Speaker 1: Hello, ladies and gentlemen, and thanks for coming to Middle
Earth with us. We got a nice spicy review and
in the Lord of the Rings vein, I am one
of your hosts at the Hammer Hand Kirkland Patzer.
Speaker 2: Hello, I am the Shield Maiden Dylan Muss.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I don't know if I can claim that I'll allow
you to have it today, but yes, ladies and gentlemen,
it's just Dylan and I for this.
Speaker 1: Honestly, I feel like it's a much anticipated review, At
least for myself. I was very much looking forward to
this movie ever since we first heard about it. I
feel like we kept getting some deats just through the grapevine,
slowly but surely, and yeah, it's finally here, Dylan and Iron.
You'll hear our thoughts shortly. But before we get in
all that, we got a couple of things to plug well.
Speaking of reviews we got, this is just like the
month of reviews. It feels we got Creature Commandos. Taylor
and I are dropping those every week, along with Star
Wars Skeleton Crew. I think both of those are on
episode four now, so it's yeah, they're kind of going
ou at the same pace. We have Craven review just
dropped that was that was a time and then we're
we haven't released the first episode for Dexter schedules ended
up getting it all just jam packed. It's you know,
it goes to show how busy our month is. We
don't even have time to all jump on the first episode,
but we'll be jumping at least some of us on
next week's episode. Will be dropping our thoughts. For episode
one and two, it'll probably just be me and Taylor.
I think you're yeah, I don't pull the pin on
that one.
Speaker 2: I don't think I'll be joining.
Speaker 1: That's fair. We're so jamming.
Speaker 2: Maybe i'll dex what was the old Blood Red Blood?
What the heck was the last show? Yeah? Where I
joined for the finale only I don't know. Okay, maybe
I'll do that surprise pick where I just binge the
show for my holiday break and then join you guys
for the finale. I don't know.
Speaker 1: Perfect well, we'll have you, uh, if you want to
go in, come in at anytime. But we also got
what if is going to be coming out? I believe
the week of Christmas that'll be. I think we're just
going to be doing like a Collaboration room.
Speaker 2: Yeah, once again the daily drops, so I guess it'll
be finished until the new year. So maybe just reviewed.
Speaker 1: After what else? I feel like I'm missing.
Speaker 2: September five, you did a solo review, Yes, September five.
Speaker 1: I don't forget what it's interested in that movie, and
a lot of people know about that one.
Speaker 2: But you've got to go galled from Rings of Power
in there, so the Rings connection in the weirdest way possible.
Speaker 1: If you love that one character from Rings of Power
that we did that one. He's a very minor character
in the movie.
Speaker 2: And then yeah, on Tuesday, Side Quest Tuesday, you're gonna
get two episodes this week. You're gonna get Lord or
Lord of Indiana Jones, I don't know where that came from.
And the great Circle review from me and Taylor. And
then we also have Game Awards recap, talking about the announcements,
talking about the awards a little bit and all that.
So good Side Quest double double hitter next week.
Speaker 1: Nice yes, And then newscasts you know it's we we
just did a juicy one and then sounds like we
got a lot of juicy stuff piling up, and I
think we're gonna be doing another newscast this next week,
So it's we're ending off the year with a with
a big bang, that's for sure. And yeah, the best
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indie you know we're we're indie podcast studio. I know
it doesn't really like I feel like indy for me.
I just think it's the background, right, it's the squares
we were commenting on the off screen before we started.
But it's a yeah, nice professional but I think that's
kind of the main meat and potatoes. We got our bread,
we got our butter. We're here to talk, Yes, a
Middle Earth Lord of the Rings, War of the Row
here him. And they're definitely piggybacking on the Lord of
the Rings title. There's a lot of you know, we
get live action shots and the trailers of characters that
aren't even in this movie. When this movie started, it
just said the Lord of the Rings, you know. A
couple seconds later then it comes in with the sub
title the War of the Row herem, and you know
a couple other things that are kind of nods towards
the Lord of the Rings, And it just feels like
it's really like wanting to carry that wave of the
marketing sphere. I get it. I totally understand it, but
you know, just story wise, it seems a little bit unnecessary.
But here we are, Dylan, we got War of the
Row here him. How did First of all, I want
to hear your thoughts non spoilers, but also just careious
what the theater like vibe was like. Was was there
a lot of Lord of the Ring heads in there?
Was it pretty jam packed? Was it just a ghost town?
Nobody was even there to I don't know knew this
was coming.
Speaker 2: Up yeah, no one. No one dressed up in a
wizard costume, which I feel like is not an uncommon
thing when you go to when you when even when
I went to the Rings of Power, like they had
the first two episodes in theaters, a couple Gandalf dressed
up people there, right, you always get you always get those,
but none this time. I did go at a weird
time of day. I when at like the three pm
showing on on the the opening night Thursday, so it
was pretty quiet. I think there was like five or
six people in my theater. There's more people at my
Craven Theater than Lord of the Rings.
Speaker 1: So that's of course don't like that.
Speaker 2: Now we want to see but hopefully the show the
actual like you know, six seven pm show was a
bigger hit at the theater, but it was also in
like a smaller auditorium. It's funny at my theater that
I don't always go to, there are ten auditoriums, and
up until this week, I'd only ever been in two
of the two of the auditoriums, there's like one the
smaller one where you know bo Is Afraid and like
other movies go there, and then like the May like
number ten, the big one for like any big Marvel
whatever else I see. And then for whatever reason this week,
I finally was in two other auditoriums, both Craven and
Lord of the Rings. We're like in different ones. Lord
of the Rings one was weird, like my seat with
like right next to the bar that people walk in,
which was like covering part of the screen. So it's
not ideal myke I, no wonder they don't use this
auditorium as often or thankfully I don't have to use
it as much, but it's kind of a different experience there.
So yeah, unfortunately, not a lot of people to cheer
along with. There was one character that popped up that
made this one guy chuckle a lot, which in turn
made me chuckle a lot, So we'll talk about that
when we get to the spoiler section of it. Yeah,
it's first of all, it's funny that this is like technically
the fourth like animated Lord of the Rings movie, you know,
because we had the two Lord of the Rings animated
ones back in the day and then the Hobbit animated one.
So it's it's weird to think about this as like, oh,
we've already got these before kind of you know, in
a very this is more studio ghibli anime sort of
way than like those ones were, which don't even know
what you'd call those style weird rodoscoping all that, like
strange stuff that would occur back then. But yeah, War
of Rohrem As you said, I feel like the hype
for this one, he was climbing a little bit for me.
When I first saw the trailer at home, I was
not super into it, and then it was some other
movie I saw back in September October where I got
a trailer for this on the big screen, and then
I got a lot more excited for it. So I'm like,
I think this movie is very beautiful, and I think
it'll be just cool to be in the theater for
this one, and I'm glad I did see it. I
don't even know how to describe my hype level or
like how I feel about it overall. I don't want
to call it mixed. I think I overall enjoyed the movie.
I had a good time. I liked it. I just
don't think it was necessarily great. It didn't climb you
know that Lord of the Rings ranking of course, it's
very hard to climb high in those I just love
those original original trilogy so much, but I really liked
the Pocket of Time. I guess that this is said
and this is like a couple hundred years before the
events of like Fellowship and stuff, and there are some
some loose or other non loose connections to those movies,
but mostly it's just a little standalone story. I think
the animation looks great. The music was of course really
solid as well. Like all the performances are solid. There's
one thing that kind of throws throws it off a
little bit, which I'll once again talk about in the spoilers.
I think some of the characters are interesting here. Villain
stuff is a little weak, and we can break that down.
I feel like that's a weird thing with Lord of
the Rings, where like, in general, most of the villains
and like any Lord of the Rings thing, not dynamic characters.
They're very flat. They're just evil. They just want to
see the world burn and that's it. So it's weird
to like come into this and be like, oh, that's
maybe my criticism a bit with a villain here, But
it's like that's kind of how Lord of the Rings
villains always are but I'm just maybe more connected with
those other ones that they have a better allure to them.
But I think maybe my favorite part about this, and
what I found really interesting, is kind of just the
framing device of this being like a myth or a
fable that's being told like a campfire story or like
a childhood of bed a bedtime story for kids, and
not that there is kid's movie, I mean, just in
terms of that framing of it. I kind of with
all the events in this felt like I don't think
that's actually what happened, but I think this is an
interesting way that like the story has changed over the
decades of people talking about this story two hundred years
later and kind of filling in the blanks here there
or maybe exaggerating certain things or forgetting about certain things.
Even though the movie really only kind of bookends that
part of it. It's not like there's a narrator Aowin
like talking through all the events of it. She kind
of just like introduces and exits the story, right, But
I don't know, I found that part of it really intriguing,
and it felt very separate from other Lord of the
Rings stuff in that way, and that it just felt
I had like a different tone and a bit of
a like greater than what's actually there sort of vibe
to it, if that makes sense. So yeah, I like
this movie. I don't know if it's one I'll revisit
a whole lot, but I'm glad I did see it here,
and I'm excited to break down some of the stuff
in the spoiler discussion with you. But yeah, what do
you think of this one and how is your theater experience?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I know, I was very much looking forward to
this one. That's what I was already saying since it
was first announced, and I was pleasantly surprised that. I
mean I saw this Friday. I want to say my
show was like six fifty or like seven like around
like you know, the hot hour to go see movies,
and my theater was way more jam packed than it
was for Craven So that made me smile. And similar
to your story where like, yeah, we probably have like
ten screens or whatever, like at at the theater, the
Extreme theater that's like the one where you go see
you know, the Marvel releases. So I saw Endgame Infinity
War like I got a lot of just memories in
that one. It's a special theater for me. But I
also saw Venom two in there, which was awful, and
then like it's mostly like that, and then like one
set theater for like the niche films, and then this week,
like you like, I went into two different theaters that
I feel like I don't normally go into, and one
was for Craven, which you know was the time, and
then one was for this one. But I really really
liked this movie. I think this was really really solid story.
I will say, like I definitely have some issues with it,
but for just being a story told in the Lord
of the Rings world, like I thought, I thought it
was excellent. I thought I thought they did such a
great job with it. And I think going into it,
like I just wanted like a really stellar story, to
like something on par with because I knew this was
gonna be a war movie, Like I wanted to at
least get some semblance of like like Two Towers Helm's
Deep Battle, Like I don't want to be the exact
same thing, but like I still want to get that
energy because there's just something really epic and fantastical about
the like the wartime stuff in these Lord of the
Rings adventures even Rings of Power, like in certain sequences,
they definitely capture that same energy, so I wanted stuff
like with that. I think something else that was really
intriguing for me coming into the story was because I
really was limited, like I never did research on like
what helm hammer hamm or like the history of the
Rohan Kings, So I was coming into this very very blind,
which I feel like Lord of the Rings. You know,
I'm not the I'm not the most well read person
when it comes to Lower the Rings, but I feel
like it's definitely like my favorite piece of media, So
I know some things when it comes to certain characters
and ancient lords and just the gods and stuff like that,
but I'm really really blind coming into this film. So
the whole legend of what helm hammer Hand was because
they mentioned him in the events of Two Towers when
they actually go to Helm's Deep, like there's a reason
why it's called Helm's Deep, and they mentioned some things
about the old King's like helm hammer Hand. So I
was really intrigued about the whole legend of what the
character was. And I think they totally did a good
job at just like like showcasing like why he's named
helm Hammer hand. I thought that was really great. But
he's also a flawed character, which I wasn't expecting. I
think I was expecting him to be like a perfect king,
kind of like King Elisar is, like you know, Ara Gorn,
how he's just like the perfect representation of like what
male masculine, like like proper male masculinity should be. So
I think I was expecting him to just be a
perfect leader, and he definitely isn't, but it doesn't bring
down the quality of it because people aren't perfect and
makes for a more intriguing character. So I really liked
pretty much everything that was around him, even though I
disagreed with some of the decisions that he made. I
really liked the character, really really loved our lead, Hara.
I thought she was just fantastic. Went and saw this
with two friends and then Shay as well. And one
of our favorite like animes that we've that we watched together,
like one that we watched together like early in the
dating era, would have been Yona of the Dawn, which
it's funny because like even people that love anime, it's
kind of like a niche anime. It only did one season,
even though like set up for another season. It's just
the studio, like they just didn't make a lot of money,
so they just didn't keep going. But it's just such
a really intriguing story and a very similar type of
story to this, where like she's like a princess who
isn't able to be a warrior, she's got red hair,
she's like interesting family dynamics where like ended up like
really hating people that were close to her as a child.
So it's like super super similar hitting points. So her
and I were kind of looking at each other while
we were watching it, and I think for that reason, I
just ended up really liking the character and the side
characters around them. I like them for the most part.
I think the villain was probably the weakest for me,
but I think you totally nailed it with just the
observation of like other villains throughout, like the lowder Rings realm,
like they're definitely not dynamic, and especially something like sour On,
where he's just kind of representing evil right like he
doesn't he just wants destruction. Same thing with more goth
Like the main threats have always been that, and I
think I think it's more so just about the characters
opposing this like ultimate evil and hatred in the world,
and for like, it just works so well there where
is this this character should be more dynamic, but I
just found him more like comedic because he's just so
pathetic in some of the whiny decisions that he's making.
I just kept chuckling with this character, just complaining about things.
I don't know. It was kind of funny for me.
But yeah, and I also really liked what you mentioned,
just the framing of the story and how this is
very much set up as just telling the tale right
of how Helm's deep God its name, and the way
that it's set up with I can't remember the actor's name,
but Aowin from the classic Miranda Auto Miranda Auto. Yeah,
so getting her voice as kind of our narrator to
introduce us to the story and pop in every once
in a while. I think I was expecting her to
be more of a narrator throughout, but she's kind of
selective of the things that she comes in to say.
But just the way that it's set up, I feel like, yes,
it definitely feels fantastical with some things that happened, but
I think I almost would have wanted it to be
more in the fantasy realm because it is set up
that way. So it's it feels like they really still
wanted to make it, make it grounded and believable. And
I mean, it's a Lord of the Rings. It's a
fantasy world. You know. There's there's orgs, dragons, and trolls
in this in this universe. Like it's it's hard to
make that realism. But I feel like there's just a
certain part of the story where it goes it goes
like as if it is like a like a spiritual
thing type happening, and then you know, something else to reveal.
But I think I just would have expected more of
that in there, like more. I don't know, I don't
even know what I would have wanted more, but.
Speaker 2: I know what you mean. It's like this is an
anime and you would kind of have those expectations of crazy,
huge fights. But I think it's one of the things
that surprised me is even though this is called war
the Row here and like scale's pretty small, surprisingly just
in every battle a couple of them get a little
bit bigger. But even then it feels much more restrained
than some of these other things, which is not what
I've would have expected, given that, you know, animation maybe
makes it a lot more possible to do to ratchet
up that scale tenfold, but they didn't go for that stuff.
They kept it more grounded totally.
Speaker 1: So Yeah, overall, I really really enjoyed it. I'm really
glad that this, you know, is a thing. Like I'm
glad we got this and hopefully we get more stories
like this. And a lot of the rings around, like
Rings of Power came out, and although I wasn't the
hottest on that show, like, it's still really well made
and I still enjoyed aspects to it. But I like
that we're just kind of we're not just sticking to like, Okay,
now that we're doing the Rings of Power stuff with
the Second Age, let's just only tell Second Age stories.
Like there's so much on either side of like the
chronological order of things that you can really just pick
and choose anywhere to tell a tale. And here we are,
you know, a couple hundred years before the events of
the war the Ring, and yeah, it's really cool to
see kind of what the politicking and is like and
just kind of the state of even other threats, right,
like Mordor is still a thing in this story, even
though we're not really dealing with sourn and orcs. But like,
it's kind of cool how we at least are touching
upon the idea that like that's still out there. It's
not a threat by any means that like the row
herem are dealing with right now, but it's still a
part of the world. So yeah, I just liked all
of the world building stuff. The score was phenomenal too.
I feel like there's there's some recycle that row Hearum theme,
but man, that's amongst like my favorite theme in the
entire Lord of the Rings Peter Jackson trilogy. So I'm
such a sucker when that comes in. You just hear
like the I don't know if it's like a violin
or something, but it's just gets me goosebumps and just
seeing etter ass it's I love it. So yeah. Animation
was beautiful and yeah, really really solid. I liked it
a lot. Right on you no more spoiler freeze thoughts.
You're ready to jump in the juice?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think I'm ready to venture into the juice.
Speaker 1: Territory jumping in the juice, all right, ladies and gentlemen,
we're gonna be taking our first ad break and we'll
be back to unfold this story. So you're back, we're back,
dying us. Where do you want to go?
Speaker 2: Maybe we can start with with our boy wolf, because
that's kind of the inciting event happens pretty quick in
this movie, which I think is it's funny how that
just feels so separate from what we expect from Lord
of the Rings now, because that original trilogy, you know,
it takes a long time for things to get going,
or a lot of different things happen. It's a whole journey, right,
And same thing with the Hobbit moves because they split
those into three, and then with Rings of the Power,
Rings of Power, you're getting a whole season of these
things that we're building up to a lot. And so
it takes a long time for things to happen, right,
And we have these like separate act breaks within these movies.
But then there's kind of this overall act three act
structure whatever for the whole trilogy as a whole. But
since this is one movie that isn't super duper long,
it's it kind of has to get into the things
pretty quick, and I feel like because we don't have
a lot enough all right, we don't have as much
as much time for like the classic Lord of the
Rings travel sequences or like the smaller Slice of Life
moments where it really kind of just kicked more into
high year pretty quick. And that happens very soon in
this movie where we got Helm hammer Hand and the
rest of his family chilling at at Rass and then uh,
the other I guess they called them the wild Man.
I don't know if there if you have the name
of that Dundlings, Yeah, the Dunlans. They come by pretty
quick to discuss some things that doesn't all go well,
leads to a fight. Hammer Hand kills that king accidentally
not accidentally? Do you think he was trying to go
for the kill there? And then like that kind of
gets right into what leads Wolf down this dark path
to go and attack Rohan with the exception of I
guess it's that, but then also the fact that he
was kind of denied by Hara, Like those two things
are what lead to why he does this stuff. But yeah,
we kick it off pretty quick there, but I don't
know what do you think that that element of it?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean I was very shocked to just I
guess the speed of how it got going. You know,
as soon as they're introduced, you just get the vibe like, Okay,
these are gonna be the villains of the movie. They
just come in looking like villains, they're talking like villains.
It's it's set up exactly how this is gonna be
the villains. Yeah, I think it seemed a little bit goofy,
just because I had never seen something like that in
the Little Rings you know, where a king is just
like let's go bar fight out in the street. Let's
just take off my rings. We'll just fucking fisty cuff it.
I was. I was like, okay, we're really doing this,
And then it was like pretty much comedic. How quickly,
like just noodle neck frekka I think was the king
King's name, right, Yeah, like yeah, just noodle necked. And
it's like, man, this is like just showcase, so like
this is your king. This is how weak or people
were like, man, how weak and soft is Wolf gonna be?
You know, like like the next leader. Then it's funny,
like it seemed like a mental was just extremely fragile
the entire movie, where he's just extremely unconfident with everything
that was that he was kind of doing. Like he's
a good strategist, I guess, but just like the way
that he carried himself, he's just so pathetic. So right away,
it just it I didn't really get like the like
intimidation factor from the character. Like I like it. I
get how he's strategic and like able to kind of
fool people, but he just he seems like a weak
villain in the sense that he's just he's just not
really headstrong, Like he just sounds like he just seems
like a kid that has the power, but he's just
like whiny and like, I need to get this because
I'm upset because this person wronged me. And it's just
reminds me of you know, like a certain Game of
Thrones character, like a Jeoffrey comparison stuff like that. So
even like Joaquin's character from Gladiator one, right like like.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that's a good comparison because I feel
like when it comes down to whether you want to
call them villains or just anti heroes. In Lord of
the Rings, there's kind of like two boxes where there's
like the weasly characters. Yeah, got a DNA thor or
worm tongue or even like the alum, I would stick
stick in that bucket. And then there's like the other
side of it, where like the big, imposing, super bad
guys that once again like don't really have dynamic nature
to them. They're just big and strong and scary, and
I feel like, yeah, they're trying to get a little
bit with the king, but like everyone's making fun of him,
so it's like, Okay, I'm not finding this guy too imposing,
but he goes down pretty quick. And so to have
like the lead villain of this be that kind of
Weasley type, that's kind of against type for Lord of
the Rings, right, like those are those are more like
usually the smaller villains or like the little the Stepping
Stones did like the bigger villains. So it's interesting to
shift that and make that kind of like the main
antagonist of the whole movie. And you're right, like he
kind of has like a kylo ren energy to him,
and like he's kind of like an in Cell type, right,
like just like pissed that this girl didn't want to
marry him pretty much, and that's like what fuels his
hatred originally, and then obviously his father dying, that's more justified.
I'll be with you there, buddy, Like that's that was
kind of savage what happened to him there, But yeah,
it was weird to have that kind of type villain
be the lead of this. And yeah, to some extent,
it's like why it's interesting that he's able to even
have the charisma somehow, but we don't really see that
charisma to at least lead these people, and maybe it
just really comes down to like the promise of power
like that even happens near the end of the movie
when like a lot of the people are like, we
don't want to build this tower anymore. Man, We're done
with this, Like you're not paying us, you're not feeding us,
We're just pissed off. Everyone's dying to the Wraith and
then he just like throws a bag of gold on
the ground. He's like, if you want more of this,
it's in that castle there. And so obviously he knows
like what these people want, how to fuel them. But
then even at the end, they're like his kind of
strategic partner guy, the guy with like the really short
buzzed hair, he kind of even goes against him, and
obviously he ends up killing him and then he commands
the rest of the army to go. But like the commander,
like he just even he has lost faith in Wolf
by the end of it, which makes sense because they've
been like in this long cold winter where there are
just no progress is being made. But yeah, I guess
that's really what it comes down to, is that he
he knows, like in their heart of hearts, what these
people want, and for these people, it's just greed, it's
just money, it's just power. And so like, I guess
that's how he was able to command these legends, and
I'm sure that's what he did to I forget the
name of the other guy, but like who was part
of the other faction that betrayed Rohan right which that battle,
Like I feel like that was maybe one of the
story elements that was a little underbaked in terms of
one even knowing who that guy is in the first place,
or knowing how his connection with Rohan was. But I
felt like when he was a bit of a double agent,
it was a little underwhelming. And then he kind of
just dies in that moment too, like in that Rohan battle.
But I'm sure he kind of pleaded to him in
that same way of knowing what that guy wanted in
terms of the power, and that's how how he was
able to turn him to work for him.
Speaker 1: Lord Thorn, that's what you're talking about, Okay, Yeah, the
one that he was supposed to, you know, show up
guard the flank with his three hundred men, but completely betrayed. Yeah,
I know. I feel like that type of villain too.
It's it's well, it's extremely frustrating, and it should be
right to have a character like that who's like clearly
not as strong and like honorable as someone like a
helmhammer hand would be. So like, if that's your villain,
you just clearly want to hate that guy and then
like typically that just gets me going. But it's also
like a good villain to have because you get that
reaction out of the audience. But like sometimes it's like, well,
how does this guy like always just one up like
our our heroes? Right? But I think in this set,
in this specific story, it actually worked really well because
of the fact that they were caught off so like
caught off guard by the Lord Thorn betrayal. They're basically
just on the run, like running, they're trying to evact
like ed east to get the I guess it's not
Helm's Deep as the Hornberg at the point of this story,
but right, just to confuse me.
Speaker 2: So much, I'm like, is there another place that looks
exactly not thinking that, like, oh, there's a guy named Helm,
they're probably gonna name it after I was definitely confused
there for twenty minutes.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's funny. So yeah, it's just like the the
rushness of all these events. It's just they can never
really be settled, and like they're not. It's like they're
planning for this invasion right, Like it's not like they're
stalking helms Deep. They're just getting there and hopefully it's
fully stalked and ready to go, and they have to
just be hiding in this cave for essentially like the
whole winter where it's cold, people are starving, like you
just lost like a bunch of princes for like, it's
just the morale is really low, so it would make
sense why they are on the back foot. So I
really liked that side of the villain. But I think
it was just I don't know, cause like I don't
think I would change really anything about it. It's just
all the moments when he's like whining about hera and
like there's like a moment when everyone's like evacing. It's
at the end, it's a nice climax when she's wearing
like then his bride gownge she gets out there and
he's like, you think I'm gonna take you back? Now,
It's like, oh my god, this guy is just actually
so pathetic because in the back of my mind, I'm
sure she's like yeah, yeah, and he'd be like okay, yeah,
I'll take you back because he's just so insecure and
in all those moments. But it made it entertaining, and
I guess it just leaned into the archetype of Yeah,
that in Cell character who's super just unconfident and has
I don't know, just just not not the signs of
a good honorable man. I mean, he he had a
deal with Harra, she beat him fair and square, and
he's still invades like he's just doing all of the
evil acts of what a weak character would do. And
the General, oh I just said General Tark that was.
Speaker 2: His name of you know, the is like commander.
Speaker 1: His commander guy that tells him to just fuck off
at the end, essentially like I'm not going to do that.
And yeah, then he bit the bullet for it. Then
he bit the bullet for it. Yeah, got stabbed. This
guy is just always stabbing people in the back and
never an honorable fight.
Speaker 2: But yeah, yeah, yeah, I And then I guess we
could jump over to maybe talk about Helm hammer Hand
and the crew a little bit. My one nippick here
is so Helm is voiced by Brian Cox, who's you know,
great iconic voice, really fitting for the role. Uh though,
my one issue with it is that he is like
American and has an American accent, and the rest of
his family and everyone else in Rohan has like a
British accent presumably or it sounds like it at least,
and so it was really like it might sound like
a nitpick, but it actually took me out of the
movie in quite a few different moments when he just
sounds different than everyone else like I. And also maybe
part of it is because he is like a recognizable
voice and I could pinpoint who it was during the movie,
and everyone else was like people that I have maybe
I've heard them before, but like I can't recognize any
of their voices. So it kind of stood out to me,
but it also just felt weird that he had a
different accent than the rest of his family, Like I
feel like he should he should not. That doesn't really
make sense to me. But I think in terms of
the actual performance itself, Brian Cox, I mean, he just
he's so good at doing the old man being imposing stuff,
like he's been doing a lot a lot of that lately,
giving back to like the villain he played an X
Men back in the day. Like, I feel like he's
just so good at that kind of thing. So I
do like the casting there. I just maybe the accent
part of it threw me off. Threw me off a
little bit.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I feel like for me it didn't bother me
that much because helm Hammerhan, he like feels different than
everyone else. He almost like feels like a Krados right
where like Krados amongst like a bunch of good soldiers,
it's like you got jacked men, but then you got
like a demi god who's just like clearly something different.
And helm Hammerhan has that to him, And I feel
like coming into the movie, like I want that character
to be like that, Like he's helm Hammerhan, he shouldn't
be like a gream of warm tongue looking motherfucker, like
he should feel like a powerful, godlike character. And I
think the fact that he did talk different and just
like carry himself differently, it just leaned into that more
for me. So I really wasn't bothered by it that much.
And yeah, I'm I just I love his gravitas of
his voice, like he's just got that that, like you said,
like the old man like wisdom like to him. So
I did like the casting, but definitely a fair fair
point because he did feel very different than everyone else,
especially like, yeah, they got like the you know, we
all speak English, but there's something a little bit fancier
about but the London English over the pond where the
derivative version.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Absolutely, Yeah. So it sounds like you're a big
fan of the character of Helm and the kind of
flow and you want to talk more about that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, no, absolutely, I think, like I was saying the
spoiler free section, I was hoping for, like like the
legendary character, and I think you very much get that.
I mean, he one shot the opposing king with a punch.
I don't think he was trying to kill him. I
think definitely the king was egging him on, and he
probably wasn't pulling a punch as much as he probably
should have, but I think just the way that he reacted,
he was equally as surprised that he'd like He's like,
I just punched like one punch, really like like that's it,
and like I think how it happened, it was just
kind of comedic for me because I'm like, holy fuck,
Like that's really what's gonna set us off, this one
punch that the guy can't take, And he was like
he delivered two punches against Helm, and then Helm just
throws the one, and I guess you have to know,
you know, if you're carrying loaded weapons all the time,
you got to know when to yeah, put on the
same So yeah, I really liked him being also because
he is such a bron character, Like he's so strong,
physically imposing and like he just commands respect. I think
because of the legend around him of just being this
guy that's never lost a battle, like just rides out
like he's not like he hides in his throne and
war like he's going out there. So I liked all
of that stuff, and I did like how he kind
of was a meathead though, like like he was just
stupid in the sense of not listening to Hara because
he's like, no, you're my precious little girl, like like
that's not gonna be it, Like the way to go
about it to the point at the at the end
when he's basically saying he's goodbye to her, Like I
liked how he did realize that and like did was
able to admit that he was wrong, and he's like
I should have listened to you. It just it just
felt like a nice growth of the character because it
seemed like he's very stubborn in his ways of like, no,
this is the old way. You know, men are the
are the fighters. Women you're gonna be just baby basically
a baby maker in on door, like just just just
spreading the line like that's gonna be it. And again,
like it's a flawed trait, Like I'm glad that, you know,
like Eric Gorn doesn't have that when we have that
character later on. But it's believable because because sometimes characters
are flawed in that way. And the one decision that
I think was just so stupid and unforgivable and like
just a dumb move was sending away the cousin character.
I can't remember his name, Lord Friget. Maybe I saw
that on the IMDb, but I wasn't sure if that
was the same character. But he just seemed like an
extremely loyal character, and like, I get he's mad that
that his daughter was in danger, but it just seems
so unjustified to just banish this guy because of like
that decision. It just seemed like a big jump and
not really that believable. So, although I don't blame him
that much for like some of the other dumb decisions
that he made, I think that one was just clearly
an idiotic move. And then like he's going into war
and he's just banishing all these soldiers and this guy
who he even said, like even if Dowami like, I'm
always loyal, I'm always gonna be there. So I kind
of assumed he was gonna be like our Gandalf appearance
at the end, you know, uh, when the row here
and looked to the east on the seventh day or
whatever the hell the line is. I kind of assumed
that was gonna be it with the character, But it
just seemed a little bit of a jump to just
banish him that quickly. And yeah, so so that I went,
I wasn't that big of a fan with but yeah,
I liked how he was also just basically defying the
os and being this wraith, you know, like like we
didn't really talk about that sequence too much yet, but
I liked how for a part of me, I like
believed that he was not just a man, like I
thought he was like a actual wraith or something along
those lines, Like I thought maybe he did die and
this is just like his spirit coming alive, so uh,
and it's believable because he's helm hammerhand, you know. And
I love the way that it was shown through uh,
like the Dunlin or like the Wild Men's Fear, right,
it's like a Ghost of Shushima thing where it's like
this thing we like, you can kill a man, but
you can't kill like a like an angry spirit, and
like they are really leaning into that. It's similar actually
how uh like Shadow of mortor games kind of go
about right, like they're like you're actually getting in the
heads of the Rachai where they're terrified of this this
this ghost that's just hunting down Orichai and Mordor. So
I think I'm also just a sucker for that type
of like storytelling, whether it's Ghost of Tsushima, Shadow of
mordor The Northman is kind of like that as well,
if you had seen that movie. So I'm just a
really big sucker for I think those like legendary vengeance
stale tales. Batman's I guess is a little bit like that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I like all the points you bring up
with Helme. I think it's it is fun to have
a flawed character like that, who, as you said, like
very meat heead really put all of his eggs in
the basket. That that guy was not going to betray him,
which maybe just shows that he wasn't thinking critically about
the situation or didn't have like the backup plans. He
was just so overconfident. And the fact that they even
like I guess it's probably good to separate the battle
from the doorstep of like the houses in the town.
But then also because that it meant that they were
slower to respond to uh when the flank actually happened
and all that. But yeah, like a lot of mistakes,
and I think it's good that he has like the
humility of it too, like he accepts his his failures
at the end, and he's trying his best to redeem them,
but it's it's it's funny thing about like Helm's Deep
and him being it being named after him, this legendary fighter,
but it's like, man, it's also his fault that so
many people died, and like the his sons, tons tons
of other people. I'm sure a lot of people die
just like from hunger and stuff behind those walls too,
and it's like that's all all his fold And maybe
that seems like a bit over zealous, just because that
one guy did betray them, Like without without that betrayal,
presumably that fight would have been okay, But it just
seems like, I mean, also one, I feel like ediras
one of the hardest places to defend, Like that is
not a good that is not a good stronghold. Like
if you are the king of that place, you want
to be playing a good political game, Like you don't
want to be getting betrayed because you were just done
for if someone wants to go for you. Because it's
funny a lot of this movie how it mirrors the
events of like the Lord of the Rings trilogy and
the kind of utter ass and that sort of stuff,
retreating to Helms Deep with the people and parts of
it getting kind of burnt down, and then like as
you mentioned, like coming in from the east all that
kind of stuff. I feel like there's a lot of
similarities there that were kind of running back some of
that stuff. But I think it also just strategically makes sense.
That's like a way better place to defend and save
your people, presumably I don't know for how long you could,
because I don't know how they get food in there,
Like it doesn't seem like they kind of just have
to rely on the reserves. But then, yeah, talking more
to like that that element of the like the wraith
or the larger than life. It's funny with Lord of
the Rings, like where things feel unrealistic for what's capable
in that world. We talked about that even with Rings
of Power season two when they went through the woods
and there was like those wraith creatures.
Speaker 1: And I was talking about barrel whites.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm like for that to me, that seems a
little like unrealistic for Lord of the Rings. But it's like, man,
there's so many other There's a rogs and dragons and
like at some point, you know, people shooting fireballs a
little bit, all the powers that the wizards have. And
it's funny like where that line is, because even though
it is a high fantasy world, it feels fairly grounded
at times. And I think for me that's where the element,
the framework of this being the fable or the myth
urban legend, even that's where it like it works perfectly
because I think the way I'm seeing this is like,
I'm not looking at this movie as like, here's a
one to one retelling of how these events occurred. It's
it's Aowen and others telling this story two hundred years later,
or think about that anytime. It's not like they have
a printing press. It's not like they record the events
printed and that's what people are reading two hundred years later.
It's like one guy tells the story this way, and
then the son who tells that story to their son
tells a little bit differently. Here there, maybe they add
little flair and like Aowin. Aowin has a character like
I guess presumably when she's telling the story. I guess
it would probably be before she goes on and becomes I
am no Man and stabs the witch King and all
that stuff, but maybe it's after I'm not sure when
Aoin's telling the story, but it makes sense that she
would put so much of a highlight on hera as
a character, because that character mirrors a lot of what
she is as a person. So she's the one telling
the story, of course she would kind of highlight that thing.
But then also like the whole part of Helm, it's like,
I don't know if I believe that he did all
that on the rampart, fighting on hundreds of people. I
don't think I believe that he died frozen like a
fucking statue to the gods on the rampart. I'm guessing
he was like on the ground, like bleeding out and
frozen that way. But then like the people on the wall,
they look him as like, man, he did it, he sacrificed,
he did great on that rampart. Yeah, and they tell
that story, and then over the decades it could tell
different different ways until the point now where it seems like,
as you mentioned, like he seems like a cradle's like
demigod type. And I think that's really interesting because I
think that's just a fun way to think about, like, well,
he was good enough that they named this place after him,
but like how good was he actually? And I think
that part of it, and like I feel like that's
even within the movie itself of like the whole Raith
thing that kind of shows like the stories that people
tell to justify what they're seeing and the only way
they getting capsule like how strong this guy was is
that he was a wraith. He wasn't actually, or maybe
he was, who knows, but like that's how they saw it,
and I feel like that's just kind of the whole
movie as well, is like how this story changes from
perspective perspective someone telling it and then, as I mentioned again,
two hundred years is a long ass time for a
story to change over the over the decades, right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, no, one hundred percent. I love I love that
because I completely agree in the sense of, like you
actually have Ao Win come in and say like and
they didn't defeat him, it was the the elements that
had I'm like, Okay, it probably took some fucking slashes
to the to the wrist, although you know, like maybe
not one one probably yeah, yeah exactly, yeah exactly, But
it's just so much more symbolic, right that he's he's
he stood there at the gates like holding the hammer,
and it's just like, okay, yeah, that's a lot more
of a just just tale to tell like your kids,
especially like for in the sense of like propaganda of
supporting Rohan, you know, like like just just that whole thing.
Speaker 2: So yeah, and like even like the revisionist true that
he's a great king, it's like he made tons of flaws. Yeah, exactly,
you probably had more negative traits than good traits, you know,
but like obviously look back on him and history is
told by the winners and that.
Speaker 1: Whole kind of thing. No exactly, So I think for me,
I almost wanted like more of that because because they
were touching upon it being a story toll through a
o N And I completely agree with what you're saying
of just the way that it's passed down through generations
and then it goes from one bard that wants to
add a little bit of spice on it, you make
something a little bit more exciting. So I think I
just would have wanted more of that fantasy side of it.
But I don't know, I also really liked what I got,
And even even with talking about the like the whole
Wraith thing, and you know there's there's not many of
them in this movie, but we we actually see some
Orcs appear here, and did you yeah that I I
didn't see it at the time, and then Tyler told
me after the movie, and that's so awesome. I love it.
Billy Boyd and Dominic Monahan super cool.
Speaker 2: I love that little Camio role for them.
Speaker 1: I love it. Soon and like when when the orcs
were introduced, of course you know they're looking for rings,
which is it's kind of funny in hindsight, like that
was like shown in the trailer right when they're like
talking about rings, and its like, I get it. I
get it. You know, some people might not know what
the fuck this movie is. It's already doing really bad
at the box office, which isn't, I guess too surprising
for a niche Lord of the Rings tail. But I
get it that you would at least want to tie
it in that sense. And I feel like for the
most part, the linking to the Lord of the Rings event,
it really didn't bother me, like at all. There's there's
one thing that I kind of rolled my eyes at
the very very end when they're kind of describing the
name of a certain wizard.
Speaker 2: But yeah, very Hobbit strider. Like I know you have
to watch this movies, but it was like, okay, a
little too close to a thing that people don't really
love about the Hobbit.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but like for the like vast majority, you know,
like Sourmon like appears in here, and I'm like that's
kind of cool. I like it that he's taken over,
Like it's not overstaining, it's welcome. And even the thing
with the rings, like it wasn't a plot point. It's
just like, yeah, we're looking for rings, and it makes sense,
you know, chronological wise, like more Door is starting to
look for rings, they're starting to look for for what
was lost to them. So I liked all of that.
But anyways, getting back to what I was saying, like
when we're hearing about the Raiths, people are getting chopped up,
ripped apart, and then we find Orcs and I'm like, oh,
that's such a wild spin if it's actually Orcs this
whole time like just taking people out, and it makes
sense how they're ripping them apart, right, Like it's a
very orcish thing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the Big Troll one, Yeah, it's like I could
easily see that being mistaken for helm when the visibility
is as bad as it is. Right, Yeah, even that
did happen, partially, I don't even actually know. Yeah, well
they're they're.
Speaker 1: Like they're like robbing the bodies right for rings, So
it makes sense that they're finding people, murdering them and
then and then looting them for for rings. So when
that would happen, I'm like, oh, man, like it's actually
just orcs the whole time that that's kind of fun
that it feels like the wraith of helm hammer Hand.
And then two minutes later, like we actually have helm
hammer Hand being essentially the wraith. He's got like his
his horn. I actually I can't remember does he have
the horn or like what is making the noise because
they're hearing, Like, yeah, he does have it, Okay, I
couldn't remember. And then yeah, he's just dismantling people with
his hands, and it's like, okay, it's actually him. But
also like we we're just talking about this is also
a story that we're being told like through a wind,
so maybe this isn't exactly what happened. And yeah, I
liked everything that was happening, though, I didn't mind the
ring appearance with the orcs there, and I did end
up liking the idea of just helm hammer hand essentially
is that badass that we think he is, that just
ripping people apart. And I found it kind of funny
when he is like running with Hara to get into
the city gates and like the hinge just is not working,
you know, it's frozen, like we just can't get the
door up. When he's like, okay, hold on, he just
opens the door like buy hands, and I'm like, this
is just this is so wild, like like this is
the most impenetrable gait in the world, but the king
can just open it with his bare hands. But hey,
maybe it's a legend, maybe it never happened, but fuck
for what was shown, it looked like it like he
could be doing that. And then he's just gonna.
Speaker 2: I wonder if he was just gonna grab Harah and
just chuck her. He's so strong he could.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Even little things like like of Hara has like anime
like fire emblem red hair. You know, people don't have
that kind of red hair. But I feel like that's
the perfect thing of the story of like, oh she
had red hair like the fire of a phoenix rise
and again, and that seems like the kind of thing
that we get exaggerated in a story, and so I
kind of feel like that's another little thing too. And
even like I don't know when she led that oliphont
into the woods, didn't octopus like we've seen octopuses like
that before, but did it eat the oliphont hole? I
don't know, Maybe she just lost the oliphont when she
was walking around the woods. You know, Like little things
like that, you can kind of think about what would
the actual thing have been, or like how much of
this is exaggerated? But I did find that like that
could be annoying to some people, ambiguity of it, and
you could just look at it very literally if you want,
But for me, I think that's kind of half the
fun of this movie is is just looking at like
how tails are told, and it's such an interesting part
of it.
Speaker 1: So yeah, and it's fun that it's it's surrounding the story, right,
So if you if you have any like grievances with
someone little niitpick thing, it's like, well, it's a Bard's tale, right,
Like it's not actually the story of it, So Yeah, No,
I think it was a good decision to do that actually,
and not just a reason to have someone like Aoin
come into Naria. Like it actually would make sense because
she could just be telling the story to you know,
fair Mere later on when they're going to getting married.
He's curious about the story of helm hammer Hands.
Speaker 2: So I like it. Yeah, And I do like, as
you said, the connections. I do think the gandalfh one's
a little it's a little cheesy. I didn't I wasn't
too bothered by it. I just don't think we needed it.
After like like the sarmone thing, that was cool. It's
fun to just want to see him in this art style.
But then also like, obviously he's not evil yet, so
he's just like greeting the king. Hey, how's it going.
You know, sure, we'll have a couple hundred years of
great peace and working together here. So I like that.
I think my favorite one though, is just like the
naming of Helm's Deep I think is so cool because
that is just my favorite thing of Lord of the
Rings is that battle is so iconic, and so that's
something I'm gonna thin about every time I'm watching that movie. Now,
I was thinking back on this, and I think this
is like a fun like I guess this is technically
pretty cool. I don't really think of it that way,
but it is. And I feel like that's like a
fun framing for watching this movie. And I guess you
also have Hobbit in terms of prequel type stuff, So
now we have a lot of options in terms of
what do you want to watch before you watch Lord
of the Rings. You're probably just gonna go watch Lord
of the Rings. But I do think this is this
is I mean even brings the Power now too. It's
we're always going backwards, right, So I think this one
is a cool, kind of separate way to get in there.
And yeah, I thought the connections were mostly tasteful.
Speaker 1: Yeah, no, I agree.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: The one I rolled my was with was Gandalf, and
I had no issues with like where she was going
and like it makes sense, like Okay, a wizard wants
to talk to me about something, and like it's okay,
that's kind of fun, Like I like it until he's like, oh, yeah,
what's his name? Oh he goes by many names, and
it's like, okay, they're going a little bit too far here. Yeah,
and then ten seconds later, he's like, his name's Gandalf.
It's like, holy fuck, Okay, there's many the one that
I think of.
Speaker 2: I was like, are they gonna say grand Elf? I
was like, I don't want to go there. The power
that would have been a bit extra cheesey, would have
been maybe too synchronous, deed with rings of power which
probably had no relation to each other.
Speaker 1: But yeah, I was trying to like think of like
what the Rohrem people would have been like referring to him,
because people Gondor, I think they call him m Nathanir
or something like that, Like they have a different name
for him, Mithrandier, that that's what it is. And then
of course you know the possessed they had and King
calls him gandal storm Crow. So like I was curious
if they're going to be saying something of that sort.
I mean, it's pretty obvious who it is, even if
you aren't that well deeped in the Tolkien lore, Like
I think you could imagine Scandalf, like we just saw Sourman,
so we know that the Astari are kind of here.
But yeah, I definitely rolled my eyes at that one.
It just seemed like the one that really overstayed. It's
welcome compared to the other ones. But just just because
we were talking about like some of the actually, let's
take quick ayd break before we keep going. We right back,
all right, we are back the location where I wanted
to go next. It was kind of in the dairy
air of Helm's Deep and just weird ways to start
that sentence, but just piggybacking on what we were talking about,
like the fantasy side of it, and it's kind of fun.
I never really thought about this now until we were
having this conversation of just what is believable when it
comes to like Lord of the Rings of like being like, oh, well,
now they got ghosts in here, and they kind of
always had stuff like that, right, And it's just the
stuff that's the most palatable, I guess, like it just
doesn't really bug us as much. But something like for
when Hara her plan is essentially to take like the
armor of helm Hammer hand and just scale an ice
wall to go up to where like a great eagle
is staying, which is like a big gamble, extremely hard
to do, extremely dangerous. Yeah, and she's like the leader
of the Rohan people, so can't really afford to just
lose her in the in this moment, but yeah, she
does that, and then she is able to converse well
one way with the with the Great Eagle, which Tyro
and I were kind of talking on it, that was Guahir,
which is like the like the King of the Eagles.
Speaker 2: He did seem exceptionally bigger. But once again, is that
fable or is that like the actual tale, but he
did seem distinct from eagles that we've seen in the
other northern stuff.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, I'm under the impression it's not just because if
I remember correctly, in like the book with the Fellowship,
like where Gandalf actually is like saved by the eagle,
he like kind of takes them to like the eagle
HQ more or less like it's just where like a
bunch of other eagles are, and it just seemed like
this one's really on its own and just like on
like a random spot in the mountains. So I just
don't think it really is Guaher. I feel like Guahi
would be more in like a palace of eagles, not
that they have like big architecture like that, but just
I don't know, maybe a round more eagles because he
is like the king of them, so gotcha, But no confirmation.
I really don't know for sure, but just the fact
that she's going through all these things and then like
delivers it, and then the eagle is what transports the
armor to this other guy and then that's what started.
It's like that could be another thing that's just is
that really what happened or is it just like maybe
maybe they sent a pigeon or something, you know, to
like say we need help. But it's just so much
more mythological and like legendary, just the idea of like
from the villain's perspective, they turn around and they just
see helmhammer hand like blowing his horn. It's like, this
guy will not die. He was just punching us out
last night and froze to death, and here he is
on a horse like behind us. Like I just love
all of that stuff. So but that's another one that
you could make the argument of, like I don't know
if that happened exactly. However, if you think of like
Return of the King, Ericorn went in and just spoke
to the dead and brought out like an evil undead
army to just take out the bad guys at the
War of the Pelnor Field, so I you know, it
could be completely accurate what actually happened.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, at least in this too. Like one
another moments, I really like I think it's even the
opening of the movie is when Harro is just like
riding through, riding through the planes. She has like some
meat and she's just kind of tracking following these eagles.
Eventually gets to a bit of an outcropping little hill situation,
tosses it to one of them and like seems like
they're gonna have a nice not embrace. I was about
to say embrace. They're not gonna hug each other, but
at least like acknowledge each other. And then he kind
of like, ah, this box then flies away. She's like, oh, okay,
that happened. And then she flies back or she rides
back rather to Rohana, and everyone kind of choows her
out for doing that because that was a very risky
thing to do. But to me, like that, I guess
that makes that thing more believable or realistic at the
end that like one, she's already met this eagle before
and she has shown like she has so kindness to it.
She fed it and like didn't try to attack it
in that moment. It wasn't some trap. So I think
that makes it a little bit more believable and maybe
slightly less risky for her because she feels like, Okay, well,
last time I interacted with this, Well, I guess she
wouldn't know if it's the exact same one, but at
least last time she didn't get killed by it, so
maybe maybe she could talk her way through it. And
and I think it's also part of that is she
gives them a lot of respects. She doesn't like treat
them like they's some beast, right like she knows or
she she at least has heard rumors. They can understand
human tongue, and so she can at least like reason
with it or try to. But I really like that
because I think the eagles, once again, are one of
those things as a kid that I was like, oh, yeah,
they're just cool eagles, but like, I never really thought
more deeply about it, And it's more with rings of
power and more discussions with you that like, oh yeah,
these eagles have a lot more going on to them
and the lore and they're a lot smarter and wiser
and have their own societies and the kingdoms, as you
mentioned to some extent, and so I think it makes
a lot more sense or makes more sense. I just
think it was a cool thing to see in this
and I think it fit the anime aesthetic too. It
just feels like a ghibli thing to have these majestic
eagles flying around. So I really like that that angle
of it, and that feels like the perfect thing too.
We need some backup. There's very little options we have
here backed in this corner of helms Deep, and the
eagles are one of the very few. So I think
that was it was a cool moment.
Speaker 1: Yeah. They're like the ancient ally right of the good
guys and definitely one of like the older species. And
I love what you said how she shows the respect
that basically they're due, you know, thinking about like Harry
Potter and the hippogriff versus uh, how how Malfoy handled
the situation. Yeah, So I think that's a big aspect
to it, and just the idea of them being this
really ancient species that they really don't need to help
like these you know, like kingdoms rise and fall and
that like the eagles just outlive them all. But at
the same time, like there was no thing.
Speaker 2: Like time or lifespan wise, because obviously in Lordtherns is
crazy elves can live forever. Yeah, our clientic kind of
more standard timeline, Like I don't know, I'm guessing eagle
lifespans like at least a couple hundred years, but I'm thinking, like,
is this king eagle that you're talking about just have
they been just around for hundreds or thousands of years?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm not. I'm not too sure, like I like
going here. Yeah, So first thing I see, which I
don't know the credibility of this, but it just says
an eagle's lifespan is at least sixty five hundred years,
which makes sense because Ghir has just been their leader
since like essentially the first age, which is like he
was helping the elves fight like the minions of more
Gooth and stuff like that. So they are an extremely
ancient species. I just wasn't sure if that was like
the lifespan or just the species overall, but they very
much feel like definitely at least like gandalf age I
would imagine, which is like unknown. So but yeah, I
never really thought about that too much, just because you know,
we don't really like they are a key piece to
the whole adventure of the Lord of the Rings, but
very much we don't spend time with like there's not
a chapter on the Eagles and discussing stuff like that.
But and I think for me that also adds to
their intrigue is just the mystery factor to them and
really just like the most ancient good and like there's
well regarded people can like really converse with them, like
the Wizards, right, like they say that the Wizards can
actually have back and forth conversations with them. Yeah, big
big people fan for sure.
Speaker 2: And even like the slight minor connection with Hera and
Gandalf in this, like I assume prior to the events
of this that Gandalf has already interacted with eagles, but
if he hasn't, and like Haro was retelling what happened
to him and explaining everything and mentioned like the eagles
came to save save us and help us, like I'm
sure that would, I don't know, give him a bit
more faith in wanting to trust them, and ends up
being they end up being like a big crucial part
of saving the day in one recovering him from Helm
or from Eisngard, but then also obviously at the very
end of Mount Doom, So I don't know, I like
that like minor connection there too. I'm sure he was
already can noodling with the eagles prior to that, but
if he hadn't been, that's that's a nice little way
you can kind of connect those things a little through line.
Speaker 1: Yeah, no, that's awesome. I just fully further clicked down
on the Great Eagles, and yeah, mortals as elves, it
looks like they were, it says, devised, but kind of
created by Manway, which is like the leader of the Valar.
He's like the king of the Valar, which are like
the gods essentially, it's like it's like a room, you know,
and then like the Valars, which are like his children,
so a ruse like the one being. And it says
that the eagles were the messengers of man Way, so
very much been around since the dawn of time, very
much immortal. So yeah, yeah, that eagle that she spoke
to probably you know, been around since like the first age,
which is pretty I don't know, it's not really like
it doesn't matter. That character was probably not even thought
of originally in Tolkien. It was just out of the story.
But for me, like, I'm just like I love that.
I love just thinking about the history of these worlds.
So uh yeah, we're talking about Helm. You don't talk
about the rest of the family like we're talking about Hara.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't think I've really anything brothers, to be honest,
I Halleth.
Speaker 1: That was like basically Karl Urban's character from Two Towers,
Like he's like the big like brawn that I'm just like, man,
there's always like a son of Rohan that looks like this,
and he reminded me of yes, Karl Urban's character Aowen
or not Aowen Uh yeah, Amir. And also there's a
character in Warhammer, my favorite Hyel's character, Ali Star of
the Great Lions or like al Star of the White Lions,
and he has like a giant axe like that, and
he's just he's just a badass, so very much the
same energy.
Speaker 2: There always love an ax User, It's fire armblem. It's
always one of my favorite unit types.
Speaker 1: I'm glad we got to see him pop off a
little bit before you know, he took the Arrow to
the Throat wild Way.
Speaker 2: To Go, But that was a brutal shot man.
Speaker 1: The one that really goby though was Hama. That was
like the the the other younger brother, like with the
lute or whatever he had. He just just seems so
much more so you always have the buff brother and
the artist brother.
Speaker 2: It's just like Craven.
Speaker 1: It's just like Craven, just like Craven.
Speaker 2: You're totally right.
Speaker 1: Oh no, there's more similarities to this movie Craven than
I would have hoped. But yeah, no, I I really
liked Hama and just the idea of like the horse
just getting like absolutely gassed. We never see that, yeah,
really in movies much, especially in Lord of the Rings
when a lot of these horses are just asked like.
Speaker 2: A humanized the horses. Yeah, I appreciate it.
Speaker 1: I was so sad though, like when the horse was
just like can't keep going. I'm like, oh no, this
is this is heart wrenching, like for the horse, for
this guy. And I just like the scene too when
you could just hear like the hooves getting closer and
he's just like drawn his bow. It's like a last
stand sort of thing. So yeah, I really liked that scene,
as sad as it was, and it was just I
think I like the chemistry. We don't get a lot
of it, but amongst all the siblings we get some
of that. I don't know, like they seem really close,
even though like Hara feels like the black sheep just
because she's not a guy. I guess like she can't
be a soldier through the eyes of her father. But
I just like the family dynamic there, and it's one
of those things where I'm like, man, if this was
like a show, you know, like drawn out of our
whole season, Like I just would have loved to see
some of those character bonding moments because they just seemed
really close. And I knew the sons were gonna die,
you know, fairly soon. They lasted maybe longer than I
would have expected, and they went out, Yeah they went
out too soon.
Speaker 2: But yeah, yeah, yeah, I don't think I've much to
add on them. One character, though, I did really like
I believe her name is Olwin. She was the kind
of shield maiden. Yeah, she assisted there, helps break Hara
out of imprisonment when she's when she's locked in there.
But that was another cool way that I think they
touched on, just kind of the history and the fable,
the myth of everything, or even like that opening sequence
in the Rohan House or not the opening sequence, but
early on in the movie, and they're like talking about
all like the banners that represent the different nations and stuff,
and they have the shield Maiden one and the King's like, yeah,
should we take that down? Like those those guys have
been around, they haven't been around for a while. I
don't think they're relevant anymore. But then like, oh, there's
still a couple that are kicking around. And like, even
though she's like an old lady in this, I thought
she was so cool. I don't know if I could
really explain, like personality wise, why I liked her so much.
I just thought she was so cool. I like her
she was talking about I forget. She had a really
cool line about like the shield Yeah it's not broken,
but it's broken in something like that. I thought that
was really really nice, and obviously that kind of connected
her to Hara at the end too kind of be
came the I don't know the remainder of like the
shield Maidens. But yeah, I really liked that character.
Speaker 1: I'm really glad she didn't die too, Like it's the
character I would have expected to have that heroic sacrifice
at the end. But yeah, it was a nice little
cute sendoff, right when like you're no longer bound to me,
it's like, all right, so where are we going? Like
she's just going as a friend essentially. So yeah, I
really love that character. And it was also an interesting
character to have in the dynamic of like, let's let's
say Helm and Harah, Like there's some tension there where
Helm just wants her to basically be like a baby
maker and like, you know, you don't belong anywhere near
to the battlefield, but he clearly has so much respect
and like admiration for Olwin, which is kind of like
a similar situation where Okay, well she's a female, right
and she's one of your best soldiers you have, and
you clearly understand that because you had the moment like
what you just highlighted when she told him that she
wanted a new shield and it's like, now your shield's
not broken and just broken in and just like sees
her in the sense of like trusting her to guard
his daughter, right like his most prized possession in the
entire world, and he has Olwen in that role, And yeah,
she's just such a strong character, and I really liked
her throughout the whole film, and I'm glad that we
didn't lose her for many different reasons, but also just
like Harah is very alone, like through like losing basically
their whole family and only a couple of days, right,
like like it really, yeah, well we get some time
skips later on.
Speaker 2: It's hard to know how much time passes in this movie. Yeah,
in general.
Speaker 1: And like adding onto that, I feel like sometimes that
can be jarring, but for me, it really didn't bother
me at all. Like it's like, okay, Winter's coming, and
then we get a scene where snow's there, and it's just, yeah, okay,
we're we're weeks in or something. And you even get Hara
that gets like scratched by Wolf, and then like the
next time we see her when it's snowy, like it's gone,
so it's like, okay, like starting to heal up a
little bit. And I don't know, it's just I'm glad
we didn't get like a five years later Ben or something.
Speaker 2: We don't need that kind of stuff. You can kind
of we as the viewer, will fill in the gap.
You don't need to treat us like babies, you.
Speaker 1: Know, yeah, exactly, don't spoof feed us Scandal's name at
the end of the movie.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's true. Yeah, I guess it's the thing in general,
Like I feel like this the scale of this movie
really surprised me, and the scale of the of the
battles and whatnot. Just the the row here battle there
or or the run in Rohan by ed ter Ass
like pretty small scale battle. Like we did get some
Olephonts in there, so that's like the biggest scale element
of it. But I think that's just like naturally, what's
gonna happen when with a battle between men in these movies,
Like it's naturally when we get into Orcs and the
stuff they're doing, Elves or even like you know, the
dwarves can build some crazy shit. That's where you get
like some bigger scale stuff going on. But even like
the Helm's Deep, like it's it's hard to call it
the it's like a Battle of Helm's Deep proto version,
but it's like it's so much smaller scale, but there's
not a lot of battling going on. It's really just
like the army outside building this tower for months and
months and months and then we have like a final skirmish,
but like even that's pret small scale. Feels like there's
only like one hundred two hundred people involved in this
whole thing, and so it was a little bit different
once again, like very surprising for me, like just animated.
I thought they were gonna go all out with some
of these things, but even like calling to the war
wro here and it feels like a little over zealous
to call it that's a good movie title. I guess,
you know, that's the kind of thing that they would
call something if they want to get people to go
to the theaters. I mean, doesn't look like that really
worked necessarily, But yeah, that was something that surprised me
in general. And I feel like Helm's deep. Obviously nothing's
going to compare to that battle from Two Towers. That's
just iconic. I love seeing the snowy setting for it though.
I thought that was really fun. And then just that
like the building the siege tower. That was cool, but
it was like that was kind of the whole thing.
I didn't expect that that would be what we spend
most of the time doing there, Like I thought that
would just be one phase of it, but that was
kind of the whole plan was just this one tower.
Speaker 1: No, yeah, that's I completely agree with you where I
think coming into I would have expected just all out
action throughout the whole thing. But it's like the best
parts about this movie aren't the action really, Like it's
actually like the human character moments in in like the
siege that's going on. So I yeah, I was surprised
by that, and I really did admire actually like the
length of time, like the whole siege took. And I
feel like growing up just because of things like Helm's
Deep or like other movies I've seen, you just kind
of assume sieges are just like like a one day thing,
like you just kind of go there, you attack the gate,
you know, you light the gate on fire, you get in,
you win or you lose, and you know, of course
now just I'm addicted to things like Warhammer and like
sieging is a big aspect to it, and siegen is horrible.
It's horrible for defenders and it's horrible for attackers. But
I think it's just horrible because both sides are gonna
lose a lot of men and it takes so much
resources to get just into the gates. Let alone, like
take it over. And even if you have like ten
to one, like just ratios, like I feel like it
doesn't really matter sometimes, like especially if you have a
location like Helm's Deep, that's just so you're like rats
in the mountain, Like it's just so hard to flush
them out and to actually get in there. And I
like that. Literally they just spent like months, well I
guess not months, but weeks upon weeks just building these
like big siege engines to get in there, because that's
kind of like how it was, like, you know, this
is this is Lord of the Rings, but still just
like ancient siegeing. It was a long drawn out problems
all feels.
Speaker 2: A lot bigger than it did in Two Towers.
Speaker 1: As well, for sure, Yeah, absolutely sure when you see
that engine just being risen up by the drummer building
out front. Yeah, but and like I like the siege
like thing, Like at first I thought it was just
gonna be a siege tower like what they had in
Helms Deep when they just pushed them and then you know,
the gate comes down. But I was never would never
have expected this is just like giant bridge that they
just drop onto it and then they.
Speaker 2: Just cool drummer, just being on top of that, drumming
till his death as he crashes into the wall, the
first one to like hit the siege ball crazy. I
loved that. It was just so metal.
Speaker 1: It felt like, yeah, it felt like Mad MAXI. Yeah,
you get like the Crazy Boys. That's how it felt.
But I liked it. It was something new and different,
and like when they started raising it, I'm like, what
the fuck even is this thing? It's just a giant ladder.
But no, it was a big bridge, and you know,
they lived on fire. It took a while to burn,
but yeah, it took really long time to build.
Speaker 2: Mm hmm. Yeah. I think the only character that I
haven't mentioned yet. This was a funny sequence when when
Helm kind of gets to the gate at first, is
before he's turned to the Wraith and all that, they
take him to like the infirmary and they're trying to
heal him up, and he's just he's just passed out
and they're like, I don't know, he's he's alive, but
he's just all waking up that kind of thing. And
you have like an old lady, like an old hag
type in there, and she's like walking around and She
just had like a very like that kind of crackly
old voice, and that was what was making the other
guy in the theater crack up laughing, Like anytime she spoke,
he just started laughing. And then I started laughing too,
because I was like, this was maybe a little absurd,
but yeah, that was it. That was a funny a
funny character throwing there.
Speaker 1: I didn't love her too much. I feel like she
was just kind of there to like fill us in
some history, right with like the bride dress and just
being this kooky old lady in the in the tower
because like she has she has her moments just being
like very bizarre. And then at the end there's like
kind of a heartwarming moment when she like gives the child,
like the the device you know that supposedly Harra thought
she was just gonna burn it, but she ended up
passing it on. So there was some surprising amount of
heart with the character that just seems crazy when she introduced, like,
I feel like all the scenes with her, I just
didn't know what I was gonna get. It was just
a wild card. And then I was surprised at the
end when she had that one with a little with
the little one. But yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2: That kid, by the way, felt a lot. He kind
of felt like the merry equivalent of this kind of
being like the squire type boy being there, like he
doesn't really get on the battlefield in that same way.
But uh yeah, I felt like another comparison point.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I know he was. He was a hard worker, right,
he was like his first day of job, and then
he had no idea this was gonna be.
Speaker 2: He carried that gear up like to her in the
first place, right, the Elms Elms armor set.
Speaker 1: Haarah gave him a nice hug at the end, so
they bond a little bit. I like the moment too,
when he was just like super nervous, like his first
day being like the banner boy, and then he's like
going through and he's like trying to learn all these
and then like half like it's just like gone, it's
like scratched out. He doesn't even know what it is.
And then that's kind of Hara's moment of appearance.
Speaker 2: But yeah, I don't know if I have much else
on the other characters that we didn't hit, but I
think we got all of them. Is there anything else
on on Hara like about that character that we haven't
discussed yet that you enjoyed.
Speaker 1: I think I think for me, I mean, I just
I really like the character. Like I think she was
really really well easy to root for. Yeah, yeah, exactly.
She she's our hero of the story and very deserving
of our of our support because I feel like she
keeps like getting especially early on in the story when
her father's just kind of saying you don't belong anywhere here.
It's very easy to just be like defeated and like
oh my god, like my life sucks, and just like whining.
But she never really like has time to do that
because by the time like she's feeling sad, that's when
she finds out like the lord Thorn symbol and then
she realized I've been betrayed, and she's just like right
away like getting on like the action and it's like, okay,
King's down here, so let's evac everyone. Like I don't
have time to go out in the battlefield as for
permission to do this, Like I just have to do
the things necessary. And she's just a great leader, right
Like great leaders. There's a great quote where great leaders
they don't choose to lead, they answer the call when
when they're called upon. Probably paraphrase that terribly, but still
it's pretty much what she did, and like she didn't
really have time to do all these things. It's just yeah, no,
evac everyone, we're doing this right now. And she's just
really solid leader in pretty much a similar vein for
me of like what Aragorn is right, Like he just
exudes the leadership and like, man, I've never been in
a fight in my life, but like I would follow
that guy at their Black gide Like if he gave
me a quote, you would up as the drummer boy,
I'm going up. If that guy gives me a speech,
I'm going like you just you just poorly boosting the
whole morale of everyone. And I think she symbolized that,
and I I loved her look again, I love the
character Yona from Yona the Dawn and very very similar
and it's just iconic appearance as well, Like even with
like the bride dress that she has at the end,
I thought that, yeah, no, it was great. Look. I
kind of forgot about the look. I remember the showcasing
that other than the trailer or like one of the screenshots,
but yeh, I just looked really cool. It looked ethereal honestly,
like it looked ghostly. Yeah, and then paired with her
with her just powerful red hair. It was great image. Again,
like not really easy to capture on live action, So like,
I'm glad that they really made are heroin like like
just stand out and in an anime way you know
that you can't normally do with live actions where you
can't do Yeah, and it may so Yeah, they definitely
like like even to some extent, Helm, you know, like
the way he looks is a bit exaggerated, and then
obviously the King of the wild Men, like his his look.
Speaker 2: Is very like. Yeah, they've really felt like fire up
the villains the whole way through, like they had the
same color palette that a lot of them do. But yeah,
I feel like they did that sparingly in terms of
making characters look just like a regular Rohan kid and
then like making certain ones stand out and then obviously
talk about like the Eagle being bigger than we're used
to and stuff. But I think you're right, like Harad
definitely stands out in the crowd, Like if she was
the Wreswaldo of this would be easy to pick her out.
And I think that was really crucial, especially when she
has the dress at the end obviously that makes her
pop even more.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think I'm I think I'm noteless over here.
I think I'm noteless too. Actually, yeah, we hit all
my main points any means. Yeah, yeah, no, I I'll
go first. I guess I really really enjoyed this. I'm
glad this came out. Although maybe I wasn't a fan
with certain characters' decisions overall, like like the vanishing of
the One Gentleman, it just seemed like a like a
weak decision and like not really fully justified. But whatever,
we got the movie that we got, and I ended
up liking the whole story for the most part, and
really liked what you said about just the framing of
it of being like a mythological type tale and not
really necessarily it's all like it's being set up of
like this is gonna be a one to one representation
or not. Like there's some ambiguity there and some gray area,
and I think it just really worked. And yeah, it
was two hour run time. I liked it a lot.
I think I could have taken honestly, Yeah, I think
it was I think it was really good run time,
especially for an animated film. It felt really really nice
paced wise, and yeah, no, I loved it. I think
I'm gonna give it. They might give it a nine
out of ten.
Speaker 2: Nice.
Speaker 1: Yeah, like one mark off just with some of like
the weird decision making there. Wolf was just so pathetic.
We don't really I don't know. I didn't keep talking
to him or I didn't keep going on about him
after we initially mentioned him, but just all of the
patheticness of what that character was is it was just
so goofy for me. But it but it fit, you know.
I like tell you brought up just the Weasley type
of archetype villains that we have in Lord of the
Rings and he definitely fit that category. Yeah no, I
I think it was solid and great score, as I
had already mentioned. And I want more of these Lord
of the Ring tails. We'll see what happens.
Speaker 2: I don't think we're gonna get them, unfortunately, based on
I think we're just gonna get as much like nostalgia
bait as possible. Whoever, whatever actors will come back for
live action. They're gonna go that route and try and
make a profit, which makes sense. They have to run
a business. It's too bad. I hope this movie climbs
over the holiday break. I mean, there's so much competition
out there, so it's rough. Maybe it has a good
run on streaming, who knows, but yeah, hopefully hopefully it
can make some more money because this opening weekend projection
that we've seen is pretty I think it was even
worse than Craven right, which is like not good. Yeah,
so yeah, hopefully hopefully climbs.
Speaker 1: Yeah, not too too surprising. I think for me, like
best case scenario that could happen is just more people
get the like the possibility to use the rights of
Lord of the Rings, because then you can just get
more creative studios of doing and like you can even
market it at being not attached to Lord of the
Rings at all. But it's just a tale of Middle Earth.
I would love to see a future where that kind
of happens, but it seems like right now it's being
kind of held close to the chest with whoever's couple
is right, So.
Speaker 2: I mean we're still gonna get some movies, but yeah,
we might just not get more like this unfortunately, So
can I enjoy it? Well, it's yeah, I'm gonna give
you a little bit lower than you I can. I
think I can give it an eight. I think I
was somewhere between like the seven and eight range, but
I'm gonna veer on the high side of that because
I really enjoyed this convo. I think there's some things
that I ended up like I I at the start
of this, I was like, I don't think I'll rewatch
to this movie much, but I think after this discussion
it would be one that put on. It's just like,
you know, if I want Lord of the Rings, that's
a commitment. Because I can watch all these three movies.
They are long extended editions. Hopefully there's like maybe I
don't know, I don't know if there's normally extended editions
for animated movies. I feel like if they're gonna go
through the work of animating something, they get it in
the movie. But yeah, I feel like this one is
like a bit easier just the one and done kind
of watch, and so I'd probably put it on maybe
around the winter time. I feel like this is a
very wintery movie, with like the long snowy sequence in
Helms Deep there, which was really cool to see. So yeah, cool,
I'm gonna drop a nice, nice cool eight eight out
of ten on this puppy here.
Speaker 1: Nice I like it. Yeah, like our average eight and
a half. It's very good, beautiful. All right, ladies and gentlemen,
thanks for sticking through the whole review. Hope you enjoyed
the movie like we did, and hope you enjoyed the
the review even more so. Stay tuned the feedst a
lot of stuff coming out.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I guess we should have plucked at the beginning
that we did in a retrospective for every single Lord
of the Rings move that exists, and we have reviews
for all Rings of Power. So if you want more
Middle Earth, boy, do we got you covered? Go check
out all that.
Speaker 1: Stuff place to be Absolutely yes, I apologize for something
on that one, but yes, it's a good time and
until next time, byebye. I would say just leave studio
instead of and stream