Joe 0:00

Last time on shelf to screen. But worm tongue's awesome. I mean, you're right, Jen. Like those lines he has to deliver, even if, like you said, you don't really know the what he's saying, you know exactly what he means by it. Because Brad Dorf's just killing it with his delivery of all of the lines.

Jen 0:14

He's awful. Then, like for a split second, you feel bad for him when she walks out, but he's gross and you're like, am I supposed to feel bad for him? He kicks him out. He's totally helping Saruman, but then he sees the army and he starts crying. And I'm like, what?

Tom 0:28

When he was crying, I thought he was crying from the beauty of the army.

Jen 0:31

Oh, really?

Tom 0:32

I thought it was like, I'm full evil now.

Joe 0:52

We have a special guest on the second part of the podcast. True. With Tom. Tom, do you want to share our special guest?

Tom 1:00

Yeah, um, for those of you watching uh this uh online, you can see behind me is a life-size cutout of Aragorn, king uh uncrowned king of Gondor at this point. Uh he's got his uh fletching bow, he's got his sword threateningly pointed at my back, actually, but that's okay.

Joe 1:20

Uh it's not um uh what's the sword's name? Uh Andoril. Andoril. It's not Andoril.

Jen 1:28

Yeah.

Joe 1:28

Yeah. In the movies, he doesn't have it yet. No, it's sitting back at uh Rivendell.

Jen 1:33

So broken, yeah.

Tom 1:34

But yeah, he's uh he's gonna chill out with us uh for the episode uh and let us know if there's anything. I'm sure he might have some things to say when we get to the point where a warg and him have an interaction, but whatever. Okay.

Joe 1:47

This is Shelf to Screen, the podcast where we discuss sci-fi and fantasy literary adaptations to the big and or small screen. I'm Hal Dear Perry.

Jen 1:56

I'm Aomer Isgro. Hi Betty.

Tom 2:02

I am Tombeard.

Joe 2:05

Tombeard. You don't have a beard though, Tom. So what are some of the there I didn't write them down, but the some of the Ents have such cool names in the book. Um we don't quickbeam, yes, quick beam.

Tom 2:18

Yeah he's fasty, right? He's he's he's young.

Jen 2:20

He's the young one.

Joe 2:21

Yeah, he's the young one. Um none of the ants get to speak in this movie. No, but there's one anthem.

Tom 2:27

There's one ant that pops from the screen. Yes, we all know.

Joe 2:31

We got some great facial expressions from the Ents when like they're they're having conversations, like it cuts to the Ents, and you just see like the weird face, you know, making weird faces.

Tom 2:41

I I love their when they brace themselves. Well, you know, that there's like there's there's ent motion, I think, is very unique to them.

Joe 2:48

Yeah. We're continuing our journey through the the all of the Lord of the Rings books and movies. This is the second part of our two towers uh coverage. Um, if you did not uh listen to the previous episode, go back because not that you're gonna be lost, but we've already talked a lot about the first part of the movie. So do you want you want to talk more about the end since we since you started there?

Tom 3:09

Well, I think before we go, we did this um when we did um fellowship. Joe and you and I have this little thing that we got when we went to go see uh all the the it was the debut of Return of the King, it was the uh the extended versions of the other two. So it's like a 12-hour day of watching these movies, and we got these little things that have uh scenes from each of the films. Oh yeah, so I have a close-up of very, very handsome Carl Urban as Amur, looking like he's about to smack Wormtongue in the face.

Joe 3:40

I have no idea what mine is. It's very, very uh difficult to see. I think I see a sword maybe in here. It might maybe it's a tower. I don't I don't know. I can't really see it. It's crappy. I wonder if these things do these things fade over time, Tom?

Tom 3:55

Do you you know um yes, they do, especially if they're in direct light.

Joe 3:59

No, mine aren't in direct light.

Jen 4:01

Hold it up to the camera. See if we can see it.

Joe 4:04

Well, you need a light, you need a light behind it.

Jen 4:07

I see you green.

Joe 4:08

I see you green. That's what I see. Yeah.

Jen 4:12

We tried.

Joe 4:13

We tried. We tried. I noticed very cleverly whenever they cut to the ends with Marian Pippen, it's literally like 20 seconds and then they just go back to the stuff. Yeah, right.

Tom 4:24

They're still here, they're still walking around, they're fine.

Joe 4:28

There's nothing for them to do.

Tom 4:29

Okay, I understand why they don't do it, but it is something I miss like uh in this, is that is like the they drink the the entwash and they get like they're they now become bigger than regular hobbits.

Joe 4:43

Well, they also get like healed, right? Doesn't one of them have an injury and their injury gets healed too after drinking it? And they feel much more like refreshed and energized.

Jen 4:51

And yeah. I think that's in the extended event.

Tom 4:53

It is in the extended event, yeah. But they don't do it here, and it's never like I don't think it's visually addressed. And like this is part of the thing where like the idea is while dwarves may retreat underground never to come up again, and elves leave, hobbits and men eventually like intermingle. And Mary and Pippin are now closer to men in size than than the regular hobbit.

Joe 5:19

Yeah. I believe there's a whole scene about that in the Return of the King cartoon at the end, right? I remember that.

Tom 5:25

Yes. Perhaps there is a hobbit in you.

Joe 5:31

Thank you, Tom. No problem. Um, yeah, I mean, there's not much in the books with the Ents. It's just conversation. Like, I mean, a lot of these books are just people talking. Right. Um, and they're talking about it.

Tom 5:43

They're walking through the forest, they talk, yeah. They talk and they talk.

Jen 5:46

They go to sleep, they wake up, they go to sleep, they're still talking, they wake up again.

Joe 5:51

Yeah, I mean, you could almost, especially like the Frodo and Sam stuff that happens in this book, it's almost you could almost turn it into a stage play because it's just a lot of conversations and talking, and um, and there's some exposition, I think we get. We learn a lot about more the areas around Mordor from Gollum in the books.

Tom 6:08

Yes, yeah.

Joe 6:09

He talks about all the different places that they're going and where, you know, this is where that happens and this is where you go for that place. And you get a lot of exposition from Gollum, uh, which we kind of we don't get any of that, I think, in the in this.

Tom 6:22

Anything that's not important is not discussed in the in these movies, which is fine. Like this, this is already a three-hour film, the non-extended version.

Joe 6:30

Yeah, yeah.

Tom 6:31

That's fine.

Joe 6:31

I mean, he talks about the dead marshes, like when we get to the dead marshes, he talks about that.

Tom 6:35

That's okay. He explains the barador is when you get there and why we shouldn't try and sneak through the door. The black gate, yeah.

Joe 6:41

He talks about the black gate. It's it's just a lot more, yeah, it's a lot more condensed. Um I don't know. I kind of enjoy a lot of that stuff though, I guess, in the book. I do too. Hearing about like the depth and history and geography of this of the places, which I know I know Tolkien thought a lot about.

Tom 6:57

Yeah. I mean, going back to the question you asked, like tree beard does give you a little taste of that, or lets you understand broadens the scope of the world even further. And I do feel like, you know, while we were talking um last week about how John Rise Davies kind of like gimly gets gets the comedic shaft a little bit, like he also gets tree beard, and tree beard's like actually also kind of funny, but it's cool. It's a cool character for him, and he gets like two different people in this movie.

Joe 7:23

So it's so that's obvious that it's his it's his voice too.

Tom 7:27

Yeah.

Joe 7:28

I always wonder, like, was it just I I don't know, and I probably should have looked at looked into this, but like, did Peter Jackson have another person that he wanted to do? And then he was like, nah, that's not working out. Hey, hey, John, why don't you do it?

Jen 7:39

Yeah, it was like, hey, you free?

Joe 7:41

Yeah.

Tom 7:42

I wonder if it is that, because I feel like of all of the actors, John Rice Davies like interacted with the rest of the fellowship less so. There's so many scenes where it's his body double playing Gimli.

Joe 7:54

Oh, yeah.

Tom 7:58

You want to do this part two? Yeah.

Jen 8:01

It also kind of looks like him. Like it looks like Gimli to me, like the face. I don't know.

Joe 8:07

Uh yeah, I have to look at it again. I wasn't gonna do it. I think I mean, yeah.

Tom 8:11

I don't know if motion capture was done for tree beard necessarily, but like I do think the expressions are really modeled on the actor, right? So the facial expressions, yeah. Yeah.

Joe 8:21

Yeah, and I mean I like I like the ants. I like the visualization of the ants. For some reason, when I was reading rereading the book, I was like, oh man, the ants are way too big in the movie. But then I was like, no, they're not, it's just that they're supposed they're hobbits. So they're yeah.

Jen 8:33

All right, yeah. I mean, I don't yeah, I don't think they're really supposed to be like trees with faces. I almost feel like they're supposed to be like kind of more like in like people, but like a tree skin. Yeah. But I like the I like the way they look in the movie. I think they're cool.

Joe 8:48

Yeah. Yeah. I and and I think the different ends have are to varying degrees. There was like one part where I think it's where they're walking um in the forest, and the hobbits see the orcs in the distance. Like they see over the trees, and I'm like, he's not that tall. And you even see it when you first meet him, like he's in the forest, and their trees are towering past him. But at this point, like he's over the trees and they could see over the trees.

Tom 9:14

Well, maybe this is just because like a a lot of the trees got ripped down, so it's thinner, thinner forest right here.

Joe 9:19

Oh, they're gonna, yeah, they're closer to Isengard, maybe. Yeah, um, but yeah, there's not much for them to do. So I did appreciate how every time they did cut to them, it was like 30 seconds of conversation, maybe, and then they just cut away. Um, I mean, even in the books, there's really you just learn a little bit more about the Ents.

Tom 9:37

Yeah.

Joe 9:37

There's a lot of conversation about that. Um, and you do meet a few other Ents, and they you know, the Ent mood is a pretty it's very different in the in the book, in the sense of right, in the movie, they make it like uh Pippin tricks them into tricks him into helping them, but that's not what happens, right? They just want to agree to help them.

Tom 9:57

Right.

Jen 9:57

Yeah, they will they have to give him another thing to do. Right, it's like something else Pippin and Mary did other than just sitting there.

Tom 10:02

That's true. You gotta make them they gotta make them kind of heroic. So let them use their wily hobbit minds.

Jen 10:08

Right. And again, their ending is cut not the fight, but like the full end of what they do is move move to the next movie.

Joe 10:16

Yeah, they cut that that's another thing they cut out is that they cut out the end of both parts of the the book two and book three of the two towers. Yeah, you don't get the uh the voice of Sauron and the Palantir and none of that stuff.

Jen 10:30

Well that's they didn't cut it, they just moved it. Yes, well that's actually in the only in the extended edition. Oh, is it where you see the conversation with Sauron is only in the extended edition. Saurum on the regular Yes, I'm sorry. This is in the regular edition, they just find the Palantir in the water.

Joe 10:48

In the Return of the Kingdom, though.

Jen 10:50

Yes, in the Return of the King. But there's no conversation with Sa Saruman.

Joe 10:54

Well, I guess we'll talk about it when we get to that movie, because there's a bunch of stuff in there that I was couldn't remember if it if it was in the movie or not. Um but we were talking a little bit about the um, you know, the cutting back and forth, and obviously they're trying to put together a timeline that makes sense. And and and Tolkien apparently had to put a lot of thought into this because he had to, he was really, really, and I made a joke about it, the lunar, the lunar phases and whatnot, because he really, really was very uh adamant about making the storylines make sense in the time that they do, so much to the so that he was moved things around on the maps. And I think Christopher Tolkien redid the maps back in the 50s um based on some of the stuff that his father had done to make to make it possible for these things people the get you know for them to get to these places in a reasonable amount of time that they do in the book, which I appreciate.

Tom 11:48

Going back to that, something you mentioned last week, Joe, that made sense at the time, but I'm gonna go back and revisit it in light of this. Nobody can teleport here, right? So Gandiv could not have ended up on the other side of the world because he can only travel by normal transportation methods. Well, he's got shot effects, so yeah, but my my point being that like yeah, he couldn't like he has to be somewhere close enough by that a few days later he catches up to them.

Joe 12:14

Yeah. You know what's you know what's bizarre too when I was reading the book? You know how long Gandalf's not dead for, but you know how long it is from when he dies to when they meet him, when uh Aragorn Gimli and Legolas meet him? And three days. Four days because four days for Lothlorian. He mentions he mentions when they meet up with I guess it's when they meet up with uh Aamer. He mentions that Gandalf died four days ago. He says it.

Tom 12:41

He says, One night in Lothlorian and three three days, right? Three days chasing the uh the hobbits.

Jen 12:47

So they were in Lothlore, they felt like they were in Lothlorian longer. Time passes more slowly outside of Lothlorian, right?

Joe 12:54

That's right, yeah.

Jen 12:55

Because they're in Lothlorian longer for them than one day.

Joe 12:58

Yes. He says it's four days since Gandalf died. And Gandalf's been around, right? Because people are saying they're seeing him. So Gandalf's also been around too for at least a day or two. So it's literally he literally, well, I mean, they they show it to you, right? He literally dies and comes back like right away.

Tom 13:15

Right away.

Jen 13:15

Well, he says I he he every day was as long as a life age of the earth. So for him, it wasn't four days.

Joe 13:22

No.

Jen 13:23

He and he also like didn't he had to like be rem reminded of all the stuff that he did. He didn't even like remember half of what had happened, it seems like because he didn't even know what his name was. He was just like, oh yeah, like it's coming back to me now. That was called that once. Right. It was longer for him. Randolph the gray. Right.

Tom 13:39

It it's like he's reborn in a way, and he has to like relearn uh all these things. Yeah, he gets he reorients himself pretty quickly.

Jen 13:48

Yeah, as soon as he says they say his name, he's like, Oh yeah, okay, good, I'm good.

Joe 13:51

Well, I was gonna say that he gets back so quick because he writes Shadow Facts. That's it.

Tom 13:55

Lord of Horses.

Jen 13:56

Lord of Horses.

Tom 13:57

Yeah, he's already by the time they're they're walking into Theodon's Hall, he's already dropping conspiratorial winks.

Jen 14:05

Also, since Aragorn doesn't have Andoril in this part, you don't have to have the 20-minute conversation about how he's not gonna put it down because of how important it is. He's not gonna put it down outside of Theodon's Hall.

Joe 14:16

Yeah.

Jen 14:17

He just put our stuff down.

Joe 14:19

I also feel like that's also like a proof of who he is when when he meets people, like they see he, you know, he shows the sword or whatever, and then they're like, Oh, okay, yeah, you're out going.

Tom 14:28

When in here it's just like people just seem to know him, like a lot of people just know him. It's yeah.

Joe 14:34

Well, there's a lot of everybody knowing everybody and kind of knowing more things than they know in the books, just because of whatever. We're not gonna do that.

Tom 14:42

Gandalf's supposed to be unique about like that he knows everybody because he's traveling around all the time.

Joe 14:48

And he has different names everywhere. And they don't I mean, you get some of the you get those, right? You got Myth Randir, I think, in the first and then they call him Gandalf Stormcrow.

Jen 14:56

Gandalf Stormcrow.

Joe 14:58

Right, Hamak's Grey Pilgrim. Yeah, Gandalf Graham, Gandalf Stormcrow. Uh I can't I can't remember what the dwarves call him. I thought the dwarves had another name for him too.

Jen 15:07

It was a name, but I don't think we ever hear it in the movie. If I feel like I saw it in the book and I was like, oh, that's I've never heard that before.

Joe 15:14

Yeah. Um, all right. Do we want to let's talk a little bit about the journey to Helm's Deep and the fight on the way there, and one of my least favorite parts of the entire trilogy. The another fake out death.

Tom 15:29

Yeah.

Joe 15:29

With Aragorn. Um, we get the flashback scenes and his dreams with Eowyn and even the stuff with El. Oh, sorry, Arwin.

Jen 15:38

Um that's so embarrassing.

Joe 15:40

I know it's so embarrassing. Arwin and Aowin. How could I have gotten those two confused? But we get the Elrond too conversation. You know, Elrond's like um telling him to let her go, and he's just talking shit about men, and it's time for us to go. Right.

Jen 15:56

Which is the whole thing, like you We get the halftime report from Galadriel telling us everything that's happening in the movie right now. All the Faramir stuff that like she never would know.

Joe 16:05

Like, it was that was really weird. Um it was like, yeah, I'm sending you a telepathic, I've been watching what's going on. Here's here's what's happening around the world.

Jen 16:15

Yeah, she knows.

Joe 16:16

Let's uh let's pass it over to Galadriel.

Jen 16:19

That's a but then tell that I don't know, send a message to Gandalf somehow and let him know Ferdo's alive.

Joe 16:25

But she also tells Elron stuff he already knows. He she even says, like, you I know you've foreseen this, but she tells you. She's recapping for us. Yeah, that was weird, Jen. I uh I forgot about that, but yeah, halftime report. Yeah. I like that. I didn't get a chance to look this up, but as I was watching this, I was wondering what the age gap was between Vigo Mortensen and Liv Tyler.

Tom 16:50

Question.

Joe 16:51

And at the time I thought, and I thought when I was watching it, I was I was like, at the time, and I was like, no, the age gap's always gonna be the same.

Tom 16:57

But she's probably like She's 48 now.

Jen 17:01

I'd say it's like probably 28.

Joe 17:02

It's gotta be in his 60s, right?

Jen 17:04

Yeah, around 20 years, I would say.

Joe 17:06

Okay. It's very clear.

Tom 17:08

Like, I feel like 67.

Joe 17:10

So almost 20 years, yeah. I uh because I feel like in those scenes I'm like, uh he kinda he's old enough to be her dad, it seems like.

Tom 17:18

And obviously they make her look younger and he looks a little older with the beard and everything, but uh it actually kind of plays into that whole like he's gonna get old and he's gonna die and you're gonna be the same. Yeah. You know? We get that.

Jen 17:31

I don't think it's too bad because she was it definitely in her twenties at the time, right? She's for how old is she now? Forty eight.

Joe 17:38

Forty eight.

Jen 17:39

So she's probably like twenty.

Joe 17:41

And he was this this they filmed this movie in uh ninety-nine and two thousand, so that's twenty-six years ago. So yeah, she's like twenty-two.

Jen 17:49

Twenty-two. Okay, so that's not that bad.

Joe 17:51

Yeah.

Jen 17:51

He was forty-two.

Joe 17:52

She was forty one, forty-two.

Jen 17:54

It wasn't like she was fifteen, and he was full.

Joe 18:02

Yeah, right. And she still looks exactly the same.

Jen 18:04

Yeah, right.

Joe 18:06

The mortality of man versus the immortality of elves. I get it. I I don't mind that putting that in here to kind of add a little bit of, you know, we got a love triangle going on, but you don't really get that so much in the book. I mean, she is Eowyn is a little bit interested in Aragorn, but I feel like there's a line where somebody mentions that she's like a child. It's like she's only a child, like somebody says.

Jen 18:29

Oh, I don't know.

Joe 18:30

At one point. And I'm like, how old is she supposed to is she supposed to be like 16 or 17, Aowin, in the books? Yeah. I don't know. Are you sure? Because someone says, like, they mention her being like a child. Oh, I don't know.

Tom 18:40

Oh, I never got that. I mean, I she's of marrying age. But I mean, whatever that means, you know.

Jen 18:46

But like I th I think And he's 80.

Joe 18:49

He's like 80 years old, I mean, in the book.

Jen 18:51

Yeah, I mean some of the Arwin stuff uh and and the like the Elrond stuff is because Elron has to bring him Andoril, which doesn't happen. So they have to like keep that relevant, that storyline relevant through the whole thing.

Joe 19:06

Did did they have to though?

Jen 19:08

I don't mind it. I mean, I Dan was showing me it's like, oh, here's the scene where it's the only scene where two women talk to each other. It's like the girl's like, Where's Mama? I was like, no, she talks to her mom earlier. There's one other scene where the two women are there's just not a lot of women in this movie.

Joe 19:28

They just don't they don't have names, those women too.

Jen 19:31

There's a lot of women in the cave. They just not important.

Joe 19:34

Yeah, they aren't.

Jen 19:36

They they all live though.

Joe 19:37

Yeah. I mean, there's like I said though, there's Rohiram women, but we just they're just dressless men. We can't have that.

Tom 19:47

The scene in the caves, I know we're all over the place now, but the scene in the caves where they're taking away the teenage boys that are old enough to fight, and like the mother's just weeping. I'm like, oh my gosh. It's good. It's good. It's good, it is good.

Joe 20:03

Yeah, it got just going back though, I wanted to just touch on one other thing over there. Uh when, right, so we were talking about the scene uh Vigo Mortensen, you know, or Gargorn dies, or you think he dies. Like Alyssa Gimli just leave. They don't even try to find him. Like before.

Tom 20:18

You look down, man.

Joe 20:20

They looked out. Fanon's like, come on, we gotta happen. Fanon goes like, we got come on, we gotta go. And they're just like, okay.

Jen 20:26

Well, how long are they gonna stay there? Like, they gotta go.

Joe 20:29

Find his body and they don't leave the dead. Leave the dead.

Jen 20:36

They do. The orc had his necklace in his hand. He's done. He went over.

Tom 20:41

Orcs never lie, Joe.

Jen 20:42

I also think it's funny because they're like Aragorn, and the orc immediately knows like which guy they're they're looking for. Yes. He starts laughing.

Joe 20:49

They all know everybody knows Aragorn.

Jen 20:52

They get like a picture before they go out. This is the guy.

Joe 20:54

This is the guy. Looks for him. Yeah, I was a little I never noticed that before. I was like, oh yeah, they they pretty they give up on Aragorn pretty quick there.

Tom 21:03

By the way, it's a bit there.

Jen 21:05

If he's not in the water, he's dead. Like, where else would he be?

Joe 21:08

He's not dead, Jen. That's the thing. He isn't dead.

Jen 21:10

He got knocked unconscious and floated away.

Joe 21:12

Yeah. Well, they should have stayed and looked for him. Oh well. They're not good friends. They're bad friends. Listen, if one of you one of you went over a cliff into the water and I didn't see a body, I would go look for your body. I'm not sure.

Jen 21:25

There's wargs about Joe. You have to save yourself and get back to Helm. You have to go with the men back to Helm's Deed.

Joe 21:32

No.

Jen 21:32

I don't know.

Joe 21:33

I don't like it. Bad friends, Lego, listen, Gimli. Bad friends. That's all I want to say.

Tom 21:39

They're all they really only care about each other.

Joe 21:42

Yeah. Um at one point with uh the Aowin stuff, I I was I was wondering something like another idea popped in my head. Not that she wants to be with him, but that she wants to be him. Like she's kind of enamored with yes, and I don't mean be him, I mean like being. A uh like a king or hero and fighting like a great warrior and Yeah.

Tom 22:05

I think you're a hundred percent with that, Joe. I think that's literally her entire interest in him is what he represents, not not I mean he's a good looking man, but like it's she is trapped and he is freedom.

Joe 22:19

Yes. Yeah, I mean he d he gives her a nice pep talk though and says, I don't see that for you. Like a a boring life. Um I did like the scene where she's like practicing with the sword and she swings around and she's got like the she's got that very like aggressive face on when she's looking at him and then swipes swipes his knife away. He's like, I could kill you. I'd rather fuck you. Um but that doesn't happen.

Jen 22:48

No.

Joe 22:48

It's a lot of things.

Jen 22:49

Aragorn does try to like keep her at bay, I feel like. He tries not to lead her on. Yes, I think he's very clear, like But also she's like he's like, she's like, Who gave you that? And he's like, Oh, she went to the Undying Lands, and anyone's probably like, Alright, well, that's good. She's not coming back from there.

Joe 23:05

Yeah. Well, I also think that Aragorn's also been like thinking, I'm never gonna see her again, it's over between me and Arwen. Like, do I pursue this? Because you could tell he does seem to have a connection with her, and there is some some some sparking going on.

Jen 23:22

Yeah. I think he's he's trying he's not sure yet. He's not he's not letting her in.

Tom 23:28

No. I think that all of that's before he uh has his river dream. Yeah.

Joe 23:34

That's true.

Tom 23:34

And then he's like, oh wait.

Jen 23:36

His wet dream. Yes, yes, Jen. He's wet from the river, okay?

Tom 23:43

That's all I mean, folks. A wet river dream.

Jen 23:48

Uh we have a lot of rants that we still have to do, so let's get to them. Because we don't this is a long episode.

Joe 23:55

I so like my notes really jump on this one. So I have I have a c I have here uh uh a note about the ends, how Jackson struggled with the ants, you know, they're very short clips. And then it just goes to oh look, the elves have arrived at Helm's Deep. That's that's it's a big jump. But I mean nothing's happening on the Frodo part at this point, right? No, they're just Farmir showed up. Has Faramir played into this yet?

Jen 24:17

I mean No, Faramir I think comes in He's before the halftime report because she talks about it.

Joe 24:23

Yeah, I guess so. Yes.

Jen 24:25

Right after the Coneys.

Joe 24:26

Right, they meet up with Faramir. He's taking them prisoner in a way, I guess, or loosely, you know, a soft prisoner. Uh he takes on the odds, guilt. He wants to take the ring back to minus tier, because he's like, Dad's gonna be proud of me. Um I did what Baromir couldn't do.

Jen 24:45

Yeah, well, I mean, wouldn't you if you were Faramir? No, because Faramir doesn't do that. If Denetho was your No, but I'm saying, like, yeah, I know, I know.

Tom 24:54

That's the point. Like, Faramir's supposed to be like Faramir's supposed to be the best of men. Because Aragorn's not even like a real normal human, right? He's an he's a Numenorian, he's you know of Numenor blood at least.

Joe 25:06

Well, I think the my the men of minus of Gondor have some Numenoran blood.

Tom 25:10

They do, but they they're but they're yes, but a much less he's more of a normal person, right? Like he's not nobility, right? He's the steward of Gondor from generation to generation. So like they've ruled, but they've ruled as men. And like he's the guy that's supposed to be the best of them. And he's the one guy, the one human, other than Aragorn, I guess, who's supposed to be like, I support you in your mission, right? And that's it. Not tempted by the ring, not we're gonna bring him. No, he understands what it's all about.

Jen 25:39

If the Nazgul doesn't come at that point, like he had sent basically sent Frodo and Sam with that other guy to go back to Minnesota. Like he already ordered it. Take him to my father.

Tom 25:51

It it it it's the my least favorite character change in these entire films by far.

Joe 25:57

And uh and what changes his mind? What what I I still am confused about the movie, about what changed, nothing happened to him to make him change his mind.

Jen 26:09

Well, Sam Sam says, you know what happened to Boromir? And then the Nazgold comes and then he probably sees like Frodo acting the road.

Joe 26:17

Doesn't he say that wait, wait, no? When he says that, Sam says that what happened to Baromir. Doesn't Faramir double down and say, take them back to minus Tirith? Right? Doesn't he say that right after?

Tom 26:28

I thought he said it right before. Yeah, I think that yeah, Sam blows up and then they get attacked. Like I think it's yeah. Um Sam I the the movie is good at making Sam Wise Gamge the best hobbit. Yeah.

Joe 26:43

Always right. Faramir should be like the you know, the the rulers of the world, the two of them. Yeah, that's it. The best of the best of us.

Jen 26:51

Well, Faramir is gonna be pretty important. I'll talk about that next time, but yes.

Joe 26:58

Yeah, he's a key member uh moving forward and and as a key side character. Um I yeah, I didn't like that Faramir, you know, that whole part. I didn't like that they went to Osgileath. I just didn't like any of that. And I guess b it doesn't not just because it's in the not in the book, but that's just something for them to do. Yeah, it's just something for them to do, and I feel I guess they made Faramir like that just to give them something to do, like just for some kind of a conflict.

Jen 27:25

For filling. Otherwise, he's like nice and nothing happens.

Joe 27:28

Yeah, I don't know. And I I so like the ending of this book. It's such a great ending.

Jen 27:33

It's such a yeah, it is good that it ends. It I mean, it's a huge cliffhanger for Frodo and Sam.

Joe 27:40

Like Yeah.

Jen 27:41

It's like imagine reading that and not having the next one immediately like this is a real good fake out death.

Joe 27:47

Like, this is the the fake out death, I feel like, in the series.

Jen 27:51

Yeah.

Joe 27:52

The best one.

Jen 27:53

Do you really think that he was dead when you first read it? That Frodo was really dead.

Tom 27:57

I I I had them as a trilogy. I found out like, you know, a chapter later.

Jen 28:01

Right. Actually, no, I don't know, because I obviously I knew he was alive when I saw the movie.

Tom 28:06

And maybe that's it. Uh maybe that's part of it.

Joe 28:10

Like I didn't want to do that too, but um But it's I mean, Sam takes he takes the ring. He's like, all right, I guess I'm gonna have to.

Jen 28:17

Yeah, he puts the ring on in the book. Yeah, right? That's not even in this movie. We can talk about that next week, too. But um, but yeah, he's like wearing the ring.

Tom 28:27

He's a ring bearer for for yeah, he has it on for a few hours.

Jen 28:31

Yeah, which is crazy because he's in Mordor.

Joe 28:33

Yeah, and I mean it's to be honest, it's good that he did take it from Frodo because otherwise they would have just brought the ring back to him. Yeah, right. They would have gotten the ring, the orcs, and then that would have been bad news. Um yeah, I guess that's probably why I I I dislike Osgileid so much. One, because it just it just feels like something to do, and two, it it it deprives me of the cooler ending, like the book. I think it's just a such a much better ending um because of how because of that, like you the the fight with Sheelab with Gollum, um and then Frodo getting captured, and then Sam realizing that Frodo wasn't dead. Yeah, yeah, and then that kind of just being the end of it.

Tom 29:13

I like, I mean, I think they do at least say like there's an ominous tease that, like, okay, well, Gollum's fully banned, and he's taking them into a trap. There's that. But um, yeah, I agree with you. I agree with you, Joe, on the fact that like they I don't think that the filler that they put in this movie is necessarily the filler that they had to put into this movie, even if they wanted to backload Return of the King with more Frodo and Sam stuff. Um, I will say on the positive side, David Wenham and Sean Bean, one of my favorite like brother castings. Yeah, they do look a little bit alike. They look like they could be brothers, yeah.

Joe 29:47

Yeah. I yeah, I agree with that, definitely. It it's it's kind of eerie too, actually. But um the the one thing too that they didn't put in here, and I would have liked to have seen that is when Gollum is having the conversation the the the very end of the movie when Gollum's talking about her in the book. Sam hears him have that conversation with himself.

Jen 30:10

Yeah, yeah.

Joe 30:11

So Sam knows like something's uh he doesn't know who she is, and he's confused about it. He thinks maybe he's just babbling, but he does hear that, and that's kind of what keeps him skeptical of Gollum Sash slash Smeagol.

Tom 30:24

I mean I mean he's Sam's so ready to kill him right now. Like I feel like if he ever just murdered him.

Joe 30:30

Yeah, I I feel like it's a little bit more unwarranted in the movie because I mean when they first they they do fight, right, when he first shows up and he does almost kill like Gollum almost kills Sam or tries to kill him. So I guess they did that instead.

Jen 30:44

There's another again, I'm not gonna mention what it is because it's in the next movie, but I just remember there's another big change, another thing that they put in before they get to Shilob that changes like that whole thing too that they added in.

Tom 31:00

Yeah, yeah, we will get there. So back to uh Joe's other favorite part of of this movie.

Jen 31:08

Yes, go ahead, Joe.

Tom 31:10

With Elms Dean. When guests arrive at Elms Dean.

Jen 31:14

I I like it because I'm sorry. I like it because it does call back to what he says, like, you know, elves and we elves and men fought together once and now we're gonna honor that allegiance. I like that. I don't like it because it doesn't happen in the book and it doesn't it's supposed to be the time of men now, like and the elves are leaving.

Joe 31:35

Yes.

Jen 31:36

But like for the Yeah, I don't know.

Joe 31:37

I mean, th it all ties into, you know, the flashback and the halftime recap from uh, basically telling him to send where he she's gonna send. But yeah, that's the other weird thing. Like Haldir shows up and he says Elrond said this, but I'm like, you're you came from Lorien. What are you what like why why are you telling him what Elrond said?

Jen 31:57

Yeah, like who where are those elves from? Are they from Lough Lorien or from the Lord?

Joe 32:01

I would assume so Haldir's from.

Jen 32:03

Yeah. So why does it yeah, I have a message from Elrond. Like, why? I thought that was weird too.

Tom 32:08

Yeah, well, I feel like, you know, when you read the books, there's three elven kingdoms. Yeah. Right? There's clearly like three elven kingdoms that are equal, but the movies make it seem like Elrond is in charge of the elves. And Galadriel's a queen of her kingdom. Yeah. But Elrond's like the lord of the elves.

Jen 32:25

Yeah. And Merkwood, they don't even really talk about. No. They don't even like that except for the city.

Tom 32:30

I don't even think I don't even think that in this movie they let you know that Legolas's dad is a king.

Jen 32:35

Like, yeah, I don't think so either. They just say Legolas is not a good thing. Oh no, not in the movie.

Joe 32:39

Yeah. Yeah. It's in the book, obviously. In the Council of Elrond.

Tom 32:42

That's uh right. Like it's clearly how you remember that.

Joe 32:46

Do they mention Merkwood in any of these movies?

Tom 32:49

No, they say that's where he's from. Yeah.

Joe 32:50

Okay. Like Oh, I think he mentions Merkwood when they go to Fanghorn in the in this, when they're on the edges of Fanghorn, I think he might mention Merkwood potentially.

Tom 32:58

And he introduces a Legolas at one point to somebody. I think it's to Aomir. Like he he's like, I'm Aragorn, this is Gimli son of Glow, and this is uh Legolas of the Merkwood or something like that. Oh, yeah, he's the Will and Elf.

Jen 33:10

Yeah. But yeah, not Prince Legolas or anything like that. They never refer to him as that.

Joe 33:16

No. He is a prince, so um Prince. Besides the the elf showing up at Help's Deep, which is just awful in every way. Um, there's like things in this in the battle that are just don't make any sense. Like when they're just waiting, the orcs are just standing out on the field before it starts, and the one guy shoots the arrow like prematurely and he kills. I'm like, why aren't they all shooting arrows right now? Why are they just standing there like waiting for the orcs to charge? That just would never happen in a real battle.

Jen 33:47

My nose. I love how the fact that the guy shot an arrow during the dramatic pause absolutely infuriated the orcs. And I also have they're surprisingly good at marching in battle formation for creatures that were very recently grown out of the ground.

Joe 34:01

Yes.

Jen 34:03

Trained very quickly, ready to fight.

Joe 34:06

They grow up, they grow out of the ground ready to fight. I mean, you saw when they those guys came out of their little cocoons.

Jen 34:12

I know they're like ready to kill people, but like they're like a fully formed army.

Joe 34:17

Right.

Tom 34:18

Siege engines the whole nine yards, yeah.

Joe 34:20

And they have experience and um well they've been they've been building siege engines. At least that we've seen. They they constantly remind you of the siege engines and things like that.

Jen 34:29

Oh, okay, okay.

Joe 34:30

They constantly go back to Isengard and show them like building things. So Yeah.

Jen 34:34

All right.

Joe 34:35

Um, and and then they're all shooting arrows like straight at them. And I'm like, they would have been firing, you know, you're supposed to fire the arrows up in the air and give the arc, and they can go even further, and you probably could have killed a couple of thousand orcs before they even came close to the walls. But no, let's just stand here and wait until they charge us, even though they're within firing range.

Jen 34:56

And the the guys with the bomb get in there like so quietly and put the bombs down, and then the guy with the lighter is like the Olympic dramatically running through.

Joe 35:04

He just comes that's another slow-mo, an orcass slow mo.

Jen 35:07

Like, why can't you just quiet, like, like put it something over it and quietly go in and just light it? Like, why is it a whole big dramatic bun?

Joe 35:17

It's just so I get it. Like, I was thinking for a second, like, why is he like why is he so far away? And I'm like, oh no, wait, they gotta keep the torch away from the right, they gotta keep the torch away from it because they don't want it to blow up. So, like, we'll put the bomb in first and then we send the guy in there with it.

Jen 35:30

Can they get killed? The ones in the front anyway. And him. I mean him especially, but Yeah.

Joe 35:36

I don't even know why the all the yellow orcs are there. Like, what they're not doing anything. They just they're just up there in the front with them waiting to die from the bomb exploding.

Jen 35:44

Yeah, I don't know. I guess if they all backed up and one guy ran up. I don't know. I mean it'd be shot. He gave him two sh two kill shots. He just was high on adrenaline, I guess. Pumped up.

Joe 35:56

Angel dust. Uh yeah, he just jumped in on the last bit. And I'm I had a hard time believing that that was enough explosives to literally destroy the entire wall of Elm's deep. I was like, give a little bit of a little extra in there. Some of that, some of that uh orchai sprinkle. Yeah. Sprinkle dust. Um I mean then you see like chuck like large pieces of the wall just like landing on the poor. I was gonna say the poor orcs, but nothing.

Jen 36:26

There was like orcs. Two or three of those things in there. At least two they carried in that he was.

Joe 36:35

Two guys go in.

Jen 36:37

Yeah.

Joe 36:37

Um yeah, all uh Aragorn's fault.

Jen 36:40

Yep, 100%.

Joe 36:41

Yeah. I mean, couldn't they just like put it in the front of the wall?

Tom 36:47

No, it needs to be in the wall. It had to be inside the wall. I mean, it's gonna do more damage. Yeah, and already get it. You can't put the nuclear weapon on the surface of the asteroid. That's not gonna do anything. You have to move 800 feet down.

Jen 36:58

It might not have opened up the wall, but it would have killed a lot of people.

Joe 37:01

Right.

Jen 37:01

Like if they just blew up the front of the wall. I don't know.

Joe 37:04

Well, I imagine there were people on top of that wall, but they weren't doing anything to stop this. I mean, it was like one guy finally noticed, but it was like one guy noticed. Was it I don't even remember if it was Legolas or not?

Jen 37:14

Aragorn was saying, kill him, take, you know, shoot him. And then he shot two arrows into him.

Joe 37:18

Yeah, but I'm saying, like Aragorn had to point it out for them to realize what was going on. Like they weren't like you're just they're standing right there watching these guys put these things. I guess they don't know what it is.

Jen 37:27

They don't know.

Joe 37:28

They don't know what's it doing.

Jen 37:28

They're like farmers.

Joe 37:29

Right. That's true.

Jen 37:30

They were the elves should have I don't know what they were doing.

Joe 37:33

Well the elves were behind. The elves are the ones behind the wall, too.

Jen 37:36

Okay, okay.

Joe 37:37

Remember, they're behind there with Aragorn shooting. And when the elves shoot from behind the wall, it looks like it's going like right by the heads of the guys on the wall. Like, did you notice that?

Jen 37:46

Where Aragorn is like this, like points, and then the arrows go right past his head. He's right in front of them. Yeah.

Joe 37:54

And then and then the guys on the walls. The the uh the elves are down on the ground and they're shooting up, and it's like literally looks like it's going right by their right by their heads.

Jen 38:02

That's okay. They could do that.

Joe 38:03

I'm like, this isn't safe. This is definitely not safe.

Tom 38:05

Please don't roll a one.

Joe 38:07

This is not how we fire bows. We fire bows in the air. Come on. Well, I mean, most of the stuff here is pretty cool at Helm's Deep. Uh otherwise, I think I I was reading something. It uh how many it took 120 days or so to film the to film the battle at Helm's Deep.

Tom 38:22

It was like an hour, it's like an hour of plus of movie time. Helm's Deep was like the whole second half of the movie.

Joe 38:30

Yeah, it is. 120 days of uh well, days of night shooting and free in a freezing New Zealand quarry. That's where they shot this. God. Hundreds of extras. No, you know, they had to endure the rain, it is artificial rain, obviously, mud, and it's supposed to be very cold out at this time. And yeah, this so it was a sounded like an awful shoot, to be honest with you.

Jen 38:52

Well, it looks amazing, so that's right.

Joe 38:55

Yeah.

Tom 38:56

Um yeah, and everyone gets a moment to shine. Like, yeah, you have the Gimli funny stuff, but you also have Gimli as a competent uh you know fighter. He's not just comic relief, you know. Like this looks cool, he gets to do his cool moves.

Joe 39:09

Did you notice the Wilhelm scream in the movie?

Jen 39:12

Yeah. I heard it.

Joe 39:13

It was like right in the beginning.

Jen 39:15

Yeah.

Joe 39:16

I did. This one one guy. Yeah, I guess. Oh I was like, I forgot about that. I don't know if I ever noticed it, but it was very clear. It was very clear because there's just the one guy who dies. And you're um uh oh yeah, then then Haldeer dies. Uh I put it uh I wrote, oh no, Haldeer died. Such a pity.

Tom 39:37

So I'm not sure.

Jen 39:39

If you liked the guy who played Haldeer, would you have been a little bit less happy about his death?

Joe 39:43

I you know what's funny? I looked the actor up. I can't remember his name off the top of my head, but I looked him up just to see if his face looked that crazy. Thank you.

Jen 39:52

Because I know a guy named Craig Parker, that's why.

Joe 39:55

It does look his real face, like without the hair.

Tom 39:57

It's not the hair and the elven ears that he that's how he looks like he looks like he should be Craig. He looks like the bad guy in like an 80s like uh teen college sex comedy. He looked like Jason Biggs to me. Yeah, yeah. Jason Biggs.

Jen 40:15

That's who he always reminded me of.

Tom 40:18

When we watched that, uh we made references before, but we watched the uh 12 hours of Lord of the Rings in one day, right? We watched the two extended, and then um by the debut of Return of the King, at this part of the film, Joe led a very small contingent of people in the audience, I was part of them, in a standing ovation, whether LD or die. You stood up and applauded in the middle of like a theater packed with super fans. Uh and other people stood with you, but you it was a little bit of uh whatchall. There's dozens of us.

Joe 40:51

Dozens of us. I I hate I hate the elves showing up at Helmsteve. It's so fucking stupid.

Tom 40:57

It's it's it it's this is the kind of thing where you can understand why why the tokens don't want these things adapted because it's completely against like what the the thrust of the story is supposed to be. Yeah. About like this is the transition of the days of elves and dwarves and fantasy into the world of men that we know today, and it doesn't make sense for the elves to come back and fight.

Jen 41:22

I think they just I guess they felt like they were gonna bring Aamer back at the end now, so they didn't have to put Urkenbrand in it, and then they were like, well, if this if Amer and his guys aren't here, then there's somebody else. There's no hope at all. They can't even hold out long enough for him to get it.

Joe 41:35

They could have just had more men, like that's what people at Helm's Deep already, like there was already people there. There are, right? Because there's in the books, right? So Erkenbrand is like another lord of or of the Westfold or whatever, and he's fighting orcs at the Fords of Eisen. And they hear like rumor that like they basically got wiped out. Erkenbrand and his men get wiped out, but that's not the case. Yeah, but and and they they're the ones who show up. So and you're right, Amher's with them the whole time. Yeah, you know, from Ederas.

Tom 42:05

Amor becomes a a bigger character in the Two Towers book. Like he be he he gets more shine in Return of the King of the film, you know.

Joe 42:12

Yeah. Um but they could have just I mean, you you don't have you could it's fine that you keep Ammer separate and you know he's the one who comes and you know saves the day. Yeah, but they could have just had more people at at Ederas. Like it didn't have to be all old men and children. Um I mean, there could have been some, but it always felt to me like um the Rohirim are the army.

Jen 42:34

And he's like the head of the army. So when he gets banished, she takes the whole army with him, and the only guys that are left are like the guards, like the king's guard kind of like Hama and whatever the other guy is, and like a couple of guys. But everybody else is gone. Like they're all then I I don't I didn't ever see them as like they're Amir's guys, but they're like they're Amir's guys because he's the head of the Rohan army.

Joe 42:58

Yeah, yeah.

Tom 42:59

I think that's French for the most part.

Joe 43:01

Yeah, and I think Worm Tongues kind of kept them out of there so he can you know do his thing. He wants it or us to be like we can defend defenseless.

Tom 43:10

That's what he's there for, yeah. Um button. I will say uh yes, I agree 100%. There is a bit when Haladir shows up that did make me snicker. Oh, I know. Where like Aragorn hugs him and he's like, he has he's like, I did not think we had that kind of relationship, clearly, in like his physicality.

Jen 43:32

I just thought it was that elves don't hug people.

Joe 43:34

I got more of a like, what's this is a weird I've never done this before type before. Exactly. That's what I'm trying to think.

Tom 43:40

Why are you touching me? Yes, with anybody.

Joe 43:42

But like elves don't hug. They're not big huggers of the elves, I guess. They're very serious people. Although they're not very serious people. They're serious, they're very serious about being merry and jolly.

Jen 43:53

Well, not really in the not in the book. Not in the movie, really. No, not really jolly in the movie.

Joe 43:58

We don't we don't get elf. Elvin songs and like all the elf songs that we get in the books. Elves love to sing.

Jen 44:06

I usually am like, do I have to know any of this? Is any of this information important to me? No, I'm skipping it. Like, okay, I'm not gonna read this whole song.

Tom 44:14

No, none of the songs are are important to the plot, they're all important to the world, you know.

Jen 44:18

Yeah.

Joe 44:19

I listened, so I listened to the first half of this, the book book three, um, with the previous, you know, I the the same uh audio book that I used for the Fellowship of the Ring. And then uh I was uh bo it was a Bowtie who mentioned it in our Discord about this other version where this this I can't remember the guy's name now, and I feel bad that I don't remember it. We'll have to look it up. Um, but he does like a whole cinematic thing, right? Where it's a book narration, there's different voices, and there's music playing in the background and like sound effects and everything. It's like uh it's like almost like an audio, like a radio, old school like radio show, radio play. Um and it's very cool. I was really getting into it, and I don't know about the voices, but I didn't look it up, and I I probably should go do some more research on this. But it sounded like Andy Circus was doing the voice of Gollum in this, in the in the book, the audio book. And I don't know if it was just somebody doing an impersonation of it or if Andy Circus was part of this, but it's really cool. And they use the music from the movie. Like there's a lot of the same themes from the from the movies, and there's the even the voice of like Sam is uh it's definitely not Sean Aston, but it's it's somebody trying to do like a Sean Aston, and um, so it's really cool, and it kind of really keeps you focused on it because of that. Uh so I highly recommend that. It's free too. You can go on just Google it. Um, and it's on this guy who created it, I think,'s website, and you could just download it from there. Um so I'm looking forward to listening to the Return Return of the King version of it. But uh yeah, Elves at Helm's Deep sucks. Big mistake. Should not have done it. I don't like it. Do not want to Phil Dragish is the guy who did the this audio version, audiobook version. So go check him, go look him up. Phil Dragish. Yeah, very cool.

Tom 46:07

So uh I mean Helm's Deep after after all of that, right? They think all is lost. Theodon gives another, we're all gonna die, isn't Death Glorious speech, as Aragorn convinces him to let's not sit here and wait to die, let's ride out and die.

Jen 46:24

Yeah.

Joe 46:25

And he's yeah, and and Theodon's like, I I could get on board with this. Yeah, Glory's up for glory and you know, whatever. He's like, Dawn.

Tom 46:34

Right, like Aragorn knows, hey, it's Dawn. Gandalf said he's gonna be coming. I'm not gonna tell this guy there's hope. Let's just convince him to go out. But then, like, you know, then you have Gimli blows the giant horn.

Jen 46:46

It's like bad. I can't believe Gimli agrees to stay and join and blow the horn because he's gonna be the last person left if everybody dies. Yeah, he's gonna fall way behind.

Joe 46:56

Yeah, I guess he can't ride the horse. Oh, that's true. He could ride with Legolas, I guess.

Tom 47:02

Yeah, Legolas can be shooting arrows.

Jen 47:04

He's gonna be, it's not gonna fight the wargs, he immediately falls off the horse when they're fighting together.

Joe 47:11

I do like the bit where where he just like he the warg falls on top of him dead, and then an orc goes on him, he kills that orc that's on top of him, and then an old warg steps up and aragon spears him, and then that one's on top of him. But then the next then the next scene he's fine. He's like out and he's like chasing after Aragorn.

Jen 47:28

It's funny being crushed. It's not actually being crushed.

Tom 47:32

When it falls, you see him starting to like lift it up the whole thing.

Jen 47:35

He just snaps the orc's neck, it's great.

Joe 47:38

Yeah, he's snapped, he just like yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Like he stinks. Yeah. Uh I forgot about that part. I'm glad I remembered. That's that's good. I like I like that. And that's one of the comedy relief things, but I thought that was a good one. Like that wasn't like some of the other stuff makes Kimmel look like an idiot, but um, that was a good one. And I love there's like the money shot of Gandalf leading the Rohiro down, like gleaming in white.

Tom 48:04

Yeah.

Joe 48:05

And I I almost I forgot too, like when they're charging the orcs and all the orcs have got their got their lances or pole arms up, and I'm like, oh, this isn't gonna end well. Like, this is dumb. And then I forgot Gandalf like shines the light and all the orcs are like blinded.

Jen 48:18

They should have just kept their spears down, though. But the light was blind, it was hurting. No, I know, I know.

Joe 48:23

Uh Gandalf used his uh daylight spell, I guess.

Jen 48:26

Gandalf's big on light. He's a light guy.

Joe 48:30

He is.

Jen 48:30

He is uses light in the next movie, too, and on other points. He's a he's big on light.

Joe 48:36

He should have been Gandalf the Light instead of Gandalf the White.

Tom 48:42

How about this?

Joe 48:44

Um that is an awesome shot, though, when they show up and Gandalf does charge downhill and they just like he comes up and you see like Ammer's just like behind him, like looking all kind of cocky and cool.

Jen 48:55

It's like, remember man? It's like he's like, 'Me and then like six more horses just ride up and stop. Like however many can fit in the frame and just ride up.' Just get him in, get him in, get him in.

Joe 49:07

Yeah. And then you just go!

Jen 49:09

And it's okay because the entire battle on the ground has stopped for this dramatic moment.

Joe 49:14

Yes.

Jen 49:15

All the orcs turn around, everybody just stops fighting.

Joe 49:17

Like, it's it's very cinematic.

Jen 49:21

They can like wait for a second before they charge.

Joe 49:23

We thought you were dead, Gandalf. And I mean, there's what, a couple of thousand Rohirum of the Riders of Rohan, maybe?

Jen 49:31

Um I don't know. There's that many, but this is a good thing.

Joe 49:34

Well, there's there's they say there's like 10,000 orcs there. And how many do you think they killed before the RCA? Oh, they kill a lot. They do kill they kill a lot, but they kill what, like three, four thousand of them?

Tom 49:45

I would go with that number, yeah. Somewhere in the three to four thousand range.

Joe 49:48

And then there's how many riders of Rohan like uh do you think there are in this in the movie they're supposed to be? It looks like a lot. There's look looks like there's a thousand at least.

Tom 49:55

Yeah, there's enough that there's still an army full of them after this battle is done.

Joe 50:00

Yeah. Well, I mean it's a slaughter. I think a lot of uh I think Gandalf's light kind of helps.

Jen 50:06

What's also cut off from this movie is the rest of the orcs that escape end up in the forest that springs up out of nowhere. That's in the extended edition. Oh, and they run into the trees and get killed.

Joe 50:16

Now we don't yeah, we don't get the other tree people.

Jen 50:19

Like they're the Huhorns or something they're called. They're not actually ants.

Joe 50:24

Yeah. Uh they're more treeless.

Jen 50:27

Yeah.

Joe 50:28

Yeah. And he's not sure if they were ants at one point that just became more tree, or if they're just like a different um, just like a totally different race altogether or not. That is a cool scene in the extended edition, though. Yeah.

Jen 50:39

Yeah. All of a sudden there's a forest.

Joe 50:41

Yeah. And the orcs run into it, and then you just see the trees like the tree shape.

Jen 50:45

Yeah, rustling. Yeah. And you hear like orcs.

Joe 50:47

You hear orcs like, ah, yeah. That's all we need. We we know what that means. We got it.

Jen 50:52

So a lot of them run. I think I think the idea is that Gandalf scares a lot of them. Yeah, they do. They just decide when I'm doing this and they leave. So they don't have to kill 10,000, obviously. And then the rest of the thing is, yeah, they break their morals like dies in the in the trees.

Joe 51:07

The orcai aren't so special and strong and willful, I guess.

Jen 51:11

They're not all Urukai, right? Um I don't think he has 10,000 Urukai.

Tom 51:16

I think they are.

Jen 51:18

Really?

Tom 51:18

I think his or his guys are Urukai, yeah.

Jen 51:20

Oh, okay.

Tom 51:21

I thought some of them were he might be having some of Sar uh Saruman's troops on commission. I don't know.

Jen 51:26

Assumed that some of them were well, no, some of them in Isengard are orcs. Like the ones that are helping him farm the Urukai orcs. Memory kills. Oh, yes.

Joe 51:36

So they're not all uh those orcs from Mordor though that went over to kind of help help Saruman set up.

Tom 51:44

I imagine the Oracai are the fighting orcs. Like that's so I imagine all the troops that Saruman has. He's been working really hard.

Joe 51:55

I think they upped the number in the movie. Like, I don't think it's that many in the books. It's not like 10,000 orcs, I think, showing up at Helmsteep. Yeah, I don't I don't think it's that many. Um, but yes, that that's an awesome shot. I love it. Uh the end of this is actually really good. I mean, the Helmsteep has its moments, like you know, the tossing, you know, toss me and don't don't tell the elf. And when they the two of them just kill like a hundred orcs by themselves. Yeah, yet the battle's really it's a really tough battle, like at Helm's Deep, meanwhile, the two of them just killed like a hundred orcs, basically.

Tom 52:28

They're elite. That's it, yeah. Like the problem is that everybody else is a level zero fighter. Yeah.

Joe 52:33

Yeah.

Tom 52:34

So they're doing 1d3 damage.

Joe 52:37

Yeah. I like when they ride out though, and they're just basically just knocking all the orcs off the bridge.

Jen 52:42

It's funny because when they get to that bridge or the ramp, whatever, they kill everyone. But before that, they're kind of like riding past a lot of guys. Yes, they don't think that's a lot of guys. Oh, are they just gonna like go back into the caves and kill the women? Like, you didn't kill all these guys. You can't let them stay in here.

Joe 52:59

Yeah.

Tom 53:00

I thought that was. The idea is like they're gonna come behind them. So yeah, I don't know. Whatever.

Joe 53:04

Yeah, it almost looked like they were just trying to it looked like they were trying to escape the fight.

Jen 53:07

Like they're just riding through the crowd. And if they hit anybody, they do. If they don't, then it's fine, whatever. Yeah. But I'm like, it's not fine. There's women who's gonna be able to do it.

Joe 53:14

Screw the women and children. No sleep them.

Jen 53:17

No, Joe.

Tom 53:18

That's for after the battle, Joe. Oh my god.

Jen 53:20

Not the children.

Tom 53:21

Not the children.

Jen 53:22

Not the children.

Joe 53:24

Saruman raised his eyebrows at that. I think that's what he wants more. Maybe he's gonna use them to breed to make more orchai.

Jen 53:32

No, this is the thing.

Tom 53:33

That's like probably true, honestly, but Saruman. He's bad, Jen. He's bad. Bad news.

Joe 53:39

Uh so that really that ends this part, right? Oh, then there's the shot of them.

Tom 53:44

Yeah, Gill has a good that line is terrific, too. Oh, the end of the The Battle for Helm's Deep is over. The battle for Middle Earth is just beginning. Yeah.

Jen 53:51

Like, come on, that one that's that was you know, like Well, there's another big one coming. Yeah.

Joe 53:57

Well, I like how they just like all like the four or five of them just go up to this one little like ridge and like, let's go look at Mordor and see what we can see from what's going on.

Jen 54:06

One guy's like, Can I come with you guys? No.

Joe 54:08

It's just us. You're not on the call sheet today.

Jen 54:12

Yeah.

Joe 54:13

Yeah, and that's the end of that. I mean, we get with Frodo um and Sam, there's the Osgile part that the Nazgul shows up, and Frodo Frodo's almost tries to kill Sam, and he tries to put the ring on, and the Nazgul is like wooing him.

Tom 54:30

I don't know what's going on there, but yeah, it's gonna give him the ring. Yeah, trying to compel him to use the ring, I guess. Uh, and he gets really mad that Sam won't let him.

Jen 54:41

I uh I don't think he even knows who Sam is.

Tom 54:44

No, yeah, he's like completely in the thrall of the ring for force.

Joe 54:48

Well, is does Furdo say a line that Bilbo says? Is he like, what would you know about it? Right when Sam's talking about the ring, and he yells, he says something, he snaps at him and says something, oh, what would you know about it? And I feel like that's a line that Bilbo says too earlier in the fellowship, maybe. Maybe to I think he says it to Gary. Randolph? Yeah, sounds familiar in the beginning. I think it's the same exact line, which I I noticed as a cool callback, but and then we get the setup for no, I was just gonna say we get the setup for the next for the next movie with Gollum, you know, off on his own. Well, they where they get the little nice lighthearted uh conversation between Sam and Frodo about the stories.

Jen 55:26

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Joe 55:27

What about all that? Soundwise. Samwise the brain.

Jen 55:31

I was yeah, I was being serious. Yeah.

Tom 55:33

So was I, Sam.

Jen 55:35

Yeah. Um I'm glad you're with me.

Tom 55:38

Yeah. So a couple of things on on the on the that like one, I love I I legitimately love that bit. I think it's great. I think it's uh you know, Sam has a bunch of stuff at the end here about like we fight because there's good left in the world and all the rest of that stuff. And like um this is very nice. And two, like obviously over the years there's been a lot to be made about like the uh the homo erotic undertones in this film, but like and they're there. I think it's it's fine to acknowledge that, but like I don't think they're intentional. This is really just supposed to be, especially if you know about Tolkien and you know like part of the inspiration that he had for making these things in his own life. This is supposed to be the ideal, like platonic male friendships, like is this kind of a thing, right? Uh that can only be forged in dire circumstances like this. Uh so I'm really glad that they took the time to put that in.

Joe 56:30

Yeah, it's a little it's a little different in the books. Like, I I've I made a couple of notes of weird things, and it's all in one scene where uh while they're traveling, um Sam says to Frodo, like, I'll sleep with my arm around you, so that way if they try to if anyone tries to drag you away, it'll wake me up. And then he does another point, he tells Frodo to rest and put his head in his lap.

Tom 56:52

Oh, well, the book has much more of a master and lure, like you're you know, like a like a master and servant relationship between the two of them. Uh then the the movie, like they're definitely of different social strata, but like there's less of like well, he's Mr. Frodo, he's not Master Frodo, and I think that's the that's the difference, right?

Joe 57:14

Yeah. We skipped over uh Vigo Mortenson actually breaking his toe when he kicked the helmet in the beginning.

Jen 57:20

We didn't have to talk about that.

Joe 57:21

You know what I thought about that?

Jen 57:22

Everyone knows that already.

Tom 57:24

Yeah, uh, we also skipped over the uh the second best uh ent in the film, the ent that's on fire and puts himself out when the flood comes. Yep.

Jen 57:34

Cool.

Joe 57:35

Yeah, well we didn't even talk about that, right? The end. So we mentioned Marion Pippin. Uh Pippin tricks the tricks Tree Beard into going to Isengard, and then he just you know yells, and all of a sudden all the ants are there. Um and then they just take apart Isengard while Saruman wa watches in disbelief.

Tom 57:53

Yeah.

Joe 57:53

Uh beautiful. That's a cool scene. Yeah, I love all the different ways the ants kill the orcs, like stomp on them, one punts an orc, then one together. One take yeah, one takes an orc and uses it and just starts swinging it at the other orcs.

Tom 58:10

And yeah, like when the when the when they break the dam and the flood comes, and you see like all the ants kind of like root into the ground and like lean into the flood. I was like, ah, that's awesome.

Joe 58:21

Yeah, yeah. A couple of them. I think I saw one or two get knocked down, but I'm sure they're doing. They're okay. They like the water.

Tom 58:27

You see the I just love the it's like burning, he runs off times in like, yeah, go for it.

Joe 58:33

Save yourself.

Tom 58:34

Save yourself.

Joe 58:35

Um what else do I have here? So I do have a note about tr the voice of treebeard because we were talking about that before. Uh so John uh Rees Davies, he recorded that he spoke through a wooden megaphone. Huh.

Tom 58:50

And to make his voice sound more woody?

Joe 58:52

I guess, yeah. While technicians manipulated bellows to alter the acoustic pressure. So I think it sounds like it was more practical voice effects than like a digital after the fact.

Tom 59:04

Interesting.

Joe 59:05

Yeah.

Tom 59:06

That is interesting.

Joe 59:07

And then also, you know, we we get a lot of golem in this, right? This is Gollum's here. This is really our big introduction, I guess, to Gollum in the in the series. Uh, you know, obviously during when this was filmed, they this the technology that they used to do Gollum with the motion capture of Andy Circus and the digital avatar was very like cutting edge and uh kind of first of its kind that was used this way. So uh we shouldn't skip over that part, like a huge like technological advancement in movie making.

Tom 59:38

Yeah, there was a lot of um there was a lot of talk about whether Andy Circus should be nominated for an Academy Award or not because he wasn't like his performance while vocally is on film and motion capture was on film. There's a lot of like Sterm and Drang about like whether this was an animation acting or whether this was a person acting and and how that should be which now would never happen. Like I think now if this movie came out today and that performance was given, he would get nominated because he's fucking awesome. Right? But yeah, there was a lot of like back and forth I remember at the time about what does this mean for actors, and like is this the same as somebody who's physically on film and da-da-da. Yeah, he he you know, we talked about worm tongue before, but he he's somebody who's evil and yet you have an immense amount of pathos for and you and like when you start to see ahead of it happening, like oh these people are going to treat him very badly, and that's not gonna go well. Like you feel bad for him. He's just happy to eat some fish.

Joe 1:00:38

He just wants to eat live fish, no potatoes. What are taters? What's tatters, precious?

Tom 1:00:44

Yeah, oh my gosh. I forgot, it's been so long uh since I had watched these again. Um They're taking the hobbits to Isengard is like one of the first lines in the movie. Oh and I was like, I forgot about that song.

Joe 1:00:57

They're taking the hobbits to Isengard. Oh my gosh. And the potato, the potatoes one boil them up, mash them up, sick them in a stew. Yeah. What's tatters precious? That's it might be one of the best lines. Yeah. Boil them up, mash them up, and chips. He mentions the chips too. Yeah, you can keep your chips. Right. Um, this movie was also a big success, if you didn't know. Uh, it grossed almost a billion dollars. I think it was around 940 or 50 million. Uh crazy. It was the highest grossing film of 20 uh 2002, and uh momentarily claimed the position of the fourth highest grossing film in cinematic history. Momentarily, let's say, right? Because then we things just started getting crazy. Yeah. You know, there obviously was some uh blowback from the fandom. You know, I think we probably covered everything that the rest of the fandom thought with you know some of the changes. Um one thing that actually I think I guess Peter Jackson or this was out there, and Peter Jackson decided to change this, but uh, I think it was the leak of the production materials. I guess it must have been a script leak or something. And originally they were gonna have Arwen at Helm's Deep 2.

Jen 1:02:13

Yeah, I saw that.

Joe 1:02:14

And she was gonna fight. And I guess because of the leak, there was a lot of blowback from that, and Peter Jackson decided to change that.

Jen 1:02:22

I mean, at that point, would it have made it any worse?

Tom 1:02:26

It just would have been weird, like she's gonna fight and then and then leave?

Jen 1:02:30

Yeah, I don't know.

Tom 1:02:31

I I don't know.

Jen 1:02:32

Or die, be the only one that didn't die.

Joe 1:02:35

Maybe Eowen kills her.

Jen 1:02:36

Um also like whatever.

Joe 1:02:41

Yeah. I'm sure it would have been like something like Eowyn sees Arwen and just is in awe of her beauty and just like was like, there's no way I can compete with that.

Jen 1:02:51

No, I don't think so.

Joe 1:02:52

Well, that's probably what no, but that's what would have would have happened, I think, if that if if they did keep that uh Army going, Tom Steve.

Jen 1:02:59

I don't know.

Joe 1:03:00

Oh, you think what do you think would have happened then?

Jen 1:03:02

I I don't know, but like there's still our there's still AM and Aragorn stuff in the third movie, and like Thaedon basically thinks they're like getting married.

Joe 1:03:12

So Yeah, I guess so.

Jen 1:03:15

Whatever, they would have figured it out. But it's probably better that she's not there.

Joe 1:03:22

Yeah, uh so big, big, big movie. Uh critically uh I think this was actually nominated for a few awards and won some technical Oscars.

Tom 1:03:33

Um acting awards. Uh and no, yeah, and and it didn't win the big one until the third one, I think.

Joe 1:03:40

Uh let's see, sound editing and visual effects. It won. It was nominated for four others, including Best Picture, but did not win Best Picture. I wonder what it was.

Tom 1:03:47

What did win Best Picture? Yeah.

Joe 1:03:49

I don't know. Look that you can look that up, Tom.

Tom 1:03:51

I'll uh 2002, right?

Jen 1:03:53

Yeah. Well, it would have been the 2003 Academy Awards.

Joe 1:03:57

Yes, it would have been the O3 Awards. Uh just another little fun fact. So the Orkai Haka, you know that they do their little stomp uh thing. I think that's at the beginning of the battle, Helm's Deep, when the one guy shoots his arrow. That was recorded, uh uh captured by recording 25,000 stomping fans at a New Zealand cricket stadium.

Jen 1:04:18

Okay, Tom's disgusted.

Joe 1:04:20

Yeah.

Tom 1:04:20

That was the year Chicago.

Jen 1:04:22

Oh.

Joe 1:04:23

Oh, okay.

Jen 1:04:24

Chicago's a good movie.

Tom 1:04:25

But not Chicago should not have won Best Picture. Yeah.

Joe 1:04:28

Also they were really into the show. You know what it is? It's this that was one of those things where like it's different, right? They did a musical into a movie and it was good, and they put they were big, like big name actors in it, and it was like, and like you said, it was good, but everyone was like, oh, this is so cool. Right.

Tom 1:04:45

Like Gangs of New York also didn't win that year.

Joe 1:04:48

Oh, yeah. That's a long movie. I could see where some people are like, oh, that's just too damn long.

Jen 1:04:53

This movie, perfectly short.

Joe 1:04:55

Yeah, this movie also too damn long.

Tom 1:04:57

A tight three hours.

Jen 1:04:58

A tight three hours, exactly.

Joe 1:05:00

It's tight two nine. I think it's a tight two fifty-seven. I don't know. Two hours and fifty-seven minutes. Um all right. Are we ready to give our ratings or is there anything else that I missed that you want to talk about?

Jen 1:05:11

I think we've talked about every single iota of the movie.

Joe 1:05:14

Okay. Anyone want to go first? I'll go first if you want. I'm gonna give this. While I do have a lot of problems with it, and I was reminded of it watching the movie, there's still a lot of cool things in it. So I'm gonna give it a 375.

Jen 1:05:31

Wow.

Joe 1:05:32

Yeah.

Tom 1:05:33

Um yeah, yeah, there are a lot of problems I have with this movie, but like watching it again, I'm like, wow, I fucking love this movie. Like this movie's just really good. And like the things that bother me really, really bother me in some cases. But like um they don't detract from my overall enjoyment of the film. It's not as strong as as some of the other ones. I'm gonna give it a 4.5, I think. 4.5. Wow. Yeah.

Jen 1:06:01

I really like this movie, but I don't like it as much as the first one, probably the third one, but I really very much like it. So I'm gonna give it a 4.75.

Joe 1:06:10

Oh wow, 4.75. I guess I'm the I'm definitely the odd man out on that one. But there's just the the changes just really annoy me. Like that there, it's they're just really, really fucking annoying. Uh and they're big, they're big changes too. It's not even like like I said, I understand a bunch. Yeah, yeah. I understand a bunch of the other ones, and I'm okay with them, but these are just unforgivable, Peter Jackson. Shame on you. Uh, successful adaptation?

Tom 1:06:39

Yeah. Yeah, I think so. Tokens don't, but you know, they don't like anything.

Joe 1:06:45

I mean, if you're if you're saying we're adapting the whole trilogy into three movies and not necessarily sticking by like this book's this movie's gonna end where this book ends. Okay, I get it. That you know, they didn't have to make all move all the movies three hours, they could have made this one three hours and the next movie two and a half hours. How about that? Since you instead of pushing stuff out of it, but I don't know.

Tom 1:07:08

I agree. I I think yes, this is less successful in adaptation than fellowship.

Joe 1:07:13

Yeah, yeah.

Jen 1:07:14

I'll say that.

Joe 1:07:15

I I agree with that there. So all right, uh, shall we wrap it up? I think so. All right, I want to remind everyone to follow us on social media. You could follow us on all of those things. Just go click the links in the show notes. Uh join us 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 on the two towers, Tom?

Tom 1:07:46

Um let's go next.

Joe 1:07:51

I have no idea. Uh Jen, you want to take us out?

Jen 1:07:53

Those were the stories that stayed with you that meant something, even if you were too small to understand why. But I think, Mr. Frodo, I do understand. I know now. Folk in those stories had lots of chances of turning back. Only they didn't. They kept going because they were holding on to something. That there's some good in this world, Mr. Frodo, and it's worth fighting for.

Joe 1:08:17

Thanks everyone for listening, and you'll hear us next time.