The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim

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Picture this: a movie night turned epic quest! Join Anthony, Dakota, and our special guest Rich as we navigate the wild, unpredictable realm of Tolkien's "War of the Rohirrim" with an anime twist. From Rich's heartfelt story of introducing his son to the magic of Middle-earth to Anthony's enthusiastic preparations involving collectible treasures, this episode is packed with excitement and mishaps worthy of an epic tale.

The journey doesn't stop there! Rich's father and son outing quickly spiraled into chaos with non-reclining seats and an endless barrage of trailers, turning a simple cinema visit into a comedy of errors. The theater mishaps and hilariously out-of-place Mark Wahlberg trailer added their own unique twists to our night. Similar tales from friends show how even a trip to the movies can feel like battling the forces of Mordor, proving that the unpredictability of cinema outings can turn an evening into an unforgettable story.

We dive deep into a world where animation breathes new life into Rohan’s expansive landscapes. Anthony, Dakota, and Rich discuss the intricate portrayal of Helm Hammerhand’s daughter, Hera, and the return of Miranda Otto as Éowyn, weaving connections to Tolkien’s lore in a fresh, creative way. We tackle themes of power, leadership, and vengeance, drawing parallels to epic narratives like "Game of Thrones" while speculating on hidden connections to the original films. Despite some technical glitches, "War of the Rohirrim" captivates with its compelling narrative, bringing a new dimension to the beloved saga.

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https://www.twitch.tv/odysseywow

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to episode 104 of Project Geekology.
I am one and a half year host,anthony, and joining me this
week to discuss the movie War ofthe Rohirrim is Dakota.

Speaker 2 (00:14):
We're ready to muster the Rohirrim and you know,
coming in from the shadows.
Once again, we have a specialguest.

Speaker 3 (00:21):
Rich, thanks for having me on again.
Guys, really happy to be herelooking forward to, uh, talk
about the war that we're hearingand my personal war against the
movie lords, not the horselords okay, I, I like that, I
like that.

Speaker 2 (00:35):
So if you guys are are unaware, there was a lord of
the rings movie in theatersthis past weekend.
I don't know if it's still intheaters.
I think it still might be insome places, but it's.
It wasn't highly advertised.
So if you knew, you knew.
If you didn't, you probablywill see it on netflix at some
point or something.
So or no, it would be on maxyeah, yeah, because they have

(00:56):
all the warner brothers stuff.
So, yeah, war of the rogerum.
I have never seen a trailer forthis.
I've seen, you know, someconcept art leading up to it.
I knew it was going to be ananimated film.
I was not ready for what Ireceived just because I didn't
know.
I basically didn't knowanything going into this.
So I knew that helm hammerhandhad a part to play.

(01:18):
I knew there was going to be alead female character.
I knew that it was animated andI knew that it was connected in
some way tangentially to thePeter Jackson side of the Lord
of the Rings franchise.
So I was really notanticipating all that much, just
because I was going incompletely open-minded.
You know I didn't watch anytrailers or anything like that,

(01:39):
so I was pleasantly surprised.
What about you guys?

Speaker 3 (01:42):
Well, I actually got targeted emails.
I was pleasantly surprised.
What about you guys?
Well, I actually got targetedemails.
I was getting I don't know howexactly.
I mean obviously everything.
Just listens to us.

Speaker 2 (01:51):
Specifically from Peter Jackson.
Yeah, you better watch thismovie, it was really weird.

Speaker 3 (01:56):
I was just.
And then Elijah Wood Like theseguys were personally emailing
me, no, but I did see they weresending, like I think the way I
found out about it maybe it'sfandango, following my movie
algorithm, I can't sure you knowbut I actually think it was
straight from warner brothers.
But anywho, I got emails aboutit a couple months ago.

(02:16):
Like I started seeinginformation about it and I I saw
the art style and you know I'vebeen trying to get my son into
lord of the rings.
We did the full eating whilewatching all of the extended
versions and he's now currentlyin the middle of reading the
hobbit with my wife at nightbefore bed.
So I kind of felt the zeitgeistwas present in the house.

(02:40):
And when I saw the animationstyle he's a sucker for anything
anime, it doesn't matter whatit is.
If it looks like it's the animestyle slightly, he'll stop and
watch it.
And I thought that I could kindof reel him in.
And that's essentially whathappened when I showed him the
trailer.
He saw the art style and, youknow, he started to ask
questions.
Oh, those are the guys.

(03:01):
You know, that's the guy withthat's theodin's people and I,
you know, I cried a happy tearinside because I knew I was a
good father beautiful anthony.

Speaker 2 (03:09):
What about you?

Speaker 1 (03:10):
so did you like?
what was your like thoughtsgoing into this movie so I've
known about this movie for awhile now.
I I had seen trailers on it,like, I think, when they first
announced it like a while back.
So I mean I, I was, I waspsyched.
I mean I like anime and youknow I love lord of the rings,

(03:31):
so really the marriage of bothof those was definitely gonna
pique my interest.
I knew like a little bit aboutthe story obviously not too much
, just whatever the trailershowed, but I was still like
pretty psyched to go into it.
I mean, obviously the theaudience didn't get to see, but
I hopped onto the zoom call withthe helm, hammer hand,

(03:52):
warhammer and the stein that youcould get at the movie theaters
yeah, the, the warhammer isliterally like this big popcorn
bucket yeah, you know thewarhammer side opens up and you
could just you know stuff, abunch of popcorn or whatever in
there.

Speaker 2 (04:06):
And the sign looks pretty cool too.
It says war of the brahiram onit.
While we're still with you,anthony, before we really jump
into the gist of our discussiontoday on war of the brahiram,
what have you been up to thispast week?

Speaker 1 (04:16):
absolutely nothing man absolutely nothing I don't
even think I saw the movie.
That's how I actually wasn'tdoing anything.

Speaker 2 (04:25):
I still have not seen the movie myself I have not
seen any trailers.
I still know that there's afemale lead, I still know it's
animated and I still know howhelm hammerhands in it, but I
haven't gotten the chance to seeit.
So this, this will be adiscussion by you guys, and I'm
going to be interviewing you toget all the information about
the movie, as I can.

Speaker 1 (04:42):
Uh, no, I'm just go ahead, sorry so I feel like I
had a pretty good weekend.
I had a long weekend I usedlike the last bit of my pto for
the year, so I was off fromfriday up until monday gotta use
it before you lose it, yeahabsolutely so.
That's why I was using it.
So so, yeah, no, I had like anice weekend.
I went to go see war the warhere on friday and on sunday I

(05:07):
went to my buddy's game shop.
It's called otaku comics andgames.
So any of you that arelistening that are in the south
florida region they're in thecutler bay area they had the
voice actor for crocodile fromone piece and all for one from
my hero academia and lord deathfrom soul eater, and just like

(05:28):
so many more voices, he wasactually there.
He spent a few hours theresigning autographs and meeting
people.
Very, very cool guy.
It was really interesting tomeet a voice actor or like any
kind of celebrity in a smallshop, because it's a little bit
more intimate than like a giantconvention center.
You know there's like so muchyou're getting like sensory

(05:51):
overload in a convention centerwhereas you're in like a small,
like shop.
You know there's maybe at leastwhen I got there, there was
probably like 15 people in there.
You know, so you're going fromlike hundreds and thousands of
people to like 15 people.
It's a know.
So you're going from likehundreds and thousands of people
to like 15 people.
It's a lot more manageable, soit was really cool to meet
somebody in that kind ofenvironment very cool, very cool

(06:14):
how you do anything else, youplay the overwatch.
Slash avatar update I have not,I want to.
I I've seen the skins.
They did dude.
They went all out for the skins.

Speaker 2 (06:27):
They actually look amazing.

Speaker 1 (06:29):
They look amazing and when you use some of the
abilities, it plays music fromthe Avatar.
Oh man, yeah, it's really cool.
The highlight intros and allthat stuff.
It looks amazing.
I actually want to hop on andplay that.
I've been playing a lot ofmarvel rivals.
I would say like there'sthere's a handful of characters

(06:51):
that I've definitely gottenreally comfortable with that.
I'm starting to form my likeplay style in the game.
I've been playing a lot ofcloak and dagger.
Penny parker dude, penny parkeris like so fun yeah yeah, yeah,
she, she's a tank character.
For any of you that don't knowwho penny parker is, it's just
like 14 year old girl thatfights in a mecha suit.

(07:14):
That's like powered by a spider, so it's.
It's really cool like she haslike these like minds that she
shoots out.
She has like these like cannonsthat shoot and stuff.
It's really really fun.

Speaker 2 (07:26):
I've met, if you've listened or, excuse me, if
you've uh watched into thespider verse.
She's one of the right spidervariant characters.
That is pretty prominent inthat movie right, so she's a
really fun character.

Speaker 1 (07:39):
I've also messed around with a bit of moon knight
and some of the other liketanks, like the, like the hulk.
I've messed around with thor alittle bit venom's really fun.
Yeah, I've been, I've beenreally enjoying marvel rivals,
so but yeah, no, I want to hopback onto overwatch and mess
around with those with theavatar update.

(07:59):
I mean, I definitely want toget those skins because, like
dude, they're gorgeous.
They really are cool they didreally good with the my hero
academia ones too yeah yeah,yeah, they did really good with
those two, so, but, yeah, whathave you been up to dakota?

Speaker 2 (08:13):
dakota has been up to nothing.
No, I have been up to stuff.
I feel like I say the same crapevery week.
I'm gonna I'm gonna jump awayfrom my avatar timeline script,
which I have been writing, youknow, it's nearing 9,000 words.
I'm in the era of Avatar Zito,now the Avatar right before Yang
Chen.
So I'm getting into the era of,like the canon novels that

(08:36):
exist in the series, and that'llbe a fun change of pace for me
Because up until this point it'sbeen trying to take disparate
information from all thedifferent source materials to
kind of come up with a historyfor this world.
And now I'm finally into theactual lives of the Avatar.
And by the time I get to YangChen, which is a pretty

(08:56):
understood character, I guessyou could say in the Avatar
world, it'll be a little biteasier for me and less
conjecture.
But other than that that, I'vebeen really into skeleton crew
this past week.
This past week's episode wasmuch better than I thought last
week's was, but overall Ihaven't been doing all that much
because I've been working onthe house that I'm eventually

(09:18):
going to be moving into.
I this past weekend, as well asyesterday, I spent a good
portion of it like doing theflooring, you good portion of it
doing the flooring, getting allthe flooring in and that's
draining.
Dude, I'm exhausted, but yeah,nothing crazy.
I watched the first episode ofthe Netflix show, the Dragon
Prince.
I saw a lot of people onlinesaying that if you liked Avatar,

(09:40):
you liked Arcane or Ruby.

Speaker 1 (09:44):
This is a show that you would be into.

Speaker 2 (09:45):
Oh, all three of those I like yeah, so I and all
three of those, definitely thisshow, dragon prince.
It's been on for five seasons.
The sixth and final season iscoming out soon.
But yeah, I was reallysurprised, like it very much
feels like a mix of all three ofthose things, so I'm excited to
jump into that a little bitmore.
I literally have only watchedan episode, so I can excited to
jump into that a little bit more.
I literally have only watchedan episode, so I can't, you know

(10:07):
, determine whether it's good orbad, but I I'm having fun so
far yeah the voice actor forsaka, jack de sena, is one of
the main characters oh nice sohe's got such a pleasant voice.

Speaker 1 (10:17):
I love that but I love them in Avatar.

Speaker 2 (10:22):
Yeah, other than that , not all that much.

Speaker 1 (10:26):
There's that Amazon Prime show that I want to hop
into.
That's gotten really highpraise, called Secret Level and
it's an anthology series and ittakes different video games.

Speaker 2 (10:41):
Oh, I saw that.
It looks really good.

Speaker 1 (10:42):
Yeah, they have a Dungeons Dragons episode.
Yeah, they have a dungeons anddragons episode.
They have a pac-man episode,armored core megaman.
They have, like differentepisodes and like it's been
highly praised that it gotrenewed for a second season
excellent, yeah, yeah, I, Ireally want to hop into that,
dude.
I I always like stack up mylist high of things I want to
watch, but man, it's it's hardto like to watch things and then

(11:06):
be a gamer I 100 understandthat rich.

Speaker 2 (11:10):
Let's jump over to you.
What have you been up to thispast week?

Speaker 3 (11:12):
oh, you know, just as the kids say, I'm locked in my
coaching era, so, uh, just doingthat a lot with the track.
I mean it's just uh, it's likeI'm I'm not even a teacher
anymore, I'm just a coach.
You know like I just teach onthe side.
It's just weird.
This's like I'm not even ateacher anymore, I'm just a
coach.
You know like I just teach onthe side.
It's just weird.
This will lead into the meatand potatoes that we're going to
talk about this week.
I think the biggest thing thathappened was, you know, my son

(11:33):
turned 10 last week, so doubledigits is a big deal.
So we took a father and son dayon Friday and we went to go see
War of the Rohirrim at 10.50.
It was the only IMAX showing inmy area, so I was very enthused
.
We got there pretty early.
It was great to see the theaterlayout on Fandango that showed

(11:55):
that there were maybe going tobe eight other people there, so
we knew that we were going toget some good private seating.
We get there and it's not whatI thought at first.
The theater was a little janky,even though it's a pretty big,
regal theater.
But the imax theater itself wasjust not like for some reason.
All the other showings andstandard had the recliner seats,
but this theater didn't haverecliner seats.

(12:16):
Just a little thing, but youknow I go no big deal.
So we sit down, we're watchingthe commercials before the
previews, but there's like agiant light on and it's not
centered in the room right, soit's just like blinding the left
side of the screen for us.
But you know, I figured whenthe lights go off it won't be a
problem.
You know you got to makeconcessions, right, guys?
So then the previews start,right, and then, uh, they end,

(12:38):
and then there are four minutesof darkness and silence, and at
this point there are only twoother people in the theater.
So there's just four awkwardminutes of us sitting there,
charlie whispering to me what'sgoing on, I don't know.
Suddenly, when I feel like I'mkind of mustering the courage to
possibly go politely point outthat the movie's not playing,

(13:00):
the previews start again.
So, although not my favoriteidea to have to watch these
again, I did.
And then it stops during thelast preview, which was the
minecraft preview.
Then somebody else comes upwith a phone flashlight and goes
whoa, it's dark in here.
Uh, it's apparently the lastgroup that have been missing.
They finally get upstairs andby the time they sit down, then

(13:23):
the theater people come in andthey say guys, we can't get into
work today.

Speaker 2 (13:27):
So what the heck.
So you didn't actually get tosee it?

Speaker 3 (13:30):
hold on, they offer those passes.
Well, I didn't get to see it inimax.
They offer us, they go, you cancome back another day or you
can go see another movie.
And I quickly look at my phoneand I go.
I just to point out thatthey're actually showing this at
11.40.
So everybody else who's in thetheater is like, wait, that's
what we want to do too, like wedon't want to go home now.
So we finally go to the othertheater because, mind you, it

(13:54):
was a 10.50 showing, so it's now11.37 when I bring this up.
So we mosey onto the othertheater, have the joy of
watching for the third time thepreviews, which made me hate.
I don't want to see any ofthose movies.
I also I'm not sure if jen toldyou this I hyper analyzed the

(14:15):
trailer for the mark walbergmovie, because he has a
backwards hat on and he has hair, okay, and then, like, a couple
scenes later, he's in the samehelicopter, it's the same time,
but now I guess his head, hishat's been knocked off and now
he's bald.
And then they show like theyshow like a little picture of

(14:35):
who the like the pilot'ssupposed to be and the pilot's
bald.
So I don't understand something.
You're some sort of mafiahitman.
You go, you take the pilot outso that you can commandeer this
vessel, but before you do this,you decide to make yourself look
less like the actual pilot ofthe plane by giving yourself
more hair, but that only goesunder your backwards baseball

(14:57):
cap, like I don't.
There's so many questions.
If you're going to go to thetrouble of wearing a wig, why
would you have the backwardbaseball cap on?
You show those lovely locks offlike none of it makes sense.
And it's all because I had towatch this stuff three times,
sorry all right.

Speaker 1 (15:11):
No, it's okay, uh no I would say that like it was
awful to like have to sitthrough all those trailers.
Dude, it was like 30 minutesworth of trailers.

Speaker 2 (15:19):
I was like what's?

Speaker 1 (15:20):
happening.
I was like, and I was like,okay, I was sure.
Like 20 minutes later I'm like,surely the movie's gonna start.
No, there's another trailer.
I'm like what is going on?
Why am I watching so manytrailers?
Usually the trailers are like15 minutes, like you know.
Usually 15 minutes, 20 minutesstretching it.
But, like dude, this was like30 or so minutes of trailers.

(15:42):
I'm like what is going on rightnow?

Speaker 3 (15:44):
this is ridiculous I mean, I didn't get home.
I'm not joking, I only lived 15minutes from the theater.
15 minutes to the theater, thenthe whole debacle.
Then I went to a store to getchicken nuggets and go home, all
right, I left my house at about10 15 for 10, 50 showing.
I got home at like 3 15.

Speaker 2 (16:06):
Oh my god I, I basically went to mordor myself.

Speaker 3 (16:11):
We and I didn't even have a horse, but you came back
with chicken wings.
Well, yes, of course you cameback home on an eagle back and
strawberries, because I loved, Ilove, I remember the taste of
strawberries beautiful, that'sgorgeous.

Speaker 2 (16:24):
I had another not as of a knowing an experience as
you, but kind of a mildly scaryone, because I didn't get
tickets for Friday and I didn'tget tickets for Saturday, so I
got tickets for Sunday.
And you know, we get to thetheater, we print out our
tickets, we get to our seat, youknow we're, you know we're in

(16:45):
an empty theater at this pointand the trailers don't start.
The movie was for 7 10.
Yeah, the movie was for 7 10and 7 10 comes.
And you know they're stillplaying commercials for just
random products.
You know, buy more coca-cola,buy some chips from our, you
know, snack stand hi, I'm mariamenounos, stuff like that kept

(17:10):
popping up and I was just likewhat's going on?
Why are they like that?
And I I was thinking to myselflike man, the theater chain must
be like doing really poorly.
And it was like it was a sundaynight.
There was nobody else in theentire movie theater like chain.
It wasn't just that that room,it was like there was like two
guys at the desk and then therewas one guy at a bar and that

(17:31):
that was the only other people Isaw in the entire like movie
theater place.
But you know, I startedfreaking out.
I'm like what?
What's going on?
So I look at my movie time andit says that it's on.
So I look at my movie time andit says that it's 7 10, but
nothing's happening.
It's it's nearing 720, it'sstill playing commercials.
And then I look at the day thatthe movie plays and it was.

(17:52):
I went on sunday, but Iapparently bought tickets for
monday at 7 10 classy dakota soI'm just like, oh no yeah
nobody was looking.
No, there was, no, there was.
There was one guy saying likeif you bought tickets online,

(18:15):
just print them out right thereand walk in.
I was like cool.
So I ended up like kind of likeI didn't want to, like you know
, out myself and say that Idon't have actual tickets for
today, but I like kind of, likeyou know, moseyed on over to
like the, the, the, the showingsand I realized, oh, okay, in
the very same theater that I'min, it's going to start in five

(18:37):
minutes, and so I was very luckybecause we didn't have to
change seats or anything likethat.
But yeah, I debated going backa second time on Monday because
I had the tickets.
I had bought those tickets.

Speaker 1 (18:58):
Not Dakota.
See, I've never seen anybody doa twofer in that kind of way
Usually they watch a movie, thenthey go to another, into
another theater.
I've never heard of anybodybuying tickets for the day after
going seeing the movie I didnot end up going monday, but
yeah I, I could have dude,that's wild, that's and it's

(19:21):
crazy they would have been nonethe wiser.

Speaker 2 (19:23):
No, they would have been like this this checks out
perfect, great sit down it'slike do you have tickets?

Speaker 1 (19:29):
you just flash it up, don't even look at it.
Dude, that's hilarious, but atleast you got to see it I got to
see it and you know what.

Speaker 2 (19:36):
We're almost 24 minutes into our recording.
Let's actually talk about thismovie, guys yeah, all righty.

Speaker 1 (19:41):
Yeah, I know, let's go yeah.

Speaker 2 (19:44):
So what was I want to ask you guys initial opinions
about the movie within the firstfive to ten minutes, like
before we even got like thetitle reveal of war of the rahir
.
I'm like what, like when, whenit first started, what were your
emotions, what were youthinking at that point?

Speaker 1 (20:02):
we have, we have like eagles showing up, yeah, we
have dude, like I was honestlylike pretty blown away with the
animation.
They were playing the theme ofrohan.
I was like really like I don't,I just thought everything
looked good, the landscapelooked amazing.
It was really really cool tosee, like the eagles and the

(20:24):
scale of them.
I mean yeah, like for me, Ienjoyed it those first few
minutes.
They were really like trying toplace you within Middle Earth,
especially with that score, youknow.

Speaker 2 (20:37):
Yes, the score.
And also, you know well, beforewe forget, howard Shore
actually did provide the scorefor this movie.
So yeah, I thought that wascool.
The OG came back Rich.
What are your thoughts on?
Like the early parts of themovie?

Speaker 3 (20:50):
Oh, just immediate, my bowl was full with member
berries.
Just the nostalgia was great.
The music I don't have themusic for many movies downloaded
.
You know, nowadays we have manymore songs that are tied to a
movie, that are already famousor whatever.
But in terms of like originalmusic for a movie, I rarely,

(21:14):
except for like snakes on aplane, which was just a classic,
this is the only one that Iwould say is a mostly
instrumental.
You know movie score that Iactually I'm an old head so and
I don't have it on apple musicguys, all right, no, I bought
the cd, I ripped it into an mp3on my computer and then I
downloaded it to my phone and Ihave it forever for perpetuity.

(21:38):
And the rohan song, the battleof helms, deep, those are some
of my favorite scores.
So I just immediately gotexcited.
I was thinking in my head likewhere was Gondor when the West
fell?
You know, all that stuff waspumping through me.
I always felt like Rohan as apowerful area, was always

(22:00):
depicted as granted, lots ofrolling hills and all that right
, but it always felt small to me.
I didn't feel like it was alarge settlement.
It always felt kind ofminuscule to me and I felt like
the beginning of this moviereally did a good job of
establishing a larger grandeurof it.
I mean, even just the eagles,how massive they are in

(22:23):
comparison, just the eagles, howmassive they are in comparison.
I just thought that it reallypresented rohan in a.
It makes me wonder, like what'sgoing on with rohan when we get
there in lord of the rings,right, you know, like there's
kind of a dwindling nature tonot just the, the amount of
people, but the, theestablishments, their

(22:43):
settlements.

Speaker 2 (22:44):
You touched on a lot that I actually do want to touch
on throughout our discussion,so we're going to circle back to
some of that.
I just want to mention my firstthoughts going into it because,
unlike you two, I was not happywith the first couple minutes
of the movie.
I thought it was really weird,the animation style it wasn't
gelling with me at all for agood portion of it and I think

(23:08):
the reason was because thebackground 2d animation on top
of it seemed like it was, youknow, the typical 12 frames of

(23:29):
animation per second.
So for every two frames onlyone frame of the animation would
move and it would cause likejumpiness to to.
You know, like while while likescenes were like moving around,
the actual animation wasjumping around and it was really
bothering me Just on a creativelevel.
But I learned to appreciate itmore as it kept going.

(23:51):
I learned to kind of move pastthat.
But I did notice that therewere different levels of the
animation throughout the film.
I don't know if you guysnoticed that, but there were
some scenes that were clearlylike money was put into this,
like the faces were really crisp, the the animation was fluid
and there were other sceneswhere, like, only one character

(24:14):
would be moving at a time andeveryone else would be stagnant,
and it was like the, the faceswere poorly drawn and I was just
like that's weird, did theylike?

Speaker 1 (24:23):
run out of scenes like oh, dude, dude, you was it,
you, you gotta, you gotta getback into anime.

Speaker 2 (24:31):
Dude, that's just anime anime is like very much so
, like like, not anime films uhanime films anime films, they,
you know.
I mean, I'm spoiled by you knowyour Name and Suzume and
Miyazaki and all that.

Speaker 1 (24:49):
But even then, like with your Name, the animation
was really good on that, butthey also used the same like
time-saving mechanics in thosemovies.

Speaker 2 (25:01):
I believe it.

Speaker 1 (25:03):
It's time and money saving mechanics, like you see.
You're gonna see it in in all.
You know, obviously, like animefilms are gonna be a little bit
better when it comes to that,but it's still gonna happen.

Speaker 2 (25:17):
I think I'm so used to watching it never really
bothered me, because I watch alot of anime so what happens for
me going into this, was upuntil the point just after
Frekka died, where you know,like Helm hits Frekka and he
dies.
Then there was that flashbackto when Hera and Wolf were kids,

(25:39):
and then that was like reallywell done, like I was just like
wait, like wait, wait, what justhappened.
There was like a tonal shift inin like the way that this was
produced and moving forward.
From that point it seemed likethe the whole movie was, was
much more fluid and and looked alot better.
So I, I think I kind of got itout of my system, or there was

(26:00):
my, my personal like ideas likewhat happened there was they,
they, they made most of themovie and then, with whatever
budget they had, they did therest of it or whatever.

Speaker 1 (26:10):
So I don't know.

Speaker 2 (26:12):
I just wanted to mention that I was not a fan
originally of the animationstyle Like the 3D on top or the
2D on top of the 3D, and thensometimes the 2D was kind of
cheap looking.
But I got past that because thestory was just so captivating
and also there were there wassome really good animation in
there too yeah dog on that yeahthat initial jolt put me in a

(26:36):
sour mood but I I instantly, orlike quickly, recovered from
that.
But you mentioned, rich, thatrohan in the films feels shallow
because we really only see alittle bit of, you know, the
hillside with the rohirum andederas, which is the like, I
guess, the capital city of rohanwhere the king lives, and this

(26:59):
we get a grander idea of therebeing.
You know, other areas of rohanand other peoples within it that
meet regularly to decide onevents or who gets married or
whatever yeah and I think thatthat's what you're talking about
, where you know it does feellike they world built rohan out
tremendously with this movieyeah, I thought it was

(27:20):
fantastically done.

Speaker 3 (27:21):
It really there was.
It's.
I wouldn't say I reallyquestioned it beforehand, but I
think that watching this thenmade me reflect back and go, wow
, like, where did all thosewriters of rohan sleep?
Because ederas just didn't seemthat big right and we never got

(27:42):
the idea that there were otherlocations in rohan other than
ederas.
And I it's not spoilers, so I'mjust going to admit this now.
All right, I am embarrassed.
I am embarrassed to tell youthat at the end of the movie
when they say no helms deep, Iwent what damn it, I'm an idiot.

(28:03):
Like I just immediately cursedmyself for not, because I
remember going hey, this placelooks familiar, I feel like I've
seen it before.
And then there was a differentname and I go, huh, I guess they
have similar seeming places.
I didn't know that they couldgone to this place instead of
helms deep, but I just kind ofkept it in my head.

(28:24):
I remember at one point charlieand I looked at each other and
we're like huh.
And then at the end of themovie, when it said we both went
, we both hit our heads like oh,you gotta be joking me, you
know, like I can't believe wellremember.

Speaker 1 (28:38):
Theoden calls it the hornberg I see, I did it that,
that one calls it the thehornberg, and I think I think
he's talking about that instancein this movie, remember, when
he says that the, that the wallshave held against.
So I'm wondering if he'stalking about like that instance

(28:59):
, because I mean, this is a, youknow, this is a battle in which
, like you know, the thefortress has been tested.
So I've always like wonder.
Now I'm kind of thinking like Iwonder if he's referencing this
.

Speaker 2 (29:14):
Yeah, yeah, so it was .
It was surprising seeing the, Iguess the the dawn of, like,
how they named Helms deep, helmsdeep, instead of it being also
called the Hornburg, because,yeah, to me it was always Helms
Deep.
They do have multiple names forpretty much everything in Lord
of the Rings, so it also beingcalled the Hornburg did not faze

(29:35):
me in any which way, you know.

Speaker 1 (29:38):
Right.

Speaker 2 (29:38):
So, but it was cool seeing basically everything that
you know, we have come to knowabout Rohan also be referenced
in this movie.

Speaker 1 (29:48):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (29:50):
And yeah, I want to talk about like its actual
canonicity to Tolkien's lore.
I don't know if you guys havelooked it up at all.

Speaker 3 (29:58):
I have not in recent days.
I haven't really looked intothat.

Speaker 2 (30:02):
So it's a really I think it's crazy.
Crazy actually, because thereare aspects that are very canon
and there are big aspects thatcould be canon like.
it's a very confusing thingbecause the whole movie we're
following a character namedharrah who is helm hammerhand's

(30:22):
daughter.
In tolkien's lore she's, shegoes unnamed and in the
beginning of the movie she Ithink the narrator says you do
not know her name because she'snot sung in any in any songs or
something like that.
Yeah, yeah, like she, she isn'tin the legend or whatever.
And yes, oh, they, they createdthe name harrah for the

(30:44):
character of helm's daughter.
So in the actual lore, all thatwe know that happens because,
remember, this movie existspurely as a footnote to
Tolkien's lore, like he wrote acouple sentences, devised a
little bit of backstory for thisarea and threw it out into the
world, and that kind of thatfootnote in his Lord of the

(31:09):
Rings history is what we'reseeing play out.
So in the story we know thatFreca comes to Edoras to speak
to Helm Hammerhand and you knowrequests that Wolf be taken as
his daughter's husband,basically taken as his, his

(31:32):
daughter's husband, basically,yeah, so freka shows up to the,
you know the, the throne room ofhelm hammerhand, and he
requests, or you know, demandsthat harris or that helm's
daughter, because she goesunnamed in tolkien, he requests
that Helm's daughter marry hisson Wolf and in Tolkien's lore,
helm, you know, makes a jestthat Freca has gone fat, and

(31:55):
then Freca makes a jest thatHelm is old, and then they take
the fight outside and Helmdefeats him with a single punch,
killing him, and then sometimelater his son Wolf occupies
Rohanhan.
That's the entirety of like whatwe know from that story and
they use that footnote for theentire movie, which is really

(32:17):
really cool because they're justlike helm's daughter.
Whatever happened to helm'sdaughter?
We know that.
You know, in the siege of rohan, his, his two named sons are
killed, but we don't know thefate of Hera, helm's daughter,
and that's what this movie isabout.
It gives her the name Hera andwe're following her throughout

(32:38):
the entire occupation of Rohan.
It's really cool.

Speaker 3 (32:41):
I think it's one of the only things that bothers me,
for some reason, is you couldhave picked any name and there's
no name in any of Tolkien'swork.
The only thing that bothers me,for some reason, is you could
have picked any name and I don't.
There's no name in any oftolkien's work that reminds me
of any other name other than aname in tolkien's work, right,
like sauron and sauron orwhatever.
But other than that, like, thenames are all very distinct and

(33:02):
you know, hera is the name of,you know, know, a god in Greek
mythology and I just feel likeit definitely evoked some stuff
before.
Like you know, I heard her namewas Hera and I immediately had
connections where the first timeI heard Bilbo or Frodo or
Bombar or Bifor or Kili or Fili,they were all distinct Aragons.

(33:26):
You know, all these names areall distinct, except for tom, I
suppose I guess.
I guess not tom but you know, Ijust think that her, that the
naming was, was interesting.
I wonder if it was meant toevoke anything, if it was kind

(33:48):
of meant to kind of delineateher as some sort of kind of
godlike, mythic heroine, youknow, in this kind of epic who
does not get sung about.
So that's a little bitconfounding.
I'm probably just harping onthe name too much, but that's.
That is one thing that thatstuck out to me.
Just because it's not.
It's a very untolkien thing, Ithink, to have any name that

(34:13):
seems similar to any name we'veheard of in any other work or in
our everyday lives okay, I can.

Speaker 2 (34:20):
I can understand that criticism if it means anything.
The creative team behind thisentire movie, despite it being
produced by Peter Jackson's camp, it was all Japanese workers,
because it was entirely Japaneseproduction.
If you stayed for the credits,it was all people from Japan.

(34:42):
So I guess the way that theywould name things wouldn't, I
guess, gel totally withTolkien's linguistic nature, I
guess, because it's entirelydifferent.
Oh, that makes sense.
Yeah, that's fair.
All right, language, I guess.
So I guess I'm not trying tosay that that makes up for that,

(35:03):
because, yeah, I did make theGod connection as well, but it
didn't bother me.
Because, yeah, I don't know,but I'm looking through the cast
of the movie and I don't knowhow, I didn't know this, but the
, the actress who played eowynmiranda otto, is the narrator

(35:24):
for the, the movie chef's kissoh it's beautiful.

Speaker 1 (35:28):
I I thought that she came back in some sort of
capacity.
I just didn't look too deepinto it yeah.

Speaker 2 (35:34):
So I I thought that they were just trying to emulate
the aoin character, like forthe narration, like just her,
her vocal style.
I didn't actually think thatthey got the actress, but I, you
know it actually makes sense,like why not get the actress for
the english translation?
So yeah, I thought that thatwas pretty cool.
So let's talk a little bitabout harrah and some of the

(35:57):
history that that kind ofsurrounds her and the shield
maidens of rohan, because theythey kind of touch on, you know,
like this is a thing of thepast.
The shield maiden, it's a lineof women warriors that, after
all the men were gone, the womanwould take up their shields and
defend whoever was left.
And there was only one shieldmaiden left.

(36:19):
What's her name?

Speaker 3 (36:21):
The name doesn't skate in Alwyn, oh, alwyn.
No, I believe Alwyn was thekind of advisor that she had oh
no, no, yeah, alwyn, alwyn was.

Speaker 2 (36:34):
Uh.
Yeah, she was an advisor, butshe was the last oh, she was
okay the line of the shieldmaidens prior yeah, alwyn, so
I'm looking at.

Speaker 1 (36:42):
Do you think there's any relation?
Do you think?

Speaker 2 (36:45):
that to who?

Speaker 1 (36:46):
to eowyn's family.
Oh, because I mean, like I'mand I'm not really just like
speaking most I mean the with,with the way that her name ends
is very similar.
But there's also the fact that,like eowyn has this pride in
shield maidens, as if it's likea part of her history.

Speaker 2 (37:08):
So I'm thinking there might be something there may be
a relation.
Yeah, I didn't, I did not thinkabout that at all, but that's a
really cool connection cousin.
So we don't know how exactlythey're connected via, via blood

(37:35):
, to Helm's line, but her cousinbecomes the first and a second
line of kings that I'm assumingleads up to Theoden's I'm, I'm
guessing that, eowyn.
Well, we know that eowyn ispart of that, that line.
So I don't know how muchinbreeding goes on in ederas, I

(37:55):
don't know how much, I don'tknow.
I don't know olwyn's familytree.
At this point, you know, likethere's no way to like say like,
oh yeah, she's definitely notor is, you know, attached to
that lineage.

Speaker 1 (38:07):
But I I think it's a really cool theory so I'm
looking at the casting and youknow who, who provided some
voice talent in this moviestriker baby you're gonna say
billy boyd and dominic monaghanoh I was uh marion pippen
something else.

Speaker 2 (38:22):
Yeah, I was gonna say something else, but I thought I
heard them on occasion, justfor like background characters,
right?

Speaker 1 (38:26):
yeah, yeah, but it's crazy that, like how they like
kind of like some of these pastlord of the rings characters
have found trickled their wayinto this one yeah, there's.

Speaker 2 (38:38):
There's one specific character or actor that that
shows up.
That I was not expecting thevoice of you guys probably also
weren't, but like when, whensaruman shows up yeah, it's
actually christopher lee's voiceused in like posthumous
archival recording.
I was like wait that's crazy.

Speaker 1 (38:58):
That was awesome.
It was cool to see him likebecause in this movie we do see
isengard that and it's being,it's being occupied by Wolf's
group, you know.
So Saruman hasn't establishedhimself there yet, and so it it
is timely, like with um Wolfbeing defeated.

(39:20):
I'm, you know, I'm assumingthat group kind of disbands and
leaves that place.
So now here comes, uh, saruman,you know which, at this point I
believe, like he hasn't beencorrupted yet.
You know, I think he's like thegood wizard that he's supposed
to be in that moment, right, andthen they also do name drop

(39:40):
gandalf also yes, right at thevery ends.

Speaker 2 (39:43):
They, I feel like you know all, all of these Lord of
the Rings adjacent projects haveto name drop.
Good old Gans, good old GrandElf, gandalf himself, it's great
though he knows his name thistime.

Speaker 1 (39:57):
Yeah, you know at this time, he does know his name
.

Speaker 3 (40:02):
Listen, it's amazing that these adjacent movies, as
you'll say, right, all they haveto do is name drop a couple of
the guys and we're excited,right.
But craven comes out and weit's like oh, gee, oh no, no
right, like oh, dude or madame,or madame webb, right, like it's

(40:23):
just.
It just makes me laugh how, forus, in these movies, all it
takes is a name and we're like Ilike, like my charlie, one of
the things he was like it wasreally cool at the end the way
they said that they were gonnago see gandalf, like that was
one of his favorite parts toretell my wife, right.
And.
But when we see these otheradjacent movies, we're just like

(40:45):
nah, man, that's trash.
Like you know, morbius has likethe spider-ace movies.
We're just like nah, man,that's trash.
Like you know, create more BShas like the Spider-Man poster.
And we're like come on, that's,you got to do better than that.

Speaker 1 (40:55):
At least with this, it's like it's crafted a lot
better, the story is better, thecharacters are a lot better,
and it's funny that you bringthat up, because I completely
forgot to say that I actuallydid see Kraven.

Speaker 2 (41:09):
Oh, no, oh, how was it dude?

Speaker 1 (41:12):
Okay, so I guess a little break in the pod.
I didn't hate it.
It wasn't amazing, but it wasinteresting enough that I would
place it between Venom and MadamWeb, with Venom being the
better Sony project and MadamWeb being like completely at the
end.
To me, kraven, it doesn't eventouch like that bad.

Speaker 2 (41:34):
Let's talk a little bit more.
And his army pull the Rohirrimout of Edoras so that Edoras can
be ambushed, but Hera quietlybrings everyone over to what's

(41:57):
it called the place.

Speaker 3 (41:58):
The Hornburg.

Speaker 2 (42:00):
The Hornburg.
Yes, hera brings everyone tothe Hornburg and in that retreat
, after Helm realizes that youknow they they've lost.
Because of cunning, both of hissons die pretty gruesome deaths
yeah and then and then.
Helm himself gets like shot upwith a crazy amount of arrows.

(42:23):
But the guy's a beast he, hereally is a beast like he went
beast mode, like it may not havebeen in that scene, like he.

Speaker 1 (42:32):
He goes into like a little brief coma yeah in his
loft, but well, he, in thatmoment, they, they said that
like he, he, he was asleep notbecause of his injuries, but
because he was like distraught,like he was heartbroken because
both of his injuries, butbecause he was like distraught,
like he was heartbroken becauseboth of his sons have been
killed.
You know, yeah, and hewitnessed both of those deaths.

Speaker 2 (42:54):
Dude like right in front of him.

Speaker 1 (42:56):
Like that's tough One was an arrow to the neck and
then the other one survives butgets his throat slit Like it's
freaking crazy yeah, and it wasa Hera witnesses.
Witnesses that too, like so,yeah, like I mean it was really
crazy.
Yeah, wolf is.
Wolf was like a savage man we.

Speaker 2 (43:16):
We get to a point in the story where helm wakes from
his grief coma and basicallyjust starts ripping the, the
people in wolf's camp, limb fromlimb at night, to the point
where, like there's just likedozens of people dead that they
have like no room to bury andlike they just think it's a

(43:37):
ghost.

Speaker 1 (43:38):
Yeah, what are your thoughts on that?
Because they were calling itactually like the wraith or the
whites of the was it helm wraithor something like that.

Speaker 3 (43:47):
Yeah, dude well, it was so funny we had the whole
backstory that there wereessentially, you know, spirits,
you know essentially in someways, that the hordberg was kind
of cursed, so that there were,like these lost souls that were
in there.
So I guess we're meant tounderstand that one of these

(44:09):
lost souls may have, likeincited his anger and fueled him
.
I mean, he does seem slightlysupernatural and actually there
are moments, yeah, even interact, his it seems that his
interaction with harrah almostmakes him less powerful, as, as
it kind of like if she doesn'tshow up and stop him, maybe he

(44:30):
like takes the whole crew down,you know, but instead it it kind
of it's like his humanitybrought him back and then made
him lose the physical attributesthat he had gained during this,
because there was no indicationearlier that he could rip
people limb from limb and wedon't know many people in middle
earth who, physically, otherthan the ants right and like

(44:54):
trolls and goblins that can ripa tear asunder your arms.

Speaker 2 (45:00):
Yeah, well, we we do know that, like he was able to
kill Freka, a very big dude,with a single punch and he
seemed surprised by that Like heit didn't seem like he like was
really trying to to kill thisguy.
It was just like now it's myturn.

Speaker 1 (45:19):
Right, Right, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he
he he, he one punched man, thatguy yeah, I mean, even he was
like there's no way, like Ithought that was one of these
like weird I thought that theywere gonna.
I don't know, like I felt hemight have had something going
on.
He might have been sick or hehad some, or or he might have
hit him in the temple orsomething.
I don't know.

Speaker 3 (45:39):
It was that's right, I thought it was one of those
fluke things like a finaldestination type, like death,
where it's like everything linesup.
You know rather perfectly forit to happen, you know it's.
It actually made me think thatI mean, granted, his dad had
just died, right, and someonelike he could see why it
happened.
But I don't know, man, andmaybe I'm being a little bit

(46:02):
crude here, uh, and maybe otherpeople will disagree with me,
but I don't know if my dad likeinitiated a fistfight and then
like just took one on the jawand was out and died, I'm like,
yeah, it's a little on you pops.
Like I don't know, I don't know, like I I don't know if I could
could blame the other party asmuch, uh, unless I knew that he

(46:26):
was juicing or something.
I don't know If my dad starts afight with Tyson and Tyson
kills him, like hey dad, that'sMike Tyson.
Man, you're not Big Mac, you'renot Little Mac, you gotta calm
down.

Speaker 2 (46:39):
When Hera finds the secret tunnel behind the chamber
that Helm was sleeping.
Sleeping in, she occasionallysaw glimpses of some spectral
figure.
Do you think that she was justseeing the backside of helm as
he was walking away, or was sheactually seeing some specter

(47:03):
that exists within helms deepthe hornberg?

Speaker 1 (47:08):
I don't know like or that or that really massive orc
that they like yeah kind ofstumble upon.
That kind of looks like him too, like with the horns and stuff,
like I don't like.
Like if you saw him, if youjust saw the silhouette, you
would think that it was him, youknow what do you?

Speaker 2 (47:27):
what do you think?
Wretch like what, what did?
How was your?
What was your interpretation ofthat like apparition?

Speaker 3 (47:33):
well, I, see, what am I?
I don't know if I'm supposed tothink this, but, like the use
of wraiths to me is also veryparticular right, and I'm,
unless I'm mistaken, like theonly reference that we have to
wra being used in Tolkien oreven Jackson is the ring race,
right, is the?
So it immediately made me thinkof that.

(47:53):
I tried to like timeline thisout and figure out, like you
know, is this in some wayrelated to one of those rates
Like uh?

Speaker 1 (48:02):
they also call Caleb Brimbor and Caleb Brimbor and um
the in those games they callhim a wraith too.

Speaker 3 (48:11):
Oh, that's right.
Okay, all right.
So you know it's.
The wraith thing immediatelymade me immediately kind of I.
I really did feel like perhapsthat there are these wraiths
that are going around helms deepand that that that they kind of
took over, took over Helm, youknow, at some point, and that's
what really kind of motivated itis an interesting thought,

(48:33):
because we know that Helm's Deepbasically like, without extreme
measures, like impossible tobreak into and yet Homie just
pried it open with his fingers.

Speaker 2 (48:44):
You know, like I, I would like to believe that there
was other people behind thedoor trying to like, push.
You know, push it open with,like the the wheel thing, but
like they didn't actually showthat, like the last time they
showed those people they theyhad failed in opening the doors,
but somehow he did it so thatwas crazy.

Speaker 1 (49:01):
This man's just like yeah, and that's that's.

Speaker 2 (49:05):
That's one of those things that I'm just that kind
of bothered me a little bit,just because it stretches the,
the ceiling of believability inin this world, and that's not
something I think too.

Speaker 1 (49:18):
Nothing in that world is believable, to be honest,
like none of it's real um, it'salso it's also anime.
Like dude, they had to throwsome shenanigans.

Speaker 2 (49:27):
I know they have to do some power scaling.

Speaker 3 (49:30):
I was about to actually you, because I do feel
like that.
The one thing that's kind ofbeen established is we don't
really have Herculean feats ofstrength by any what I would
call any really of the racesother than, like the Uruk-hai
right when they were kind ofcreated, and and even then it's

(49:51):
kind of limited to, I'd say, theEnts being the far more
powerful beings.
In this case, helm could ripthe Ents in half, I think,
without a problem.
So, like, here's my thing, Ithink, to kind of address what
dakota said earlier.
I think that the hit on friccawas just literally like one of

(50:14):
those kismet, like just terrible, like once in a lifetime, like
you know, you do it you swing athousand times at a pitch and
like one time you might put acharge in it and hit it out of
Yankee Stadium.

Speaker 1 (50:28):
Yeah, no, absolutely I agree.

Speaker 3 (50:30):
But then later he becomes so overpowered that it
has to be some sort ofsupernatural thing at least for
me to jive in this world.
I mean, there's that instance.

Speaker 1 (50:43):
There's also the thing of adrenaline.
I mean this instance, it cankind of be, you know, whatever,
but I mean the fact that, likeyou know, people have literally
been able to lift cars off ofpeople because of the surge of
adrenaline that they have, Idon't mean over their head, but
like literally be able to likelift enough to like get somebody

(51:05):
, and you know how like vehiclesare super.
They could be super heavy Imean, I'm pretty sure those
doors are a lot heavier but,like you know, maybe the moment,
the adrenaline, I mean maybe hecould have been half dead, half
alive, I don't know, you know,but that moment was actually
really cool, like after that,where he just like really threw
down and he threw down on and hedidn't even die, like from them

(51:27):
, he died by freezing yeah, soI'm actually looking at the you
know, the actual lord of therings wiki and it does suggest
that that is something that waspart of the, the lore, like that
tolkien wrote he.

Speaker 2 (51:47):
His body was discovered the next morning
after battling many people,frozen in the snow while still
standing, you know, like he wasstill ready to fight.
So that's actually somethingthat, like, tolkien wrote into
into the, the myth of thischaracter.

Speaker 1 (52:02):
So, yeah, the guy was just an absolute legend, dude,
you want to hear something funny.
So I went to the movie and Isaw it with some friends and my
friend also got like the popcornbucket.
And in that moment, in thatmoment where it showed him, like

(52:24):
frozen with you, just likeoutside the gate, both my friend
and I took the hammer, we likelifted it up into the at the
same time.
We didn't even like plan it, inthat moment we just like, for
some reason, that moment we bothhad like a shared brain cell
moment and we were just likeyou're both quantum computing at

(52:44):
the same time.

Speaker 2 (52:44):
Yeah, yeah, dude, helm, hammerhand was a unit like
an absolute yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 (52:49):
No, I liked him, though um.
He was voiced by brian cox yes,oh yeah.

Speaker 3 (52:54):
I mean, man like it's he brought, so I thought he
brought so much to it.
He like he's got such a greatvoice and he and he can sound,
what I think is amazing.
I hate him as Stryker in theX-Men franchise, in the Fox
X-Men franchise, but here I justthought he worked so well.

(53:20):
Who do we have as Odin Silenceof the Lambs?
Anthony Hopkins, right, andhe's great there and he like a
gravitas to the role.
But I thought that Brian Coxwas just really great.
Just all kudos to him.
It's weird because I was ableto identify him but then by the
end I felt like that's Helm,Like I wasn't saying that's

(53:43):
Stryker anymore.
You know, Testament to him, Ithink.

Speaker 1 (53:47):
It was really cool and like you had to really make
that character spectacular forit to be like.
You know, it's like this placewas named after him.
Helms deep was named after thisindividual.
And now I'm a believer, bro Iwas like, yeah, this guy
deserved this place had to benamed after this guy, because

(54:08):
this guy was just straight upbeast.
And this man took arrows, youknow, a few days later, was
thrown down on a bunch of guysin front of this gate, like, and
then froze overnight.
You know, it's just, it's yeah,that was.
The only thing that could stophim was the weather, like that
was insane, like and like for anolder guy, he, he was jacked,
he was big time muscular.

(54:34):
Something that I really, reallyliked about this movie is the
incorporation of the eagles andthe fact that when Hera went up
to the eagle's nest to speakwith the eagle, that she said
that she had heard that theeagles can understand their
language and I thought that wasinteresting, like I thought that

(54:55):
was really cool, because wealways thought of eagles as,
like you know, just like kind ofthese animals, but in lord of
the rings, they're actually somuch more.
You know they're, they're thesebeings that kind of transcend.
It's not like a deer in thefield or anything like these are
like almost not reallycelestial, but they they hold a

(55:16):
high place and like a hierarchy,you know.
So the fact that, like she said, that you know the eagles have
their own language, and the factthat gandalf could actually
speak to eagles, I thought thatwas cool, that they kind of
elaborated a little bit more onthat.

Speaker 2 (55:31):
Yeah, they did a really good job in a number of
aspects of just expanding whatwe know about the lore and
coloring in aspects of the lorethat the average fan just you
know, like the movie viewerswouldn't normally know.
I, I always appreciate whenmovies have have that ability to
do that and you don't need totake all that like from the

(55:55):
movie.
It just it could just be a coolthing that happens in the movie
.
But if you're actually, youknow, trying to logically
incorporate this into the lordof the rings trilogy and maybe
the rings of power somehow, yeahyou can kind of piece it
together a little bit.
Okay, this happens here.
This makes sense because ofthis.
Another thing that they weretrying to slowly incorporate was
that there was the introductionof a couple orc characters that

(56:18):
were picking the rings off ofthe dead bodies, that Helm was
ripping apart, saying thatsomebody was looking for rings
and I was just like ooh okay,all the hunt for the ring is
currently on 183 years beforethe Fellowship of the Ring.
So that's sick.
It's been going on for a longtime.

Speaker 1 (56:37):
I thought that was really cool.

Speaker 2 (56:41):
And that also kind of ties in with what you were
saying about the eagles, becausethrough the eagles you know who
got in contact with gandalf.
gandalf got in contact with heraand said I'd like to know more
about the rings that thesepeople were, that these orcs are
talking about oh, yeah, yeah sothis all connects and I don't
know if there's like a granderstory that they're trying to

(57:01):
tell in like a sequel orwhatever, but I I do like the
setup for more stories with hera.
You know her story does not endwith this movie and there's
there's potentially more to comeif people want to watch it I
also like that they finally gavethe name the mumakil, you know,
in lord of the rings the moviesthey call them oleophants, you

(57:23):
know, but like, their actualname is mumakil and the re.

Speaker 1 (57:27):
The way I knew that was because I had played battle
for middle earth and that's whatthey called them in that game.
So that's how I came tounderstand that that's what
their name.
So the fact that they had themin there and they had this kind
of connection with the Haradrimright.

Speaker 2 (57:47):
Yeah, so one thing that the movies did not portray
well and I think this is acommon criticism is that they
seem to combine the Southron,the Haradrim and the Easterlings
into one group andstylistically they all look the
same and they kind of all appearat the same time.

(58:07):
So there's no real way todifferentiate, know,
differentiate, the easterlingsfrom the south run.
In this movie they're veryspecifically talking about
people from the south cominginto rohan.
They're the south run, they'rethe haradrim that come with the
mumakil.
And on that point you knowsomething in the beginning of
the movie or near the beginningof the movie that, like some of

(58:28):
the cattle has been like dyingof this, like crazy plague, and
like then we see a, a crazedoliphant or mumakil.
Yeah, do we ever learn why theywere going crazy?
Was that ever addressed or wasthat just like something that
happens?

Speaker 1 (58:44):
I don't.
I don't remember if that wasaddressed, but I could it.

Speaker 2 (58:49):
Could it be that they were like poisons, so as to
like draw Hera out of?
Ederos to be captured by Wolf,because it seemed like that was
an intentional thing to like.
Capture Hera.

Speaker 1 (59:03):
Yeah, yeah, really elaborate.
But like remember, after thatmoment with frecca, that harrow
wasn't really allowed to leavewithout, without um a party, and
so maybe I don't know, likethey're doing stuff to like kind
of break up that group andended up happening that dude,

(59:24):
that moment was really crazywith the mumma kill when they go
into the forest, like at first,when, when he said that, like
you know, when she was gonnadrop, go into the forest and
they're like you know that thatplace is dangerous I thought she
was going into fangorn and hewas talking about the ants,
right, yep and um, yeah, no, no,something far more scary than a

(59:47):
freaking ant, dude yeah, it was.
It was a watcher in the waterand dude that was crazy, though
it had like that little islandon its head, like almost like
kind of lore people or somethingyeah, dude, that was crazy.
And like that thing swallowedthe mumukil like whole and I'm
thinking about like the mass.
Like you know, the the animedoesn't really show how massive

(01:00:12):
they are, but in the moviesthey're pretty big right.
So imagine something like thatgetting swallowed by that,
unless it was a smaller one.

Speaker 3 (01:00:21):
It still only counts as one.
Maybe it was a smaller one,Waba, it still only counts as
one.
So I mean big or small.

Speaker 2 (01:00:27):
That's a good point, yeah, but I like what you're
saying.
I think they don't show us thefull size of the Watcher in the
water, because it's kind of likean iceberg, you know, you're
only seeing the tip of thisgiant beast, so to be able to
swallow that whole got to be abig creature.

Speaker 1 (01:00:43):
That's true and like what we saw was already like
pretty massive.

Speaker 2 (01:00:48):
Rich, what did you think of the relationship
between Hera and Wolf?
Because it kind of evolves overthe course of the movie as
something you know it's.
It's two friends that have kindof like gone astray over time
because of a mistake inchildhood.
To you know, I'm going to killall your family and you're going
to watch, like what are yourthoughts on that relationship?

Speaker 3 (01:01:08):
I kind of see, I don't know, I I think I find it
believable in the way that hisdad seems like such a
misogynistic jerk that I can seelike him being a well-reasoned
you know pre-teen, whatever, andthen kind of just being

(01:01:29):
surrounded by his father'sideologies and sitting there and
kind of absorbing so much thathe believes he starts to believe
that, you know, he deserves tomarry her because he believes in
the system and this is whathe's promised and he will not be
denied.
I don't, I don't.

(01:01:50):
I guess it's not far off for meto believe that people can be
filled with misinformation andmayhaps act in a uh, absurd
manner.
I maybe 20 years ago I wouldn'thave believed it as much, but
now, uh it's, it's easier tokind of believe that it would
happen.
So I it's weird, but I didn'tactually think it was that odd

(01:02:11):
of a narrative jump.
Maybe it's because, also, Iwatch Game of Thrones, where the
male characters are very muchemboldened by the world they
live in and do operate in theseways that are essentially
unquestioned.
So, although we don't see thisnormally in Lord of the Rings, I

(01:02:31):
Medievally I would say I don'tthink that's a word, I just I'm
just making stuff up, but inlike a medieval sense, in terms
of like style of government andthings, the way things work.
It did seem like something thata some, a pig-headed misogynist
, would ascribe to anth Anthony.

Speaker 2 (01:02:50):
What did you think of that?

Speaker 1 (01:02:51):
It was interesting, you know, like it it's these
childhood friends.
Seemingly they were close whenthey were young but there was
like that long stretch of timethat they weren't together.
So I can imagine that maybesome sort of resentment was
grown in that period of time.
That you know, when she likerejected him, I feel like that,

(01:03:16):
like the death of his father waskind of like the straw that
broke the camel's back and hekind of like took all that
frustration.
He's like well, you know what?

Speaker 2 (01:03:25):
I'm gonna kill everything you love yeah, I, I
actually I thought his characterwas really compelling because
you didn't really fullyunderstand his motives and I
don't think anyone reallyunderstood his motives,
including him, you know.
I think that he was just, hewas operating on revenge the
entire time and I believe that agood portion of the, the lords

(01:03:50):
of roan that like joined up withhim, like Lord Thorne, you know
, truly believed that he had aplan to change the way this,
this society, was structured.
He had a, an idea of like howto change things and overall was
a would have been a powerfulleader, bringing them to new
prosperity or whatever theydidn't receive with Helm

(01:04:11):
Hammerhead.
So I understood that.
But I really liked therelationship Not that I liked it
, but I thought it was reallycompelling the relationship
between Lord Thorne, who wasbasically advising Wolf, the
would-be king, for most of themovie until at the very end.
He's like dude, dude, what areyou doing?

(01:04:32):
Like?
yeah everything I tell you to do, you just do the exact opposite
and make everything worse.

Speaker 1 (01:04:38):
And it's clear that wolf just wants revenge, like he
just wants to make the peoplethat hurt him hurt back yeah,
you know, you have uh harrah andthe ends fighting him in that
wedding dress, like, oh, hewants a wife, I'm gonna give him
one right now harrah was socool yeah, it was just she was
such a badass, like everythingthat she did was just like
that's a leader, that's a leaderthat's, you know like she

(01:05:01):
embodied that eowyn archetypethat you know.

Speaker 2 (01:05:05):
I could picture eowyn reading about and hearing songs
about yeah you know picking upand you know embodying that role
for herself.
So I loved Hera as a character.
I thought she had a cool design.
A lot of the designs in thisfilm were really cool.

Speaker 1 (01:05:19):
Yeah, yeah, I agree, you know, kind of like.
Just a quick observation.
So you know we remember thatlike secret cave that they go
through.
When Aragorn asks theoden ifthere's a way for the women and
children to leave, do you thinkthat that's the place that he
was thinking of?

Speaker 2 (01:05:40):
I did think about it.
Yeah, I don't, I don't knowbecause I don't.
Yeah, I, I don't know theanswer to that.

Speaker 1 (01:05:46):
I'd have to because look into it.
I mean because they they saythat there's like a passage that
leads into the mountains and Imean that's technically into the
mountains.
So yeah, it could be, you know,I mean yeah, I mean, like I
mean there might have beenanother passage, but like that
was like the only one that we'vereally seen.
You know so what I will sayabout?

Speaker 2 (01:06:06):
that I thought about that as well.
I thought about that as well.
It just seemed like a differentdesign and like cause cause.
Everything that we saw withinHelm's deep was designed from,
like footage from the movies.
Like every, every, everywherethat we saw that people were
occupying space seemed to bekind of taken and adapted from
the films.

(01:06:26):
So it was interesting that Ididn't feel any natural
resemblance to the films in thattunnel, secret tunnel.
So I mean, it could be, itcould very well be, I don't know
and it probably is.
That's probably the intent thatit was supposed to be that
tunnel that they could escape in.
But I didn't get that afterthinking about it for a little

(01:06:50):
bit.

Speaker 1 (01:06:50):
Food for thought.

Speaker 2 (01:06:51):
Food for thought.
Food for thought rich.

Speaker 3 (01:06:53):
Any last thoughts on lord of the rings, the war of
the roherum despite the kind ofepic fail of the imax experience
, I ended up really liking thisfilm, which says a lot because,
you know, I had to watch aboutan hour worth of previews before
I got into the movie, but Ireally enjoyed it.

(01:07:14):
I mean I had a good time.
I will say that I don't know ifI walked out with the same
feeling I mean this might justbe unfair, right, because I'm
kind of comparing the anime to amovie, right Like I remember
the feeling of just kind ofepicness that washed over me
when I walked out of the thetheaters.

(01:07:38):
And maybe it's because I was inmy 20s and I wanted a sword and
a horse the minute I walked outof the theater, you know, but I
didn't.
I it was like wow, that wasreally nice, I really enjoyed
that.
But I don't think I walked outlike, oh my God, the way I did
with the original Peter Jacksonfilms.

(01:08:01):
I am looking forward to see ifthey do continue it.
You know, I wish that there wasmore attention brought to it.
I don't understand why thisseemed under.
I mean, I know I was targeted,but I I just don't feel like
there was a level of promotion Ididn't see anything about,

(01:08:23):
let's say, brian cox being onlate night tv to promote it, or
erwin or any of the voice youknow it.
Just for such a large epicfranchise, I just feel like it
was really undersold and itleaves me wondering why.
But I still want more of it.

Speaker 2 (01:08:43):
It is also interesting that you bring that
up because they clearly do wantto continue lord of the rings as
a franchise.
They, I think they haveannounced that there's going to
be two films that feature Gollumin live action and potentially
more films that they want totell in that universe.
And it does seem, based onconversations that we've had in

(01:09:06):
the past couple of podcasts,that they are trying to bridge
some stylistic crossoversbetween rings of power and lord
of the rings.
You know the peter jacksonfilms, so that you know the book
is open, so to speak, like the,the lord of the, the tolkien
appendixes are open, and theyclearly want to tell more of

(01:09:26):
these stories.
So it'll be interesting to seehow that works out.
As for me, I feel like I also,while I wasn't underwhelmed, I
didn't feel like there was anoverwhelming.
I don't think that you weredisappointed, but you weren't
overwhelmingly positive orreactionary upon leaving the
theater.
I didn't get that either, but Ididn't think I was going to,

(01:09:48):
just because, again, this is amovie built around a couple
footnotes of Tolkien's lore andthose are movies that are like
the biggest epic fantasy to everepic fantasy.

Speaker 3 (01:10:01):
Yeah that's an unfair barometer.

Speaker 2 (01:10:04):
I suppose it is a little unfair, but I did find
that I really loved it by theend.
I really thought it was areally phenomenal story, a cool
way to tell it too.
I was, and I still am, confusedas to why they would make you
know, like the background ahigher frame rate than the
animation itself.

(01:10:25):
Was that really?
That's going to bother me, youknow forever.
But because it does make thecharacters look like they're
jumping a little bit on top ofthe background.
But overall I I really enjoyedit.
Anthony, what are your thoughts?

Speaker 1 (01:10:39):
I enjoyed it, man.
You know, as the, as theresident anime watcher of the
group, I really enjoyed it.
I liked the, I liked theentertainment choice that they
used, or the media choice thatthey used to tell the story it
was.
It was interesting and you knowin in a way like it wasn't

(01:11:00):
something that we asked for butwe got it anyway.
But we ended up leaving likesatisfied.
You know it's obviously it'snot going to be anything like
the trilogy, but to me it stillserved a really good purpose and
it expanded a lot.

Speaker 2 (01:11:14):
That I was very appreciative of, you know I
don't think I I knew kind oflike what rich was saying at the
beginning of the show.
Rohan seemed like a very smallcity right now I understand
rohan is a realm.
I mean, I understood that rohanwas a realm, it was more than
just that city, but now Iunderstand that ederas is just a

(01:11:34):
small part of rohan and that'sjust where, like the king and
his immediate, like the noblefamilies there live.
So right I think that that islike one of the things that
really expanded on for me, um,and I appreciated that.
You know, just learning alittle bit more about that, but
uh the larger scope, yeah, and Imean I enjoyed it.

Speaker 1 (01:11:53):
I feel like the people of like rohan and like
the way that they live theirlives and kind of conduct
themselves.
I think that they're like myfavorite people of the lord of
the rings, like world as far aslike the humans yeah, no,
totally.

Speaker 2 (01:12:07):
I think that, and that's another thing like I'm
hoping to see more of withfuture installments of the Rigs
of Power.
I want to see more humans thanjust the random tribes of
Southlanders that now currentlyexist just outside of Mordor, as
well as the Numenoreans who arejust battling across the sea.
I want to see actual big racesof humans either in either in

(01:12:31):
condor or rohan, if those placeseven exist yet.
So I guess we'll we'll find outmore of that in a season three
rich thanks.
Thanks again for joining us onthis episode and thank you,
listeners, for listening to ushere for our 104th episode of
project geekology.
If you'd like to check out anyof our shows or socials, you'll

(01:12:54):
find links to everything that weare involved with in the show
notes down below.
And next week, I believe,anthony, we're thinking deeply
about returning to our cursedpodcast, the Harry Potter and
the Prisoner of Azkaban.
We've we recorded this liketwice already and it just keeps

(01:13:15):
not working out, so we're gonnatry it a third time.
Uh, third, third harry potterfilm, third time, and rich
you're.
You're welcome to join us, asalways, if you're available I
would, uh, I would.

Speaker 3 (01:13:24):
I will jump into the flu powder network to join you
guys next week all righty, justuh, stay out of trouble, stay
out of Azkaban.

Speaker 1 (01:13:32):
Stay out of Nocturne Alley.

Speaker 2 (01:13:35):
Guys, if you have the option, on whatever podcast
application that you'relistening to, to give us a
review of the podcast, werequire I think it's six stars.
Is it a six?

Speaker 1 (01:13:49):
I mean, if you can look, if you can put six stars,
put six stars, okay yeah, If youcan put ten, put ten, but
usually the max is five.
And you know, I don't know ifyou can hear that sizzle.
I can in my mind, but we needthat juicy five-star review.

Speaker 2 (01:14:13):
Like a fajita sizzle.
Yeah, yeah, like when you're inChili's and they bring out the
fajitas and you hear the thingsizzling, the plate sizzling,
and then everyone in therestaurant smells like onions
for the rest of the night.
Yeah, it's a wonderfulsensation.
Guys, we need that five-star,juicy, sizzling review in your
podcast app right this moment.

(01:14:34):
Please, we beg of you.
All right, guys?
Thanks, see you next week.

Speaker 1 (01:14:41):
All right, y'all Bye.

Speaker 2 (01:14:42):
The.

Speaker 3 (01:14:42):
Wolverine.