Project Geekology
Embark on an epic journey with Anthony and Dakota as they delve into the vast realms of geek culture, from cherished classics to cutting-edge creations. Join us for an exhilarating adventure of exploration and nostalgia, as we unearth hidden gems and reminisce about the moments that have shaped us. Welcome to the ultimate celebration of all things geeky!
Project Geekology
The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim
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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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 of the Rohirrim is Dakota.
Speaker 2:We're ready to muster the Rohirrim and you know, coming in from the shadows. Once again, we have a special guest.
Speaker 3:Rich, thanks for having me on again. Guys, really happy to be here looking forward to, uh, talk about the war that we're hearing and my personal war against the movie lords, not the horse lords okay, I, I like that, I like that.
Speaker 2:So if you guys are are unaware, there was a lord of the rings movie in theaters this past weekend. I don't know if it's still in theaters. I think it still might be in some places, but it's. It wasn't highly advertised. So if you knew, you knew. If you didn't, you probably will see it on netflix at some point or something. So or no, it would be on max yeah, yeah, because they have all the warner brothers stuff.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, war of the rogerum. I have never seen a trailer for this. I've seen, you know, some concept art leading up to it. I knew it was going to be an animated film. I was not ready for what I received just because I didn't know. I basically didn't know anything going into this. So I knew that helm hammerhand had a part to play. I knew there was going to be a lead female character. I knew that it was animated and I knew that it was connected in some way tangentially to the Peter Jackson side of the Lord of the Rings franchise. So I was really not anticipating all that much, just because I was going in completely open-minded. You know I didn't watch any trailers or anything like that, so I was pleasantly surprised. What about you guys?
Speaker 3:Well, I actually got targeted emails. I was pleasantly surprised. What about you guys? Well, I actually got targeted emails. I was getting I don't know how exactly. I mean obviously everything. Just listens to us.
Speaker 2:Specifically from Peter Jackson. Yeah, you better watch this movie, it was really weird.
Speaker 3:I was just. And then Elijah Wood Like these guys were personally emailing me, no, but I did see they were sending, like I think the way I found out about it maybe it's fandango, following my movie algorithm, I can't sure you know but I actually think it was straight from warner brothers. But anywho, I got emails about it a couple months ago. Like I started seeing information about it and I I saw the art style and you know I've been trying to get my son into lord of the rings. We did the full eating while watching all of the extended versions and he's now currently in the middle of reading the hobbit with my wife at night before bed.
Speaker 3:So I kind of felt the zeitgeist was present in the house. And when I saw the animation style he's a sucker for anything anime, it doesn't matter what it is. If it looks like it's the anime style slightly, he'll stop and watch it. And I thought that I could kind of reel him in. And that's essentially what happened when I showed him the trailer. He saw the art style and, you know, he started to ask questions. Oh, those are the guys. You know, that's the guy with that's theodin's people and I, you know, I cried a happy tear inside because I knew I was a good father beautiful anthony.
Speaker 2:What about you?
Speaker 1:so did you like?
Speaker 1:what was your like thoughts going into this movie so I've known about this movie for a while 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 was psyched. I mean I like anime and you know I love lord of the rings, so really the marriage of both of those was definitely gonna pique my interest. I knew like a little bit about the story obviously not too much, just whatever the trailer showed, but I was still like pretty psyched to go into it. I mean, obviously the the audience didn't get to see, but I hopped onto the zoom call with the helm, hammer hand, warhammer and the stein that you could get at the movie theaters yeah, the, the warhammer is literally like this big popcorn bucket yeah, you know the warhammer side opens up and you could just you know stuff, a bunch of popcorn or whatever in there.
Speaker 2:And the sign looks pretty cool too. It says war of the brahiram on it. While we're still with you, anthony, before we really jump into the gist of our discussion today on war of the brahiram, what have you been up to this past week?
Speaker 1:absolutely nothing man absolutely nothing I don't even think I saw the movie. That's how I actually wasn't doing anything.
Speaker 2:I still have not seen the movie myself I have not seen any trailers. I still know that there's a female lead, I still know it's animated and I still know how helm hammerhands in it, but I haven't gotten the chance to see it. So this, this will be a discussion by you guys, and I'm going to be interviewing you to get all the information about the movie, as I can.
Speaker 1:Uh, no, I'm just go ahead, sorry so I feel like I had a pretty good weekend. I had a long weekend I used like the last bit of my pto for the year, so I was off from friday up until monday gotta use it before you lose it, yeah absolutely so.
Speaker 1:That's why I was using it. So so, yeah, no, I had like a nice weekend. I went to go see war the war here on friday and on sunday I went to my buddy's game shop. It's called otaku comics and games. So any of you that are listening that are in the south florida region they're in the cutler bay area they had the voice actor for crocodile from one piece and all for one from my hero academia and lord death from soul eater, and just like so many more voices, he was actually there. He spent a few hours there signing autographs and meeting people. Very, very cool guy.
Speaker 1:It was really interesting to meet a voice actor or like any kind of celebrity in a small shop, because it's a little bit more intimate than like a giant convention center. You know there's like so much you're getting like sensory overload in a convention center whereas you're in like a small, like shop. You know there's maybe at least when I got there, there was probably like 15 people in there. You know, so you're going from like hundreds and thousands of people to like 15 people. It's a know. So you're going from like hundreds and thousands of people to like 15 people. It's a lot more manageable, so it was really cool to meet somebody in that kind of environment very cool, very cool how you do anything else, you play the overwatch.
Speaker 1: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:They actually look amazing.
Speaker 1:They look amazing and when you use some of the abilities, it plays music from the Avatar. Oh man, yeah, it's really cool. The highlight intros and all that stuff. It looks amazing. I actually want to hop on and play that. I've been playing a lot of marvel rivals. I would say like there's there's a handful of characters that I've definitely gotten really comfortable with that. I'm starting to form my like play style in the game. I've been playing a lot of cloak and dagger. Penny parker dude, penny parker is like so fun yeah yeah, yeah, she, she's a tank character.
Speaker 1:For any of you that don't know who penny parker is, it's just like 14 year old girl that fights in a mecha suit. That's like powered by a spider, so it's. It's really cool like she has like these like minds that she shoots out. She has like these like cannons that shoot and stuff. It's really really fun.
Speaker 2:I've met, if you've listened or, excuse me, if you've uh watched into the spider verse. She's one of the right spider variant characters. That is pretty prominent in that movie right, so she's a really fun character.
Speaker 1:I've also messed around with a bit of moon knight and some of the other like tanks, like the, like the hulk. I've messed around with thor a little bit venom's really fun. Yeah, I've been, I've been really enjoying marvel rivals, so but yeah, no, I want to hop back onto overwatch and mess around with those with the avatar update. I mean, I definitely want to get those skins because, like dude, they're gorgeous.
Speaker 1:They really are cool they did really good with the my hero academia ones too yeah yeah, yeah, they did really good with those two, so, but, yeah, what have you been up to dakota?
Speaker 2:dakota has been up to nothing. No, I have been up to stuff. I feel like I say the same crap every week. I'm gonna I'm gonna jump away from my avatar timeline script, which I have been writing, you know, 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 exist in the series, and that'll be a fun change of pace for me Because up until this point it's been trying to take disparate information from all the different source materials to kind of come up with a history for this world. And now I'm finally into the actual lives of the Avatar. And by the time I get to Yang Chen, which is a pretty understood character, I guess you could say in the Avatar world, it'll be a little bit easier for me and less conjecture.
Speaker 2:But other than that that, I've been really into skeleton crew this past week. This past week's episode was much better than I thought last week's was, but overall I haven't been doing all that much because I've been working on the house that I'm eventually going to be moving into. I this past weekend, as well as yesterday, I spent a good portion of it like doing the flooring, you good portion of it doing the flooring, getting all the flooring in and that's draining. Dude, I'm exhausted, but yeah, nothing crazy. I watched the first episode of the Netflix show, the Dragon Prince. I saw a lot of people online saying that if you liked Avatar, you liked Arcane or Ruby.
Speaker 1:This is a show that you would be into.
Speaker 2:Oh, all three of those I like yeah, so I and all three of those, definitely this show, dragon prince. It's been on for five seasons. The sixth and final season is coming out soon. But yeah, I was really surprised, like it very much feels like a mix of all three of those things, so I'm excited to jump into that a little bit more. I literally have only watched an episode, so I can excited to jump into that a little bit more. I literally have only watched an episode, so I can't, you know, determine whether it's good or bad, but I I'm having fun so far yeah the voice actor for saka, jack de sena, is one of the main characters oh nice so he's got such a pleasant voice.
Speaker 1:I love that but I love them in Avatar.
Speaker 2:Yeah, other than that, not all that much.
Speaker 1:There's that Amazon Prime show that I want to hop into. That's gotten really high praise, called Secret Level and it's an anthology series and it takes different video games.
Speaker 2:Oh, I saw that. It looks really good.
Speaker 1:Yeah, they have a Dungeons Dragons episode. Yeah, they have a dungeons and dragons episode. They have a pac-man episode, armored core megaman. They have, like different episodes and like it's been highly praised that it got renewed for a second season excellent, yeah, yeah, I, I really want to hop into that, dude. I I always like stack up my list high of things I want to watch, but man, it's it's hard to like to watch things and then be a gamer I 100 understand that rich.
Speaker 2:Let's jump over to you. What have you been up to this past week?
Speaker 3:oh, you know, just as the kids say, I'm locked in my coaching era, so, uh, just doing that a lot with the track.
Speaker 3:I mean it's just uh, it's like I'm I'm not even a teacher anymore, I'm just a coach. You know like I just teach on the side. It's just weird. This's like I'm not even a teacher anymore, I'm just a coach. You know like I just teach on the side. It's just weird. This will lead into the meat and potatoes that we're going to talk about this week.
Speaker 3:I think the biggest thing that happened was, you know, my son turned 10 last week, so double digits is a big deal. So we took a father and son day on Friday and we went to go see War of the Rohirrim at 10.50. It was the only IMAX showing in my area, so I was very enthused. We got there pretty early. It was great to see the theater layout on Fandango that showed that there were maybe going to be eight other people there, so we knew that we were going to get some good private seating. We get there and it's not what I thought at first. The theater was a little janky, even though it's a pretty big, regal theater. But the imax theater itself was just not like for some reason. All the other showings and standard had the recliner seats, but this theater didn't have recliner seats. Just a little thing, but you know I go no big deal.
Speaker 3:So we sit down, we're watching the commercials before the previews, but there's like a giant light on and it's not centered in the room right, so it's just like blinding the left side of the screen for us. But you know, I figured when the lights go off it won't be a problem. You know you got to make concessions, right, guys? So then the previews start, right, and then, uh, they end, and then there are four minutes of darkness and silence, and at this point there are only two other people in the theater. So there's just four awkward minutes of us sitting there, charlie whispering to me what's going on, I don't know.
Speaker 3:Suddenly, when I feel like I'm kind of mustering the courage to possibly go politely point out that the movie's not playing, the previews start again. So, although not my favorite idea to have to watch these again, I did. And then it stops during the last preview, which was the minecraft preview. Then somebody else comes up with a phone flashlight and goes whoa, it's dark in here. Uh, it's apparently the last group that have been missing. They finally get upstairs and by the time they sit down, then the theater people come in and they say guys, we can't get into work today.
Speaker 2:So what the heck. So you didn't actually get to see it?
Speaker 3:hold on, they offer those passes. Well, I didn't get to see it in imax. They offer us, they go, you can come back another day or you can go see another movie. And I quickly look at my phone and I go. I just to point out that they're actually showing this at 11.40. So everybody else who's in the theater is like, wait, that's what we want to do too, like we don't want to go home now. So we finally go to the other theater because, mind you, it was a 10.50 showing, so it's now 11.37 when I bring this up. So we mosey onto the other theater, have the joy of watching for the third time the previews, which made me hate. I don't want to see any of those movies. I also I'm not sure if jen told you this I hyper analyzed the trailer for the mark walberg movie, because he has a backwards hat on and he has hair, okay, and then, like, a couple scenes later, he's in the same helicopter, it's the same time, but now I guess his head, his hat's been knocked off and now he's bald.
Speaker 3:And then they show like they show like a little picture of who the like the pilot's supposed to be and the pilot's bald. So I don't understand something. You're some sort of mafia hitman. You go, you take the pilot out so that you can commandeer this vessel, but before you do this, you decide to make yourself look less like the actual pilot of the plane by giving yourself more hair, but that only goes under your backwards baseball cap, like I don't. There's so many questions. If you're going to go to the trouble of wearing a wig, why would you have the backward baseball cap on? You show those lovely locks off like none of it makes sense. And it's all because I had to watch this stuff three times, sorry all right.
Speaker 1:No, it's okay, uh no I would say that like it was awful to like have to sit through all those trailers. Dude, it was like 30 minutes worth of trailers.
Speaker 2:I was like what's?
Speaker 1: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 many trailers? Usually the trailers are like 15 minutes, like you know. Usually 15 minutes, 20 minutes stretching it. But, like dude, this was like 30 or so minutes of trailers. I'm like what is going on right now?
Speaker 3:this is ridiculous I mean, I didn't get home. I'm not joking, I only lived 15 minutes from the theater. 15 minutes to the theater, then the whole debacle. Then I went to a store to get chicken nuggets and go home, all right, I left my house at about 10 15 for 10, 50 showing. I got home at like 3 15.
Speaker 2:Oh my god I, I basically went to mordor myself.
Speaker 3:We and I didn't even have a horse, but you came back with chicken wings. Well, yes, of course you came back home on an eagle back and strawberries, because I loved, I love, I remember the taste of strawberries beautiful, that's gorgeous.
Speaker 2:I had another not as of a knowing an experience as you, but kind of a mildly scary one, because I didn't get tickets for Friday and I didn't get tickets for Saturday, so I got tickets for Sunday. And you know, we get to the theater, we print out our tickets, we get to our seat, you know we're, you know we're in an empty theater at this point and the trailers don't start. The movie was for 7 10. Yeah, the movie was for 7 10 and 7 10 comes. And you know they're still playing commercials for just random products.
Speaker 2:You know, buy more coca-cola, buy some chips from our, you know, snack stand hi, I'm maria menounos, stuff like that kept popping up and I was just like what's going on? Why are they like that? And I I was thinking to myself like man, the theater chain must be like doing really poorly. And it was like it was a sunday night. There was nobody else in the entire movie theater like chain. It wasn't just that that room, it was like there was like two guys at the desk and then there was one guy at a bar and that that was the only other people I saw in the entire like movie theater place. But you know, I started freaking out. I'm like what? What's going on? So I look at my movie time and it says that it's on. So I look at my movie time and it says that it's 7 10, but nothing's happening. It's it's nearing 720, it's still playing commercials. And then I look at the day that the movie plays and it was. I went on sunday, but I apparently bought tickets for monday at 7 10 classy dakota so I'm just like, oh no yeah
Speaker 2:nobody was looking. No, there was, no, there was. There was one guy saying like if you bought tickets online, just print them out right there and walk in. I was like cool. So I ended up like kind of like I didn't want to, like you know, out myself and say that I don't have actual tickets for today, but I like kind of, like you know, moseyed on over to like the, the, the, the showings and I realized, oh, okay, in the very same theater that I'm in, it's going to start in five minutes, and so I was very lucky because we didn't have to change seats or anything like that. But yeah, I debated going back a second time on Monday because I had the tickets. I had bought those tickets.
Speaker 1:Not Dakota. See, I've never seen anybody do a twofer in that kind of way Usually they watch a movie, then they go to another, into another theater. I've never heard of anybody buying tickets for the day after going seeing the movie I did not end up going monday, but yeah I, I could have dude, that's wild, that's and it's crazy they would have been none the wiser.
Speaker 2:No, they would have been like this this checks out perfect, great sit down it's like do you have tickets?
Speaker 1:you just flash it up, don't even look at it. Dude, that's hilarious, but at least you got to see it I got to see it and you know what.
Speaker 2:We're almost 24 minutes into our recording. Let's actually talk about this movie, guys yeah, all righty.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I know, let's go yeah.
Speaker 2:So what was I want to ask you guys initial opinions about the movie within the first five to ten minutes, like before we even got like the title reveal of war of the rahir. I'm like what, like when, when it first started, what were your emotions, what were you thinking at that point?
Speaker 1:we have, we have like eagles showing up, yeah, we have dude, like I was honestly like pretty blown away with the animation. They were playing the theme of rohan. I was like really like I don't, I just thought everything looked good, the landscape looked amazing. It was really really cool to see, like the eagles and the scale of them. I mean yeah, like for me, I enjoyed it those first few minutes. They were really like trying to place you within Middle Earth, especially with that score, you know.
Speaker 2:Yes, the score. And also, you know well, before we forget, howard Shore actually did provide the score for this movie. So yeah, I thought that was cool. The OG came back Rich. What are your thoughts on? Like the early parts of the movie?
Speaker 3:Oh, just immediate, my bowl was full with member berries. Just the nostalgia was great. The music I don't have the music for many movies downloaded. You know, nowadays we have many more songs that are tied to a movie, that are already famous or whatever. But in terms of like original music for a movie, I rarely, except for like snakes on a plane, which was just a classic, this is the only one that I would say is a mostly instrumental. You know movie score that I actually I'm an old head so and I don't have it on apple music guys, all right, no, I bought the cd, I ripped it into an mp3 on my computer and then I downloaded it to my phone and I have it forever for perpetuity. And the rohan song, the battle of helms, deep, those are some of my favorite scores. So I just immediately got excited. I was thinking in my head like where was Gondor when the West fell? You know, all that stuff was pumping through me.
Speaker 3:I always felt like Rohan as a powerful area, was always depicted as granted, lots of rolling hills and all that right, but it always felt small to me. I didn't feel like it was a large settlement. It always felt kind of minuscule to me and I felt like the beginning of this movie really did a good job of establishing a larger grandeur of it. I mean, even just the eagles, how massive they are in comparison, just the eagles, how massive they are in comparison. I just thought that it really presented rohan in a. It makes me wonder, like what's going on with rohan when we get there in lord of the rings, right, you know, like there's kind of a dwindling nature to not just the, the amount of people, but the, the establishments, their settlements.
Speaker 2: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 first thoughts going into it because, unlike you two, I was not happy with 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 a good portion of it and I think the reason was because the background 2d animation on top of it seemed like it was, you know, the typical 12 frames of animation per second. So for every two frames only one frame of the animation would move and it would cause like jumpiness to to. You know, like while while like scenes were like moving around, the actual animation was jumping around and it was really bothering me Just on a creative level.
Speaker 2:But I learned to appreciate it more as it kept going. I learned to kind of move past that. But I did notice that there were different levels of the animation throughout the film. I don't know if you guys noticed that, but there were some scenes that were clearly like money was put into this, like the faces were really crisp, the the animation was fluid and there were other scenes where, like, only one character would be moving at a time and everyone else would be stagnant, and it was like the, the faces were poorly drawn and I was just like that's weird, did they like?
Speaker 1:run out of scenes like oh, dude, dude, you was it, you, you gotta, you gotta get back into anime.
Speaker 2:Dude, that's just anime anime is like very much so, like like, not anime films uh anime films anime films, they, you know. I mean, I'm spoiled by you know your Name and Suzume and Miyazaki and all that.
Speaker 1:But even then, like with your Name, the animation was really good on that, but they also used the same like time-saving mechanics in those movies.
Speaker 2:I believe it.
Speaker 1:It's time and money saving mechanics, like you see. You're gonna see it in in all. You know, obviously, like anime films are gonna be a little bit better when it comes to that, but it's still gonna happen.
Speaker 2:I think I'm so used to watching it never really bothered me, because I watch a lot of anime so what happens for me going into this, was up until the point just after Frekka died, where you know, like Helm hits Frekka and he dies. Then there was that flashback to when Hera and Wolf were kids, and then that was like really well done, like I was just like wait, like wait, wait, what just happened. There was like a tonal shift in in like the way that this was produced and moving forward. From that point it seemed like the the whole movie was, was much more fluid and and looked a lot better. So I, I think I kind of got it out of my system, or there was my, my personal like ideas like what happened there was they, they, they made most of the movie and then, with whatever budget they had, they did the rest of it or whatever.
Speaker 1:So I don't know.
Speaker 2:I just wanted to mention that I was not a fan originally of the animation style Like the 3D on top or the 2D on top of the 3D, and then sometimes the 2D was kind of cheap looking. But I got past that because the story was just so captivating and also there were there was some really good animation in there too yeah dog on that yeah that initial jolt put me in a sour mood but I I instantly, or like quickly, recovered from that.
Speaker 2:But you mentioned, rich, that rohan in the films feels shallow because we really only see a little bit of, you know, the hillside with the rohirum and ederas, which is the like, I guess, the capital city of rohan where the king lives, and this we get a grander idea of there being.
Speaker 2:You know, other areas of rohan and other peoples within it that meet regularly to decide on events or who gets married or whatever yeah and I think that that's what you're talking about, where you know it does feel like they world built rohan out tremendously with this movie yeah, I thought it was fantastically done.
Speaker 3:It really there was. It's. I wouldn't say I really questioned it beforehand, but I think that watching this then made me reflect back and go, wow, like, where did all those writers of rohan sleep? Because ederas just didn't seem that big right and we never got the idea that there were other locations in rohan other than ederas. And I it's not spoilers, so I'm just going to admit this now.
Speaker 3:All right, I am embarrassed. I am embarrassed to tell you that at the end of the movie when they say no helms deep, I went what damn it, I'm an idiot. Like I just immediately cursed myself for not, because I remember going hey, this place looks familiar, I feel like I've seen it before. And then there was a different name and I go, huh, I guess they have similar seeming places. I didn't know that they could gone to this place instead of helms deep, but I just kind of kept it in my head. I remember at one point charlie and I looked at each other and we're like huh. And then at the end of the movie, 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 well remember.
Speaker 1:Theoden calls it the hornberg I see, I did it that, that one calls it the the hornberg, and I think I think he's talking about that instance in this movie, remember, when he says that the, that the walls have held against. So I'm wondering if he's talking about like that instance, because I mean, this is a, you know, this is a battle in which, like you know, the the fortress has been tested. So I've always like wonder. Now I'm kind of thinking like I wonder if he's referencing this.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, so it was. It was surprising seeing the, I guess the the dawn of, like, how they named Helms deep, helms deep, instead of it being also called the Hornburg, because, yeah, to me it was always Helms Deep. They do have multiple names for pretty much everything in Lord of the Rings, so it also being called the Hornburg did not faze me in any which way, you know.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:So, but it was cool seeing basically everything that you know, we have come to know about Rohan also be referenced in this movie.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And yeah, I want to talk about like its actual canonicity to Tolkien's lore. I don't know if you guys have looked it up at all.
Speaker 3:I have not in recent days. I haven't really looked into that.
Speaker 2:So it's a really I think it's crazy. Crazy actually, because there are aspects that are very canon and there are big aspects that could be canon like.
Speaker 2:it's a very confusing thing because the whole movie we're following a character named harrah who is helm hammerhand's daughter. In tolkien's lore she's, she goes unnamed and in the beginning of the movie she I think the narrator says you do not know her name because she's not sung in any in any songs or something like that. Yeah, yeah, like she, she isn't in the legend or whatever. And yes, oh, they, they created the name harrah for the character of helm's daughter. So in the actual lore, all that we know that happens because, remember, this movie exists purely as a footnote to Tolkien's lore, like he wrote a couple sentences, devised a little bit of backstory for this area and threw it out into the world, and that kind of that footnote in his Lord of the Rings history is what we're seeing play out. So in the story we know that Freca comes to Edoras to speak to Helm Hammerhand and you know requests that Wolf be taken as his daughter's husband, basically taken as his, his daughter's husband, basically, yeah, so freka shows up to the, you know the, the throne room of helm hammerhand, and he requests, or you know, demands that harris or that helm's daughter, because she goes unnamed in tolkien, he requests that Helm's daughter marry his son Wolf and in Tolkien's lore, helm, you know, makes a jest that Freca has gone fat, and then Freca makes a jest that Helm is old, and then they take the fight outside and Helm defeats him with a single punch, killing him, and then sometime later his son Wolf occupies Rohanhan.
Speaker 2:That's the entirety of like what we know from that story and they use that footnote for the entire movie, which is really really cool because they're just like helm's daughter. Whatever happened to helm's daughter? We know that. You know, in the siege of rohan, his, his two named sons are killed, but we don't know the fate of Hera, helm's daughter, and that's what this movie is about. It gives her the name Hera and we're following her throughout the entire occupation of Rohan. It's really cool.
Speaker 3:I think it's one of the only things that bothers me, for some reason, is you could have picked any name and there's no name in any of Tolkien's work. 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 of tolkien's work that reminds me of any other name other than a name in tolkien's work, right, like sauron and sauron or whatever. But other than that, like, the names are all very distinct and you know, hera is the name of, you know, know, a god in Greek mythology and I just feel like it definitely evoked some stuff before. Like you know, I heard her name was Hera and I immediately had connections where the first time I heard Bilbo or Frodo or Bombar or Bifor or Kili or Fili, they were all distinct Aragons. You know, all these names are all distinct, except for tom, I suppose I guess.
Speaker 3:I guess not tom but you know, I just think that her, that the naming was, was interesting. I wonder if it was meant to evoke anything, if it was kind of meant to kind of delineate her as some sort of kind of godlike, mythic heroine, you know, in this kind of epic who does not get sung about. So that's a little bit confounding. I'm probably just harping on the name too much, but that's. That is one thing that that stuck out to me. Just because it's not. It's a very untolkien thing, I think, to have any name that seems similar to any name we've heard of in any other work or in our everyday lives okay, I can.
Speaker 2:I can understand that criticism if it means anything. The creative team behind this entire movie, despite it being produced by Peter Jackson's camp, it was all Japanese workers, because it was entirely Japanese production. If you stayed for the credits, it was all people from Japan. So I guess the way that they would name things wouldn't, I guess, gel totally with Tolkien's linguistic nature, I guess, because it's entirely different. Oh, that makes sense. Yeah, that's fair. All right, language, I guess. So I guess I'm not trying to say that that makes up for that, because, yeah, I did make the God 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 know how, I didn't know this, but the, the actress who played eowyn miranda otto, is the narrator for the, the movie chef's kiss oh it's beautiful.
Speaker 1:I I thought that she came back in some sort of capacity. I just didn't look too deep into it yeah.
Speaker 2:So I I thought that they were just trying to emulate the aoin character, like for the narration, like just her, her vocal style. I didn't actually think that they 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 that was pretty cool. So let's talk a little bit about harrah and some of the history that that kind of surrounds her and the shield maidens of rohan, because they they kind of touch on, you know, like this is a thing of the past. The shield maiden, it's a line of women warriors that, after all the men were gone, the woman would take up their shields and defend whoever was left. And there was only one shield maiden left. What's her name?
Speaker 3:The name doesn't skate in Alwyn, oh, alwyn. No, I believe Alwyn was the kind of advisor that she had oh no, no, yeah, alwyn, alwyn was.
Speaker 2:Uh. Yeah, she was an advisor, but she was the last oh, she was okay the line of the shield maidens prior yeah, alwyn, so I'm looking at.
Speaker 1:Do you think there's any relation? Do you think?
Speaker 2:that to who?
Speaker 1:to eowyn's family. Oh, because I mean, like I'm and 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 like a part of her history.
Speaker 2:So I'm thinking there might be something there may be a relation.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I didn't, I did not think about that at all, but that's a really cool connection cousin. So we don't know how exactly they're connected via, via blood, to Helm's line, but her cousin becomes the first and a second line of kings that I'm assuming leads up to Theoden's I'm, I'm guessing that, eowyn. Well, we know that eowyn is part of that, that line. So I don't know how much inbreeding goes on in ederas, I don't know how much, I don't know. I don't know olwyn's family tree. At this point, you know, like there's no way to like say like, oh yeah, she's definitely not or is, you know, attached to that lineage.
Speaker 1:But I I think it's a really cool theory so I'm looking at the casting and you know who, who provided some voice talent in this movie striker baby you're gonna say billy boyd and dominic monaghan oh I was uh marion pippen something else.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I was gonna say something else, but I thought I heard them on occasion, just for like background characters, right?
Speaker 1:yeah, yeah, but it's crazy that, like how they like kind of like some of these past lord of the rings characters have found trickled their way into this one yeah, there's.
Speaker 2:There's one specific character or actor that that shows up. That I was not expecting the voice of you guys probably also weren't, but like when, when saruman shows up yeah, it's actually christopher lee's voice used in like posthumous archival recording. I was like wait that's crazy.
Speaker 1:That was awesome. It was cool to see him like because 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 established himself there yet, and so it it is timely, like with um Wolf being defeated. I'm, you know, I'm assuming that 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 been corrupted yet. You know, I think he's like the good wizard that he's supposed to be in that moment, right, and then they also do name drop gandalf also yes, right at the very ends.
Speaker 2:They, I feel like you know all, all of these Lord of the Rings adjacent projects have to name drop. Good old Gans, good old Grand Elf, gandalf himself, it's great though he knows his name this time.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know at this time, he does know his name.
Speaker 3:Listen, it's amazing that these adjacent movies, as you'll say, right, all they have to do is name drop a couple of the guys and we're excited, right. But craven comes out and we it's like oh, gee, oh no, no right, like oh, dude or madame, or madame webb, right, like it's just. It just makes me laugh how, for us, in these movies, all it takes is a name and we're like I like, like my charlie, one of the things he was like it was really cool at the end the way they said that they were gonna go see gandalf, like that was one of his favorite parts to retell my wife, right. And. But when we see these other adjacent movies, we're just like nah, man, that's trash. Like you know, morbius has like the spider-ace movies. We're just like nah, man, that's trash. Like you know, create more BS has like the Spider-Man poster. And we're like come on, that's, you got to do better than that.
Speaker 1:At least with this, it's like it's crafted a lot better, the story is better, the characters are a lot better, and it's funny that you bring that up, because I completely forgot to say that I actually did see Kraven.
Speaker 2:Oh, no, oh, how was it dude?
Speaker 1:Okay, so I guess a little break in the pod. I didn't hate it. It wasn't amazing, but it was interesting enough that I would place it between Venom and Madam Web, with Venom being the better Sony project and Madam Web being like completely at the end. To me, kraven, it doesn't even touch like that bad.
Speaker 2:Let's talk a little bit more. And his army pull the Rohirrim out of Edoras so that Edoras can be ambushed, but Hera quietly brings everyone over to what's it called the place.
Speaker 3:The Hornburg.
Speaker 2:The Hornburg. Yes, hera brings everyone to the Hornburg and in that retreat, after Helm realizes that you know they they've lost. Because of cunning, both of his sons die pretty gruesome deaths yeah and then and then. Helm himself gets like shot up with a crazy amount of arrows. But the guy's a beast he, he really is a beast like he went beast mode, like it may not have been in that scene, like he.
Speaker 1:He goes into like a little brief coma yeah in his loft, but well, he, in that moment, they, they said that like he, he, he was asleep not because of his injuries, but because he was like distraught, like he was heartbroken because both of his injuries, but because he was like distraught, like he was heartbroken because both of his sons have been killed. You know, yeah, and he witnessed both of those deaths.
Speaker 2:Dude like right in front of him.
Speaker 1:Like that's tough One was an arrow to the neck and then the other one survives but gets his throat slit Like it's freaking crazy yeah, and it was a 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:We get to a point in the story where helm wakes from his grief coma and basically just starts ripping the, the people in wolf's camp, limb from limb at night, to the point where, like there's just like dozens of people dead that they have like no room to bury and like they just think it's a ghost.
Speaker 1:Yeah, what are your thoughts on that? Because they were calling it actually like the wraith or the whites of the was it helm wraith or something like that.
Speaker 3:Yeah, dude well, it was so funny we had the whole backstory that there were essentially, you know, spirits, you know essentially in some ways, 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 to understand that one of these lost souls may have, like incited his anger and fueled him. I mean, he does seem slightly supernatural and actually there are moments, yeah, even interact, his it seems that his interaction with harrah almost makes him less powerful, as, as it kind of like if she doesn't show up and stop him, maybe he like takes the whole crew down, you know, but instead it it kind of it's like his humanity brought him back and then made him lose the physical attributes that he had gained during this, because there was no indication earlier that he could rip people limb from limb and we don't know many people in middle earth who, physically, other than the ants right and like trolls and goblins that can rip a tear asunder your arms.
Speaker 2: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 he it didn't seem like he like was really trying to to kill this guy. It was just like now it's my turn.
Speaker 1:Right, Right, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he he he, he one punched man, that guy yeah, I mean, even he was like there's no way, like I thought that was one of these like weird I thought that they were gonna. I don't know, like I felt he might have had something going on. He might have been sick or he had some, or or he might have hit him in the temple or something. I don't know.
Speaker 3:It was that's right, I thought it was one of those fluke things like a final destination type, like death, where it's like everything lines up. You know rather perfectly for it to happen, you know it's. It actually made me think that I mean, granted, his dad had just died, right, and someone like he could see why it happened. But I don't know, man, and maybe I'm being a little bit crude here, uh, and maybe other people will disagree with me, but I don't know if my dad like initiated a fistfight and then like just took one on the jaw and 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 as much, uh, unless I knew that he was juicing or something. I don't know If my dad starts a fight with Tyson and Tyson kills him, like hey dad, that's Mike Tyson. Man, you're not Big Mac, you're not Little Mac, you gotta calm down.
Speaker 2:When Hera finds the secret tunnel behind the chamber that Helm was sleeping. Sleeping in, she occasionally saw glimpses of some spectral figure. Do you think that she was just seeing the backside of helm as he was walking away, or was she actually seeing some specter that exists within helms deep the hornberg?
Speaker 1:I don't know like or that or that really massive orc that they like yeah kind of stumble 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 you just saw the silhouette, you would think that it was him, you know what do you?
Speaker 2:what do you think? Wretch like what, what did? How was your? What was your interpretation of that like apparition?
Speaker 3:well, I, see, what am I? I don't know if I'm supposed to think this, but, like the use of wraiths to me is also very particular right, and I'm, unless I'm mistaken, like the only reference that we have to wra being used in Tolkien or even Jackson is the ring race, right, is the? So it immediately made me think of that. I tried to like timeline this out and figure out, like you know, is this in some way related to one of those rates Like uh?
Speaker 1:they also call Caleb Brimbor and Caleb Brimbor and um the in those games they call him a wraith too.
Speaker 3:Oh, that's right. Okay, all right. So you know it's. The wraith thing immediately made me immediately kind of I. I really did feel like perhaps that there are these wraiths that are going around helms deep and that that that they kind of took over, took over Helm, you know, at some point, and that's what really kind of motivated it is an interesting thought, because we know that Helm's Deep basically like, without extreme measures, like impossible to break into and yet Homie just pried it open with his fingers.
Speaker 2:You know, like I, I would like to believe that there was other people behind the door trying to like, push. You know, push it open with, like the the wheel thing, but like they didn't actually show that, like the last time they showed those people they they had failed in opening the doors, but somehow he did it so that was crazy.
Speaker 1:This man's just like yeah, and that's that's.
Speaker 2: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 in in this world, and that's not something I think too.
Speaker 1:Nothing in that world is believable, to be honest, like none of it's real um, it's also it's also anime. Like dude, they had to throw some shenanigans.
Speaker 2:I know they have to do some power scaling.
Speaker 3:I was about to actually you, because I do feel like that. The one thing that's kind of been established is we don't really have Herculean feats of strength by any what I would call any really of the races other than, like the Uruk-hai right when they were kind of created, and and even then it's kind of limited to, I'd say, the Ents being the far more powerful beings. In this case, helm could rip the Ents in half, I think, without a problem. So, like, here's my thing, I think, to kind of address what dakota said earlier. I think that the hit on fricca was just literally like one of those kismet, like just terrible, like once in a lifetime, like you know, you do it you swing a thousand times at a pitch and like one time you might put a charge in it and hit it out of Yankee Stadium.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, absolutely I agree.
Speaker 3:But then later he becomes so overpowered that it has to be some sort of supernatural thing at least for me to jive in this world. I mean, there's that instance.
Speaker 1:There's also the thing of adrenaline. I mean this instance, it can kind of be, you know, whatever, but I mean the fact that, like you know, people have literally been able to lift cars off of people because of the surge of adrenaline that they have, I don't mean over their head, but like literally be able to like lift enough to like get somebody, and you know how like vehicles are super. They could be super heavy I mean, I'm pretty sure those doors are a lot heavier but, like you know, maybe the moment, the adrenaline, I mean maybe he could 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 he didn't even die, like from them, he died by freezing yeah, so I'm actually looking at the you know, the actual lord of the rings wiki and it does suggest that that is something that was part of the, the lore, like that tolkien wrote he.
Speaker 2:His body was discovered the next morning after battling many people, frozen in the snow while still standing, you know, like he was still ready to fight. So that's actually something that, like, tolkien wrote into into the, the myth of this character.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, the guy was just an absolute legend, dude, you want to hear something funny. So I went to the movie and I saw it with some friends and my friend also got like the popcorn bucket. And in that moment, in that moment where it showed him, like frozen with you, just like outside the gate, both my friend and I took the hammer, we like lifted it up into the at the same time. We didn't even like plan it, in that moment we just like, for some reason, that moment we both had like a shared brain cell moment and we were just like you're both quantum computing at the same time.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, dude, helm, hammerhand was a unit like an absolute yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:No, I liked him, though um. He was voiced by brian cox yes, oh yeah.
Speaker 3:I mean, man like it's he brought, so I thought he brought so much to it. He like he's got such a great voice and he and he can sound, what I think is amazing. I hate him as Stryker in the X-Men franchise, in the Fox X-Men franchise, but here I just thought he worked so well.
Speaker 3:Who do we have as Odin Silence of the Lambs? Anthony Hopkins, right, and he's great there and he like a gravitas to the role. But I thought that Brian Cox was just really great. Just all kudos to him. It's weird because I was able to identify him but then by the end I felt like that's Helm, Like I wasn't saying that's Stryker anymore. You know, Testament to him, I think.
Speaker 1:It was really cool and like you had to really make that character spectacular for it to be like. You know, it's like this place was named after him. Helms deep was named after this individual. And now I'm a believer, bro I was like, yeah, this guy deserved this place had to be named after this guy, because this guy was just straight up beast. And this man took arrows, you know, a few days later, was thrown down on a bunch of guys in front of this gate, like, and then froze overnight. You know, it's just, it's yeah, that was. The only thing that could stop him was the weather, like that was insane, like and like for an older guy, he, he was jacked, he was big time muscular.
Speaker 1:Something that I really, really liked about this movie is the incorporation of the eagles and the fact that when Hera went up to the eagle's nest to speak with the eagle, that she said that she had heard that the eagles can understand their language and I thought that was interesting, like I thought that was really cool, because we always thought of eagles as, like you know, just like kind of these animals, but in lord of the rings, they're actually so much more. You know they're, they're these beings that kind of transcend. It's not like a deer in the field or anything like these are like almost not really celestial, but they they hold a 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 fact that gandalf could actually speak to eagles, I thought that was cool, that they kind of elaborated a little bit more on that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they did a really good job in a number of aspects of just expanding what we know about the lore and coloring in aspects of the lore that the average fan just you know, like the movie viewers wouldn't normally know. I, I always appreciate when movies have have that ability to do that and you don't need to take all that like from the movie. It just it could just be a cool thing that happens in the movie. But if you're actually, you know, trying to logically incorporate this into the lord of the rings trilogy and maybe the rings of power somehow, yeah you can kind of piece it together a little bit.
Speaker 2:Okay, this happens here. This makes sense because of this. Another thing that they were trying to slowly incorporate was that there was the introduction of a couple orc characters that were picking the rings off of the dead bodies, that Helm was ripping apart, saying that somebody was looking for rings and I was just like ooh okay, all the hunt for the ring is currently on 183 years before the Fellowship of the Ring. So that's sick. It's been going on for a long time.
Speaker 1:I thought that was really cool.
Speaker 2:And that also kind of ties in with what you were saying about the eagles, because through the eagles you know who got in contact with gandalf.
Speaker 2:gandalf got in contact with hera and said I'd like to know more about the rings that these people were, that these orcs are talking about oh, yeah, yeah so this all connects and I don't know if there's like a grander story that they're trying to tell in like a sequel or whatever, but I I do like the setup for more stories with hera. You know her story does not end with this movie and there's there's potentially more to come if people want to watch it I also like that they finally gave the name the mumakil, you know, in lord of the rings the movies they call them oleophants, you know, but like, their actual name is mumakil and the re.
Speaker 1:The way I knew that was because I had played battle for middle earth and that's what they called them in that game. So that's how I came to understand that that's what their name. So the fact that they had them in there and they had this kind of connection with the Haradrim right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so one thing that the movies did not portray well and I think this is a common criticism is that they seem to combine the Southron, the Haradrim and the Easterlings into one group and stylistically they all look the same and they kind of all appear at the same time. So there's no real way to differentiate, know, differentiate, the easterlings from the south run. In this movie they're very specifically talking about people from the south coming into rohan. They're the south run, they're the haradrim that come with the mumakil. And on that point you know something in the beginning of the movie or near the beginning of the movie that, like some of the cattle has been like dying of this, like crazy plague, and like then we see a, a crazed oliphant or mumakil. Yeah, do we ever learn why they were going crazy? Was that ever addressed or was that just like something that happens?
Speaker 1:I don't. I don't remember if that was addressed, but I could it.
Speaker 2: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:Yeah, yeah, really elaborate. But like remember, after that moment with frecca, that harrow wasn't really allowed to leave without, without um a party, and so maybe I don't know, like they're doing stuff to like kind of break up that group and ended up happening that dude, that moment was really crazy with the mumma kill when they go into the forest, like at first, when, when he said that, like you know, when she was gonna drop, go into the forest and they're like you know that that place is dangerous I thought she was going into fangorn and he was talking about the ants, right, yep and um, yeah, no, no, something far more scary than a freaking ant, dude yeah, it was.
Speaker 1:It was a watcher in the water and dude that was crazy, though it had like that little island on its head, like almost like kind of lore people or something yeah, dude, that was crazy. And like that thing swallowed the mumukil like whole and I'm thinking about like the mass. Like you know, the the anime doesn't really show how massive they are, but in the movies they're pretty big right. So imagine something like that getting swallowed by that, unless it was a smaller one.
Speaker 3: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:That's a good point, yeah, but I like what you're saying. I think they don't show us the full size of the Watcher in the water, because it's kind of like an iceberg, you know, you're only seeing the tip of this giant beast, so to be able to swallow that whole got to be a big creature.
Speaker 1:That's true and like what we saw was already like pretty massive.
Speaker 2:Rich, what did you think of the relationship between Hera and Wolf? Because it kind of evolves over the course of the movie as something you know it's. It's two friends that have kind of like gone astray over time because of a mistake in childhood. To you know, I'm going to kill all your family and you're going to watch, like what are your thoughts on that relationship?
Speaker 3:I kind of see, I don't know, I I think I find it believable in the way that his dad seems like such a misogynistic jerk that I can see like him being a well-reasoned you know pre-teen, whatever, and then kind of just being surrounded by his father's ideologies and sitting there and kind of absorbing so much that he believes he starts to believe that, you know, he deserves to marry her because he believes in the system and this is what he's promised and he will not be denied. I don't, I don't. I guess it's not far off for me to believe that people can be filled with misinformation and mayhaps act in a uh, absurd manner. I maybe 20 years ago I wouldn't have believed it as much, but now, uh it's, it's easier to kind of believe that it would happen.
Speaker 3:So I it's weird, but I didn't actually think it was that odd of a narrative jump. Maybe it's because, also, I watch Game of Thrones, where the male characters are very much emboldened by the world they live in and do operate in these ways that are essentially unquestioned. So, although we don't see this normally in Lord of the Rings, I Medievally I would say I don't think that's a word, I just I'm just making stuff up, but in like a medieval sense, in terms of like style of government and things, the way things work. It did seem like something that a some, a pig-headed misogynist, would ascribe to anth Anthony.
Speaker 2:What did you think of that?
Speaker 1:It was interesting, you know, like it it's these childhood friends. Seemingly they were close when they were young but there was like that long stretch of time that they weren't together. So I can imagine that maybe some sort of resentment was grown in that period of time. That you know, when she like rejected him, I feel like that, like the death of his father was kind of like the straw that broke the camel's back and he kind of like took all that frustration. He's like well, you know what?
Speaker 2:I'm gonna kill everything you love yeah, I, I actually I thought his character was really compelling because you didn't really fully understand his motives and I don't think anyone really understood his motives, including him, you know. I think that he was just, he was operating on revenge the entire time and I believe that a good portion of the, the lords of roan that like joined up with him, like Lord Thorne, you know, truly believed that he had a plan to change the way this, this society, was structured. He had a, an idea of like how to change things and overall was a would have been a powerful leader, bringing them to new prosperity or whatever they didn't receive with Helm Hammerhead. So I understood that. But I really liked the relationship Not that I liked it, but I thought it was really compelling the relationship between Lord Thorne, who was basically advising Wolf, the would-be king, for most of the movie until at the very end. He's like dude, dude, what are you doing? Like?
Speaker 2:yeah everything I tell you to do, you just do the exact opposite and make everything worse.
Speaker 1:And it's clear that wolf just wants revenge, like he just wants to make the people that hurt him hurt back yeah, you know, you have uh harrah and the ends fighting him in that wedding dress, like, oh, he wants a wife, I'm gonna give him one right now harrah was so cool yeah, it was just she was such a badass, like everything that she did was just like that's a leader, that's a leader that's, you know like she embodied that eowyn archetype that you know.
Speaker 2:I could picture eowyn reading about and hearing songs about yeah you know picking up and 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 this film were really cool.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, I agree, you know, kind of like. Just a quick observation. So you know we remember that like secret cave that they go through. When Aragorn asks theoden if there's a way for the women and children to leave, do you think that that's the place that he was thinking of?
Speaker 2:I did think about it. Yeah, I don't, I don't know because I don't. Yeah, I, I don't know the answer to that.
Speaker 1:I'd have to because look into it. I mean because they they say that there's like a passage that leads into the mountains and I mean that's technically into the mountains. So yeah, it could be, you know, I mean yeah, I mean, like I mean there might have been another passage, but like that was like the only one that we've really seen. You know so what I will say about?
Speaker 2:that I thought about that as well. I thought about that as well. It just seemed like a different design and like cause cause. Everything that we saw within Helm's deep was designed from, like footage from the movies.
Speaker 2:Like every, every, everywhere that we saw that people were occupying space seemed to be kind of taken and adapted from the films. So it was interesting that I didn't feel any natural resemblance to the films in that tunnel, secret tunnel. So I mean, it could be, it could very well be, I don't know and it probably is. That's probably the intent that it was supposed to be that tunnel that they could escape in. But I didn't get that after thinking about it for a little bit.
Speaker 1:Food for thought.
Speaker 2:Food for thought. Food for thought rich.
Speaker 3:Any last thoughts on lord of the rings, the war of the roherum despite the kind of epic fail of the imax experience, I ended up really liking this film, which says a lot because, you know, I had to watch about an hour worth of previews before I got into the movie, but I really enjoyed it. I mean I had a good time. I will say that I don't know if I walked out with the same feeling I mean this might just be unfair, right, because I'm kind of comparing the anime to a movie, right Like I remember the feeling of just kind of epicness that washed over me when I walked out of the the theaters. And maybe it's because I was in my 20s and I wanted a sword and a horse the minute I walked out of the theater, you know, but I didn't. I it was like wow, that was really nice, I really enjoyed that.
Speaker 3:But I don't think I walked out like, oh my God, the way I did with the original Peter Jackson films. I am looking forward to see if they do continue it. You know, I wish that there was more attention brought to it. I don't understand why this seemed under. I mean, I know I was targeted, but I I just don't feel like there was a level of promotion I didn't see anything about, let's say, brian cox being on late night tv to promote it, or erwin or any of the voice you know it. Just for such a large epic franchise, I just feel like it was really undersold and it leaves me wondering why. But I still want more of it.
Speaker 2:It is also interesting that you bring that up because they clearly do want to continue lord of the rings as a franchise. They, I think they have announced that there's going to be two films that feature Gollum in live action and potentially more films that they want to tell in that universe. And it does seem, based on conversations that we've had in the past couple of podcasts, that they are trying to bridge some stylistic crossovers between rings of power and lord of the rings. You know the peter jackson films, so that you know the book is open, so to speak, like the, the lord of the, the tolkien appendixes are open, and they clearly want to tell more of these stories. So it'll be interesting to see how that works out.
Speaker 2:As for me, I feel like I also, while I wasn't underwhelmed, I didn't feel like there was an overwhelming. I don't think that you were disappointed, but you weren't overwhelmingly positive or reactionary upon leaving the theater. I didn't get that either, but I didn't think I was going to, just because, again, this is a movie built around a couple footnotes of Tolkien's lore and those are movies that are like the biggest epic fantasy to ever epic fantasy.
Speaker 3:Yeah that's an unfair barometer.
Speaker 2:I suppose it is a little unfair, but I did find that I really loved it by the end. I really thought it was a really phenomenal story, a cool way to tell it too. I was, and I still am, confused as to why they would make you know, like the background a higher frame rate than the animation itself. Was that really? That's going to bother me, you know forever. But because it does make the characters look like they're jumping a little bit on top of the background. But overall I I really enjoyed it. Anthony, what are your thoughts?
Speaker 1:I enjoyed it, man. You know, as the, as the resident anime watcher of the group, I really enjoyed it. I liked the, I liked the entertainment choice that they used, or the media choice that they used to tell the story it was.
Speaker 1:It was interesting and you know in in a way like it wasn't something that we asked for but we got it anyway. But we ended up leaving like satisfied. You know it's obviously it's not going to be anything like the trilogy, but to me it still served a really good purpose and it expanded a lot.
Speaker 2:That I was very appreciative of, you know I don't think I I knew kind of like what rich was saying at the beginning of the show. Rohan seemed like a very small city right now I understand rohan is a realm. I mean, I understood that rohan was a realm, it was more than just that city, but now I understand that ederas is just a small part of rohan and that's just where, like the king and his immediate, like the noble families there live.
Speaker 2:So right I think that that is like one of the things that really expanded on for me, um, and I appreciated that. You know, just learning a little bit more about that, but uh the larger scope, yeah, and I mean I enjoyed it.
Speaker 1:I feel like the people of like rohan and like the way that they live their lives and kind of conduct themselves. I think that they're like my favorite people of the lord of the rings, like world as far as like the humans yeah, no, totally.
Speaker 2:I think that, and that's another thing like I'm hoping to see more of with future installments of the Rigs of Power. I want to see more humans than just the random tribes of Southlanders that now currently exist just outside of Mordor, as well as the Numenoreans who are just battling across the sea. I want to see actual big races of humans either in either in condor or rohan, if those places even exist yet. So I guess we'll we'll find out more of that in a season three rich thanks. Thanks again for joining us on this episode and thank you, listeners, for listening to us here for our 104th episode of project geekology. If you'd like to check out any of our shows or socials, you'll find links to everything that we are involved with in the show notes down below.
Speaker 2:And next week, I believe, anthony, we're thinking deeply about returning to our cursed podcast, the Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. We've we recorded this like twice already and it just keeps not working out, so we're gonna try it a third time. Uh, third, third harry potter film, third time, and rich you're. You're welcome to join us, as always, if you're available I would, uh, I would.
Speaker 3:I will jump into the flu powder network to join you guys next week all righty, just uh, stay out of trouble, stay out of Azkaban.
Speaker 1:Stay out of Nocturne Alley.
Speaker 2:Guys, if you have the option, on whatever podcast application that you're listening to, to give us a review of the podcast, we require I think it's six stars. Is it a six?
Speaker 1:I mean, if you can look, if you can put six stars, put six stars, okay yeah, If you can put ten, put ten, but usually the max is five. And you know, I don't know if you can hear that sizzle. I can in my mind, but we need that juicy five-star review.
Speaker 2:Like a fajita sizzle. Yeah, yeah, like when you're in Chili's and they bring out the fajitas and you hear the thing sizzling, the plate sizzling, and then everyone in the restaurant smells like onions for the rest of the night. Yeah, it's a wonderful sensation. Guys, we need that five-star, juicy, sizzling review in your podcast app right this moment. Please, we beg of you. All right, guys? Thanks, see you next week.
Speaker 1:All right, y'all Bye.
Speaker 2:The.
Speaker 3:Wolverine.
