 28:24

Yeah.

Tom 28:25

I do think that he puts the ring on and now he can understand spiders. I think I think that is the intent of this film, like that with in regards to the spiders' language, because the spiders are talking beforehand and he doesn't understand them. He puts the ring on and now he can't now he can. I do like that he you know he's killing the spiders to save his friends, but he just murders that other thing because it's threatening to take the ring from him. And I think that wasn't a spider?

Jen 28:53

I don't know what that was. I thought it was like a baby spider.

Joe 28:56

That's what I thought, Jen.

Tom 28:57

But it was like rectangular and crabby.

Joe 29:00

It looked, yeah, it looked more crabby to me as well. Definitely more crustacean than arachnid.

Tom 29:05

Yeah. I mean, I don't know what what what if if Lorval spiders look like that, and maybe it is a baby. But I in I like the fact that like, you know, I I whatever, they're obviously gonna make the the ring more dangerous in this movie than it is to Bilbo in the books.

Joe 29:20

Yeah, yeah. Well, I mean, when when Tolkien wrote this book, he didn't have that in mind. So it's understandable. So it's it makes sense to put that in this into the retroactively put that in the story.

Tom 29:35

I I do, and I I again I like that. I thought I thought the spider scene was one of the scenes that I thought, like, oh, okay, this is this is this is pretty good.

Joe 29:43

Yeah. Um I I agree with you, Jen. I wasn't necessarily on board for the elves coming to rescue them, but it I mean it all flowed nicely and it really didn't change too much of the book. There's like another part too, like, right? So they get captured by the elves.

Jen 29:58

Wait, you're skipping over a really important part. Oh, what what when when Legolas sees Gimli's baby picture? Oh yes.

Joe 30:06

I saw it. It's like, who is this ugly, whatever goblin, right? Goblin creature. It's like, it's my lad Gimli. Oh, so stupid. Yeah, it was stupid.

Jen 30:18

Uh like, come on. Come on. It's bad enough that Legolas is here.

Joe 30:24

Like, he it just annoys me, but yeah, they're they're just so he should have turned and winked at the camera when he said that.

Jen 30:29

Yeah, right. Should have been like, da-da-da-da-da-da. Um like a freeze frame.

Joe 30:37

That wasn't the important part though that we did skip.

Jen 30:39

You're right.

Joe 30:40

Uh the whole thing. Okay, so let's talk about the the elves. I didn't like most of this. One thing right away, Thorin tells Thranduil exactly what his plans are, which is not what happens in the book. He refuses to tell Thranduil what what his plans are because he doesn't want them trying to to you know hone in on his uh his treasure.

Tom 31:06

Yeah, well, I mean, I think it's important that that Thorne's not greedy yet.

Joe 31:10

Like at this point, like Thorin's Well, he is greedy because he tries to make a deal with them and saying we want to get our the elves are like, we want our our stuff, and Thorne's like, no, I'm not doing that. I'm not giving you anything.

Tom 31:21

Yeah, but but that's not greed. That's like fuck you, you already betrayed me. I don't trust you. He did, right? They made the whole thing. I don't trust you to keep your word. Um my notes for this whole segment is is basically like it's just a long missive about how my understanding is that Lee Pace has played likable characters somewhere in his filmology, you know, in his filmography. I've never seen any of those things. He's one of the most not him personally, every character I've ever seen him play is like one of the most unlikable people I've ever seen in any movie ever.

Jen 31:52

Pushing daisies. Yeah, I've never seen that show. That's the first time I ever saw him in anything.

Tom 31:57

Literally, when the movie was over, there was a 15-minute conversation with me and my wife about how pushing daisies exists, and I can't imagine how it works because Lee Pace is so unlikable.

Jen 32:08

Oh no, it's so good. It's a great show.

Tom 32:11

I just like I was every scene that Thranduel's in, I was like, I hope someone kills him right now. I hope someone kills him right now.

Joe 32:17

Well, I have a question for you. How old is Lee Pace in real life? And how old is Orlando Bloom in real life?

Tom 32:22

He's younger than Orlando Bloom. Two years younger than Orlando Bloom, yeah.

Joe 32:27

Is Lee Pace younger than Orlando Bloom?

Tom 32:30

I I like Orlando Bloom a lot, but he's so much older in this movie than he was when they did The Hobbit.

Jen 32:36

Also, his eyes are like more blue.

Tom 32:39

Yeah, I think that's ghost.

Jen 32:41

I know, I know they are, but they are. You're right.

Tom 32:43

They definitely look more disorientated.

Jen 32:45

Yeah, like they're distracting.

Tom 32:47

I think his eyebrows are blonder. I think that's part of the problem.

Jen 32:50

Well, they're trying to probably just like make him look younger.

Joe 32:53

I will say this though. Lee Pace, I think, does a good job of representing Thranduil because he is an unlikeable. I I think he captures my headcanon of how Thrandrill act how Thranduil acted in the book. So I was okay with him. My only thought was, yeah, my one note was he's is he is he younger than uh yeah, that was a little weird because I I forgot a couple of at a couple of points that he was his son. Um only when like it came up that like that's my dad and he's the prince. Otherwise, I was just thinking, like, oh, they're just both like he's the king and he's like a whatever, a servant or subject.

Tom 33:31

It comes up when he's all of a sudden also classist and like you you can't marry my my my son, so yeah, make sure he knows that.

Joe 33:39

And this is like, yeah, so this is another area where they cut, but they cut because so they could add all of this other stuff in there, right? And the one thing I think that I'm most upset that they cut was how Bilbo gets them out. They changed it, like they don't have the scene with they kind of cut it down to oh, there's two guys and now and all of a sudden they're drunk and let's go.

Jen 34:01

Yeah. Well, he's there for like two weeks in the book, like figuring out what he's gonna do.

Joe 34:05

For much longer.

Jen 34:06

Yeah.

Joe 34:07

Um, yeah, you don't get to see how Bilbo figures out like his plan, and then you don't get that nice little kind of that's a little fun scene with the the two guys drinking and whatever, and Bilbo waiting, and then when they pass out sneaking the keys. Um, and then they don't cover the barrels, which is clear why they don't do it, because they have this whole fight. Um but yeah, let's talk about uh let's talk about this uh real big change. This is probably the biggest change in this in this movie.

Jen 34:39

Not the barrels.

Joe 34:40

No, no, not the barrels before it. Yeah, Toriel the time spent in there. Um to be honest, I liked the character.

Tom 34:50

Yeah, she's fine. She's okay. Um apparently when they were when they had when they were starting to film, it was just a love story between Toriel and and whichever uh dwarf. And then the producers of the film are like, put Legolas in there.

Jen 35:08

Uh huh.

Tom 35:08

Give Legolas more to do.

Jen 35:10

Was Legolas in the movie at all?

Tom 35:12

Yeah, but like I think he was in there as just like as a cameo kind of a thing. And they're just like making a love triangle. And apparently all three of those actors were like super upset about that.

Jen 35:24

Because I'm not seeing anything from Legolas's side that indicates that he is in anywhere in love with her.

Tom 35:31

Oh, he looks at her.

Jen 35:33

They're friends. He follows her to make sure she's okay, but I don't see any kind of romance. No, I don't either.

Tom 35:40

There's no romance whatsoever. I think the intention is that Legolas is such a douchebag himself. Yeah. But the only reason he would care that someone was okay is if he wanted to sleep with them. That's honestly what I think. That's that's now they're showing love in this.

Jen 35:56

Yeah, I don't know. Like, she is supposed to like him as well because the father's been picking up on like I don't think she does like him.

Tom 36:04

I think she thinks he's a friend, he likes her, and the father's like, you're a lowly peasant, you've gotta stop making him like you.

Jen 36:12

All right, I'll fall in love with a dwarf then.

Tom 36:14

Right. And she's like, I like the guy with just the stubble.

Joe 36:17

Yeah, we had we spent about three minutes together, and now we're in love.

Jen 36:21

So uh she just likes him, they're in love. She follows, she does follow him. Like to make sure he's okay out of the kingdom to crush.

Tom 36:33

Okay. She's worried about squad of orcs.

Jen 36:36

Well, she likes fighting squads of orcs.

Joe 36:38

That's what she does. I think it was a win-win situation for these orcs made Legolas bleed like severely.

Jen 36:45

He's never, I've never seen him bleed like that.

Joe 36:48

I've had a I have a note here when when he sees the blood, it's like he's never seen his No! I made a note Nobody makes me bleed my own blood.

Jen 36:59

Wait, but like nothing in Lord of the Rings and the Orkai fighting made him bleed. Nothing. He had a tiny bruise on his forehead, that's it. That's as much injury as he ever had, and he's bleeding from these stupid orcs.

Joe 37:12

Yeah. Uh he just looks like he's like, Yeah, what is this?

Jen 37:17

What is what happened? What is this? When Jerry Time Fall's like, what is this salty discharge?

Joe 37:24

He's confounded as to what's going on.

Jen 37:26

What's coming out of me?

Joe 37:28

Uh yeah, I didn't I liked Evangeline Lily's character. Again, like when I'm watching these scenes, though, I'm not I'm forgetting that I'm watching the Hobbit movie. Like this, I'm just like disassociating with this and just enjoying like the scene and the acting and whatnot. Uh, because I'm like, this isn't the Hobbit. No, it's not.

Jen 37:50

Sometimes I'm like, where's Bilbo? Like we haven't seen Bilbo in a real like 15 minutes now. Where's Bilbo?

Tom 37:57

Right. Well, yeah.

Joe 37:59

This whole story is supposed to be from his perspective, and it's clearly not because right, that's another thing, right? And we talked about this last week, how this is just very different from the the the feel and the um the theme of the of the books. But yeah, that's you don't get really anything that's not from Bilbo's perspective in the book. And this is like you said, Jen, it's like sometimes you're like it's 20 minutes, and you're like, Where's Bilbo?

Jen 38:24

I don't know.

Tom 38:26

There's a few things that I we said it I said it earlier, like Bilbo's already far too capable at the beginning of this film.

Joe 38:33

Yeah, right? In the book, he's by this point, he's getting more I'd say after that.

Tom 38:38

He's getting more he's getting more capable, but he's still like like Bilbo's in his 50s. He's like a poorly rich hobbit of the town, like has never been outside of Hobbiton, like he's starting to get his sea legs here. He's not in a half an hour planning an escape from an unbreakable Elven dungeon. You know? In the book, it takes him two weeks to figure out a plan to get them out of here, right? And at this point, he's like, Oh, okay, here's the keys, this is this, we're gonna here's a trapdoor, we're gonna do like he's got the whole thing planned out. He's like, when I climbed the trees, I scouted the river and realized that if we can get out through here, we're gonna go, we're gonna get like he knows the map of the world. Like he's got the whole thing, and so there's a few things like that where I feel like one, he's too capable, and then there's other things where this really bothered me, but I'm just gonna say it now. Before he goes to Smog's treasure chamber, he's he's talking to whichever the old one is, yeah, Ballin, and then like he's walking away, and he's just really loud. Like his footsteps are really loud, he's kind of like scraping them on the floor, and I'm like, that's his one thing, that's his one natural thing, is that he's supposed to be like super quiet when he walks. Yeah, right? I didn't I didn't notice that it bothered me.

Joe 40:00

Oh wow, whatever. Yeah, that's it. That is his one thing. Like he's very just much quieter than the dwarves. The dwarves are always described as like lumbering about. Yeah, yeah. And it's not because he tries, it just I guess hobbits are supposedly just naturally lighter on their feet and quieter.

Tom 40:16

And um I think it says in the appendices, it comes from like when they lived in the woods and they were like they had to hunt small game and whatnot. Sorry, jump to the end.

Joe 40:24

So the barrel, the barrels, right? We talked a little bit about them. Let's get a little bit more into that though, because of course there's got to be orcs chasing them, and orcs somehow got into murkwood through into the elven kingdom. The orcs just get in everywhere. They're like saying they get everywhere.

Tom 40:39

Um before that, they're like, there's one gate that's not well protected, and then it just happens to be the one gate that Bilbo's plan is to get them out of, I guess.

Joe 40:52

Well, that I mean it I guess in the book that is one gate that's not really as pretty well protected. That's why Bilbo gets them out that way.

Tom 40:59

Yeah.

Joe 40:59

Um but again with the they're never just traveling in this right. It's there's always some urgency because something's chasing them.

Tom 41:10

Yes. Which is even though you have like a you have a built-in, we have to get there by this time. Yes. You already have like a sense of urgency because there's a time limit and everything that happens to them is delaying them.

Joe 41:22

Yes.

Tom 41:23

You don't need to have to be chased, too. Like it's one or the other.

Joe 41:26

Yeah. Well, I mean, they're running this throughout the whole story, the the goblin, the orcs, whatever you want to fucking call them. You know, after them this from the very beginning of the story. From the begin, you know, the first movie from the very beginning, they're being chased. Um I I don't like that. I don't like that they have to be chased the whole time. It kind of starts getting okay, yeah, they're getting chased again. Yeah, that's the whole movie. The whole movie is them getting chased. We can can we just have them travel without being chased?

Tom 41:54

No, when they get to where they want to go, they're gonna get chased there too.

Joe 41:57

Yeah.

Tom 41:58

Chased around the mountain.

Joe 41:59

Yeah. Um so then we get this ridiculous barrel barrel ride scene that's just a little bit too this is one of those scenes where like just cut it down by like two, three minutes, please. Yeah, doesn't need to be this long. It starts getting like more and more absurd as the as the scene goes on and on, and the chase goes on and on, with Legolas starting to like stand on their heads while they're in the barrels, and he slides on everything.

Jen 42:24

Wait, gentle giant just posted something in chat of Bomber jumping back into the barrel and throwing an axe to one of the other dwarves.

Joe 42:33

Yeah, where did that barrel come from, though? I don't know.

Jen 42:37

I don't know.

Tom 42:38

Doesn't make any sense. Why is it bubble in there already? I don't know. That barrel.

Jen 42:44

Wait, he throws two axes. Does he? Wait a minute. Yeah, each of them.

Tom 42:47

To each of them.

Joe 42:48

Oh my god. Oh, that's right, because he had two axes and he was spinning around, remember, with the axes.

Jen 42:52

Oh my god.

Joe 42:53

Well then they just start throwing the axe back, right? There's that whole part where they just toss the axe, toss the axe, toss the axe. Because chop down a tree.

Tom 43:02

That's actually like that bit. That bit of it.

Jen 43:08

Just leave them there. Go past them and keep going. If you chop the tree down, then they're with you in the water. They're with you in the water, yeah. I don't understand how that was a good idea.

Joe 43:17

I I don't know either, because they were just gonna pass them anyway. Right. Well, I guess it prevented them from jumping on them or shooting them, maybe. I don't know.

Jen 43:24

They had a hack away at the tree, though. Took like I don't know.

Joe 43:29

Whatever.

Jen 43:30

Uh Bumber who who literally can't move in the book where they have to like leave him behind sometimes because he's too fat to climb up the mountain. When they get to the mountain leaping into a bat running, spinning, and leaping into a barrel. Okay.

Tom 43:44

There's also that that uh quote unquote funny bit of business when they're running to Bjorn's house in the beginning and he's just outpacing everybody.

Joe 43:52

Oh, yeah, yeah. That was that was fun. The poor guy had actually had a run in that, like I guess that big fat suit or whatever it was he was wearing. Um this the whole Lake Town is just it was terrible. Um why is Bard a a a smuggling bargeman instead of a captain a well respected captain of the guard?

Tom 44:13

Uh nope, nope, don't understand. I love Stephen Fry, but I don't understand why that like why he's like that. I don't I don't know where there's where there's uh a unibrow guy? There's there's duty tang worm tongue here.

Jen 44:27

I was gonna say that's like cream of worm tongue.

Tom 44:29

Yeah.

Joe 44:30

Um yeah, I don't except not Brad Dorough.

Tom 44:33

Yeah, exactly.

Joe 44:34

Yeah, they changed this whole thing. This whole thing is very different than how it plays out in this in the books. Black what what is with the black arrows like why is it a giant crossbow? I don't I I don't know. The term black arrow is said way too many times in this movie. I don't know, everybody knows what a black arrow is. There's black arrows. I I get it in the book, like it's weird because he it's just like his last arrow, and he's like, it's it's his black arrow.

Tom 45:02

It's his lucky arrow. It's just his lucky arrow. That's all it is.

Joe 45:06

And he talks to him.

Jen 45:08

So only a black arrow can take him down in the movie? That's what they're saying.

Tom 45:13

Because it's a giant spear launched from a prank cannon, like that's the only thing that might break his heart. Not because Bard's an awesome warrior and a great archer and has a lucky arrow that he's gonna hit a target with.

Jen 45:27

It's from his family. His family is the reason that the dra it's it's his fault because his family didn't kill the dragon. They only wounded him. It's it's their fault for not killing the dragon.

Joe 45:38

It's the one guy, it's his great-grandfather or whatever's fault because he didn't kill the dragon. That's why it's his fault. Because everyone else did a lot.

Jen 45:46

And he didn't kill everyone else got burned alive. This guy didn't kill him.

Joe 45:50

He only was crucified for not killing the dragon, not being able to kill a fucking dragon by himself. Um yeah, this whole thing, there's like we get like right off the bat. Um like, why is he why is he not a captain of the guard? Why why are we getting into like customs and smuggling operations in Lake Town and political business? And I'm like, what is going on here? This is ridiculous and absurd.

Tom 46:16

Yep.

Jen 46:17

Sorry, I'm I'm laughing at chat.

Joe 46:19

What's going on in chat? Just look at the barrel's flying.

Jen 46:23

No, no, the last books.

Tom 46:27

Oh my. That's funny. It stinks. It does.

Joe 46:38

It stinks. Everything in Lake Town stinks pretty much. Um some of the dwarfs stay behind.

Jen 46:45

Well, Keely's dying of a Morgul blade wound. Right. Um bom no, Bofor, who is reminding me of Lionel Baratheon. The one with the hat that's drunk and almost misses the bill. Yeah, yeah. It's Bofer.

Tom 47:00

He he also reminds me of Peter Stormare and Armageddon.

Jen 47:03

Oh, yeah. This is something we fixed. So Bofor, Keely, and Feely, and Owen, I believe, stays.

Tom 47:13

Yeah.

Joe 47:14

Because he's like a I didn't even know that guy stayed until like at some point I was like, wait, why is this guy here and who is he?

Jen 47:20

He said I have to have a lot of people.

Tom 47:21

He's the first one to stay, and then his brother's like, I'm gonna stay too.

Jen 47:24

But they don't know I missed it. But he does doesn't really help him because he needs Elvish medicine. I remembered that from the first movie. And then and then because he's under the effect of the Morgal blade, any girl that's attractive in his in his eye line will start to glow white. And he thinks that's what happens when you're under the effect of the Morgal Blade.

Joe 47:43

Yes. It's like beer goggles.

Jen 47:46

Yeah.

Joe 47:46

But like amplified by a thousand.

Tom 47:49

Yeah. I did swing Dreamweaver at that port.

Joe 47:53

Oh, and we also get like a precursor to because apparently everybody knows that Smog's got uh a weak spot on his on his breast because there's a whole story about how uh Girian knocked the knocked the scale off of Smog.

Jen 48:10

Didn't finish the job.

Joe 48:12

They already I don't know. It feels like it's lessbo notices it that it's yeah, but that's because he's heard it. He's heard it already now. It's not like you're like, oh wow, Bilbo, good job. Right.

Jen 48:29

Isn't in the book Bilbo's like hiding in the tunnel invisible this entire conversation? The entire conversation ever becomes visible. I guess that's not I understand that's not cinematic. I know.

Tom 48:39

You have to be It could be cinematic if you wanted to make a movie that had tension instead of spectacle.

unknown 48:47

Yeah.

Jen 48:47

And he's like obviously chasing after the Arkansas.

Tom 48:51

Yeah. Like a Like this.

Jen 48:55

Yeah, like Bugs Bunny. Like except Bugs Bunny's probably be smarter about it, but so they mentioned the Arkansas at the beginning of the first book, and I didn't know what it was yet because I only read the beginning of the I'm sorry, the beginning of the first movie. They mention it. I didn't know what it was at that point. And even in this book, he's like, oh cool, there's the Arkinstone that I need to be the king, and he just like puts it in his pocket, and that's it. It's kind of like it'd be good to have that, but it's not like such a big deal.

Joe 49:24

No, it it's it's it's it's not mentioned until like more halfway through the book. Yeah, when they all go in, right?

Jen 49:30

He just like, oh, cool, there's the Archonstone.

Joe 49:32

It's like an heirloom.

Jen 49:34

Yeah, it's like a thing that the kings have, I guess.

Joe 49:36

Like a king's well, they found this beautiful whatever diamond and they turned it into some, you know, like an heirloom or artifact of some sort. It doesn't really have any, it's not like it has any magical powers.

Jen 49:49

Like when he comes out and Thorne's like, Oh, did you get the Arcanistone? Like, fuck off. I just survived a dragon, and you're mad that I didn't put this one jam in my pocket.

Tom 49:59

Like, it actually now Thorne's starting, the greed is starting to come. He's got gold fever.

Joe 50:04

He's got gold fever, yes. Um that reminds me of the DuckTales episode.

Tom 50:09

That's exactly what I was referring. Exactly what I was referencing.

Joe 50:13

It's where a guy's actually like getting sick, it seems like he's actually got like a physical addiction.

Tom 50:20

Yeah.

Joe 50:20

I mean, this apropos, because I mean, this looks like Scrooge's money bins. This this uh Yeah, right.

Jen 50:26

Yeah, basically the entire floor is gold.

Joe 50:29

Yeah, I know we didn't, I know there's a note I already see somebody posting in chat we haven't even talked about like Gandalf and the necromancer part. I mean, we did for a second.

Jen 50:37

Yeah, he's like captured now.

Joe 50:38

I'm confused though.

Jen 50:39

He's in a birdcage.

Joe 50:41

Maybe because I wasn't paying attention close enough. When hit when Gandalf first goes and meets up with Radagast and they go to that place, I thought that was Dol Guldor. It is. No, but then they but then they they're riding to another place.

Tom 50:55

That's a grave of the uh the Nazgul.

Jen 50:58

Of the Witch King?

Tom 50:59

Of all the Nazgul.

Jen 51:01

Oh that's where they go. Okay, they're there, but they're not there. Doesn't Radagast go with him to Dol Goldor and then he's like, Don't come in. It's just don't come in the hotel cell ladreal. Yeah.

Tom 51:11

And I I assume it's I assume the third movie is gonna start with Radagas going, I didn't listen. It might come out or my bunny slid or whatever.

Joe 51:20

Yeah, I figure that too. Well, well, they're supposed to right, Gandalf supposedly goes off with right, has a wizard council, and then they go, the wizards together, I think, go and defeat the necromancers. So I mean maybe we'll get right. So, you know, I haven't seen the last movie, but my thought is that I think Radagast is going to get oh, but he sent them, he sent them to get Galadriel to tell Galadriel. So is she gonna show up? Well, my thought was that he was gonna go get Saruman, and then Saruman and Radagast were gonna come and rescue uh Gamble.

Jen 51:53

Maybe Saruman and Galadriel and and Elrond are still hanging out when he goes back. So he'll all be together.

Tom 51:59

Galadriel has a line at the beginning of this movie. I can't tell where she is when she says it.

Joe 52:03

I thought we would get resolution to that storyline, but I guess no, because why would you? There's still a whole nother movie to watch, and we've already been through two-thirds of the book. To be fair, they're covering about six to seven chapters of a movie, which is a third of the story.

Jen 52:20

With a whole bunch of other shit in there too. I've read it through 13, and that's pretty much where it this ended.

unknown 52:28

Yeah.

Jen 52:28

Like Smaug just went to Lake Town.

Joe 52:30

I mean, ask me if I was disappointed that that the movie ended with Smaug still alive.

Jen 52:35

Well, he's not in the end of the book. All right, don't tell me, don't tell me, don't tell me. I didn't finish reading it.

Joe 52:41

You've read this book before, though.

Jen 52:42

I know, but a long time ago. I know he doesn't survive the whole book. I just don't remember when he dies, but it's fine. I'll don't tell me.

Joe 52:48

Okay. Um I didn't know we had to be spoiler-free in this.

Jen 52:52

You don't really know. I don't know why I'm reading it like this. I just didn't think I could finish the whole thing.

Joe 52:57

The book only came out almost a hundred years ago.

Tom 53:00

True. I I had seen the end of the movie, not the whole thing, but probably from around when Gandalf gets to Gandalf and Radigas get to Barador. Or uh Doludo. Yeah, and um so I knew that that's where whatever. I'm treating this story with the same respect that they did. Um yeah, but but so I knew that this is where it ended. And I wasn't there's another part in this that I do really like, and I've actually referenced that the scene on the podcast that we've done in the past because I thought it was so effective. When Bilbo is first in the treasure chamber, and then the eye opens up, and Bilbo realizes he's a little bit screwed, and then like it pans out, and it keeps it just keeps panning out, and just keeps panning out, and you see that smog is the size of like a city block.

Joe 53:52

Yeah, yeah.

Tom 53:53

I'm like, that's good.

Joe 53:55

Yeah, I thought smog was really cool.

Tom 53:57

Yeah, yeah. I think Benedict Cumberbatch. A lot of his dialogue was right from the book. Yeah. Yes. Every once in a while he would go into a little he would go into a little like smog monologue from the books. Uh he prefers monosmog.

Joe 54:16

A monosmog. A monosmog.

Jen 54:23

I know. Smog. Smoug.

Joe 54:25

Smog smog.

Jen 54:28

Megan smog.

Joe 54:32

It's from Garden City. Yeah, I don't know. I don't know what to say anymore. The the whole even before they get it, right? The whole finding of the door and all the dwarfs. I feel like every scene is everything in this movie is so tropish and so like you could predict without even reading the books, I could predict half of how each scene was gonna turn out, just because it was so obvious. Like the the filmmaking and setup for a lot of these things that happen are just like, oh, I I knew that Toriel was gonna show up. Why is that her name? I don't even know. Eventually Lily's character was gonna show up at that time to rescue them. Like the the whole thing with the door and the the last light of day. Like you know when Frodo, uh Bill, I keep calling Jesus Frodo, when Bilbo's calling them, like, where are they? And you don't see them. I was like, you know, they're just gonna show up. Like they're gonna be right next to him in the next second when they cut over. Like it's it's so like I don't know, it's so tropish, it's so telegraphed, all of these things that happen in there, and I think that's what makes it even worse. It's because it's not even done in a good way.

Tom 55:53

Yeah, I I feel like I went to the book. Walker's got a good point.

Joe 55:57

He's saying the books the book created a lot of these tropes.

Tom 56:00

That's that's true.

Joe 56:02

Yeah, some of them. I get I'll give you that.

Tom 56:04

I went off when we were doing the first one about how this movie is wasting time making any dwarves other than Thorin characters.

Joe 56:11

Yes.

Tom 56:12

Like you shouldn't know who any of them are, right? Like you should know that you know there's Billy and Killy, and it's those two.

Joe 56:18

Billy, Philly, uh Philly and Killy.

Tom 56:22

But like, um sorry. But like when you do that, when you take characters who aren't characters and you're trying to make them characters, they're gonna be stock characters, you know? They're gonna be okay, here's the wise, learned one, and here's the one who always falls down, and here's the one who does the great thing.

Jen 56:42

Here's the fat one, here's the young one. Right.

Joe 56:44

Here's sleepy, here's dopey, here's sneezy. Right.

Tom 56:48

Here's so-and-so, and the other one who's sexy. Right. Um there's an amateurness to like the filmmaking here that you're trying to I think that you're picking up on, Joe. Like, there's not a consistency of of character because there aren't consistent characters that these are things you're drawing from. Like, even with Bilbo, who for most of the movie is incredibly competent, overcompetent, I feel for like where he should be in his arc, he figures out the door when no one else does. Great, that's fine, whatever. Then he like can't find the key and almost kicks it off. And and like, why would he do that? He's supposed to be like, again, he's his one thing is that he's supposed to be like sure on his feet.

Joe 57:29

Well, they had to make it dramatic, like that's what I'm saying. Like, they exactly they're they're adding drama with it, it doesn't need to be drama, right? It's like they're shoving drama, get more drama in there, just take the drama and just shove it in there. That's that's what they're doing. It's just like they're stuffing it in there.

Tom 57:46

So I will say this. So they do that thing, which I really didn't like, and then Thorin shows up, you know, aberrates in and steps on the chain. Yes. He then does something that I really like, just like instead of what you would normally do if something was on the ground in front of you, like bend over and pick it up. He like crouches down so that he does not take his foot off the chain at all, and then picks up the thing and then moves. And I'm like, that is somebody who like 100% like that's the most important thing in the world to him. Like, he's like, I'm not moving my foot onto the room. It was so important to him.

Joe 58:21

Not a few seconds ago when he just threw it on the floor. Yeah, like they give the dwarves like give up, like they've been through all over. Five seconds, yeah, all of this thing, all of this, and it's like in five seconds, they're just like, Oh, I guess I guess our trip's over. I guess we're gonna go home. Like, what is that?

Tom 58:38

Well, Bilbo has to rally them at least two times in this movie.

Joe 58:41

And I'm like It does.

Tom 58:43

It's not you're but you're right, it's not it's not appropriate.

Joe 58:45

But it was yeah, it it was just improportional to the to the characters. Like we've seen them previously in this movie and in the previous movie, like kind of want to turn around and give up a little bit, and they rally themselves through. But and and that's going through like much more traumatic and stressful situations than that just like the light went down, there's no keyhole. Oh, I guess we're gonna go home. That's it. I'm going home.

Jen 59:14

I give up. I know they're not supposed to be able to go through the front because like that's where smog is, but like you came all this way. Why don't you look around and see if there's like another way to get in?

Joe 59:23

Yeah.

Jen 59:24

Why do you have to get in that way? It's like a secret way, but you're still ending up in the same way.

Joe 59:29

Well, I think a lot of the right, all of the other all of the other entrances except the main entrance are have been collapsed in by smog. There's there is no other way in that except the main entrance, and they don't want to go that way because smile smog can get through that way and they're all right.

Jen 59:45

Well, they should just go home then, I guess.

Joe 59:48

No, they should sit.

Tom 59:49

Let's I would be taking the wait, maybe maybe we're a day off. Like non-stop. Maybe I'll just find it. Maybe I can just find it.

Joe 59:58

It's not like they have watches and freaking satellite calendars and shit like that. Hey, maybe we were off a day. Let's stay one more night and see maybe today isn't Doran's Day. Maybe tomorrow's Doran Day. We we got we got our days mixed up.

Tom 1:00:11

I do appreciate a good bit of on the nose foreshadowing, where where they're in the Elven Kingdom and they're having the celebration of of starlight or whatever, and like Toriel's talking to uh stubbly dwarf about how about how the the the night the light at night of the stars and the moon are the most beautiful light to her. And then like an hour later you're like, oh wait, that's the actual last light of the night light. Oh, they give you a little bit of like maybe you can solve the mystery.

Joe 1:00:43

I feel like I feel like this is appropriate right now. I'm gonna be a night knight.

Tom 1:00:47

That's right. That's what I'm gonna say to myself after we are done recording.

Joe 1:00:54

Yeah, and so I mean, the smog stuff was okay. It was good, it was good at part times, and then I was like Bilbo taking off the ring is is the stupidest thing ever. It doesn't make any sense whatsoever.

Tom 1:01:05

Even if like, I don't know, smog eviled it off of him somehow, just put it back on.

Joe 1:01:11

Yeah, yeah. Not it didn't make any sense to me. I I get well, I I guess they wrote themselves or filmed themselves into into a corner because every time somebody wears the ring, we have to get this weird, like, ether uh astroplane world, upside down world. And I guess they were like, well, we can't do the whole scene like that because it it doesn't make any sense or it's stupid.

Tom 1:01:35

You can just do the scene from Smog's point of view, then again, right? This is this is the difference between having tension in the scene and having spectacle in the scene. Yeah, and they want smog to be jumping all over the place or whatever, but that cuts out the whole I'm the like he gave a few, like I'm under the hill, and I went over, but like I wanted like I'm the lucky number, like you know, I want to.

Joe 1:01:57

He's just saying I'm the lucky something, I can't remember what it is.

Tom 1:02:00

Yeah, but like I want smog to be able to like you think you're clever, I just deduced all of this stuff by your answers, and I know everything about you.

Joe 1:02:06

Yeah, we got a little bit, we I mean we got some of that.

Tom 1:02:10

We did get some of that, but it's just smell the dwarf on him and yeah, it's very awkward that he can see.

Joe 1:02:17

He just vulnerables just to eat him, smog.

Jen 1:02:20

He can't oh you mean without the ring on?

Joe 1:02:22

Yeah.

Jen 1:02:22

Oh, okay.

Joe 1:02:23

Yeah. And I know, Jen, you mentioned before, right, how they don't it's not like the book where he first steals something, goes out to the dwarves, and then they go back in. Then he goes back in, and then that's when um there's really the scene with him and right because I think in the first scene with Smug, he doesn't actually talk to Smug. Yeah, he just steals. Just goes and steals something and leaves.

Tom 1:02:43

Yeah. Just to prove that he got in there, yeah.

Joe 1:02:45

I get that they were like, okay, we well, we've got to cut this down because we've gotta put in a whole 30-minute dwarf uh fighting the dragon scene that's not in the books at all. Uh with minecarts and and forges and water and molten gold and all of that. Very important. Which was, I guess, as you said, Tom's spectacle. It was pleasing to the eye in the in the I like the go the molten gold dwarven king statue.

Tom 1:03:16

Well, that was that would have hurt if that would have hurt Smog or in any way done anything to prov like stop him, that would have been cool and symbolic. But instead it was just like, oh, he's pissed off.

Joe 1:03:28

Like, why is there a a giant golden statue encase wrapped up in stone?

Tom 1:03:34

What why there's a mold, there's a mold for that statue in the Hall of the King. That's what they fill.

Joe 1:03:39

They fill the mold and they break the mold away. Oh, and then that thing was the okay. So that was like guns. And they just never so that that was like they were working on that the day that smile came, yeah, and they didn't get to finish it. They never got to pull the mold, or maybe they had just done it like the day before and they had to let it cool for a few days.

Tom 1:03:59

No, no, no, no, no. When they're heating it up, they're heating up, they're heating up the ball.

Joe 1:04:04

They're making it right then and there?

Tom 1:04:05

Yeah, that's what they're doing. That's the whole thing. Yeah. It's molten gold. It's hot.

Jen 1:04:11

I know, but I yeah, I didn't realize they were.

Joe 1:04:13

I thought the statue was already made, and then the whole planet's gold.

Tom 1:04:18

The whole plan is to get him into the king hall because that's where the mold is.

Joe 1:04:22

He remembers that there's the mold there. It's like, wait, there's the mold. That's why because I'm like, why are they starting the for like what's this obsession that we have to get to the forges?

Tom 1:04:31

That's the plan.

Joe 1:04:32

And then they and then they throw the water with the water at him.

Tom 1:04:35

I thought that was cool. I thought that was the plan.

Joe 1:04:37

Oh, we're gonna Yeah, I thought so too, but why would they have to light the forges for the water? And uh so then I was like, I was very confused, and then okay, Tom, you just explained it to me because I didn't get what was going on, or like why why these things were happening necessarily.

Tom 1:04:51

That'd help.

Joe 1:04:53

Like, I th why couldn't we just have put like the Smoog leaving and attacking Lake Town instead of that scene? Does that not leave enough stuff for the last movie?

Tom 1:05:03

Well, or I mean, whatever, you could just have the end of this movie without all of that. He can just go off and kill Lake Town and cut this, and the movie's a reasonable length of time, and you can enter in the same spot.

Jen 1:05:14

That's kind of what I thought was gonna happen. But then I as the movie was ending, I was like, this is probably the end.

Joe 1:05:20

Well, it's funny when Smaug leaves, or right before Smaug leaves, I think it's like when he's gets covered in gold and then starts like, he says, like, oh, I'm gonna go, you know, I'm gonna go fuck up Lake Town because of you, which doesn't make any sense.

Tom 1:05:35

Why don't you fuck them up?

Joe 1:05:36

Yeah, why don't you kill them? They're right there. Yeah, I don't think it's yeah, I'm with you, Holger, in chat. I don't understand how they could fill that statue. It hardens enough for them that quickly to the to break the stone away and actually have a fully formed statue.

Tom 1:05:51

Yeah, I think just the outer layer was was hardened and the only thing I think of is that no, it doesn't even work. Yeah, it doesn't Make any sense, but it's doesn't that's just on par with the rest of the film, I guess. Yeah, you know, I actually was I like this movie more before we started this podcast than I do at this point.

Joe 1:06:12

I don't know why, Doc. I don't know why. Hey, fun fact did you know that uh Ian McKellen had a breakdown on set because he had to act alone against screen screens and he was weeping with frustration, supposedly said, This is not why I became an actor.

Tom 1:06:29

Yeah, they uh because I guess because of uh there was something there's something like they couldn't do as much of the forced perspective things that they did in the earlier films. So they did a lot of just like all the actors are gonna film over here and you're gonna film here. We'll just patch it in together.

Joe 1:06:44

I mean, Peter Jackson, you made Ian McKellen cry. Come on.

Tom 1:06:47

Martin Freeman apparently like really disliked filming this movie. Like it was very unpleasant for him. Martin Freeman, too. Like did not apparently did not have a good time.

Joe 1:06:57

Well, I there's somebody posted, I think, last week in our Discord, uh, just like a compilation of Martin Freeman giving the camera the finger.

Tom 1:07:05

Yes.

Joe 1:07:06

In these in these movies, right, yeah.

Tom 1:07:09

Like to the yeah, well, you know, that could be good natured.

Joe 1:07:12

Um congrats, Peter Jackson, for making Ian McKellen cry. Sir Ian McKellen.

Tom 1:07:19

That's right.

Joe 1:07:20

Treasured actor. Uh, we talked about Theranduil, or I should say Lee Pay's being older than Orlando Plume. We saw some interesting uh images of Benedict Cumberbatch doing Smaug. Uh go look those up online if you want to see her.

Tom 1:07:37

Uh he did the So he just uh what we're referring to is he does the motion capture for Smaug's front half as well as uh his head in his wings, um, as well as uh doing the voice. He also does the voice of the necromancer, aka it's also better than Cumberbatch. I I admit I think I made reference last week to the fact that like in this movie has an actor playing two parts, and that is this is what I was referring to.

Joe 1:08:06

Yeah, we talked about the uh some of the dwarves being the trolls, right?

Tom 1:08:10

Yep. And now yeah, Benedict Cumberbatch does both uh uh the voice of Sauron and the voice of uh Smaug.

Joe 1:08:17

Did you know that the dwarf hair, uh the dwarf beards were made from real yak hair? I didn't I was not aware of that. Yeah. The more you know.

Tom 1:08:26

Yeah, someone put something in chat about like the visuals of of of the necromancer. I I thought I did think that was really cool. I I liked um Gandalf's fight against the shadow, like the literal shadow. And I like the the uh Sauron is his pupil in his eye, and then like that keep that that like kind of repeating, falling into his eye vibe. I thought that was a nice little visual effect.

Joe 1:08:49

Yeah. It was okay. I don't know what else to say about this movie. Did we miss anything? Does anyone want to talk any anymore about this movie?

Jen 1:08:59

Not really. I think we got to everything I had.

Joe 1:09:02

You know, this movie made a ridiculous amount of money, not as much as the last movie, as the first one. Uh just only like 900 million in change instead of a billion.

Jen 1:09:12

So okay.

Joe 1:09:14

I guess go, Peter Jackson.

Tom 1:09:16

That's it. Bring it in. Bring in the cash.

Joe 1:09:18

Um, so we've got the next movie. I guess it's gonna open with Smog attacking Lake Town. That's gonna be the opening of the movie. Interesting way to open a movie. Or flashback. Another flashback. What are we gonna get a flashback of? Any thoughts?

Tom 1:09:35

Sauruman, uh, or maybe Sauron like a louder. I'm trying to think of some other character. Um what would happen like 10 years ago that's gonna impact this? No, I got nothing.

Joe 1:09:49

Question because I was a little perturbed at the uh the naming of this movie, The Desolation of Smaug. Um right when they when they go to the mountain, they see Dale and they call that the Desolation of Smaug, but that's isn't the desolation of Smaug his dead corpse?

Tom 1:10:08

I thought it was what he does to Laytown.

Jen 1:10:10

Yeah, I thought he was completing the desolation.

Tom 1:10:12

Yeah, he hands out the desolation.

Joe 1:10:15

He delivers the desolation. He delivers it. I have to go now look this up. Sorry. Sure.

Tom 1:10:21

This is the I mean desolation means it doesn't mean uh it's like you know, uh something that was once populated is no longer populated. Like the desolation is is is what Erebor has experienced in this movie.

Joe 1:10:36

Well, I guess that's what they that's what they say.

Tom 1:10:39

Yeah. In the film, I would say.

Joe 1:10:42

But do they I forget, do they reference the desolation of smog in the book?

Tom 1:10:47

I don't know. When I was a kid, I always assumed the desolation of smog was uh what he does to Lake Town.

Joe 1:10:53

Okay, which we didn't get to. So they called this the desolation of smog, but they didn't they didn't actually complete that. Uh they do reference it in the book. I can't remember uh which chapter it is, but I thought it was I thought it was in reference to his dead body on the lake, but I could be wrong. I might I think I am wrong, so I lost where we were.

Tom 1:11:16

We were going to wrap it up.

Joe 1:11:18

Yes, we're gonna wrap it up. Thank you. Did you know that that Tolkien sold the film rights for a mere 10,000 pounds in 1968?

Jen 1:11:26

I didn't know.

Joe 1:11:27

Total didn't need the money. Well, he needed it to pay a future tax bill, apparently. Oh, there you go. There you go. So he did need the money. Um all right. We want to go through our ratings of this movie.

Tom 1:11:41

Sure. I'll go first. I even though we spent a majority of this podcast um, you know, shitting pretty hard on it, um, I did like this better than the first one. There were a couple of things I I just liked. So I am going to give this a 2.25.

Joe 1:12:02

Wow. That's that's like a really good movie for you, Tom. How much you done?

Jen 1:12:07

Um like I said, I think it was a little better for me. So uh I think I rated the other one a two.

Joe 1:12:16

You did.

Jen 1:12:17

Okay. I'll I'll I'll give this one a 2.5.

Joe 1:12:21

Wow, 2.5. I'm going I'm I'm gonna triple my score from last week, and I'm gonna go a 1.5.

Jen 1:12:29

Calm down, Joe.

Joe 1:12:32

I feel like this movie was more tolerable than the previous movie. Um, I don't know if it's again, I don't know if it's because that was the second time I saw the movie, the last the last movie, and I just was dreading watching it again. I went into this one maybe with a little more of an open mind, and maybe the the the terribleness of the previous movie set me up or set expectations better for what this is gonna be, and I was I was like, okay, it was it was okay, but I won't I won't ever watch this movie again, I'm sure. So um I still still on the path of an unsuccessful adaptation in the sense of the inequality and I guess the adaptation portion of it. Clearly it made a lot of money, so it was successful financially.

Tom 1:13:22

But yeah, I don't think this is uh I don't think this is in any way a successful adaptation of the book. Yeah, you can argue that it is.

Joe 1:13:30

Yeah, this is not this is not the Hobbit. This is like loosely based on the Hobbit. That's what this should be called. Loosely based on The Hobbit. That should be the title of this. I know I I'm I really, really the more I watch these, I'm getting into these movies, and I don't mean getting into them like liking them, I mean just actually watching them.

Tom 1:13:51

Diving into them.

Joe 1:13:53

Diving into the movies, the more I want to see this, these some of these fan edits, like four-hour fan edits of the entire move, all three movies cut down into like a four-hour movie. I kind of want to see if it works.

Tom 1:14:05

Yeah, I I I think it will.

Joe 1:14:08

I think they will, some of them.

Tom 1:14:09

I they definitely need like Jackson needs an editor who's a who's not afraid to tell him this shouldn't be in the film.

Joe 1:14:16

Well, isn't it his wife one of the writers? Like, that's a problem there, I think.

Tom 1:14:20

Yeah, right?

Joe 1:14:21

He writes his wife Fran is Fran Walsh, and she writes these with her writing partner. I can't remember who the writing partner is, I think. So there's I don't I think they're all nobody's saying no to anybody.

Tom 1:14:34

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Joe 1:14:36

They're all just like, yeah, this is great. This is real good. Yeah, keep going. Let's keep going.

Tom 1:14:40

Bring it in 980 million dollars.

Joe 1:14:44

And I guess people like the first one because they went and saw the second and third one. I mean, each movie made a little bit less money, but they still made, I think all of them made over 900 million dollars. So I I don't know. I feel like this is one of those. If they re re-release these movies in the theater, I would go stand in front of the theater with a video camera and interview people and say, hey, yo, you excited for this movie? What'd you like about it? Something you didn't like about it, and we'd get some pretty, pretty interesting footage and uh clips.

Tom 1:15:15

That's it.

Joe 1:15:15

Hey, did you know that Benedict Cumberbatch visited the London Zoo to study the physical movements of Komodo Dragons to prepare for his motion capture as Smog?

Tom 1:15:25

I had read that. Uh a few there's a couple of animals that he kind of based it on, but yeah, that was one of them. Yeah. I think that Benedict Cumberbatch said, uh, I'm going to give everything I possibly can to my performance in this film. Yeah. And I appreciate that.

Joe 1:15:40

I think he thought it was like, this is gonna be fun. I'm gonna be a dragon, and they want me to motion capture because to be honest, I don't know why they needed him to do that. They couldn't just freaking figure it out themselves.

Jen 1:15:51

I feel like he wanted to.

Joe 1:15:53

I feel like he wanted to be able to do that. I think I read or heard it. He's like, wait, wait. Yeah, am I gonna be the dragon? I don't want to just voice the dragon. I want to be the dragon.

Tom 1:16:03

Yeah, I think that was an that's what I'm saying. He's like, no, no, no. I'm I'm all in. Like, uh and and and and remember, if you're Benedict Cumberbatch, you haven't seen uh the first Hobbit movie yet. You've only seen The Lord of the Rings and think like this is gonna be as good. Well, and I'm gonna play my part. No, no, my point is that. Oh, they were filmed together. Yeah, they were all filmed simultaneously. Yeah, no, they're they're they're being filmed all at once, right? So uh yeah, like he's like Zipman.

Joe 1:16:39

I would have just like put him dressed him up in the motion capture suit and not recorded anything and just be like, Yeah, it's great, great Benedict, it's great. So it's gonna look so good. Like when they Yeah, set set him up with all the stuff, just don't turn it on.

Tom 1:16:54

Um we're filming, and when he was doing the motion capture, they were picturing a more um I would say four-legged dragon kind of a uh uh thing.

Joe 1:17:06

Okay.

Tom 1:17:07

And then as they were like doing the post-production, they're like, well, they keep calling him a great worm. He's really more of like a snake dragon than a four-legged dragon. So the motion capture that he did was only used, as I mentioned, like on the front half of the dragon. Basically the mouth, the head and and the wing, the arm wing.

Joe 1:17:28

They didn't use his tail?

Tom 1:17:30

They didn't use the back half of Benedict's motion capture performance. That would have been cool if they he wore a tail. Because he didn't have a tail when they were doing the motion capture, he had legs. And then they turned into that's interesting.

Joe 1:17:45

Um, yeah, it seems like uh I don't know why you'd be like, no, I want I want to be the dragon. Put me in a motion capture suit. But they could have.

Tom 1:17:53

I'm gonna say something freaky. You may not like it. Just hear me out.

Jen 1:17:58

They could have done like when they're animating a cartoon. Two dragons.

Tom 1:18:01

Two dragons.

Jen 1:18:03

When they're animating a cartoon and they're just watching the person do the performance and then like taking it like inspiration. They don't need him to do actual motion capture for it.

Joe 1:18:12

Yeah.

Jen 1:18:12

Well, if you want he just wanted to.

Joe 1:18:15

I get if it's more of like a bipedal humanoid creature like the orcs, which they did it.

Tom 1:18:23

Yeah.

Joe 1:18:24

Um, dragon so much. I can get the head. You want to do the if you want to catch the facial expressions, which I know they did, that's fine. I get it. Like, let's even though I don't know. Go ahead.

Jen 1:18:36

Even though they're very different physiologies, but they do, but like I guess he was just like, I want to be the drag. That's what I'm scared. Like, this is my chance. Like, I'm the drag, and that's it.

Joe 1:18:49

I've always wanted to be a dragon ever since I was a little boy.

Jen 1:18:52

I'm not gonna be a big thing. By the way, I'm also gonna be Sauron in this one. Yeah, is he?

Tom 1:18:56

Yeah, he saw he's Oh, is that what you said before? Yeah, he said that before.

Jen 1:18:59

Like, but yeah, I think something else.

Tom 1:19:01

He saw what they did, what Andy Circus did in the those original movies, and he's like, that's I want that. I don't want to do a vocal performance. This is an animated film. I want to be the character.

Joe 1:19:12

Okay.

unknown 1:19:13

Yeah.

Joe 1:19:13

It was cool. I mean, Smog was cool. I'm not I'm not gonna take that away. He was a really cool badass dragon. I liked how his chest would glow red before he was gonna like that. That was like that was like his Super Nintendo boss tell that you knew you had a dodge and jump out of the way because his belly's lighting up. Yeah, that's what it made me think of. Very video game ish, but it was cool. It was. We just probably saw too much of him. Anyway, should we wrap it up here?

Tom 1:19:42

Okay, well, we're there. I had one question for you that you can answer while Joe's pulling this up. All right. So Thranduel's talking uh to Thorin about um about what a dragon can do, and and like his face changes and he's all scarred.

Jen 1:19:58

Oh yeah, what was that?

Tom 1:20:00

That was my question to you. Is that like he's actually scarred from a dragon and he's using elven magic to hide it? Or is that some kind of like, or is he using elven magic to show his psychological scars for why he didn't? Like, I don't I don't know.

Jen 1:20:14

At first I thought that he was covering it with magic. But that's a lot of magic to use, constantly holding it.

Joe 1:20:20

I think that's I think that's what he is. He's saying he's saying I use cover-up, magical cover-up.

Tom 1:20:26

That's what I took from the film. But in my research on this, everything I found was saying it was the opposite, that it was more like an elven spiritual emotional damage that his tight control was was was released, and he and he was able to show his his emotional self. I don't know.

Joe 1:20:46

Well that's that's just that's just stupid.

Tom 1:20:50

I'm not that hip to the token mythology outside of the four main books. So uh sorry, they don't have uh sources now. Sorry.

Joe 1:21:01

Yeah, I don't remember that coming up at all. So um very strange. Never heard that. All right. I think it's time to continue our uh thank you journey through our patrons. We still got a lot to go. May we never run out of patrons to thank. Um, I believe we left off last week at Mickey. I couldn't remember, and then I saw the name and I was like, Mickey's where we left off. Uh, I want to say, continuing with the company of Chel Vannen, I want to say thank you to Lucas Rack, Steven Bensley, Damer Flynn, Zabon, Sherbet Mango, uh Sherbert. Uh Antoine Benoit, Danny Mullen, Danny who's this here right now. Rose, NanoWizard, Matt, Light Blinded Fool, who's also here to chat with us. Uh Kyron, Dr. Professor Green.

Tom 1:21:55

Hey, Dr. Professor.

Joe 1:21:57

Uh, this they just joined our Discord because I thought it made me think of Clue, and I was like, isn't it Mr. Green and Buster Plump? Um, Peter, Laurel Carb, Ashikova. We met uh we met a bunch of these people. Yeah. Tarasind, uh, Julius Water. Uh, Julius Water. Yeah, we know him. Buddy Julius Water, DK Moon, Troll Muster, Bain and Chiad, uh Zachariah Ulad, Benjamin Andyar, Holger Cruz, Holger's here as well, Lisa, Pewaka Waka, Village Mattress, Chris Moorhead, Candicea, Kevin Hedrick, Mazel Markham. Uh, where's where is Mace? I haven't seen Mace in a while. Uh, Anya Lano, Jen, Jennifer Skelly, Wolf Brother, and Road to Tarbalan. We'll finish it there. We've still got more to go.

Tom 1:22:55

You guys are awesome.

Joe 1:22:57

A lot of recognizable names and people we met in real person. We're very cool. Thank you for supporting us and your continued patronage.

Tom 1:23:04

Yes.

Joe 1:23:04

Uh, I want to remind everyone to follow us on social media. You can follow us on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and Blue Sky. Join us over in Discord to continue the conversation there. We also post our episodes on YouTube, so be sure to go to our YouTube page to like and subscribe, rate and review us wherever you listen to podcasts, and check out our Patreon page to support us that way. Links to all the aforementioned information are included in the show notes to this episode. Final thoughts. Jen?

Jen 1:23:28

If your father has his way, we will do nothing. We will hide within our walls, live our lives away from the light, and let darkness descend. Are we not part of this world? Tell me, Melon. When did we let evil become stronger than us?

Joe 1:23:43

Was that Ta what the hell's her name?

Jen 1:23:45

Toriel.

Joe 1:23:46

Toriel.

Jen 1:23:47

I like that they threw Melon in. Who's Meloch? So the word friend. That's the word they use to get into the minds of Morgan. Meloch. No, it's Melon. And they say he says it like that, but it has an L in it.

Joe 1:23:59

Oh, it's just the word melon. It's like a fair.

Jen 1:24:01

Yeah, with two L's. And they use it as stranger things too, remember?

Joe 1:24:05

Oh, that's right. They do. Tom, is there anything you can add to that? I feel like we should go to you first, Tom.

Tom 1:24:13

I had something, but it's good.

Jen 1:24:14

No, come on, do it.

Tom 1:24:16

All I'm gonna say is I think that everyone here should be rooting for my fantasy baseball team this year because it's the Laketown Bards.

Joe 1:24:23

The Lake Bards. Yeah. Oh, that's awesome. I'm gonna root for you, even though I'm going up against you. Well, both are. Um, I will say Go St. John's. They just won tonight. They destroyed uh Northern Iowa. Yeah. And uh thanks everyone for listening, and you'll hear us next time.