All right, here we go. Quiet. Roll up. Welcome back to The Big Picture Podcast, where we take a look at the latest movie news, the films today and yesterday, and we try to put them into some sort of context for you.
Seated across the microphone from me is FilmBuffOnline, Editor-in-Chief, Rich Tray. And seated across the microphone from me is a very zen, FilmBuffOnline Contributing Editor, Natasha Boguski. How was your holidays, Natasha? Munch that once was is lost for now, none who live remember it.
What, did you accidentally throw a gift away? What are you saying? I may have regifted a few. Okay, that's fair.
That's fair. That's why I get you autographed things, so you can't do that. I actually did get a few of my friends an Evenstar and a One Ring. Oh, nice.
Nice. I think I know who. Yes. Yes.
Okay. But yes, we're in that weird hammock of a week between Christmas, which was just a day ago for us, and New Year's, which is fast approaching. So this is always a weird time, and we have things that we have to do this week, unfortunately, but even putting that aside, this always seems like this weird week where you kind of like... What the fuck do I do?
You kind of go back to work for a couple of days and you're off again for a couple of days. No one wants to party, and people don't want to get together because, God Almighty, we've had enough of each other. Or you're still visiting with relatives, or this is the time you make between the two days to make time for other people. Or just, yeah, go to the movies.
They were packed today. Really? I went to see, for the second time, Godzilla Minus One. I actually just got out of it and came straight here.
The last time I went and saw it, there was probably four people in the theater, and that was including me and the friend that I was with. And then today, there was probably four seats that were open. Wow. Holy crap.
Well, I mean, the movie has been getting great, crazy word of mouth. Oh, but I mean, the entire cinema was packed so much that they had, on a weekday, open their second concession stand. When was the last time they did that? Wait, the one of the ones in the wings?
Wow. I can't even recall. I know it was pretty vacant. It was a very much vacant.
When was the last time they were open during a weekday? Yeah. Or at all? Wow, that's amazing.
I mean, yeah, people are off from school. A lot of people are off from work. So if you don't do the movies on Christmas Day thing, you maybe have a thing where you go see movies, you know, during that week. I know for myself, back when my parents would have, like, my brothers and their kids all in around the holidays over the course of, like, a week, when I would go down, usually, you know, on, like, a Saturday or a Sunday, I would gather up as many nephews and nieces as we could get into cars.
And for three years in a row, we went off to see Lord of the Rings, Fellowship, Two Towers, and then Return of the King. I'm starting to... That was a little holiday tradition we had. I'm starting to see a little bit of a theme here.
Well, yes, we are getting to our review of Return of the King. But I kind of wanted to talk a little bit about some other stuff first. Yeah, of course. To get there.
But, no, today was packed. The theater was bouncing. Speaking of, when Godzilla released his final heat ray in the movie, you know, it seems old. Oh, gosh, yeah.
You could hear a pin drop. It was so freaking quiet in the cinema. I have only had that experience for one silent moment the rest of this year. And that was when Oppenheimer was doing Trinity Test and detonates the bomb and it goes silent before the sound wave hits you.
That's the only other time I've heard where the cinema has been so quiet, you could hear a pin drop. And before that, I would say was probably the Holdo Maneuver in Last Jedi. When she flies the ship at light speed through the Imperial Star Destroyer. And that, you know, you get that very absolute dead dog silence.
You get it in the movie. You don't always get it from the audience. Well, you get it in the audience. And virtually, like, every time, the first three or four times I went to see Last Jedi that opening weekend, it was, like, deadly silent.
And then you hear just one person go, damn, or shit, or something. Some variation on that. I had only one quiet experience of that particular moment. And that was when we got to see it pre-screening.
Every time I saw it in the audience, which I only saw that film maybe two or three times in the cinema. I didn't go as nuts on that one. Not because I didn't enjoy it. It just, I didn't have the time.
And I did get one damn. I did hear a crunching of a lot of popcorn in the second one. And then the third one, someone went, give me a fucking break. Well, that person's a jerk.
But it was kind of interesting to see the levels of people who were excited about that moment, people who were kind of just like, whatever. Like, I've seen it all to the person who is just like, yeah, that moment for him was just complete bullshit. So I kind of liked that each screening, I had a different reaction that I could enjoy. I would like to talk to the person who found it to be, quote unquote, bullshit for them as to why.
You're also the person who unleashed on a parent in the middle of It Chapter 2 for bringing a baby to a 9 o'clock screening. And yeah, they shouldn't have done that, but you also shouldn't have loudly said in a full cinema, who the hell brings a baby to a 9 o'clock showing of It Chapter 2? Well, I'm sorry. We should have fed the baby to Pennywise.
Oh, I would have absolutely been behind that. And then I would have earned the fucking red balloon that was tied to my car. Speaking of eating babies, how about that Doctor Who special? Oh my God.
It was a lot of fun. And of course, there was no babies actually being eaten on Disney Plus, so we're never going to have that happen. But there was one thing that did kind of irk me. What was that?
Each Doctor in their opening episode has had their, ever since, you know, Eccleston, each one has had that moment of, I am the Doctor. I'm the one you're gonna have to deal with. You had it from Eccleston when he addressed the nesting consciousness. Yes.
You got it with David Tennant and the Sycorax. You had it, oh my God, one of the best. And the beauty of it is, you almost didn't see it coming, was Matt Smith bringing back the Atraxas and giving them a scolding. And you get that wonderful montage of all the Doctors, and then he steps through it.
Hello, I'm the Doctor. Basically, run. And holy shit, they take off. And then you also have it with, yeah, with Peter in Deep Breath.
You get that wonderful moment. You didn't have that here. Okay, that's fair. That's fair.
Because, yeah, it's the Doctor announcing themselves not only to the bad guy. But it's to the audience. And to the audience. But also the Doctor announcing themselves to themselves.
Because they're kind of, like, still a little unsure coming through regeneration about themselves. And then finally, like, no, boom, I am the Doctor. And I think the excuse can be made is, well, we got that when, during the regeneration, in front of Neil Patrick Harris. When he just immediately turned and both of them said, I am the Doctor.
Yeah, but it makes it easier to do that when you have another Doctor standing right next to you. That's kind of... It kind of undercuts it, actually. Yeah.
It doesn't announce you. It announces both of you as almost a singular unit, which is a badass moment in itself. But that is not your moment of being able to prove yourself to the audience that you were worthy to take on this character, this weight. This is the Hamlet of sci-fi.
It is forever changing. Many people have played it and always have put their own stamp on it. I love what Chuti's doing, but we didn't get that moment of strength and terror. The pronouncements.
Yeah. Okay. That's a fair point. It's something I didn't think about.
And maybe if I had the time to rewatch it again from yesterday, and I haven't, unfortunately, I probably may have picked up on that. I know this Doctor has gone through some sort of rehab from, you know, from some of the trauma that he's dealt with from his own personal failures and PTSD, probably, to go along with it. Hello, flux. And he is renewed.
He has a whole new sense of what life and joy and happiness should be. Which is good because, first of all, what... What we see about on the dance floor. He doesn't have a care in the world.
He is enjoying in a way that I don't think we've seen the Doctor enjoy in a very long time. No, no. Not at all. It's pure freedom.
We've seen the Doctor enjoying friends, enjoying time with friends. Yeah. But we've never seen just, you know, him just like that episode was good. Yeah, the Rosa Parks episode was amazing.
I will give them that. The annexing of Pakistan, no, was it Pakistan? Yeah. Yeah, that was also a really good episode, too.
The partition there. Also, although the best historical episode with science fiction elements, unfortunately. Shakespeare? No.
Damn. The one with Van Gogh. Yes. Oh, that is the best of all of them.
Not a big fan of the creature that they created for that episode, but the episode stands apart. Oh my God, chances. End of the day, it just brings me to tears. Every time.
Every time. And having Bill Nye just show up to be the curator who gives that little tiny speech. Oh, my heart. It's fantastic.
But other fantastic things we're going to talk about. Wow. I couldn't believe it when we first talked about doing this episode a couple of weeks back. It's been 20 years since Return of the King came out.
Oh, my God, now I'm feeling old. I remember seeing this in the cinema. Well, I saw it twice opening day, the same that I did with Two Towers and Fellowship. Fellowship is the only one I didn't see in the cinema.
I actually, how I got turned on to Lord of the Rings was I saw it in Blockbuster, same with The Matrix, and I just blind rented it because I thought the cover looked interesting. And wow, what a ride it started me on. Yeah, and it's still, I think, so let's just transition right into what we're going to be talking about. It's still without a doubt, probably the most consistent in terms of quality across a trilogy of films.
I agree. I'm sorry to Star Wars, but this is my holy trilogy. I mean, I love Star Wars too, but there's a Return of the Jedi kind of takes a little dip after Empire in the first film. This, I think, is just straight across the board.
And it gets better, actually. I would say that the quality of it progresses and gets higher. I would think that's partly due to confidence as they're going through the second and third movie and post-production and everything. They really got, once they knew what they had with Fellowship, it got better and better because they had that confidence.
I would grant you that. Not just quality, but better storytelling, better character arcs. You had the bonding amongst the actors finally happen. So we're like, okay, now we know how they play these characters.
It's the source material, but. Yeah, but now we know how well, they had lightning in a bottle with their cast. Oh my God, yes. It's one of the best casts of all time.
It boggles my mind to think that Viggo Mortensen was their second choice. I know. And no, we've got Stuart Townsend here. And then after two weeks, he goes, you know, this isn't working.
And he goes off to do Queen of the Damned. Sorry. Which is not good. It's not good, but it is still kind of, I would say, a cult classic.
It's not, it's not great. No cult that I would join. Oh, I would. I would.
If it brought Aaliyah back from the dead, I would. Okay, fair enough. But no, they had lightning in a bottle with their cast, which is impressive considering it's such a huge ensemble. It's not like, okay, you have to, like with Harry Potter, you gotta have just like the main three be connected and then you could just like surround them with the cream of the crop.
But if no one really likes our three kids, then the whole damn thing falls apart. Here you have to get them all right. You've got a main ensemble of nine characters. Yeah.
Nine. And surrounding them are, okay, some dwarves, some elves. We have a couple of, you know, other elvish royalty characters. We have two different kingdoms with, you know, rulers and attendants and, you know, family members there.
You have your on-screen villain of Gollum. And actually, two on-screen villains, if you wanna put Saruman into the mix as well. Yes, okay, yeah. Saruman, his lackey.
You've got Treebeard who pops up for, you know, out of nowhere and is wonderful. And then you have some other things like. And you have to be afraid of your major villain only by a presence and what other people say. He's the Maris of fantasy.
Wow, that's a nice reference. You have to be terrified of this thing and you never really see him. Yeah, well, in the flashback to the end of the Second Age. Yeah, but you never see him in his full power in present day.
No. You don't get an idea that this person needs to be feared now. True. Although I would say because he does, Sauron doesn't have his ring and he invested so much power of his into the ring.
He is somewhat diminished, but he's still an incredibly dangerous foe. It's almost like a little bit like Voldemort-ish. How he just has that presence and can kind of seep his way into the hearts of darker wizards without coming to full power until the fourth film. And not until the end of the third act finally gets physical form.
And then he is a force to be reckoned with. This character is a force to be reckoned with whether or not he's standing in front of you. Yeah. And I mean, okay.
It's a giant fucking eye. Yeah, it's a giant flaming eye on top of a tower, Barad-dûr. And, you know, there are some, you know, Tolkien purists who are like, well, it was never described as a giant flaming eyeball on top of a tower, on top of Barad-dûr. I'm kind of like, well, you know what?
You sort of have to make some allowances because it's a different medium. And if you're going to visualize this as a symbol of what he is, that certainly works. I mean, the red eye of Sauron was something in the book, or the flaming eye of Sauron is something in the books. And it's interesting how...
So to kind of literalize it, I think works in the movie and I think it works very well. Well, it's kind of interesting though because you, that particular image of the tower with the flaming eye on top of Barad-dûr, it may have never been mentioned in that particular connotation in the books, but it has become synonymous with Lord of the Rings ever since. Yes. You see that image anywhere, you know exactly where it's from.
And it's interesting how illustrations on newer versions of the books have that image now. True. That might be the publishers looking to cash in a little bit on the public's perception of the movie and their familiarity with the movie to bring them to the books. And that's fine with me.
That's fine. If that causes more people to read it, by all means, have at it. It's insane to me how this almost didn't happen. You know, the Weinsteins had the rights.
They were looking at a couple of different people to, you know, bring this to the screen. At one point, they were like, we just wanna do one film, which seems insane. You can't! You can't!
Absolutely not! And Peter Jackson kind of pitched them a two-film idea at first because he's a long-time Tolkien fan. And he pitched them like a two-film version. And they didn't like it, but they gave him like five days to take that pitch out to anybody else to, you know, you know, to see if they could do it, you know, and then they would take a certain percentage of the gross just because, you know, they had the rights.
So, you know, that was gonna be a deal. And that's when they went to New Line, which was basically known as like a genre. This little genre studio under Warner Brothers. And Bob Shea, yeah, Bob Shea at Warner Brothers or at New Line was like, you know what, Peter, I really, really, you know, I know you already.
We've worked together on The Frighteners. We have this relationship. I know you as a filmmaker and as a person. I don't wanna do this project as two movies.
We need to do it as three. And that's the first of a series of incredibly ballsy decisions. New Line, if this trilogy had failed, I think New Line would have gone under. Oh, they most definitely would have.
They put everything they had into this. Yeah, I mean, ultimately, they originally budgeted this at like $120 million per movie or so, but it actually, allegedly the budget comes out to actually around $280 million for all three films. Which is still like that's like Avengers Endgame. Okay, do you know what that is adjusting for inflation?
That's about $477 million. Okay, okay. That's adjusting for inflation. I mean, it's three movies out of it, but still, that's a lot of money.
Adjusted for inflation, now divide it by, what was it, $477? Yeah, so three is, it's about one, oh jeepers, $185? That's still less than what most people spend on major blockbusters now. That's true.
And by comparison, quality wise, they're shit. Yeah, oh yeah. In terms of visually, yeah. This falls apart.
And I think you get so much, so much out of this. You know, people are like, Peter Jackson, the guy who made, you know, that weird puppet movie Meet the Feebles? Peter Jackson, the guy who did Weird genre horror film? Brain Dead?
Yeah, or Dead Alive. And yeah, but he knew how to stretch a New Zealand dollar for as much as you can get Still from the film, by the way, you and I are going to have a talk off mic about the extended version. There is a particular shot from the movie, Magic Book, in the Houses of Healing between Aragorn and Eowyn. That scene is not on the extended version of, you know what I'm talking about.
People on YouTube. There's still more. There is still like more footage. There's like four versions of the extended from what I was doing research earlier on.
But on YouTube, there are like compilations of clips from that movie. I will forever not pronounce that correctly. Now it's just on the wrong syllable. Now it's just satisfying.
But there are, you know, there are whole reels of these kind of things where they have like, and then there was this picture from this book and that we never saw that scene. Or there was like this shot and you see like BTS footage and you can see in the camera monitor something happening. It was like, wait, that that was never a scene. Those two characters didn't interact in this way, even from a different angle than what we see being shot, which is interesting because I think it really goes to tell you.
And, you know, again, also just watching the theatrical versions and then sitting back and watching the extended versions. It really goes to give you an idea of what it's like to edit. Yes, but there was also more in the book, which I thought was interesting. So you were mentioning some of the experiences you had leading up to its release.
Yes. What about the release itself? Because I saw photos of from the premiere of I believe it was Fellowship of the Ring, Central Park, New York City, premiere night. They had elvish boats out on the lake and people in elvish capes.
And it was the whole place was lit up with like candlelight and everything or like, yeah, firelight and all that. I saw the photo and it just blew my mind. Just the amount of love that there was for Lord of the Rings. Well, they basically recreated the Shire for the thing at Cannes, you know, that earlier at the expense of about two million dollars.
Wait, you got to walk through that at Cannes or no? No, that was at Cannes in July of that year. Oh, OK. And that was to help generate the excitement.
I remember it being fairly packed, even going to that very first showing on Friday morning with my friend Evil Twin. And, you know, it was packed. And then, you know, we ducked out, got some lunch and came back for a second showing. And then that became like the tradition for us for those three years.
And then we did it again with The Hobbit, even though The Hobbit wasn't as good. You're a completist. Yeah. And it was just like, this is our thing.
We do this. We're Tolkien nerds. This is what we're doing. And, you know, it was packed again.
Usually you'll think like, OK, on a Friday, opening day, the first showing because everybody wants to be at the first showing. And then like later on in the afternoon, it's going to taper off. And then as people get out of work because they're responsible adults for some stupid reason. And then they decide to come, you know, to a Friday evening.
It was it was packed like through the day, you know, and then, you know, we're coming out of the second showing around five, six o'clock. And, you know, there are lines. What was the last time you've been at Cinemark outside of Barbenheimer when there were lines and they had the stanchions with the ribbons up and everything for people to stand in line outside of the theater. I'm thinking.
Oh, I know. Not Endgame. They didn't have it for Endgame. Downton Abbey.
When we were there for the first Downton Abbey movie. That doesn't count. Which was a special screen. It was a special screening, so I don't count that.
Yeah, it was something like that, though, for. I can tell you what it was. OK. Breaking Dawn part two.
Wow. OK. Because Twilight had that effect that Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter had. I was at the theater that weekend too, and it was nuts.
I was going to see something else. Every single Twilight movie, including the first one, every single one. I walked in that weekend. I was like, oh, damn it, I forgot this was happening.
But yeah, I would say reserve seating kind of killed a little bit of that culture. Yeah, it did. Because also they've shrunk down the amount of seats too. So you have reserve seating and the bigger recliners.
Yeah, at least you can guarantee yourself a seat instead of them overselling and not having enough seats to fill their theater. Yeah, I do. I do miss or to fill tickets. I do miss getting there early, standing in line and talking with everyone that you'll never, ever see again.
But there was like an excitement for the film. So you had a shared experience or a shared excitement. You get that sometimes at film festivals where you don't necessarily have reserve seating. But the last time I really remember that for like a regular Joe movie was Revenge of the Sith, Star Wars Episode 3, when a bunch of us were up at our local Cinemark several hours early.
The lines, they had lines set up outside. They didn't even bring you into the building until it was like within an hour of your screening. So we were sitting up outside. We had those little collapsible captain's chairs and we were just like hanging out, having a good time.
I used to miss it myself, but. Yeah, unfortunately, I mean, it's just how things change and grow. Well, I remember it's probably also to, like I said, stop overselling tickets for seats that they don't have. My mom told me a story of the first Star Trek The Motion Picture.
They had oversold the amount of seats that were in that cinema when she went to see it. Really? Wow. That she sat on the aisle stairs to watch that movie.
Oh, wow. And that's a fire hazard anyway. I remember seeing Star Trek The Motion Picture in a theater as well outside of Harrisburg, actually. I think it was the Eric Twin Dairy Street, which is no longer there.
But yeah, it's the theater I saw Star Trek 2. I saw Empire and Star Wars and Raiders and On Golden Pond. And I want to say that was like about half full, but we're getting off topic here. Yeah, I was going to say, we've talked a lot about how Lord of the Rings came into being.
But we're not here to talk about all the Lord of the Rings. We are here to talk about one in particular. I want to say this, though, before we kind of narrow our focus in on the finale here. OK.
You invest $281 million into a series of three films. How much do you think is a good return on your investments? Considering the fact that, you know, two and a half times what you spend is what you need to bring back in before you start to turn a profit because of prints and advertising. I would hope that if you're going to tuck at least $250 in it, you're looking at somewhere around an $800 million profit at a minimum.
Well, $800 million would be rough if you invested $275 million is $4.55 to $5.50. So that's roughly that's your break break even point. OK, then I would say I would want somewhere around $1.1 to $1.2 billion. OK.
That's pretty much what one of these movies brought in overall in $2003. You know, this movie made $3 billion. Adjusted for inflation. Adjusted for inflation.
It's about $5.1 billion with a B for three movies that you only paid adjusted for inflation. $477.5 million for. Now, after your costs and everything, you're still making eight times what you invested. Eight times.
That's enough for that studio to go for a very long time. Yes. And of course, that's why there was lawsuits over profit participation with Peter Jackson. Yeah.
But I think that speaks to the quality. I mean, box office doesn't always equate to equality, but for people to keep coming out for these movies and next month when there are extended edition screenings in various theaters, you know, each one individually on certain days. And then like on the weekends, they're doing like all three 11 hour marathons. Yeah, I love buckle up and get a catheter.
I'm hoping that they're going to take like maybe they'll put like a little intermission like it was a roadshow and say, okay, next film starts in 20 minutes or 30 minutes. They do that with Bollywood films now at our local cinema where they used to not do that. They now have, you know, gotten proactive about dropping a 10 minute intermission in when the movie has that moment. No, I mean in between these films.
Oh yeah. I'm hoping there'll be like, okay, this is going to have a 30 minute intermission before two towers. I'm not sure about AMC and Cinemark and them, but I did note that the, um, one independent film, uh, theater that I like outside of Philadelphia, the colonial theater in, uh, Phoenixville. Easy.
Your break time is going to be the 15, 20 minute, uh, credits. Yeah. No, no, you get, there's a 15 minute break between fellowship and two towers. And then they were doing an hour lunch break between two towers and return of the King.
Smart because return of the King, depending on which extended version could be four and a half hours. Yeah. And there's, there's a lot of, um, nice restaurants The conflict, but the resolution doesn't always stick the landing. This one not only sticks the landing, it gives a wonderful bow.
Yes. To a standing ovation. I mean, you know, people go, oh my gosh, Return of the King has so many endings. You have to.
It has nine freaking major main characters. And let's be honest, not all of them get a real good... Gimli and Legolas kind of disappear. After the coronation.
Does Faramir and Eowyn and Elmir. Yeah, a lot of things... What happens to Pippin and Merry? As Tolkien nerds, we know what happens to them, but we don't see it.
Yeah, I mean, the last we see them is at the Grey Havens. But ultimately, you know, the story is, you know, Frodo's journey and then how he... By osmosis, I would say Sam, because Sam is the part of Frodo he's leaving behind. And, you know, the book ends with that moment where he comes home from...
He gets back from the Grey Havens, comes into his hobbit hole, sits down, draws his daughter up on his lap and says, well, I'm home. And, you know, you can't end this movie without that moment. Even if you do it outside instead of inside it, I'm fine with that. Yeah.
Speaking of which, we know that the little girl actress who plays his daughter is his daughter in real life. Yes, who just graduated college. Yes. Did you see the picture going around of him with her and her in the black graduate?
Yeah, I think I'm the one who sent it to you guys. Okay, okay. That's maybe where, yeah. I was like, oh my gosh, I feel old.
Oh yeah, that's right. This movie is 20 years old now. Yes, it is. Now, this film is fantastic.
It has so much to commend it. The battle sequences alone are something that needs to be studied in terms of, okay, this is how you plan battles. And by the way... How you plan to shoot battles.
Because if you get an idea of the geography... Really quickly, we need to say something. Go. From here on out, we're only talking theatrical.
Yeah. I know we've been mentioning a lot about the extended versions, but for my particular generation, we consider Harry Potter... Interestingly enough, I think it's because of the first few films... To be holiday films.
We've talked about that before. I know we have. Because it takes place during the school year. The majority of the film plays out in autumn and winter.
So it has a particular aesthetic to its look that invokes the idea of warmth and coziness and being with friends and being with family. So that's what I'm going to watch there. Lord of the Rings, for me, is like a rainy summer film. Okay, I can see that.
Look, I don't... any rainy Saturday that I can have a stack of grilled cheese sandwiches... Like, I really want it to be pouring outside, like a full-on hurricane thunderstorm. And I'm going to crack open one of my windows just enough to get that nice summer breeze coming through.
And then I'm going to turn on Two Towers and go Battle of Helms Deep. That's fair. It works. It's aesthetically pleasing in that moment.
Oh, gosh, yes. It vaguely reminds me of the first time I saw Alien on VHS. It was raining and thundering and lightning outside our house. And, like, my parents were out.
I was the only one home. And, you know, I'm just watching this movie. And every other moment I'm getting, like, a huge kaboom! And, you know, jumping from that and then jumping from Alien.
It was a fun experience. Nighttime thunderstorm film for me as a kid. And I used to play it and I would just play it on repeat. And then set my television to sleep mode after, like, two, two and a half hours.
Or maybe five hours or something like that. Was Matrix Revolutions. So by the time we got to the big battle between Neo and Mr. Smith at the end in that huge thunderstorm, the green light from, like, the actual, how the shot is colorized and everything, would flash and it would be all over my freaking wall.
And I would have my bedroom windows open. And it would just be thundering outside so I get the breeze. I can feel some of the dampness from the water. I'm getting that thunder.
I'm getting the colorized thunder off the television. But for the theatrical versions of stuff. I mean, for all these movies, I know the extended editions allow things to breathe. You get a little bit more of this and that and the other that you may have missed.
That isn't necessarily necessary for the storytelling. But it's a nice little extra grace note. It's a nice little extra spice. For me, the extended editions are nothing but I put them on and I just kind of luxuriate.
In the detail. Some of it I feel really does not need to be there. And honest, as I was finishing off the extended versions today, I love the character of Eowyn. The question I always had about the head orc at the Battle of Minas Tirith.
I was like, oh, whatever the hell happened to that fucker? I was thinking about that, too, watching the theatrical. And at the exact same time, I literally just don't give a shit. He's disposable to me.
Last you see him, he's kind of backing up with like, oh, crap. As the riders of Rohan are showing up. And I'm okay with that. For me, he got trampled by the little fucking horses where the big block failed to miss him.
Miss him, a horse got him. Which is even better. But by putting him in and putting that little with Eowyn is clawing herself away after pulling her Macbeth moment and killing the Night King, the Witch King. To finally see her all of a sudden turn damsel in distress, you know, kind of it just undercuts the Witch King moment so much that I was like, I'm okay with this scene not being in there.
But I would have put the moments of her and Faramir in the Houses of Healing back in. Because I think that finishes off a really, really nice grace note of those character arcs that I feel like we kind of needed for them. Because really for her, the last thing character wise outside of, you know, killing the Witch King is getting dumped or getting shot down by Aragorn, really. She's like, you know, I'm here, right?
And he's like, yeah, however. Thanks, bud. I got a girlfriend. So at the coronations, just seeing her stand by Faramir and they just kind of smile at each other.
You're like, oh, they ended up together. Wow, that was fast. Yeah. Well, there's a lot of timeline compression, especially in the theatrical.
There is, but I feel that if we could have just got like that shot of them staring at each other, like we don't even need to get the absolute wonderful scene that they have where she leans her head on his shoulder as they're talking as everyone else is going off to battle without them. But just getting the healing montage and then seeing them see each other across the courtyard. That's all I needed. It would have been two minutes put back in that I feel would have actually saved that particular arc.
But even adding one time of about three and a half hours for the theatrical. Yeah. Any moment you can like, well, if we can shave this off, we might be able to squeeze an extra showing of this movie on per screen. No, and I agree.
That's where you get the art versus commerce. Well, I had. But then again. I was trying to get it my.
$5 billion. Yeah. I was trying to give it my best to do because as I'm watching the rest of the extended version, I was going, you know, everything that I'm seeing that was put back into the theatrical does not need to be there. And for the theatricals part, it makes it a tighter story.
Like, damn thing really does need to be studied. And where Peter Jackson knew exactly where to cut. Oh, yeah. And what to move around.
There's a particular scene in the extended version where the Witch King takes on Gandalf and ends up destroying Gandalf's staff. Funny enough, while watching the theatrical version, I never once thought about, oh, why doesn't Gandalf all of a sudden not have his staff? Like, I didn't give a fuck. He's got his sword.
Maybe he needed his hands free on the reins or maybe it got lost in the battle and everything. Like, I didn't care because he shows up with it at the end of the fucking movie. So does it really matter? But it's interesting that they put that back in because if you think about it, it kind of mirrors the moment that they put back in with Saruman at Orthanc back in the beginning of Return of the King extended edition where Gandalf shatters Saruman's staff.
So I think that there's an interesting. Yeah, but then he says he's powerless after that. So it undercuts it. If the staff ends up showing up at the end of the film, where did he get it?
It got shattered. See my point? I don't know. It doesn't work.
Okay. So that whole section with the Witch King versus Gandalf could easily be cut. One thing I thought about, though, while rewatching this and it's something I thought about before where it's it's about hope and courage and optimism in the face of bad things happening, which is very much, you know, a portion of Tolkien's Catholicism seeping into his work. You're thinking of very much about finding brotherhood among different people, hobbits, elves, dwarves, in the face of evil and coming together and saying we can build towards a world of peace, a world of, you know, hope and optimism.
And I wonder if, you know, part of that, you know, obviously Peter Jackson had no idea, but I wonder if part of this film success is people using this film to work through some of their trauma or, you know, in some way. I don't, I don't know if maybe I'm reaching here a little bit. You're looking at me like you're not sure, or you think maybe I'm crazy. I think it depends on the person.
I think the older I'm not saying everybody. No, I'm saying I would say again, generational for your generation, who was very much a case of they, they can remember where they were when that moment happened. I think, yeah, they were looking for hope and the feeling of power and courage in the face of great evil. Whereas for us kids, I mean, it was just a hell of a ride that gave us something that we didn't have, which was this idea of fantasy.
Fantasy films weren't, weren't really a big thing until Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter, I think came out at the same time. And then after that, you had a slew of things that try to cash in on it, such as Golden Compass, which failed. Narnia, which is really kind of for kids. I mean, that's just the child.
Well, see, as Lewis was a friend of Tolkien. Yeah, I know. And I realized as I was saying it, how dismissive that was and it shouldn't have been. But I'm also, when you're watching it, there's, you kind of have to go, okay, the charge of the battle charge in Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe is just the child's version of Battle of Pelennor Fields.
Well, my thing, my complaint with the Narnia films is for the action. I didn't even say anything yet. Jeez. For the action sequences, you don't get a really good idea of the geography of where you are and how these battles are playing out.
Lord of the Rings, you have absolutely know exactly what is happening and why it's happening and how these people are winning and how these people are losing. I think Prince Caspian did better than Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe on that. But like, you know, some of the Narnia films, it's just like a lot of running around swords. Yes to me.
And I'm just like, you know, and I think that kind of pulls me out. Whereas having put that thought into how this is going to be visualized for Lord of the Rings and drawing and I'm, you know, Tolkien kind of laid these plans out too, because, you know, he was in the army during World War I. And I think that adds to the verisimilitude of, I know, nice word, thank you. To the whole, you know, reality of what we're seeing there.
You know, we, we accept it more and that of course helps us connect to the characters more too. Also, I think he, yeah, Tolkien definitely had all that planned out. God knows he did maps of Middle Earth and how that worked. He took 30 years developing elf languages and writing various graphs of stories that became the Silmarillion and stuff before he, you know, dived in on the hobbits.
So yeah. Yeah. It's, it's impressive world building. This was a guy who was like, I wonder what an elf language would be.
And this is what the end result is. These movies, this giant franchise, we were getting the, the Rohirrim animated film, I think next year. I was, I was actually, I know I brought up Battle of Pelennor Fields so much. Well, that's the last third of the movie.
Yes. Last half of the movie almost. But I would say that is one of the best battle charges in cinematic history. When the Rohirrim.
The riding riders charge. Oh God. It's amazing. And the amount of excitement.
I can't, I'm really hoping we can get back to the cinema to see this next weekend. Cause that moment as a child, without any prior Tolkien knowledge, just seeing the expansion of that on the big screen with Howard Shore's sweeping majesty of a fucking score. We don't talk enough about Howard Shore's score. We haven't even brought it up here.
It's amazing. It, it, it hits no pun intended. All the right notes. It needs to hit.
Oh my God. Yes. It's emotional. It's evocative.
It's epic. It's personal. It's, it's incredibly insane how good this score is. It's enchanting and, and.
And I, and I appreciate too that you rewatched this because I know how you deal with spiders in movies. You're not a fan. Dude, within a month, 2003 was a very traumatic year for me, which is interesting because we also got Love Actually in the, within like that same month. But I had to deal with Chamber of Secrets in, I believe it was November.
And then I had to deal with Return of the King in fucking December. So by then you think spiders would be easier for me. In fact, they actually became harder. Oh geez.
Cause those two films back to back fucked me up. If it's, if it makes you feel any better. I had to skip those Shelob sections. I've only watched Return of the King one other time in the past two and a half to three years.
And the Grey Havens scene just totally wrecked me again. Again. Yes. To, for a little peek behind the curtain on this one, a little personal thing in my life.
A couple of years ago, a very close friend of mine from college passed away. And his wife asked me to speak at the memorial service. And, he was a fellow nerd. We watched a lot of movies in his dorm room and missed a lot of glasses.
And, you know, he was a Tolkien fan as well. You know, big fantasy guy, you know, he played Dungeons and Dragons a little bit in college and everything. And, I quoted Gandalf's line about not all tears are an evil at the end of what I had to say. And, you know, caused everyone to sob.
Well. Most people who were there were fellow Tolkien fans as well. Yes. They wouldn't have been friends with me even if they weren't.
I don't think, you know, that's just, you know, one point of commonality along with, you know, being a Star Wars fan and everything else. And, yeah. And so, like, several months after that, I sat down and I watched the whole trilogy over, like, a week. And by the time I got to the Grey Havens and I hit that, you know, and as Frodo's getting on the boat and I lost it.
It just totally wrecked me. And since then, it's been over a year, I think. And, I think the second, you know, um, Bill, they're in the cart on the way to the Grey Havens and Bilbo's like, oh well, guess I won't see the ring again. That's too bad.
Oh well. And, you know, I just felt it just coming right up on me. I'm like, oh damn it. But, you know, I let it happen.
You know, I just, you know. It's cathartic. It's cathartic. And that's the great thing about movies in general, though, is, you know, I needed, I guess I needed a good emotional release and, you know, I had it, you know.
And, you know, remembered my friend at the same time and everything. So, yeah. So, yeah. It wasn't being afraid of spiders, but, you know.
Can we talk legacy? Sure. As in, how do you see this film in the next 20 years from now? Because as of right now, this thing fucking holds up in a way that I, I don't think some films like Avengers and all that are going to because of its, dare I say, a lot of its practical effects make it steeped more real and the themes are stronger.
I say it's the craftsmanship in creating this world. It's the writing. It's the making sure the characters feel real and giving them definable arcs and making them relatable. That is going to make this thing an enduring classic.
People at some point are going to look at Return of the King, see the part where Legolas takes down the elephant and see him sliding down the elephant trunk and go, that's not great CG. Really? Because I didn't fucking notice. But it wasn't great when it came out 20 years ago.
And it's one of those very rare moments where you're just kind of like, because everything else is so damn good. But you're willing to forgive it because you also saw him like surf down stairs during Two Towers. It was practical, but ridiculous. And you loved every moment of it.
You're like, oh my God, that's awesome. True. Yeah. But you get, you're going to forgive the film that because everything else about it is so good.
To draw a parallel. Casablanca. Great film. Fantastic characters.
Wonderful set. Great writing. When they look up to see the plane flying to Lisbon at the beginning. Oh, would you wish you were on that plane?
Why? You know, that whole thing. Plane looks, it's obviously a model. But, but who cares?
Who cares that it looks like a model or not? Because that is not the important thing to the reality of the story. It's how the characters are reacting to it. Yes, exactly.
And so, yeah, you may have a little bit of dodgy CG All our hearts alone, why do the wild gulls call?