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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind, a production of

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Speaker 1: I Heart Radio. Hey, welcome to Weird House Cinema. This

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Speaker 1: is Rob Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick. And today we're

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Speaker 1: doing Lord of the Rings. It's we're entering the Tolken

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Speaker 1: verse for Weird How Cinema. Now, I assume you are

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Speaker 1: immediately thinking, Okay, the the Peter Jackson epic series, you know,

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Speaker 1: the New Zealand Journey. Of course, that's not what we're doing,

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Speaker 1: because you know, we're not going to go with that

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Speaker 1: mainstream that we did recently do Deep bluecy But no, no, no, no,

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Speaker 1: we're not doing that. You know what we're doing, of

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Speaker 1: course it is the nineteen seventy eight Ralph Back she

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Speaker 1: animated version of the Lord of the Rings. Uh and

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Speaker 1: being a little more obscure, right, it makes sense. No,

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Speaker 1: I'm just kidding. No, we're not doing that. Of course.

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Speaker 1: What we're actually doing is the nineteen eighty Return of

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Speaker 1: the King. Oh yeah, where there's a whip, there's a

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Speaker 1: way of course. No, actually, I'm kidding, we're not doing that.

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Speaker 1: The adaptation of Lord of the Rings we're doing today

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Speaker 1: is the nine Soviet made for TV production Chronitelli, which

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Speaker 1: translates directly as Keepers, which was made for the Leningrad

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Speaker 1: TV station in nineteen as the Soviet Union was collapsing.

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Speaker 1: And wow, this is one of the most amazing films

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Speaker 1: I've ever seen. It is so much fun. Um this

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Speaker 1: what it recently emerged? Right? It seems like it's certainly

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Speaker 1: been making the rounds recently. It was thought lost for

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Speaker 1: like thirty years until I think it was just earlier

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Speaker 1: this year, maybe around April of one, that the TV

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Speaker 1: station that Lennon Grad TV turned into I think it's

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Speaker 1: called Channel five or five TV Now. I believe they

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Speaker 1: were responsible for locating the originals and publishing it to

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Speaker 1: the internet. I think they just put it up on YouTube. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I think I read that one of their um their

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Speaker 1: employees wandered down into the Bay sment and one the

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Speaker 1: lost footage in a game of riddles for the subterranean creature,

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Speaker 1: right uh huh uh and so uh so, and also

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Speaker 1: some beautiful Soul was kind enough to create some English subtitles,

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Speaker 1: which is what we're going to have to be working

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Speaker 1: off of here. The original was, of course uh uh

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Speaker 1: in Russian and and the best we can do is

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Speaker 1: whatever these user generated subtitles are but I don't know.

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Speaker 1: I got a good feeling from them. I trust them.

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Speaker 1: I feel like they're mostly accurate. Yeah, I mean, we

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Speaker 1: know the source material and this film will discuss the changes,

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Speaker 1: but it's mostly accurate to the source material. It's it's

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Speaker 1: it's honorable to the source material. Um with some caveats, uh,

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Speaker 1: and you get some weird characters thrown in, Like I

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Speaker 1: had a lot of crucifixes thrown into my my my subtitles,

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Speaker 1: but it was still they were they were decent subtitles.

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Speaker 1: So if for I'll go ahead and put this out

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Speaker 1: there that if you want to find these YouTube links

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Speaker 1: that we're discussing here, I'll include them on the blog

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Speaker 1: post for this episode at Samooda music dot com. It's

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Speaker 1: s E m U t A in US, I see

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Speaker 1: dot com. That's just a blog I have, but it's

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Speaker 1: the only place I can put stuff up like this

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Speaker 1: right now. So go there if you want to see it,

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Speaker 1: or or just go look it up on YouTube. It

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Speaker 1: doesn't matter to me as long as you see it

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Speaker 1: and hear it and feel it. Now, if you are

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Speaker 1: hoping to uh to encounter she lab or see the

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Speaker 1: battle for Minas Tiris, or or see the Hobbits go

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Speaker 1: into more Door or anything like that. Unfortunately, that is

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Speaker 1: not going to happen in this part of the story

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Speaker 1: because if you're familiar with the arc of Lord of

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Speaker 1: the Rings, you know it was originally published as one

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Speaker 1: gigantic novel, but broken into three volumes. You had Fellowship

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Speaker 1: of the Ring and then The Two Towers and then

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Speaker 1: Return of the King. This movie adaptation is just the

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Speaker 1: first third, is just the Fellowship of the Ring. Right,

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Speaker 1: And they I have to say, they really, they really

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Speaker 1: let it breathe. You know, they spend up, they spend

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Speaker 1: two solid hours. They cut out some stuff that you

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Speaker 1: might not expect them to cut out, various strange choices

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Speaker 1: about pacing and yeah, how to how to allocate the

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Speaker 1: plot into the two hours they had. Right, But then

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Speaker 1: they also, um, they show a lot of love for

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Speaker 1: sections of the book that are traditionally cut out of

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Speaker 1: all adaptations, or at least all that I'm familiar with. Yes,

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Speaker 1: so one of the most notable things about Corona Telly

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Speaker 1: is that it includes Tom Bomba Dill and the Barrow Downs,

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Speaker 1: which is so exciting to me. Yes, yes, I I

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Speaker 1: was excited for this as well, because I have recently

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Speaker 1: we my son and I have recently started listening to

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Speaker 1: the audio book of the of the Fellowship of the

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Speaker 1: Rings and we just finished this section with the Barrow

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Speaker 1: Whites and Tom Bomba Dill, and so he's had a

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Speaker 1: lot of thoughts about it, and uh like, I was

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Speaker 1: telling him about about all this, and I was like,

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Speaker 1: you know, most most film adaptations cut Tom Bomba Dell out.

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Speaker 1: And he's like, no, Tom Bamba Dial is an important character.

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Speaker 1: I mean, not that he would know he has made

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Speaker 1: it that far into the book. At this point, he

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Speaker 1: seems very important because he's essentially like a nature god

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Speaker 1: who showed up and saved everybody twice. I think Tom

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Speaker 1: Bomba Dill will come off as especially essential and uncuttable

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Speaker 1: to people who have listened to the audio book narrated

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Speaker 1: by Rob Inglis, who does the do you know his

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Speaker 1: own wonderful renditions of the songs that Tolkien only wrote

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Speaker 1: the lyrics to. You know, there there isn't music in

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Speaker 1: the books. Uh so, But but Rob English's interpretation of

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Speaker 1: the melodies for the Tom Bomba Dill songs is actually

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Speaker 1: quite haunting and interesting. Uh yeah, Hey, Doll, Mary dol

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Speaker 1: ring a Dingadill, Oh yeah, yeah, like the lyrics are fun. Like.

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Speaker 1: One of the things about reading Tolken is, of course

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Speaker 1: you get a lot of songs, and if you're reading

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Speaker 1: them to yourself, you I don't know. I find myself

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Speaker 1: kind of reading quickly through the especially the multi page

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Speaker 1: song lyrics, and then if I'm reading them aloud, say

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Speaker 1: to my son, as we did with the Hobbit, Um,

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Speaker 1: I'm not I'm I'm fairly musically inclined, but not enough

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Speaker 1: to where I can just randomly sing these lyrics to

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Speaker 1: a tune. So the audio book is a is a

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Speaker 1: real treasure when it comes to these songs, because he

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Speaker 1: doesn't yeah, he does a great job bringing them to life,

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Speaker 1: and and they even can You can can kind of

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Speaker 1: get earwormed by Tom Bombadale, find yourself humming this song

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Speaker 1: through the rest of your day. I listened to part

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Speaker 1: of these audiobooks on an airplane and the next day

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Speaker 1: I was wandering around London in a in a fog

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Speaker 1: of jet lag, just singing no, no, no, he's a

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Speaker 1: merry fellow. But what is it? Bright as jacket is

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Speaker 1: and his boots are yeah, hello, yeah, a lot of

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Speaker 1: lyrics about just how merry he is and what he

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Speaker 1: is wearing. And then the daughter about Goldberry, Beldberry, Fatty Lumpkin,

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Speaker 1: all about the ponies, love a song about a pony. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: so it's really good stuff. And yeah, and when you're

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Speaker 1: reading Lord of the Rings, yeah, it is a weird

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Speaker 1: encounter because he's just this merry, godlike and mysterious character.

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Speaker 1: Like there's still scholarly articles that are that are trying

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Speaker 1: to tear apart exactly what Tom is and what he

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Speaker 1: you know, what he descends from in you know, the

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Speaker 1: actual annals of mythology. And then the Barrow Whites are

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Speaker 1: just super creepy as well. They're these um when you

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Speaker 1: get into the Morning to the lore, they're these tortured

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Speaker 1: spirits that have fled the witch kingdom of Angmar and

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Speaker 1: hid in the ancient bodies of human warriors that were

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Speaker 1: buried during the First Age of the Sun. And so

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Speaker 1: they're just like will crushing darkness. And we have that

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Speaker 1: wonderful creepy scene where the Hobbits wake up in the

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Speaker 1: barrel mounds and they're they're they've been laid out and

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Speaker 1: covered in the gold of the dead it's fabulo stuff.

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Speaker 1: But if I were doing an adaptation where I was

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Speaker 1: trying to render a barrel white, um, I would not

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Speaker 1: have thought to dress him as a creepy clown. And

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Speaker 1: so the barrel white, I think in this movie I

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Speaker 1: could be mistaken, but I believe is played by a woman,

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Speaker 1: but is voiced by like a like a raspy, deep

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Speaker 1: voiced man. And and the person playing the barrel white

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Speaker 1: is dressed in full like my makeup or like I

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Speaker 1: don't know what you call that classic clown makeup that

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Speaker 1: goes like, you know, the the old style. Yeah, it is.

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Speaker 1: It is not something I would have chosen for for

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Speaker 1: the barrel white. See, they're very creepy. It's very it's creepy,

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Speaker 1: but in a way that, um, it's perhaps a little

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Speaker 1: off brand. I don't know, but I don't know. There's

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Speaker 1: just one detail in the film. There's other stuff that

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Speaker 1: works a lot better. Um, And I guess, I don't know.

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Speaker 1: Maybe you've given the budget here this was a good choice.

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Speaker 1: Hard to say, I guess one of the problems. And

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Speaker 1: I'd be interested to hear if you say about this,

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Speaker 1: Like one thing that I've read about the exclusion of

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Speaker 1: the Barrel White scene from other adaptations is that not

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Speaker 1: only is there pacing issue, not only is this a

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Speaker 1: whole encounter that can be easily removed, but potentially if

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Speaker 1: you put the Barrel Whites on screen, they might be

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Speaker 1: confused with the Black Riders, um with the Nine yeah,

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Speaker 1: and or in or even if you're they're not confused

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Speaker 1: with them, they might take some of the heat away

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Speaker 1: from them. Um. And so if you take them out,

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Speaker 1: the ring Rates remain the primary supernatural antagonist in this

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Speaker 1: phase of the book. I can see that. I mean,

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Speaker 1: the other main criticism that I've encountered in and I

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Speaker 1: know we've talked about this before. I think what Peter

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Speaker 1: Jackson said is the reason Tom Bombadill and the Barrow

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Speaker 1: Downs and all that is not in his version of

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Speaker 1: the movie at all, is that it does not advance

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Speaker 1: the plot, like you can cut it out and nothing

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Speaker 1: has really changed. Yeah. The only criticism I've seen of

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Speaker 1: that is is people say, well, this is where the

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Speaker 1: Hobbits get their initial weapons from the trove of the

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Speaker 1: Barrow Whites. You know, Tom Bombadell picks stuff out for them,

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Speaker 1: and without that, you just have Strider randomly handing out

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Speaker 1: hobbit sized weapons later on in the film. But I

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Speaker 1: don't know. I think that's that's a small, small, small,

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Speaker 1: uh point to harp on. But this is interesting because

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Speaker 1: it leads to one of the major differences in in

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Speaker 1: storytelling structure between this adaptation of Fellowship and say Peter Jackson's.

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Speaker 1: I mean, it's funny in many ways to compare them. Though.

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Speaker 1: Another thing that's funny is that they only came out

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Speaker 1: about ten years apart, if you can fit that in

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Speaker 1: your brain. Ten years and however many millions and millions

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Speaker 1: of dollars. Ye, yeah, yeah, that's also so. The Peter

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Speaker 1: Jackson movies were multimillion dollar production and from what I

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Speaker 1: can tell I was reading. Actually, there's a very good

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Speaker 1: article in Variety about the production of Chronatelli that interviews

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Speaker 1: some of the actors who were originally involved in it.

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Speaker 1: They're still alive, still working. They talked to Georgy Steele,

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Speaker 1: who played Bilbo Baggins in this production, who I think

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Speaker 1: is is like eighty nine now or something. He's still acting, uh,

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Speaker 1: and he's a great actor, by the way. I mean,

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Speaker 1: one of the funny things about this is, despite how

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Speaker 1: threadbare the the production is a lot of the actors

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Speaker 1: in it are legends of the Leningrad St. Petersburg Theater scene. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and it shines through. Yeah. The actor playing Bilbo is great.

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Speaker 1: The actor playing Gandolf is great. Um, some of the

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Speaker 1: others I have notes on, but those two in particular

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Speaker 1: are wonderful. And yeah, there's there's don't dismiss this title

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Speaker 1: on the acting alone, like somebody acting may come off

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Speaker 1: a little weird, especially if you have certain expectations for

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Speaker 1: some of these characters. But but there are a lot

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Speaker 1: of talented people involved in us. Well, I've got thoughts

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Speaker 1: about that. I'm going to get too in a second.

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Speaker 1: But sorry. I started to introduce this article and then

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Speaker 1: I didn't fully put it out there. So it's an

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Speaker 1: article in Variety by Rebecca Davis called Inside the Soviet

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Speaker 1: Lord of the Rings cast details their epic TV movie

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Speaker 1: Uncovered after thirty years I was published a few months ago,

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Speaker 1: I think. And this is a really great article, like

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Speaker 1: I said, because it manages to get a number of

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Speaker 1: people who were actually involved in this obscure production on

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Speaker 1: the record to explain what was going on. And so

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Speaker 1: one of the things emphasized by several actors here is

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Speaker 1: that this movie had essentially no budget at all. It

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Speaker 1: was made I think over the course of an estimated

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Speaker 1: nine hours total of shooting that took place in a

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Speaker 1: few sessions in less than a week. Uh So, you know,

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Speaker 1: one of the actors was explaining that they would, you know,

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Speaker 1: they'd sort of come together, they'd rehearse a scene very quickly,

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Speaker 1: and then they just shoot it and they do no

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Speaker 1: no second takes, and then they just move on to

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Speaker 1: the next thing. And like all of the stuff was

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Speaker 1: sourced from just what was lying around the Leningrad TV stations.

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Speaker 1: With the costumes, the sets, the props, almost all of

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Speaker 1: them were just repurposed whatever they could borrow from other

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Speaker 1: previous productions. I think maybe the most complex things we

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Speaker 1: get in terms of filmmaking are are the shots of

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Speaker 1: people riding horses out in the snow, and so you

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Speaker 1: get several shots of that that are supposed to be

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Speaker 1: the nine the Ring raids, who are who are hunting

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Speaker 1: the Ring, and then you also get some shots of

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Speaker 1: the Hobbits riding ponies out in the snow. And one

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Speaker 1: of the actors, i think Sergei Shelgonov, who played Mary

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Speaker 1: brandy Buck, talks about how he'd never ridden a horse

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Speaker 1: before shooting that scene. He'd never he's never ridden a

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Speaker 1: horse since, and it was the coldest he's ever been. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: there is one thing we should point out about this

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Speaker 1: film is that there is there is intense, an intense

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Speaker 1: feeling of winter in this And in fact, there's a

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Speaker 1: point in the film where Gandolf tells, I think he's

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Speaker 1: telling Frodo, right. He says, Frodo, winter is coming back. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: They keep saying winter is coming over and over. This

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Speaker 1: also long predates the Germ and it's a it's an

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Speaker 1: interesting cultural adaptation of of Lord of the Rings because

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Speaker 1: you know, so Lord of the Rings is very much

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Speaker 1: about weather and landscape and uh and and traveling across

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Speaker 1: the terrain and experiencing nature as you're on a as

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Speaker 1: you're on a hard journey. But winter and snow don't

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Speaker 1: play that big of her. I mean, the snow is

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Speaker 1: a big part of their attempt to get over the

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Speaker 1: Charadrus when they're you know, trying to go over the mountains, uh,

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Speaker 1: and then they fail doing that and have to go

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Speaker 1: back down into the minds of Maria. But overall, I

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Speaker 1: don't recall snow being a big part of the journey

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Speaker 1: in the books. But hey, you know that you you've

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Speaker 1: got to adapt to the local terrain, So if you

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Speaker 1: need to shoot locally, that's what you're doing. But then

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Speaker 1: the other thing is this this film actually does. While

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Speaker 1: it's mostly just shooting actors doing a first take of

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Speaker 1: a scene on a set at this Leningrad TV station

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Speaker 1: or maybe it's some other locations around town, I'm not sure. Um,

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Speaker 1: they they actually do have a couple of scenes that

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Speaker 1: have special effects in them. For example, there is one

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Speaker 1: scene where the four Hobbits are dining at the house

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Speaker 1: of Tom Bomba, Dill, and Goldberry, and they recast Bombadil

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Speaker 1: and Goldberry as giants. You know that they're like not

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Speaker 1: just a little bit bigger than the Hobbits, but they're

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Speaker 1: like enormous compared to them. Yeah, it's which I don't

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Speaker 1: think they're that big in the book. They're like he's

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Speaker 1: supposed to be kind of shortish, actually stout but short. Um,

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Speaker 1: But yeah, they're titans in this. But it's an impressive shot.

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Speaker 1: Looks pretty good. So some of the articles have not

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Speaker 1: agreed with you there, but I don't know. I bought it.

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Speaker 1: I was there I mean taking into account the zero budget, um,

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Speaker 1: and also just kind of the charm of the production,

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Speaker 1: like there's there is this made for television like decayed

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Speaker 1: quality charm to it, and you know you don't want

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Speaker 1: to see a perfect special effect in that. And then also,

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Speaker 1: if I'm going to be more critical, um, there there

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Speaker 1: are far lousier special effects in this film, like that's

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Speaker 1: not the one to really, that's not the hill to

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Speaker 1: die on the giant tom bomba delf scene. Yeah, I

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Speaker 1: would say on the on the worst side of the

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Speaker 1: visual effects present, there's one thing where it seems like

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Speaker 1: sometimes they were trying to evoke a sense of mystery

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Speaker 1: or kind of uh, I don't know, the the general

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Speaker 1: visual obscurity of fantasy and the deep past by doing

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Speaker 1: what looks like smearing the camera lens with the translucent

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Speaker 1: gel of some sort. Yeah. Yeah, that's something we've seen.

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Speaker 1: I've seen this in other productions as well, but they're

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Speaker 1: they're definitely doing it here. Oh but sorry, I wanted

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Speaker 1: to come back to something we brought up a minute ago,

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Speaker 1: which is that you know, I want to be generous

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Speaker 1: to this, but I think it is clear that a

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Speaker 1: lot of the performances the acting performances in this are

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Speaker 1: way off base. They're just bizarre renditions of these now

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Speaker 1: well known and now beloved characters, despite the fact that

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Speaker 1: a lot of the actors in this production are actually

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Speaker 1: great actors of of the stage at least, you know,

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Speaker 1: people who have done a lot of work before and

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Speaker 1: since in the in the Leningrad St. Petersburg theater scene,

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Speaker 1: and they're highly trained, well respected actors. So, so what's

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Speaker 1: going on here? I think actually a lot of the

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Speaker 1: bizarre performances are a result of confusion about the characterizations themselves,

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Speaker 1: like something is getting lost in translation of how to

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Speaker 1: understand what these characters personalities are and how we should

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Speaker 1: feel about them. So I would say one of the

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Speaker 1: big examples is, again I don't want to single him

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Speaker 1: out because I think he's I think he's actually a

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Speaker 1: good actor. But the actor who plays Frodo uh makes

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Speaker 1: some really straight like Frodo in this movie, especially towards

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Speaker 1: the beginning, is this insufferable Alfredy Newman brat like he

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Speaker 1: looks like he should be wearing a sailor suit and

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Speaker 1: have a lollipop in his mouth. Yeah, absolutely, there their

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Speaker 1: shades of I Got I Got a hint of Alan Cumming,

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Speaker 1: a hint of Mr bean es pee Wee Herman. Yet

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Speaker 1: Mr bean and pee wee Herman absolutely with like a

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Speaker 1: red wig on and the wet mouth. Yeah he's so.

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Speaker 1: I mean Frodo and Bilbo too. You know, there are

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Speaker 1: certainly times where they're they're written and they come off

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Speaker 1: as kind of, you know, wimpy and not up for

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Speaker 1: the journey, and they have to overcome that. But man,

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Speaker 1: this Frodo like he has he has this one line

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Speaker 1: where at least he was translated as he's talking to

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Speaker 1: Gandolf and he says, you've spoken for so long it

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Speaker 1: makes me hungry. And I was like, oh my god,

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Speaker 1: you're you're not going to get out of the shy

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Speaker 1: Are alive? Frodo? Yeah, I know, the worst, but yeah,

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Speaker 1: yeah that what are his epithets? Frodo worst hard, Frodo underwhelmed,

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Speaker 1: Frodo underwhelm, Frodo cries a lot, Frodo lolly mouth. But

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Speaker 1: even this actor is still around, right, yeah? I think so.

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Speaker 1: At least one of the articles I was reading about

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Speaker 1: it mentioned something about him, though I don't think he

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Speaker 1: was interviewed. But yeah, again, I don't want to chalk

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Speaker 1: that up to like the actor being a bad actor,

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Speaker 1: I would say instead, um, we we now, I think,

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Speaker 1: especially since the Peter Jackson movies, we have a more

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Speaker 1: cemented idea of how the how each of these characters

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Speaker 1: should be received. What's sort of the the the cannon

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Speaker 1: appearance and tone for their representation on screen. And at

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Speaker 1: the time and place this was being made, I think

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Speaker 1: something was just getting lost because even though there there

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Speaker 1: has for a long time been great love for Tolkien's

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Speaker 1: works in Russia and even in the Soviet Union, there's

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Speaker 1: obviously some difficulty in the adaptation. You know, there's a

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Speaker 1: translation process going on, and it's not even always a

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Speaker 1: totally like, uh, free and organic translation process. Yeah. So

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Speaker 1: on that note, let's let's just start with the obvious.

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Speaker 1: The title Chronotelli. What does this mean? Well, I believe

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Speaker 1: it translates from Russian as the keepers and as in

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Speaker 1: like the keepers or the guardians of the Ring. Incidentally,

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Speaker 1: this is also the translated title for the Russian release

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Speaker 1: of the two thousand nine Zack Snyder adaptation of Watchman. Oh, Chronatellio.

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Speaker 1: I see, so if you do start doing a search

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Speaker 1: for Chronatelli or for the actual cyrillic of that you'll

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Speaker 1: suddenly get all these pictures of watchmen, and you may

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Speaker 1: find yourself confused. You think I'm looking for Lord of

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Speaker 1: the Rings, and instead here is um, you know, brus shack.

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Speaker 1: Wait a minute, though, so how do so? Obviously the

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Speaker 1: Peter Jackson movies, once those were made, were actually released

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Speaker 1: in Russia. What do they call the Fellowship there? Believe

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Speaker 1: the title in Russian is Brastavo Courtza, which means Brotherhood

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Speaker 1: of the Ring. Okay, that seems like a fairly faithful rendition. Yeah, yeah, Now,

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Speaker 1: as for Russian translations of the book itself, this is

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Speaker 1: all very interesting and I think is also simply to

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Speaker 1: keep in mind when we're talking about like how are

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Speaker 1: these characters framed, etcetera. Um. Fellowship of the Ring has

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Speaker 1: an interesting history in Russia. It was originally published in

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Speaker 1: the West, of course, in nineteen fifty four, and so

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Speaker 1: you know, naturally English reading Russians could have conceivably read

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Speaker 1: it as early as that, but the first Russian translation

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Speaker 1: didn't occur till nineteen sixties six, a short retelling that

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Speaker 1: didn't see the light of publication until nine, and the

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Speaker 1: translation we see in the film here is uh that

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Speaker 1: it's apparently based on a nineteen two translation that was

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Speaker 1: a bridge to comply with Soviet censorship. Okay, so what

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Speaker 1: we're getting is a Leningrad TV teleplay adaptation of a

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Speaker 1: censored and abridged translation of the original novel, right right,

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Speaker 1: And for a while this was There have been subsequent

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Speaker 1: translations in Russian of The Lord of the Rings, but

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Speaker 1: for the longest this was the only official version you

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Speaker 1: could get in uh the U. S s R. Now,

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Speaker 1: according to Mark Hooker, the author of Token through Russian Eyes,

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Speaker 1: sighted in Alan Yujas is excellent New York Times article

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Speaker 1: on this film, the major stalling points uh, stalling, not

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Speaker 1: Stalin points this stalling points uh that the hang ups

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Speaker 1: surrounding the original text, Uh, for the Soviet censors were

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Speaker 1: perceived quote religious themes or the depiction of desperate Western

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Speaker 1: allies uniting against a sinister power from the east. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: you can see how the Soviet sensors might not have

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Speaker 1: been keen on a book that's about allies coming together

401
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Speaker 1: to fight an empire in the East. Yeah. So, I

402
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Speaker 1: mean so to say the least Russia has a different

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Speaker 1: history with Lord of the Rings compared to other parts

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Speaker 1: of the world, certainly compared to you know, England and America.

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Speaker 1: The work itself, of course, has an appeal that defies

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Speaker 1: borders and nationalities, though based in the mythologies and literatures

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Speaker 1: that Tolkien himself was most familiar with, and these these

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Speaker 1: include mostly non Russian and Slavic influences. Apparently was reading

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Speaker 1: Tolkien had tried to learn Russian at one point and

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Speaker 1: it didn't take. Here's what he had to say in

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Speaker 1: one of his letters, quote, I love music, but have

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Speaker 1: no aptitude for it. Slavonic languages are for me almost

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Speaker 1: in the same category. I've had a go at many

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Speaker 1: tongues in my time, but I am in no ordinary

415
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Speaker 1: sense of linguist, and the time I once spent on

416
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Speaker 1: trying to learn Serbian and Russian have left me with

417
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Speaker 1: no practical results, only a strong impression of the structure

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Speaker 1: and word esthetic. Yeah, that seems correct. I mean, based

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Speaker 1: on my experience with Tolkien, it seems like most of

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Speaker 1: the the language and mythology that he tends to draw

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Speaker 1: from is uh what you would say. I think mainly

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Speaker 1: like Northern Europeans, sort of like Scandinavian, Germanic and Celtic. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: That's that's my understanding as well. Um, So we have

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Speaker 1: that going on, and then we have this added layer

425
00:22:36,640 --> 00:22:41,679
Speaker 1: of censorship state suspicion of the work, and similarly longer

426
00:22:41,800 --> 00:22:44,840
Speaker 1: lasting mixes of both a rich enthusiasm for Tolkien. I

427
00:22:44,960 --> 00:22:48,920
Speaker 1: was reading that Moscow has or had a Tolkien museum

428
00:22:48,960 --> 00:22:52,639
Speaker 1: of sorts. The photos were not um, I mean, they

429
00:22:52,840 --> 00:22:55,600
Speaker 1: looked fun. It looked fun, but it also looked kind

430
00:22:55,640 --> 00:22:59,840
Speaker 1: of small but still dedicated Tolkien museum in Moscow. Yeah. Now,

431
00:23:00,119 --> 00:23:02,040
Speaker 1: one thing that I'm sure of that I don't know

432
00:23:02,119 --> 00:23:04,520
Speaker 1: if this particular question was ever asked to him. I

433
00:23:04,560 --> 00:23:07,240
Speaker 1: think other similar questions were put to him. I know

434
00:23:07,440 --> 00:23:12,760
Speaker 1: that Tolkien strenuously objected to any attempt to read Lord

435
00:23:12,840 --> 00:23:15,640
Speaker 1: of the Rings or any of his works as allegory

436
00:23:15,840 --> 00:23:18,920
Speaker 1: for real world or historical events. In fact, he he

437
00:23:19,040 --> 00:23:22,159
Speaker 1: made clear that he hated allegory and he thought that, uh,

438
00:23:22,640 --> 00:23:25,520
Speaker 1: it was stupid and insulting to the audience to like

439
00:23:25,680 --> 00:23:28,399
Speaker 1: write a fantasy tale that was supposed to be an

440
00:23:28,400 --> 00:23:30,919
Speaker 1: allegory for I don't know, World War two, I think

441
00:23:30,960 --> 00:23:32,639
Speaker 1: would be the more often thing people would be Oh

442
00:23:32,880 --> 00:23:35,040
Speaker 1: is more door supposed to be the Nazis or whatever

443
00:23:35,600 --> 00:23:37,760
Speaker 1: I think his attitude was more, No, I'm writing an

444
00:23:37,800 --> 00:23:41,399
Speaker 1: original story, and you may see elements of it that

445
00:23:41,640 --> 00:23:43,840
Speaker 1: make you think about things that have happened in the

446
00:23:43,920 --> 00:23:46,400
Speaker 1: real world, but that's your prerogative. This is not meant

447
00:23:46,440 --> 00:23:49,720
Speaker 1: to be taken as an an allegory for any events past,

448
00:23:49,800 --> 00:23:53,840
Speaker 1: present or future. Yeah. Yeah, and and and yet once

449
00:23:54,000 --> 00:23:57,960
Speaker 1: you certainly have, say, state suspicion concerning the work, I

450
00:23:58,080 --> 00:24:01,520
Speaker 1: guess that's kind of hard to to completely eradicate. And

451
00:24:01,920 --> 00:24:05,280
Speaker 1: I feel like this is probably best encapsulated in a

452
00:24:05,400 --> 00:24:11,239
Speaker 1: book by Russian author kiro Eskov came out in at

453
00:24:11,320 --> 00:24:15,439
Speaker 1: least in parts of the world in Russia, uh titled

454
00:24:15,480 --> 00:24:18,680
Speaker 1: The Last Ring Bear, which spends the story of the

455
00:24:18,760 --> 00:24:21,000
Speaker 1: Lord of the Rings by taking the view of more

456
00:24:21,119 --> 00:24:24,920
Speaker 1: Door as a state misunderstood by the victors who wrote

457
00:24:24,960 --> 00:24:27,280
Speaker 1: the history. Right, So it's kind of a sequel to

458
00:24:27,400 --> 00:24:30,480
Speaker 1: Lord of the Rings. But it says, Okay, you've read

459
00:24:30,560 --> 00:24:33,320
Speaker 1: Lord of the Rings, but now consider this. Lord of

460
00:24:33,359 --> 00:24:36,200
Speaker 1: the Rings is the version of the story you're getting

461
00:24:36,359 --> 00:24:39,119
Speaker 1: from the Elves basically, right, and the idea that the

462
00:24:39,200 --> 00:24:41,280
Speaker 1: red the elves have a you know, have a grudge

463
00:24:41,400 --> 00:24:43,240
Speaker 1: in all of this, And of course they're going to

464
00:24:43,320 --> 00:24:47,320
Speaker 1: depict More Doors this awful, stinking, you know, death realm

465
00:24:47,400 --> 00:24:50,600
Speaker 1: as opposed to what The Last Ring Bear frames it

466
00:24:50,680 --> 00:24:53,960
Speaker 1: as uh as the this the cultural and the technological

467
00:24:54,080 --> 00:24:56,720
Speaker 1: center of Middle Earth. Yeah, I think the way this

468
00:24:56,920 --> 00:24:59,240
Speaker 1: novel reframes it is that More Door is a place

469
00:24:59,320 --> 00:25:01,879
Speaker 1: that kind of a use magic and is trying to

470
00:25:02,119 --> 00:25:08,080
Speaker 1: create a scientific and technological civilization. And it almost casts Again,

471
00:25:08,160 --> 00:25:10,760
Speaker 1: I don't know how much the author would agree with this,

472
00:25:10,880 --> 00:25:13,159
Speaker 1: but just having read summaries of the plot and some

473
00:25:13,280 --> 00:25:15,600
Speaker 1: of the themes in it um, it seems to me

474
00:25:15,680 --> 00:25:18,880
Speaker 1: almost like the Elves and Gandalf might be somewhat equivalent

475
00:25:18,960 --> 00:25:21,800
Speaker 1: to the Axis powers in World War two, and and

476
00:25:22,000 --> 00:25:24,520
Speaker 1: that they're uh, you know, trying to promote this kind

477
00:25:24,600 --> 00:25:29,119
Speaker 1: of uh fantasy, romantic mysticism view of the world and

478
00:25:29,200 --> 00:25:33,119
Speaker 1: trying to destroy the society and culture and people of

479
00:25:33,240 --> 00:25:37,119
Speaker 1: Mordor before they can grow too powerful through scientific and

480
00:25:37,200 --> 00:25:40,800
Speaker 1: technological means. Yeah, as as a thought experience, it sounds

481
00:25:40,840 --> 00:25:44,760
Speaker 1: fun and you know, taking like essentially doing what the

482
00:25:46,200 --> 00:25:49,720
Speaker 1: what what some would accuse Token of having done. But

483
00:25:49,840 --> 00:25:51,760
Speaker 1: that being said, yeah, I don't think Tolkien would have

484
00:25:51,800 --> 00:25:54,560
Speaker 1: approved of this, And I know the Token State would

485
00:25:54,600 --> 00:25:56,240
Speaker 1: not approve of this, and that's one of the reasons

486
00:25:56,320 --> 00:26:00,119
Speaker 1: you'll find no official translation of this in the US now.

487
00:26:00,200 --> 00:26:04,560
Speaker 1: As for other film or TV adaptations of Tolkien's works

488
00:26:04,640 --> 00:26:08,120
Speaker 1: in in the Soviet Union, I was reading I think

489
00:26:08,160 --> 00:26:11,280
Speaker 1: there was an adaptation at some point of The Hobbit

490
00:26:11,560 --> 00:26:15,240
Speaker 1: that has some major plot changes but does involve ballet,

491
00:26:15,440 --> 00:26:17,119
Speaker 1: and I've never seen this, but I would like to.

492
00:26:18,160 --> 00:26:20,440
Speaker 1: But I was also reading an article in The Guardian

493
00:26:20,560 --> 00:26:22,399
Speaker 1: by Andrew Roth, who I think is one of their

494
00:26:22,440 --> 00:26:27,280
Speaker 1: Moscow correspondents um that was about this release of Chronelly,

495
00:26:27,400 --> 00:26:31,320
Speaker 1: this adaptation of Fellowship from n and uh In. Roth

496
00:26:31,400 --> 00:26:34,280
Speaker 1: notes a couple of other interesting things about the history

497
00:26:34,480 --> 00:26:37,479
Speaker 1: of film adaptations of Lord of the Rings in Russia.

498
00:26:37,640 --> 00:26:41,000
Speaker 1: So one of them is that he mentions there was

499
00:26:41,080 --> 00:26:45,080
Speaker 1: a nineteen animated version of The Hobbit that was going

500
00:26:45,119 --> 00:26:47,880
Speaker 1: to be called something like The Treasure under the Mountain

501
00:26:48,080 --> 00:26:51,560
Speaker 1: that was partially animated, but it was never finished. But

502
00:26:51,680 --> 00:26:54,240
Speaker 1: he links to this clip that somebody has put on

503
00:26:54,280 --> 00:26:56,680
Speaker 1: the Internet of allegedly what is like six minutes of

504
00:26:57,200 --> 00:26:59,800
Speaker 1: what was going to become this movie, and I checked

505
00:26:59,840 --> 00:27:02,000
Speaker 1: it out and this is gorgeous. I wish they had

506
00:27:02,040 --> 00:27:05,800
Speaker 1: made this whole adaptation. I mean, it looks phenomenally beautiful

507
00:27:05,880 --> 00:27:09,600
Speaker 1: to me. Yeah, it is. It's it does have a

508
00:27:09,680 --> 00:27:12,160
Speaker 1: lot of charm to it. UM and in a way

509
00:27:12,200 --> 00:27:15,120
Speaker 1: it makes one wonder what it will be like when

510
00:27:15,520 --> 00:27:18,600
Speaker 1: when and I who knows how copyright laws could potentially

511
00:27:18,680 --> 00:27:22,639
Speaker 1: change in the future. But at what point Tolken's work

512
00:27:22,920 --> 00:27:27,639
Speaker 1: becomes the you know, the property of the people at large,

513
00:27:28,040 --> 00:27:30,160
Speaker 1: you know, and uh, if when you reach the point

514
00:27:30,200 --> 00:27:32,879
Speaker 1: where just about anybody can can do some sort of

515
00:27:32,960 --> 00:27:36,160
Speaker 1: retelling or spin on Tolken, you know, what what would

516
00:27:36,200 --> 00:27:38,639
Speaker 1: it be like if you had, uh, what would a

517
00:27:38,720 --> 00:27:41,000
Speaker 1: Japanese Lord of the Rings be like? What would a

518
00:27:41,080 --> 00:27:43,160
Speaker 1: Mexican Lord of the Rings be like? Oh, I'd love

519
00:27:43,200 --> 00:27:46,840
Speaker 1: to see that. What would say minds of Maria horror

520
00:27:46,920 --> 00:27:48,800
Speaker 1: film be like? I mean, there's so many different directions

521
00:27:48,840 --> 00:27:52,359
Speaker 1: you could go in in Middle Earth, UM where you know?

522
00:27:52,720 --> 00:27:55,760
Speaker 1: Right now, certainly if you're putting out any kind of

523
00:27:55,760 --> 00:27:58,040
Speaker 1: like major production, it needs to be very much in

524
00:27:58,160 --> 00:28:01,240
Speaker 1: line with what the estate UH approve of I understand.

525
00:28:01,520 --> 00:28:03,919
Speaker 1: There's another really funny thing noted in that article by

526
00:28:03,960 --> 00:28:06,720
Speaker 1: Andrew Roth about UM. This concern is something we were

527
00:28:06,720 --> 00:28:09,800
Speaker 1: talking about earlier tone getting lost in the translation to

528
00:28:09,800 --> 00:28:13,200
Speaker 1: the Russian version, which is that when the Peter Jackson

529
00:28:13,720 --> 00:28:17,440
Speaker 1: Lord of the Rings movies were were released in Russia,

530
00:28:18,000 --> 00:28:21,119
Speaker 1: there was one version of them, one dubbed version that

531
00:28:21,240 --> 00:28:23,359
Speaker 1: was popular, that was dubbed by somebody who was a

532
00:28:23,440 --> 00:28:31,040
Speaker 1: translator named Dmitri Puchkov, operating under a pseudonym Goblin, and allegedly,

533
00:28:31,040 --> 00:28:34,280
Speaker 1: according to Roth, I've never heard this myself, his dubbed

534
00:28:34,440 --> 00:28:36,640
Speaker 1: version of Lord of the Rings was noted for being

535
00:28:36,760 --> 00:28:40,520
Speaker 1: filled with profanity that was not there in the original text,

536
00:28:40,600 --> 00:28:43,160
Speaker 1: and other funny things like, for example, Frodo in it

537
00:28:43,320 --> 00:28:48,360
Speaker 1: is called Fyodor and Lego Lass has a Baltic accent,

538
00:28:48,920 --> 00:28:52,200
Speaker 1: and like Ericorn is like yelling, like is like cussing

539
00:28:52,320 --> 00:28:55,600
Speaker 1: at his troops. Alright, well, I don't know if I

540
00:28:55,640 --> 00:28:57,960
Speaker 1: approve of cussing in the Lord of the Rings, but

541
00:28:58,400 --> 00:29:01,520
Speaker 1: but that's interesting. Nonetheless, that really would change the tone

542
00:29:01,560 --> 00:29:04,480
Speaker 1: for me. Yeah. Well, we don't have a trailer per se,

543
00:29:04,640 --> 00:29:06,920
Speaker 1: but I think it's it's high time we give everyone

544
00:29:07,040 --> 00:29:09,680
Speaker 1: just a little taste of the sonic wonders to be

545
00:29:09,760 --> 00:29:11,800
Speaker 1: found in this film. Oh you know what we should

546
00:29:11,840 --> 00:29:14,800
Speaker 1: play is the is the opening music, and we haven't

547
00:29:15,000 --> 00:29:18,280
Speaker 1: talked about the music yet, which is like the how

548
00:29:18,360 --> 00:29:20,240
Speaker 1: do we go this far without the music? The music

549
00:29:20,440 --> 00:29:23,360
Speaker 1: is like one of the greatest selling points of this right.

550
00:29:23,960 --> 00:29:26,320
Speaker 1: The music in this film is is not what you

551
00:29:26,400 --> 00:29:28,920
Speaker 1: might expect from a Lord of the Rings adaptation. It

552
00:29:29,040 --> 00:29:31,560
Speaker 1: is in no way traditional. It is all over the

553
00:29:31,680 --> 00:29:35,640
Speaker 1: board there. So I counted something like five different genres

554
00:29:35,720 --> 00:29:38,880
Speaker 1: of music used to tell the story, and I have

555
00:29:39,000 --> 00:29:40,760
Speaker 1: to say I love it. It's very liberating. You don't

556
00:29:40,760 --> 00:29:43,760
Speaker 1: know what you're gonna get. Okay, let's get that opening song.

557
00:29:43,920 --> 00:29:46,280
Speaker 1: That is. I think the words in this song are

558
00:29:46,360 --> 00:29:50,200
Speaker 1: a Russian translation of the inscription on the ring that's

559
00:29:50,240 --> 00:29:52,360
Speaker 1: in the book, So you know, uh, seven to the

560
00:29:52,440 --> 00:29:55,200
Speaker 1: Dwarfloords in their halls of stone, nine immortal men doomed

561
00:29:55,200 --> 00:30:24,880
Speaker 1: to die. That kind of thing. Here you go. I

562
00:30:25,000 --> 00:30:27,760
Speaker 1: love it. Russian folk rock. This movie is full of

563
00:30:27,840 --> 00:30:30,240
Speaker 1: Russian folk rock. Also, though I love the way that,

564
00:30:31,040 --> 00:30:34,800
Speaker 1: like you said it, it just pulls in every possible genre.

565
00:30:35,160 --> 00:30:39,120
Speaker 1: One of my favorite musical touches is that Gandalf's wizard

566
00:30:39,560 --> 00:30:45,320
Speaker 1: uh powers include the ability to cast spells of funk music. Yes, yeah,

567
00:30:45,440 --> 00:30:48,400
Speaker 1: that is one of the great sequences that if you

568
00:30:48,440 --> 00:30:50,640
Speaker 1: don't watch the whole thing. I will also include the

569
00:30:50,720 --> 00:30:52,960
Speaker 1: highlight reel that somebody put together. I'll include that on

570
00:30:53,000 --> 00:30:55,280
Speaker 1: the some mood of music dot com blog post for

571
00:30:55,360 --> 00:30:57,959
Speaker 1: this this episode, because in that you'll see a lot

572
00:30:58,000 --> 00:31:00,600
Speaker 1: of the points we're talking about here, including the funky

573
00:31:00,680 --> 00:31:03,840
Speaker 1: magic of of Gandalf the Gray. Now, we would normally

574
00:31:03,920 --> 00:31:06,680
Speaker 1: do a section here where we uh go in depth

575
00:31:06,720 --> 00:31:08,600
Speaker 1: about a lot of the people involved in the production

576
00:31:08,680 --> 00:31:11,840
Speaker 1: of this, especially the cast um. That's gonna be harder

577
00:31:11,880 --> 00:31:13,360
Speaker 1: to do in this case because a lot of these

578
00:31:13,400 --> 00:31:16,520
Speaker 1: people didn't do a lot of films and are more

579
00:31:16,640 --> 00:31:19,600
Speaker 1: kind of in the sayt Leningrad or St. Petersburg community

580
00:31:19,760 --> 00:31:23,360
Speaker 1: theater community um. And to the extent that they did

581
00:31:23,480 --> 00:31:26,080
Speaker 1: do films, they're not really films that we would be

582
00:31:26,240 --> 00:31:28,160
Speaker 1: that we're familiar with. There are a lot of you know,

583
00:31:28,280 --> 00:31:30,680
Speaker 1: Russian movies. Yeah, so so certainly I know we have

584
00:31:30,800 --> 00:31:33,520
Speaker 1: some listeners out there who are who are who are

585
00:31:33,600 --> 00:31:38,200
Speaker 1: Russian or have have a greater understanding of Russian cinema.

586
00:31:38,480 --> 00:31:40,440
Speaker 1: So if if you have any notes on people that

587
00:31:40,560 --> 00:31:44,080
Speaker 1: we're mentioning here or not mentioning at all in any detail,

588
00:31:44,440 --> 00:31:47,280
Speaker 1: certainly right in and let us know, but we'll try,

589
00:31:47,320 --> 00:31:49,160
Speaker 1: and we'll cover some of the high points and at

590
00:31:49,200 --> 00:31:51,400
Speaker 1: least a couple of the people that are connected to

591
00:31:52,080 --> 00:31:55,200
Speaker 1: Western films of note or Russian films that are of note,

592
00:31:55,440 --> 00:31:59,880
Speaker 1: uh internationally. So the director was somebody named in the

593
00:32:00,000 --> 00:32:05,360
Speaker 1: Talia Serebriakova, who I think she went by Natasha actually,

594
00:32:05,720 --> 00:32:09,160
Speaker 1: uh is Natasha like a normal a nickname for Natalia?

595
00:32:09,280 --> 00:32:13,040
Speaker 1: I'm not sure I would assume that, um, but she

596
00:32:13,600 --> 00:32:15,240
Speaker 1: One of the main things I was reading about her

597
00:32:15,360 --> 00:32:17,640
Speaker 1: was it several of these articles mentioned that she was

598
00:32:17,720 --> 00:32:21,960
Speaker 1: really insistent about getting the shots of the horses riding

599
00:32:22,000 --> 00:32:25,040
Speaker 1: outside to really like heighten the heighten the sense of

600
00:32:25,120 --> 00:32:27,440
Speaker 1: place in the movie. And because and it's good that

601
00:32:27,560 --> 00:32:30,400
Speaker 1: you did, because otherwise almost the entire thing would be

602
00:32:30,480 --> 00:32:34,520
Speaker 1: shot indoors in these closed sets. Yes, yeah, I think

603
00:32:34,600 --> 00:32:37,440
Speaker 1: this was a great choice on her part, because, yeah,

604
00:32:37,480 --> 00:32:41,160
Speaker 1: those were some great scenes comparatively, Well, the greatest thing

605
00:32:41,200 --> 00:32:43,480
Speaker 1: about them actually is that so when you saw the nine,

606
00:32:43,600 --> 00:32:45,840
Speaker 1: you know, there weren't nine of them in the production.

607
00:32:45,920 --> 00:32:48,360
Speaker 1: Sometimes there'd be like two ring raids. You'd see them

608
00:32:48,520 --> 00:32:50,719
Speaker 1: riding through the snow and they've got these black hoods

609
00:32:50,800 --> 00:32:55,160
Speaker 1: on and it is playing synthesizer sequencers like I think,

610
00:32:55,320 --> 00:32:57,760
Speaker 1: I don't know if they're mogs, are like mog sequencers

611
00:32:57,880 --> 00:33:00,239
Speaker 1: like you know that that kind of like thrumming, uh,

612
00:33:00,640 --> 00:33:06,080
Speaker 1: pulsating synthesizer music that actually, I mean, you wouldn't think normally. Yeah, yeah,

613
00:33:06,200 --> 00:33:08,840
Speaker 1: you put electronic synth music in Lord of the Rings,

614
00:33:08,920 --> 00:33:11,240
Speaker 1: But hey, it works, It's good. I like it. I

615
00:33:11,880 --> 00:33:15,120
Speaker 1: I absolutely loved these these moments where they dropped in

616
00:33:15,480 --> 00:33:19,280
Speaker 1: this ring right synth um because it has this again,

617
00:33:19,320 --> 00:33:23,480
Speaker 1: this kind of like nine early nineties TV synth vibe

618
00:33:23,560 --> 00:33:26,720
Speaker 1: to it. Uh. It really gave me the warm feels

619
00:33:27,040 --> 00:33:29,680
Speaker 1: and it actually reminds me of some of the sounds

620
00:33:30,240 --> 00:33:32,479
Speaker 1: that Boards of Canada were using in some of their

621
00:33:32,520 --> 00:33:36,200
Speaker 1: early works. Um some of their uh there, their early

622
00:33:36,280 --> 00:33:39,360
Speaker 1: tracks have this exact same sort of vibe. So it

623
00:33:40,040 --> 00:33:42,680
Speaker 1: really got me. In fact, let's not just talk about it,

624
00:33:42,760 --> 00:33:55,400
Speaker 1: let's have a quick sample of these vibes. So good,

625
00:33:55,520 --> 00:33:58,200
Speaker 1: so good. Yeah, I love that. Watching a production like this,

626
00:33:58,360 --> 00:34:02,040
Speaker 1: actually it makes you question things that you had not

627
00:34:02,400 --> 00:34:06,400
Speaker 1: even realized were assumptions you had made. U like the

628
00:34:06,520 --> 00:34:11,120
Speaker 1: assumption that the proper musical aesthetic for a fantasy film

629
00:34:11,800 --> 00:34:15,840
Speaker 1: is like classic is orchestral classical music basically, or you know,

630
00:34:16,080 --> 00:34:19,959
Speaker 1: liv Tyler singing somber acapella dirges for for elf kind.

631
00:34:20,400 --> 00:34:22,880
Speaker 1: But it makes you actually asked the question, wait a minute,

632
00:34:23,000 --> 00:34:26,600
Speaker 1: why shouldn't Lord of the Rings have electronic music? Why

633
00:34:26,680 --> 00:34:30,320
Speaker 1: why shouldn't it have moag sequencers and funk bass and

634
00:34:30,560 --> 00:34:33,880
Speaker 1: and weird saxophone and stuff, and and it makes you

635
00:34:34,040 --> 00:34:36,400
Speaker 1: you say, Okay, is there a reason or is this

636
00:34:36,600 --> 00:34:40,160
Speaker 1: just the received aesthetic that I've never even bothered to

637
00:34:40,239 --> 00:34:43,800
Speaker 1: think about. I respect the boldness of these musical choices,

638
00:34:44,040 --> 00:34:46,200
Speaker 1: and I'm not even sure if the people who made

639
00:34:46,280 --> 00:34:49,480
Speaker 1: this realize they were bold. Maybe they were just working

640
00:34:49,640 --> 00:34:52,040
Speaker 1: without some kind of mental shackles that we've put on

641
00:34:52,120 --> 00:34:56,080
Speaker 1: ourselves about fantasy here. Yeah, and they were, They were

642
00:34:56,120 --> 00:35:00,200
Speaker 1: making this film without these these other expectations. And I mean,

643
00:35:00,200 --> 00:35:03,080
Speaker 1: I'm one certainly to say, yes, any film is better

644
00:35:03,160 --> 00:35:05,960
Speaker 1: off with an electronic score, even if it's not very good,

645
00:35:06,080 --> 00:35:10,000
Speaker 1: it's better um that. But then again, like we've recently

646
00:35:10,040 --> 00:35:14,000
Speaker 1: talked about regarding Cannibal Apocalypse, you know, there's there's there

647
00:35:14,000 --> 00:35:17,600
Speaker 1: are also certain standards within a given film culture. There

648
00:35:17,600 --> 00:35:19,839
Speaker 1: are certain expectations about the music and what you can

649
00:35:19,880 --> 00:35:22,640
Speaker 1: do with music. So, um, you know, maybe maybe that's

650
00:35:22,680 --> 00:35:24,719
Speaker 1: the answer here. Oh yeah, Well, like we talked about

651
00:35:24,719 --> 00:35:29,280
Speaker 1: in Cannibal Apocalypse, if you watch Italian horror or thriller

652
00:35:29,360 --> 00:35:32,800
Speaker 1: movies from the seventies and eighties, one thing you'll notice

653
00:35:32,920 --> 00:35:37,440
Speaker 1: is that some for some reason, the Italian directors seemed

654
00:35:37,440 --> 00:35:41,440
Speaker 1: to think that funk is scary or the disco music

655
00:35:41,719 --> 00:35:46,520
Speaker 1: heightens tension, and American audiences don't seem to agree with this, Like,

656
00:35:46,640 --> 00:35:49,640
Speaker 1: it feels incongruous, it doesn't fit. But it just kind

657
00:35:49,640 --> 00:35:52,640
Speaker 1: of proves to you that the moods evoked by certain

658
00:35:52,880 --> 00:35:56,000
Speaker 1: genres or sounds of music or not universal, they can

659
00:35:56,040 --> 00:35:59,840
Speaker 1: be highly culturally contingent. For some reason, to the Italians

660
00:35:59,880 --> 00:36:02,080
Speaker 1: it makes sense for the funk music to kick in

661
00:36:02,160 --> 00:36:04,640
Speaker 1: while somebody's creeping up with a knife. But to American

662
00:36:04,680 --> 00:36:08,759
Speaker 1: audiences that sounds funny. Yeah, and perhaps for Russian audiences,

663
00:36:08,880 --> 00:36:11,880
Speaker 1: or at least for the filmmakers involved here, um, an

664
00:36:11,920 --> 00:36:15,520
Speaker 1: accordion is the appropriate instrument to play when Frodo is

665
00:36:15,560 --> 00:36:18,759
Speaker 1: stabbed by a ringwraith. Oh my god, Yes, yeah, that

666
00:36:18,920 --> 00:36:21,560
Speaker 1: was true, wasn't it. Yeah, Well, maybe this brings us

667
00:36:21,600 --> 00:36:24,680
Speaker 1: to somebody else we should definitely mention as being involved

668
00:36:24,719 --> 00:36:28,520
Speaker 1: with Chronitelli. And this is Andre Romanov. I think he

669
00:36:28,719 --> 00:36:32,840
Speaker 1: may have gone by Diusha, but Romanov had several roles

670
00:36:33,200 --> 00:36:36,840
Speaker 1: with this film. Um, he was a he was a composer,

671
00:36:36,960 --> 00:36:39,400
Speaker 1: so I think he did all or most of the

672
00:36:39,560 --> 00:36:43,120
Speaker 1: music for the movie. I'm almost positive he did the version,

673
00:36:43,280 --> 00:36:46,200
Speaker 1: the musical version that you heard earlier, that's the adaptation

674
00:36:46,239 --> 00:36:49,720
Speaker 1: of the inscription on the Ring that that somber haunting,

675
00:36:49,760 --> 00:36:53,279
Speaker 1: almost kind of like old church chant, uh folk rock.

676
00:36:53,800 --> 00:36:56,840
Speaker 1: But in this he's also the narrator of the film.

677
00:36:56,960 --> 00:37:00,239
Speaker 1: This is another choice that it makes that I really like. Uh,

678
00:37:00,520 --> 00:37:02,880
Speaker 1: this Lord of the Rings has a fully embodied narrator,

679
00:37:03,040 --> 00:37:05,680
Speaker 1: like you know, Masterpiece Theater. He just sits there and

680
00:37:05,760 --> 00:37:08,120
Speaker 1: he smokes a pipe and talks into the camera telling

681
00:37:08,160 --> 00:37:11,200
Speaker 1: you the story. And sometimes he does just sit there there.

682
00:37:11,360 --> 00:37:14,280
Speaker 1: Times he doesn't seem to be in a particular hurry

683
00:37:14,880 --> 00:37:18,520
Speaker 1: to tell you the story of the Fellowship of the Ring. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

684
00:37:18,560 --> 00:37:23,040
Speaker 1: You see Gandalf chased down uh Gollum and he's like, hey,

685
00:37:23,120 --> 00:37:26,000
Speaker 1: stop lying to me, pal and Gollum squirming, and then

686
00:37:26,040 --> 00:37:27,719
Speaker 1: it might cut to him and he's just sitting there

687
00:37:27,760 --> 00:37:29,680
Speaker 1: packing a pipe for a couple of minutes and then

688
00:37:29,800 --> 00:37:32,360
Speaker 1: he'll start telling you what happens next. Oh. But the

689
00:37:32,440 --> 00:37:35,320
Speaker 1: other thing I didn't mention is that Romanov was a

690
00:37:35,480 --> 00:37:40,480
Speaker 1: member of the famous Russian rock band Aquarium or ach Varium,

691
00:37:41,160 --> 00:37:43,640
Speaker 1: which I think was based out of Leningrad, was first

692
00:37:43,719 --> 00:37:46,040
Speaker 1: formed in the early seventies, when I think it was

693
00:37:46,160 --> 00:37:48,680
Speaker 1: it was tough being a rock band in in the

694
00:37:48,760 --> 00:37:51,359
Speaker 1: Soviet Union in the early seventies, but I think it's

695
00:37:51,360 --> 00:37:53,920
Speaker 1: Glasnos came on in the eighties. They had more more

696
00:37:54,200 --> 00:37:57,000
Speaker 1: musical freedom and uh and now that this is one

697
00:37:57,040 --> 00:37:59,600
Speaker 1: of the most famous Russian rock bands. They I know

698
00:37:59,719 --> 00:38:02,560
Speaker 1: they you know, they played Lennon Grad clubs all the

699
00:38:02,640 --> 00:38:05,680
Speaker 1: time and they've got a ton of albums. I was

700
00:38:05,800 --> 00:38:08,160
Speaker 1: listening to some Aqua Varium while I was making my

701
00:38:08,239 --> 00:38:11,120
Speaker 1: coffee this morning and definitely made me want to like

702
00:38:11,320 --> 00:38:14,279
Speaker 1: Hugh Wood with Grandfather Mushroom. It's I think they've done

703
00:38:14,280 --> 00:38:18,080
Speaker 1: a bunch of different genres, that kind of eclectic musical group,

704
00:38:18,160 --> 00:38:20,160
Speaker 1: but a lot of it sounded basically to me like

705
00:38:20,760 --> 00:38:24,440
Speaker 1: electric acoustic folk rock. It reminded me a lot, and

706
00:38:24,480 --> 00:38:27,280
Speaker 1: I don't know if this is a fair comparison. Reminded

707
00:38:27,320 --> 00:38:29,400
Speaker 1: me of the music of Al Stewart to a certain extent.

708
00:38:30,280 --> 00:38:32,319
Speaker 1: I don't think I really know Al Stewart, so oh

709
00:38:32,400 --> 00:38:35,680
Speaker 1: you know he did uh um, well, I guess ironically

710
00:38:35,680 --> 00:38:38,279
Speaker 1: he did a song called Rhodes to Moscow that's rather good.

711
00:38:38,560 --> 00:38:43,640
Speaker 1: But he also did You're the Cat Old Admirals. Um. Yeah,

712
00:38:43,680 --> 00:38:45,120
Speaker 1: But but he did a lot of tracks that had

713
00:38:45,160 --> 00:38:47,880
Speaker 1: He had a track a titled Nostrodamis, so he had

714
00:38:47,880 --> 00:38:49,520
Speaker 1: to try a lot of number of tracks that were

715
00:38:49,880 --> 00:38:54,520
Speaker 1: kind of lengthy and had historical settings to them. Good stuff.

716
00:38:54,560 --> 00:38:56,680
Speaker 1: I like Al Stewart. I fired him up every now

717
00:38:56,680 --> 00:38:59,480
Speaker 1: and then. Okay, well, I'll say I not only love

718
00:38:59,640 --> 00:39:02,279
Speaker 1: Romans music in this movie, but I love him as

719
00:39:02,320 --> 00:39:05,120
Speaker 1: the narrator. I really enjoy the way he makes us

720
00:39:05,160 --> 00:39:07,719
Speaker 1: sit and wait for him to tell us something else

721
00:39:08,280 --> 00:39:10,080
Speaker 1: while we're talking about the music. I also want to

722
00:39:10,120 --> 00:39:12,759
Speaker 1: go ahead and drop one more audio sample, and that

723
00:39:13,120 --> 00:39:16,160
Speaker 1: is some of the excellent Gallum music. Because the Galla

724
00:39:16,280 --> 00:39:19,719
Speaker 1: music is also seemingly in a slightly different genre. It's

725
00:39:19,719 --> 00:39:26,799
Speaker 1: our kind of creepy vocal reverb kind of uh soundscape.

726
00:39:26,840 --> 00:39:29,200
Speaker 1: I don't know how you would describe this Joe, Yeah,

727
00:39:29,280 --> 00:39:33,440
Speaker 1: I don't know. It's very echoe. Gollum growls in this movie.

728
00:39:33,520 --> 00:39:36,439
Speaker 1: He growls like a dog and then Gandalf growls back

729
00:39:36,520 --> 00:39:40,120
Speaker 1: at him. And it should we have to stress Gollum

730
00:39:40,400 --> 00:39:43,920
Speaker 1: kind of dances, kind of has extended dance sequences that

731
00:39:44,200 --> 00:39:46,239
Speaker 1: um that that should you have to see them to

732
00:39:46,320 --> 00:39:49,560
Speaker 1: believe them. They're pretty wonderful. Let's have just a sample

733
00:39:49,600 --> 00:39:59,839
Speaker 1: of that. Isn't it dreaming? That's one. I mean, that's

734
00:39:59,840 --> 00:40:02,719
Speaker 1: how most like um. I'm reminded of stuff like Nurse

735
00:40:02,800 --> 00:40:06,360
Speaker 1: with Wound or Rovin Grizzle there. This movie has a

736
00:40:06,480 --> 00:40:09,120
Speaker 1: number of Uh. So I watched it with Rachel and

737
00:40:09,200 --> 00:40:16,840
Speaker 1: she she said that the movie was hypnotting her. I

738
00:40:17,600 --> 00:40:21,319
Speaker 1: fell asleep once deering it um in a very pleasant way.

739
00:40:21,680 --> 00:40:24,400
Speaker 1: The Goleumn sequence was one of the most hypnotti of

740
00:40:24,840 --> 00:40:36,560
Speaker 1: the entire movie for me, absolutely all right. So I'm

741
00:40:37,160 --> 00:40:39,360
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna really spend a lot of time on

742
00:40:39,440 --> 00:40:41,279
Speaker 1: any of the other cast members, but I do want

743
00:40:41,280 --> 00:40:44,080
Speaker 1: to mention two actors that are in it because they

744
00:40:44,160 --> 00:40:47,680
Speaker 1: have some interesting connections. Uh. First of all, there's a

745
00:40:47,920 --> 00:40:51,960
Speaker 1: surgery partition who plays Tom Bomba Dill. He was born.

746
00:40:53,040 --> 00:40:55,000
Speaker 1: I believe he's still around. I'm not sure if he's

747
00:40:55,000 --> 00:40:58,399
Speaker 1: acting or not. He's known for such films, at least

748
00:40:58,400 --> 00:41:01,359
Speaker 1: in Russia as The Plane Eyes to Russia from ninety

749
00:41:01,440 --> 00:41:03,480
Speaker 1: four the Fall of the Empire in two thousand five,

750
00:41:04,160 --> 00:41:06,040
Speaker 1: but he's been in some titles with a bunch of

751
00:41:06,120 --> 00:41:08,760
Speaker 1: Western names in them as well. And these include Bernard

752
00:41:08,920 --> 00:41:14,440
Speaker 1: Rose's seven adaptation of Anna Karinnina that stars Sophie Marceau,

753
00:41:15,080 --> 00:41:19,920
Speaker 1: Sean Bean, Alfred Molina, Fiona Shaw and Danny Houston. So

754
00:41:20,760 --> 00:41:23,800
Speaker 1: this actor is our bridge, the bridge we need to

755
00:41:23,920 --> 00:41:27,799
Speaker 1: connect this film to Peter Jackson's two thousand one adaptation.

756
00:41:28,200 --> 00:41:31,600
Speaker 1: That's amazing. And this reminded so Sean Bean, of course

757
00:41:31,640 --> 00:41:34,719
Speaker 1: plays Bora Mere, the you know, the hero of Gondor

758
00:41:35,440 --> 00:41:39,040
Speaker 1: in the in the Peter Jackson adaptation, and Sean Bean

759
00:41:39,120 --> 00:41:42,399
Speaker 1: is absolutely wonderful in that role, you know, the best

760
00:41:42,520 --> 00:41:45,399
Speaker 1: bore Mire you could hope for. But there was something

761
00:41:45,480 --> 00:41:47,520
Speaker 1: I think it was in that Variety article. If not,

762
00:41:47,640 --> 00:41:48,880
Speaker 1: it was in one of the other ones I was

763
00:41:48,960 --> 00:41:53,000
Speaker 1: reading that had an interview with the actor you of Guinea, Soliakov,

764
00:41:53,120 --> 00:41:57,840
Speaker 1: who plays Bora Mere in the in Chronatelli and so

765
00:41:58,040 --> 00:42:02,080
Speaker 1: Yakov apparently is a big end of the Peter Jackson adaptations,

766
00:42:02,120 --> 00:42:05,360
Speaker 1: and I think they caused him to wish that he

767
00:42:05,520 --> 00:42:09,480
Speaker 1: had portrayed bore A Mere differently than he did. Uh

768
00:42:10,080 --> 00:42:11,919
Speaker 1: So there's I just want to read from that article

769
00:42:12,000 --> 00:42:16,040
Speaker 1: in Variety by Rebecca Davis here, quoting uh Solyakov, she

770
00:42:16,280 --> 00:42:18,960
Speaker 1: she writes, watching the film for the first time last month,

771
00:42:19,239 --> 00:42:21,680
Speaker 1: he felt he perhaps hadn't been quite ready to take

772
00:42:21,719 --> 00:42:25,000
Speaker 1: on the complexities of the flawed hero. Quote. I don't

773
00:42:25,040 --> 00:42:27,399
Speaker 1: think I played the role to the fullest. I wish

774
00:42:27,440 --> 00:42:29,400
Speaker 1: I hadn't been so emotional when I was trying to

775
00:42:29,520 --> 00:42:32,080
Speaker 1: explain why I wanted the ring. I should have remained

776
00:42:32,239 --> 00:42:35,239
Speaker 1: very composed. And I think that's interesting. So seeing like

777
00:42:35,440 --> 00:42:39,600
Speaker 1: actors who were in this having watched later movie adaptations

778
00:42:39,680 --> 00:42:42,600
Speaker 1: and saying like, oh, okay, I didn't really understand the

779
00:42:42,719 --> 00:42:45,359
Speaker 1: character I was supposed to be playing. But like now

780
00:42:45,480 --> 00:42:48,399
Speaker 1: that I saw the Peter Jackson adaptation, like saw Sean Bean,

781
00:42:48,520 --> 00:42:50,400
Speaker 1: like bore A Mere makes more sense to me. And

782
00:42:50,480 --> 00:42:52,520
Speaker 1: here's how I should have done it. You know, it

783
00:42:52,560 --> 00:42:55,200
Speaker 1: should have like one thing that's great about bore Mere is,

784
00:42:55,280 --> 00:42:56,960
Speaker 1: you know, bor A Mere has a point. Bore A

785
00:42:57,040 --> 00:42:59,279
Speaker 1: mere in a way like his heart is in the

786
00:42:59,400 --> 00:43:01,520
Speaker 1: right place. He's give me the weapon of the enemy

787
00:43:01,600 --> 00:43:04,520
Speaker 1: so that I may defend the world against it. But

788
00:43:04,600 --> 00:43:07,440
Speaker 1: of course, in this movie where it's quite funny actually

789
00:43:07,520 --> 00:43:10,200
Speaker 1: because they're having the Council of l Ron where everybody's

790
00:43:10,400 --> 00:43:11,960
Speaker 1: you know, they're talking about what to do with the ring,

791
00:43:12,440 --> 00:43:15,200
Speaker 1: and Boomer just starts going like, give me the ring,

792
00:43:15,360 --> 00:43:19,640
Speaker 1: give it, give it to me. Yeah. Yeah, that doesn't

793
00:43:19,680 --> 00:43:22,239
Speaker 1: doesn't work quite as well, does it. Yeah. It kind

794
00:43:22,239 --> 00:43:23,719
Speaker 1: of makes you think, like, well, why did they bring

795
00:43:23,800 --> 00:43:26,200
Speaker 1: him along if in the initial meeting he's like, it

796
00:43:26,280 --> 00:43:29,640
Speaker 1: must be mine. Now, I know what a lot of

797
00:43:29,719 --> 00:43:31,920
Speaker 1: you were wondering. You're you're you're thinking to yourself. All right,

798
00:43:32,000 --> 00:43:34,360
Speaker 1: you guys have been able to find an actor in

799
00:43:34,400 --> 00:43:37,279
Speaker 1: this film that connects it to the cinematic universe of

800
00:43:37,440 --> 00:43:40,480
Speaker 1: the Peter Jackson, Lord of the Rings movies. But can

801
00:43:40,600 --> 00:43:44,239
Speaker 1: you connect it to the cinematic universe of Eli Roth

802
00:43:44,840 --> 00:43:49,040
Speaker 1: And uh, and yes we can. Okay, that's because, uh,

803
00:43:49,400 --> 00:43:51,880
Speaker 1: we have an actor by the name of Lillian Malkina

804
00:43:52,239 --> 00:43:55,120
Speaker 1: who plays I believe the matriarch of the Saxville Baggins

805
00:43:55,239 --> 00:44:00,319
Speaker 1: is Um the Sackville Torbens is well, no, no, it's

806
00:44:00,400 --> 00:44:05,680
Speaker 1: the same thing because in this it's Bilbo Torbens and

807
00:44:05,800 --> 00:44:08,920
Speaker 1: Frodo Torban's. I don't know what that change means, but

808
00:44:09,040 --> 00:44:12,479
Speaker 1: they didn't go with Baggins. Well, at any rate, she's

809
00:44:12,520 --> 00:44:15,880
Speaker 1: the matriarch. She has several notable scenes here standing around

810
00:44:15,960 --> 00:44:20,200
Speaker 1: with Bilbo. She was in eli Roth's hostel too, and

811
00:44:20,440 --> 00:44:23,920
Speaker 1: she was in his Thanksgiving short, the fake trailer for

812
00:44:24,080 --> 00:44:28,480
Speaker 1: Thanksgiving like a Thanksgiving slasher film, in which she plays

813
00:44:28,520 --> 00:44:31,239
Speaker 1: the grandmother. Oh so I think she gets murdered and

814
00:44:31,320 --> 00:44:35,000
Speaker 1: then like dressed up like a turkey. I think so. Yes. Yeah.

815
00:44:35,560 --> 00:44:38,600
Speaker 1: Now another actor in this that went on to appear

816
00:44:38,640 --> 00:44:43,240
Speaker 1: in some some Western productions. Galadriel, is played by Elena Solive,

817
00:44:43,600 --> 00:44:46,120
Speaker 1: who appeared in the Lost City of Z and also

818
00:44:46,239 --> 00:44:49,000
Speaker 1: in The Sopranos. Uh. And on top of this, she

819
00:44:49,120 --> 00:44:51,720
Speaker 1: won an award for Best Supporting Actress in the film

820
00:44:52,080 --> 00:44:56,200
Speaker 1: fact Us at the Can's Film Festival. So that's pretty cool.

821
00:44:56,400 --> 00:45:01,440
Speaker 1: In the Sopranos, I believe she plays juniors, taking care

822
00:45:01,480 --> 00:45:03,560
Speaker 1: of him when he's under house arrest. It's not a

823
00:45:03,640 --> 00:45:05,680
Speaker 1: major role, I do think. I think she plays the

824
00:45:05,840 --> 00:45:09,400
Speaker 1: cousin of one of Tony's girlfriends. But she's perhaps the

825
00:45:09,480 --> 00:45:12,160
Speaker 1: only actor from the Sopranos to appear in an adaptation

826
00:45:12,320 --> 00:45:14,640
Speaker 1: of of the Lord of the Rings. Right as far

827
00:45:14,719 --> 00:45:16,840
Speaker 1: as I know, what, if you had to had to

828
00:45:16,920 --> 00:45:19,880
Speaker 1: recast The Lord of the Rings using only actors who

829
00:45:19,920 --> 00:45:23,000
Speaker 1: appeared in the Sopranos, now there's a challenge. Okay, Robert

830
00:45:23,120 --> 00:45:29,520
Speaker 1: Loggia as saw uman Um, I'm gonna go with I'm

831
00:45:29,560 --> 00:45:32,360
Speaker 1: gonna go with James gandolfinie rest in peace. But assuming

832
00:45:32,400 --> 00:45:35,480
Speaker 1: they're all still alive, James Gandolfini is boom here perfect

833
00:45:35,600 --> 00:45:39,719
Speaker 1: bore Mere. You're you're not tempted by the Gandalfini gandolf

834
00:45:40,560 --> 00:45:44,239
Speaker 1: connection there, and he's not gandolf like, but he is

835
00:45:44,320 --> 00:45:46,399
Speaker 1: like bor Mere. He's got that kind of that kind

836
00:45:46,400 --> 00:45:52,200
Speaker 1: of reckless complexity. Oh oh oh, Seth just chimed in

837
00:45:52,320 --> 00:45:55,080
Speaker 1: with the best possible suggestion, which of course is Steve

838
00:45:55,120 --> 00:46:02,080
Speaker 1: Bashimi is galam there you go. Oh man, my name Smedel, Hello,

839
00:46:02,239 --> 00:46:05,960
Speaker 1: fellow Ring Bears. I mean, so many awesome directions you

840
00:46:06,040 --> 00:46:08,040
Speaker 1: could go in. Sim He's wonderful. He would have he

841
00:46:08,080 --> 00:46:11,000
Speaker 1: would have been able to nail it for sure. So good. Okay,

842
00:46:11,000 --> 00:46:14,320
Speaker 1: the guy who plays Furi. Oh that's that's our legalists,

843
00:46:14,360 --> 00:46:17,759
Speaker 1: I believe. Anyway, Okay, we we gotta move on. Um.

844
00:46:18,200 --> 00:46:20,080
Speaker 1: I figured at this point we should just mention a

845
00:46:20,120 --> 00:46:21,960
Speaker 1: few things that we took notes on while we were

846
00:46:22,000 --> 00:46:24,080
Speaker 1: watching this. I mean, obviously we're not going to recap

847
00:46:24,160 --> 00:46:27,560
Speaker 1: the story because you know, either you you basically know

848
00:46:27,719 --> 00:46:29,799
Speaker 1: the story of Fellowship the Ring, or if you don't,

849
00:46:29,880 --> 00:46:34,399
Speaker 1: you've probably stopped listening at this point already. Yeah, um,

850
00:46:34,640 --> 00:46:36,520
Speaker 1: let's see, So we'll just touch on some things that

851
00:46:36,760 --> 00:46:39,239
Speaker 1: that struck us. I will say the Hobbit scenes, the

852
00:46:39,320 --> 00:46:44,759
Speaker 1: Hobbits partying at at Bilbo's birthday party pretty great. I

853
00:46:44,840 --> 00:46:47,040
Speaker 1: feel like they helped to convey the sort of universal

854
00:46:47,120 --> 00:46:49,960
Speaker 1: folkiness that is found in the Shire. You know, just

855
00:46:50,080 --> 00:46:53,160
Speaker 1: about any culture can relate to that on some level,

856
00:46:53,520 --> 00:46:56,520
Speaker 1: though I don't know. The Hobbits felt felt perhaps drunker

857
00:46:56,560 --> 00:46:58,480
Speaker 1: than usual, like there was kind of a dwarf and

858
00:46:58,600 --> 00:47:01,400
Speaker 1: level of drunkenness to the Hobbits, and I don't think

859
00:47:01,440 --> 00:47:03,640
Speaker 1: we had dwarves at all, and this adaptation, did we

860
00:47:05,440 --> 00:47:08,080
Speaker 1: Skimley we had? Gimble was simle there. I I just

861
00:47:08,160 --> 00:47:12,160
Speaker 1: thought Gimley was absent. No Gimley, he was the guy

862
00:47:12,239 --> 00:47:16,160
Speaker 1: in the Red Cape and Hood after the Fellowship formed.

863
00:47:16,280 --> 00:47:19,280
Speaker 1: He has a gimley and legolists are almost non existent

864
00:47:19,400 --> 00:47:22,759
Speaker 1: in this adaptation the Fellowship. Uh So we mentioned the

865
00:47:22,840 --> 00:47:27,040
Speaker 1: strange plot structure. It crams about half of the Fellowship

866
00:47:27,120 --> 00:47:29,920
Speaker 1: of the Ring into the last fifteen minutes, so the

867
00:47:30,080 --> 00:47:33,800
Speaker 1: Fellowship is not formed until there are like, yeah, like

868
00:47:33,920 --> 00:47:37,040
Speaker 1: fifteen minutes left to go out of this two hour production,

869
00:47:37,560 --> 00:47:40,719
Speaker 1: and instead it decides to spend almost all of its

870
00:47:40,840 --> 00:47:44,040
Speaker 1: time with things going on with the Hobbits at the beginning,

871
00:47:44,400 --> 00:47:47,279
Speaker 1: and then Tom Bomba Dill and the Barrel Whites and

872
00:47:47,719 --> 00:47:51,200
Speaker 1: explaining the story with Gandalf, and then the scenes at

873
00:47:51,239 --> 00:47:54,640
Speaker 1: the ends at like Brie and with Farmer Maggot. Yeah,

874
00:47:54,760 --> 00:47:57,359
Speaker 1: like they really started acting like they needed to land

875
00:47:57,400 --> 00:47:59,600
Speaker 1: this thing in a hurry, which, as as we know

876
00:47:59,760 --> 00:48:02,640
Speaker 1: from Peter Jackson's treatment to the films, that's just not

877
00:48:02,760 --> 00:48:05,080
Speaker 1: how you do. Lord of the Rings. Start acting like

878
00:48:05,160 --> 00:48:06,920
Speaker 1: you're in a hurry, you're just not gonna be able

879
00:48:06,960 --> 00:48:09,000
Speaker 1: to tell it. Um. So, yeah, the pace of the

880
00:48:09,040 --> 00:48:11,239
Speaker 1: pacing is weird here. Well, the other thing I was

881
00:48:11,280 --> 00:48:13,360
Speaker 1: going to mention this earlier, but I guess we got sidetracked.

882
00:48:13,480 --> 00:48:16,319
Speaker 1: One of the things about this is clearly that they

883
00:48:16,440 --> 00:48:20,640
Speaker 1: made a choice to emphasize scenes that could be shot

884
00:48:20,800 --> 00:48:24,280
Speaker 1: with people like standing around or sitting around not moving

885
00:48:24,360 --> 00:48:28,719
Speaker 1: and discussing things, and any sequences that would have involved

886
00:48:28,920 --> 00:48:34,279
Speaker 1: um major action or movement or outdoor sets. Those things

887
00:48:34,400 --> 00:48:37,000
Speaker 1: they try to skip over as lightly as they can,

888
00:48:37,600 --> 00:48:40,120
Speaker 1: and so most of the stuff that gets cut is

889
00:48:40,160 --> 00:48:42,759
Speaker 1: the more adventur e stuff, you know, where you know

890
00:48:42,880 --> 00:48:45,760
Speaker 1: that you don't get really much of anything about crossing

891
00:48:45,800 --> 00:48:48,880
Speaker 1: the mountains, going through the minds, fighting the Orcs. I mean,

892
00:48:48,920 --> 00:48:50,920
Speaker 1: there's a little bit of fighting the Orcs, but mostly

893
00:48:51,000 --> 00:48:54,359
Speaker 1: it's just they reuse some footage they shot, or maybe

894
00:48:54,400 --> 00:48:56,279
Speaker 1: not even footage. I think it's just a series of

895
00:48:56,360 --> 00:48:59,400
Speaker 1: still images of people in these costumes with horns on

896
00:48:59,480 --> 00:49:02,360
Speaker 1: their helmets. Uh, and these are the Orcs, and you

897
00:49:02,480 --> 00:49:05,719
Speaker 1: see them going at the camera, and then you see, uh,

898
00:49:05,800 --> 00:49:08,640
Speaker 1: the actor playing Ericorn swinging a sword for a minute,

899
00:49:08,640 --> 00:49:11,040
Speaker 1: and then the battle's over. Now. One thing I applaud

900
00:49:11,080 --> 00:49:14,120
Speaker 1: it for is that they they made the choice to

901
00:49:14,560 --> 00:49:17,719
Speaker 1: to gender flip Legolis is character. So Legolists is a

902
00:49:17,760 --> 00:49:20,799
Speaker 1: female elf for a a what ahead do they refer

903
00:49:20,880 --> 00:49:24,640
Speaker 1: to the female elves and uh the Hobbit prequel movies

904
00:49:24,680 --> 00:49:28,080
Speaker 1: from Peter Jackson women else elf women something like that.

905
00:49:28,560 --> 00:49:31,200
Speaker 1: At any rate, we have a female Lego liist in this,

906
00:49:31,520 --> 00:49:33,000
Speaker 1: and I feel like it was actually a pretty good

907
00:49:33,080 --> 00:49:36,600
Speaker 1: choice because otherwise you have a very male uh oriented

908
00:49:37,120 --> 00:49:39,839
Speaker 1: tail here. Yes, a long observed about Lord of the Rings.

909
00:49:39,840 --> 00:49:42,560
Speaker 1: I mean, this is this is a very duty story. Um.

910
00:49:42,840 --> 00:49:45,439
Speaker 1: But yeah, so I like the idea of of making

911
00:49:45,560 --> 00:49:48,520
Speaker 1: Lego Lists a woman, but Lego Lists and Gimili have

912
00:49:48,719 --> 00:49:51,360
Speaker 1: basically I don't think either of them has any lines

913
00:49:51,440 --> 00:49:53,319
Speaker 1: in the sadaptation. I mean again, they don't show up

914
00:49:53,400 --> 00:49:56,280
Speaker 1: until there's like something like twenty or twenty or fifteen

915
00:49:56,320 --> 00:49:58,759
Speaker 1: minutes left, and then they say nothing. They just you

916
00:49:58,840 --> 00:50:02,399
Speaker 1: see them standing there. Though. Yeah, I want to point

917
00:50:02,480 --> 00:50:05,120
Speaker 1: something out that it took me a lot to realize

918
00:50:05,160 --> 00:50:08,040
Speaker 1: what I was comparing it to. But Gandalf in this

919
00:50:08,719 --> 00:50:12,360
Speaker 1: looks so much like Vincent Price in The witch Finder general.

920
00:50:12,800 --> 00:50:16,000
Speaker 1: He has like a very similar hair and facial features,

921
00:50:16,040 --> 00:50:17,600
Speaker 1: and I mean also his facial feet, like he has

922
00:50:17,800 --> 00:50:22,480
Speaker 1: a very Vincent Price esque knows this actor very good observation.

923
00:50:22,560 --> 00:50:25,400
Speaker 1: I would not have caught that myself. But you're so correct,

924
00:50:25,800 --> 00:50:28,120
Speaker 1: And we've already talked about Frodo and what he looks like.

925
00:50:29,760 --> 00:50:31,720
Speaker 1: You know what, I bet that actor who plays Frodo

926
00:50:31,880 --> 00:50:34,520
Speaker 1: is great. I I really, I'm convinced now that he

927
00:50:34,680 --> 00:50:37,200
Speaker 1: was just like he had the wrong type of character

928
00:50:37,360 --> 00:50:39,960
Speaker 1: in mind. And that's the problem here. I feel like

929
00:50:40,400 --> 00:50:44,520
Speaker 1: casting Hobbits is probably a very difficult task. I mean

930
00:50:44,600 --> 00:50:48,319
Speaker 1: they I think Peter Jackson's productions were able to pull

931
00:50:48,400 --> 00:50:50,800
Speaker 1: it off, but there's so many ways it could have

932
00:50:50,880 --> 00:50:53,240
Speaker 1: gone wrong, you know, if you weren't going with actors

933
00:50:53,320 --> 00:50:55,560
Speaker 1: like like I mean, Ian Holme of course was terrific,

934
00:50:56,040 --> 00:51:00,000
Speaker 1: but but also the younger Bilbo whose name is aluding

935
00:51:00,080 --> 00:51:03,200
Speaker 1: me at the moment, and also um uh, the the

936
00:51:03,400 --> 00:51:06,799
Speaker 1: kid playing Frodo in the actual Lord of the Rings

937
00:51:06,840 --> 00:51:10,120
Speaker 1: films by Peter Jackson. They're altered, terrific and they're able

938
00:51:10,160 --> 00:51:12,799
Speaker 1: to to to pull off this character that I think

939
00:51:12,840 --> 00:51:16,160
Speaker 1: could be mismanaged in so many ways. You mean Elijah

940
00:51:16,160 --> 00:51:20,040
Speaker 1: would the kid playing Frodo, Yeah, Elijah would. Is he

941
00:51:20,120 --> 00:51:23,239
Speaker 1: a kid? I think he's older than me. Well, at

942
00:51:23,280 --> 00:51:25,680
Speaker 1: the time, he was younger and had a very youthful

943
00:51:26,719 --> 00:51:28,719
Speaker 1: and technically and technically he was a hobby though he

944
00:51:28,760 --> 00:51:30,800
Speaker 1: was what thirty three at the time. Oh yeah, that's like,

945
00:51:31,080 --> 00:51:34,279
Speaker 1: I don't know what for hobbits, that's like being sixteen didn't. Yeah,

946
00:51:34,400 --> 00:51:36,920
Speaker 1: I'm I'm maybe screwing up my hobbit math here. But

947
00:51:37,200 --> 00:51:39,319
Speaker 1: at any rate, he's terrific, and of course he's gone

948
00:51:39,360 --> 00:51:41,879
Speaker 1: on to produce a lot of really cool stuff as well. Well.

949
00:51:42,200 --> 00:51:45,960
Speaker 1: Another thing is that it's not just Frodough, I mean generally,

950
00:51:46,080 --> 00:51:49,480
Speaker 1: other than Bilbo, the Hobbits in this movie are grotesque

951
00:51:50,800 --> 00:51:54,879
Speaker 1: the whole party, uh say, this movie really de emphasizes

952
00:51:54,960 --> 00:51:57,640
Speaker 1: Sam wise gamge. He has maybe like three lines in it,

953
00:51:58,400 --> 00:52:00,600
Speaker 1: but they did make the choice to give him purple hair.

954
00:52:00,800 --> 00:52:04,600
Speaker 1: He has a purple ponytail, and he has additional eyebrows,

955
00:52:04,680 --> 00:52:06,919
Speaker 1: so he's got his eyebrows, but then he's got big

956
00:52:07,320 --> 00:52:11,400
Speaker 1: eyebrows drawn on on top of his real eyebrows. Is

957
00:52:11,440 --> 00:52:13,440
Speaker 1: he which one is the one with the giant sideburns?

958
00:52:13,719 --> 00:52:16,040
Speaker 1: I think, well, I think there are multiple ones with

959
00:52:16,120 --> 00:52:19,040
Speaker 1: giant side This movie is a very mutton choppy movie,

960
00:52:19,320 --> 00:52:23,080
Speaker 1: Like Bilbo has mutton chops that are clearly not human hair.

961
00:52:23,280 --> 00:52:25,279
Speaker 1: They're like some kind of animal for they look like

962
00:52:25,360 --> 00:52:27,360
Speaker 1: a mink stole, but they're glued to the sides of

963
00:52:27,440 --> 00:52:31,800
Speaker 1: his face. Um, and several of the Hobbits in the

964
00:52:31,880 --> 00:52:35,760
Speaker 1: Fellowship have mutton chops. Uh, maybe they all do, except

965
00:52:35,800 --> 00:52:38,000
Speaker 1: Frodo or I don't know, at least I think uh

966
00:52:38,880 --> 00:52:41,799
Speaker 1: Peregrine took does or as they call him in this movie.

967
00:52:41,880 --> 00:52:45,239
Speaker 1: Pin have we talked about Sarmon White? Yet we have not.

968
00:52:45,640 --> 00:52:47,279
Speaker 1: So one of the things we get in this movie is,

969
00:52:47,280 --> 00:52:49,719
Speaker 1: of course, the sequence where you know it's famously in

970
00:52:49,800 --> 00:52:52,200
Speaker 1: the Lord of the Rings, Gandalf disappears for a while,

971
00:52:52,360 --> 00:52:55,359
Speaker 1: what's going on? And then he meets the He meets

972
00:52:55,440 --> 00:52:58,399
Speaker 1: the characters back when they get to Rivendell, the land

973
00:52:58,440 --> 00:53:01,400
Speaker 1: of the Elves, and you find out what happened to Gandalf.

974
00:53:01,520 --> 00:53:04,080
Speaker 1: It's that he went to talk to Saruman the White,

975
00:53:04,160 --> 00:53:07,239
Speaker 1: the great wise Wizard, the chief of his order, and

976
00:53:07,520 --> 00:53:11,440
Speaker 1: Saruman reveals a great betrayal that Sarmon has concluded that

977
00:53:11,560 --> 00:53:14,560
Speaker 1: it is impossible to stand against the armies of Mordor,

978
00:53:15,000 --> 00:53:18,120
Speaker 1: so you have to join them or else die. And

979
00:53:18,239 --> 00:53:20,120
Speaker 1: Gandalf is like, no, I'm not going to join them

980
00:53:20,160 --> 00:53:22,120
Speaker 1: with you. So Saramon's like, well, I don't like that,

981
00:53:22,600 --> 00:53:25,719
Speaker 1: you know, So it's it's pain time for you, and

982
00:53:25,800 --> 00:53:27,719
Speaker 1: I guess you're going on the roof. Yeah, you're going

983
00:53:27,760 --> 00:53:30,719
Speaker 1: on the roof until you change your mind. Um. So,

984
00:53:30,960 --> 00:53:33,920
Speaker 1: Saramon the White, the Greatest of the Wizards, is supposed

985
00:53:34,160 --> 00:53:36,200
Speaker 1: who's supposed to be like the guy you can really

986
00:53:36,280 --> 00:53:39,200
Speaker 1: count on. But he is a betrayer and he joins

987
00:53:39,280 --> 00:53:41,959
Speaker 1: the enemy, and it's it's one of the great parts

988
00:53:42,000 --> 00:53:44,040
Speaker 1: of the book. It's great in the it's great in

989
00:53:44,120 --> 00:53:46,759
Speaker 1: the Peter Jackson movies. Of course, with Christopher Lee playing

990
00:53:46,760 --> 00:53:49,719
Speaker 1: soom On. Christopher Lee was always the Even before these

991
00:53:49,760 --> 00:53:53,719
Speaker 1: films were in any way put together, I was like,

992
00:53:54,200 --> 00:53:56,560
Speaker 1: Christopher Lee should play Saramon, like this is the only

993
00:53:56,640 --> 00:53:59,880
Speaker 1: person perfect play this role. Yeah, and he's terrific and

994
00:54:00,239 --> 00:54:02,319
Speaker 1: he in him those films. He looks like so many

995
00:54:02,360 --> 00:54:05,319
Speaker 1: of these classic illustrations of the character. I'm thinking about

996
00:54:05,360 --> 00:54:09,840
Speaker 1: the Hildebrandt brothers. Uh. They did a wonderful version of

997
00:54:10,200 --> 00:54:14,160
Speaker 1: of Saromon that that I've absolutely loved for ages. In

998
00:54:14,440 --> 00:54:18,360
Speaker 1: this movie, Saruman looks like he would have been Hans

999
00:54:18,480 --> 00:54:22,440
Speaker 1: Gruber's Hinchman and die Hard. Yeah, he's like thirty five

1000
00:54:22,880 --> 00:54:27,279
Speaker 1: and is clean shaven and has kind of a kind

1001
00:54:27,320 --> 00:54:31,400
Speaker 1: of a manic energy to him, like a yeah, like

1002
00:54:31,560 --> 00:54:34,160
Speaker 1: like he should be this character should be a drug

1003
00:54:34,239 --> 00:54:37,040
Speaker 1: dealer in a nineties action film, Like he should be

1004
00:54:37,040 --> 00:54:39,600
Speaker 1: about to get his next snapped by Jean Claude Van Damn.

1005
00:54:40,880 --> 00:54:43,680
Speaker 1: Bizarre choice. Yeah, he's like sweaty, so he's kind of

1006
00:54:43,880 --> 00:54:47,560
Speaker 1: damp and he's he's freaking out. He doesn't have that

1007
00:54:47,760 --> 00:54:50,959
Speaker 1: Saruman composure where he's like, you know, you will join

1008
00:54:51,280 --> 00:54:54,440
Speaker 1: or die. Instead, he's like, oh, give me the ring.

1009
00:54:54,960 --> 00:54:59,560
Speaker 1: He's kind of like here is yeah. Yeah. Now there's

1010
00:54:59,560 --> 00:55:02,960
Speaker 1: another choice that I really took issue with, which we've

1011
00:55:03,000 --> 00:55:05,200
Speaker 1: talked many times about how much we love the weird

1012
00:55:05,440 --> 00:55:07,600
Speaker 1: music in this but one musical choice that was very

1013
00:55:07,640 --> 00:55:10,840
Speaker 1: strange to me is that Tom bomba Bill does not sing. Instead,

1014
00:55:11,640 --> 00:55:15,160
Speaker 1: he has theme music that plays every time he appears,

1015
00:55:15,280 --> 00:55:17,799
Speaker 1: but he doesn't sing it. It sounds like some kind

1016
00:55:17,840 --> 00:55:20,920
Speaker 1: of I was trying to think what band it sounded like.

1017
00:55:20,960 --> 00:55:23,640
Speaker 1: It's almost kind of like a nineties sounds like very

1018
00:55:23,760 --> 00:55:26,320
Speaker 1: reverbi on the vocals. It's got that kind of like

1019
00:55:26,480 --> 00:55:30,200
Speaker 1: rushing sound effect on them. Uh, it's almost a little

1020
00:55:30,200 --> 00:55:34,400
Speaker 1: bit like nineties YouTube vocals. Yeah, yeah, it's it's it's

1021
00:55:34,440 --> 00:55:37,560
Speaker 1: weird because Tom Bobby Bill finally shows up in an adaptation.

1022
00:55:38,120 --> 00:55:40,759
Speaker 1: You expect him to sing, because he sings a lot

1023
00:55:40,960 --> 00:55:44,640
Speaker 1: in the book. It's it's like, yeah, that's like, that's

1024
00:55:44,719 --> 00:55:47,800
Speaker 1: what he does, so it is it's an interesting choice

1025
00:55:47,880 --> 00:55:50,439
Speaker 1: that he does not actually sing. It makes me wonder

1026
00:55:50,480 --> 00:55:52,640
Speaker 1: what the reasoning for that was. Was this the actor

1027
00:55:52,760 --> 00:55:56,120
Speaker 1: not a singer? Did the did it get cut for time?

1028
00:55:56,440 --> 00:55:58,879
Speaker 1: I don't know. I mean music is also like key

1029
00:55:58,920 --> 00:56:01,560
Speaker 1: to his power. Tom Bombadell is like, Hey, if you

1030
00:56:01,600 --> 00:56:04,239
Speaker 1: get into any trouble, you need to sing this song

1031
00:56:04,440 --> 00:56:07,640
Speaker 1: and I'll show up and I'll sing my heart out

1032
00:56:07,719 --> 00:56:11,040
Speaker 1: and defeat whatever is bothering you. Essentially does proto actually

1033
00:56:11,080 --> 00:56:13,200
Speaker 1: sing the song, though I think he's just in the

1034
00:56:13,320 --> 00:56:15,800
Speaker 1: barrow down. He's like under the barrow and he just

1035
00:56:15,880 --> 00:56:18,480
Speaker 1: goes like Tom bomba Dil Bamba dill and then he

1036
00:56:18,560 --> 00:56:22,879
Speaker 1: shows up and he's like hello. Yeah. I mean, it's

1037
00:56:22,880 --> 00:56:25,279
Speaker 1: still great that Tom bombadel shows up at all, but

1038
00:56:25,480 --> 00:56:27,359
Speaker 1: but yeah, it is weird that he didn't sing. Man,

1039
00:56:27,800 --> 00:56:30,279
Speaker 1: There's so much that I'm not even remembering at this point,

1040
00:56:30,400 --> 00:56:32,080
Speaker 1: but one of the things that I think is a

1041
00:56:32,280 --> 00:56:35,200
Speaker 1: very strange choice like I said, they really they really

1042
00:56:35,360 --> 00:56:38,640
Speaker 1: shorten the adventure part of the story, like once the

1043
00:56:38,680 --> 00:56:42,240
Speaker 1: fellowship gets together, that part's just on like fast forward

1044
00:56:42,320 --> 00:56:46,040
Speaker 1: to the max jumping over everything, and they completely cut

1045
00:56:46,120 --> 00:56:49,359
Speaker 1: out the death of Gandalf. There's no there's no bell

1046
00:56:49,520 --> 00:56:51,680
Speaker 1: rog there. I think they're just they go into the

1047
00:56:51,760 --> 00:56:54,560
Speaker 1: minds of Maria for a minute, and we're to understand

1048
00:56:54,600 --> 00:56:56,960
Speaker 1: that they're fighting orcs because they show those orcs going

1049
00:56:57,600 --> 00:57:00,640
Speaker 1: with their horn helmets and aer gorn'sing in his sword,

1050
00:57:01,160 --> 00:57:03,839
Speaker 1: and then they're like leaving the minds and they say, like, hey,

1051
00:57:03,920 --> 00:57:06,320
Speaker 1: what happened to Gandalf. He must have gotten lost somewhere

1052
00:57:06,360 --> 00:57:08,760
Speaker 1: back there, and that's it. No bell Rogue, No bridge

1053
00:57:08,800 --> 00:57:10,719
Speaker 1: of Kaza Doom or what Wait, No, there is a

1054
00:57:10,760 --> 00:57:14,919
Speaker 1: bridge because you see Ericorn like trying to balance on it. Yeah.

1055
00:57:15,160 --> 00:57:17,960
Speaker 1: Oh and Ergorn is like fourteen by the way. Oh yeah,

1056
00:57:18,120 --> 00:57:19,960
Speaker 1: he has a big scar on his face. But yeah,

1057
00:57:20,640 --> 00:57:23,760
Speaker 1: but but yeah, there's that that that Gandalf doesn't doesn't

1058
00:57:23,840 --> 00:57:26,640
Speaker 1: die like that is That's that's an interesting choice as well,

1059
00:57:26,680 --> 00:57:29,440
Speaker 1: because this is one of the most emotional moments in

1060
00:57:29,560 --> 00:57:33,480
Speaker 1: the entire saga. Really, one of the most emotional moments

1061
00:57:33,640 --> 00:57:37,960
Speaker 1: in I would say, like like western fantasy, like modern

1062
00:57:38,040 --> 00:57:41,920
Speaker 1: fantasy literature in its entire Yeah, it's like it's it's

1063
00:57:41,960 --> 00:57:45,080
Speaker 1: a great storytelling choice because up until then everything has

1064
00:57:45,120 --> 00:57:47,560
Speaker 1: been about Gandalf is the person who knows what to do.

1065
00:57:48,080 --> 00:57:52,040
Speaker 1: Everybody else is confused, h and and and they're they're scared,

1066
00:57:52,160 --> 00:57:54,480
Speaker 1: and Gandalf is always the person who can figure out

1067
00:57:54,560 --> 00:57:56,760
Speaker 1: what to do next, and so you always look to him,

1068
00:57:57,320 --> 00:58:00,480
Speaker 1: and then he suddenly he's dead, He's gone, and what

1069
00:58:00,560 --> 00:58:02,640
Speaker 1: are you supposed to do? Then it's like it's it's

1070
00:58:02,720 --> 00:58:05,720
Speaker 1: so great, it really heightens the tension of the story. Uh,

1071
00:58:05,800 --> 00:58:08,080
Speaker 1: and I guess he does disappear from this story, but

1072
00:58:08,120 --> 00:58:10,520
Speaker 1: there's only like ten minutes left when that happens, and

1073
00:58:11,000 --> 00:58:12,880
Speaker 1: they don't even say what happened to him. They're just like, oh,

1074
00:58:12,920 --> 00:58:14,320
Speaker 1: I don't know. I guess he got lost back there

1075
00:58:14,400 --> 00:58:16,040
Speaker 1: or something he had to take a leak or something.

1076
00:58:16,080 --> 00:58:18,080
Speaker 1: That he's back. That's okay, we're good to go. And

1077
00:58:18,160 --> 00:58:21,440
Speaker 1: then immediately they're just in loth Laurean and the elves

1078
00:58:21,480 --> 00:58:24,880
Speaker 1: are dancing around. There's just people in like wearing garlands

1079
00:58:24,920 --> 00:58:28,000
Speaker 1: of flowers and wearing white robes, and they're they're doing ballet.

1080
00:58:28,520 --> 00:58:30,640
Speaker 1: This is when I almost fell asleep for the second time.

1081
00:58:30,720 --> 00:58:32,840
Speaker 1: This is a very hypnotic sequence as well. Yeah, and

1082
00:58:32,960 --> 00:58:35,640
Speaker 1: then of course we do get sequence with Galadriel being

1083
00:58:35,720 --> 00:58:37,840
Speaker 1: tempted by the ring and passing the test, and she

1084
00:58:37,960 --> 00:58:40,360
Speaker 1: does pass the test. She's she's a very good Elf queen.

1085
00:58:40,640 --> 00:58:42,720
Speaker 1: And then basically it's pretty much over. I think we

1086
00:58:43,080 --> 00:58:45,480
Speaker 1: very quickly get bored me or saying again like hey,

1087
00:58:45,520 --> 00:58:48,600
Speaker 1: give me the ring, and Frodo's like no, and then

1088
00:58:48,680 --> 00:58:51,600
Speaker 1: he do we also have sorrow and um, I mean

1089
00:58:51,680 --> 00:58:55,960
Speaker 1: sorry saw on himself or at least yes. That part

1090
00:58:56,040 --> 00:58:59,520
Speaker 1: was very funny and has exactly the same energy as

1091
00:58:59,560 --> 00:59:02,840
Speaker 1: all of these uh, these these these ring junkies, because

1092
00:59:02,880 --> 00:59:04,960
Speaker 1: Saron's just like, you're gonna give me that ring, and

1093
00:59:05,040 --> 00:59:07,920
Speaker 1: it's basically what he does, like this ouzing I with

1094
00:59:08,080 --> 00:59:11,520
Speaker 1: like purple ooze behind it. Um and yeah, the exact

1095
00:59:11,600 --> 00:59:13,560
Speaker 1: same tone as everyone else who wants to ring. But

1096
00:59:14,080 --> 00:59:17,040
Speaker 1: it ends extremely abruptly because bored mers like give me

1097
00:59:17,080 --> 00:59:19,760
Speaker 1: the ring, and front I was like nah, and then uh,

1098
00:59:19,880 --> 00:59:21,960
Speaker 1: and then he starts to walk off, and then sam

1099
00:59:22,040 --> 00:59:24,520
Speaker 1: wise gams. He shows up with his purple wig and

1100
00:59:24,640 --> 00:59:26,400
Speaker 1: says like Hey, I gotta go with you in front.

1101
00:59:26,440 --> 00:59:29,520
Speaker 1: I was like nah, and then he says he says, well,

1102
00:59:29,640 --> 00:59:31,960
Speaker 1: who's gonna cook your food and light your fires for you?

1103
00:59:32,080 --> 00:59:34,320
Speaker 1: In front? It was like okay, and then they're just

1104
00:59:34,480 --> 00:59:37,200
Speaker 1: on horses and then it's over. Yeah, this is kind

1105
00:59:37,200 --> 00:59:39,720
Speaker 1: of riding off into the distance, kind of like the

1106
00:59:39,880 --> 00:59:43,000
Speaker 1: end of a of an incredible Hulk TV episode from

1107
00:59:43,080 --> 00:59:45,640
Speaker 1: the from the Old Days. Yeah, and then I think

1108
00:59:45,680 --> 00:59:47,600
Speaker 1: we hear the theme song again, So I don't know

1109
00:59:47,840 --> 00:59:50,920
Speaker 1: in the end. Obviously, this is a you know, beyond

1110
00:59:51,160 --> 00:59:54,120
Speaker 1: micro budget production. I mean, that's essentially a no budget

1111
00:59:54,160 --> 00:59:57,680
Speaker 1: production that was made you know, made on the fly,

1112
00:59:58,160 --> 01:00:00,720
Speaker 1: shot in less than nine hour according to one of

1113
01:00:00,760 --> 01:00:03,800
Speaker 1: the actors. Uh and and given what they had, and

1114
01:00:04,120 --> 01:00:08,200
Speaker 1: also working on source material that was through several several

1115
01:00:08,280 --> 01:00:13,120
Speaker 1: different filters of Derangement. I gotta say obviously, like it's

1116
01:00:13,160 --> 01:00:15,320
Speaker 1: funny what we're looking at on the screen, but I

1117
01:00:15,440 --> 01:00:19,720
Speaker 1: respect their work. Yeah. Yeah, And it's again just knowing

1118
01:00:19,800 --> 01:00:22,960
Speaker 1: they were working with no budget. Uh, I feel like

1119
01:00:23,000 --> 01:00:24,760
Speaker 1: they did a pretty good job. And and it makes

1120
01:00:24,800 --> 01:00:28,480
Speaker 1: me one wonder like what would have happened had had

1121
01:00:28,560 --> 01:00:31,880
Speaker 1: the same energy gone into this film as had gone

1122
01:00:31,880 --> 01:00:36,280
Speaker 1: into previous Soviet fantasy epics, because we should of course

1123
01:00:36,400 --> 01:00:40,240
Speaker 1: drive home that that there are some tremendous of Soviet

1124
01:00:40,360 --> 01:00:43,080
Speaker 1: and Russian fantasy epics that that have have come out

1125
01:00:43,160 --> 01:00:45,040
Speaker 1: in you know, the years since, but certainly in the

1126
01:00:45,120 --> 01:00:51,560
Speaker 1: years before this, including uh, the Jack Frost movie, yeah,

1127
01:00:51,600 --> 01:00:55,040
Speaker 1: from from nineteen sixty five, but also films like like

1128
01:00:55,280 --> 01:00:57,840
Speaker 1: Sampo or The Day of the Earth Froze, the nineteen

1129
01:00:57,840 --> 01:01:03,120
Speaker 1: fifty nine Soviet Finnish film that is based on the Calivada,

1130
01:01:04,040 --> 01:01:06,960
Speaker 1: both of those films. Even though you, many of you

1131
01:01:07,120 --> 01:01:10,000
Speaker 1: might be used to sort of a decayed copy of

1132
01:01:10,080 --> 01:01:13,640
Speaker 1: the film that given the Mystery Science Theater three thousand treatment,

1133
01:01:13,680 --> 01:01:17,360
Speaker 1: if you find um restored footage of these motion pictures,

1134
01:01:17,560 --> 01:01:21,880
Speaker 1: it's incredible. These are beautiful, high budget, just beautifully rendered films.

1135
01:01:22,160 --> 01:01:24,240
Speaker 1: So I can't help but imagine, like, what would it

1136
01:01:24,320 --> 01:01:28,600
Speaker 1: have been like had the energy that went into uh int,

1137
01:01:28,640 --> 01:01:31,520
Speaker 1: into Frosty or into the Sampo film, what if they

1138
01:01:31,640 --> 01:01:34,080
Speaker 1: had gone into this into the creation of the Fellowship

1139
01:01:34,120 --> 01:01:36,720
Speaker 1: of the Rings. Yeah, that would have been so magical.

1140
01:01:36,800 --> 01:01:41,040
Speaker 1: And apparently in Russia the interest was there. Uh. Like

1141
01:01:41,520 --> 01:01:44,240
Speaker 1: I was reading an article for the BBC that included

1142
01:01:44,320 --> 01:01:48,840
Speaker 1: an interview with somebody named Irena Nazarova, who the identified

1143
01:01:48,880 --> 01:01:52,280
Speaker 1: as a Russian artist who saw Chronatelli on TV when

1144
01:01:52,320 --> 01:01:57,000
Speaker 1: it originally aired in nine one. Um, and uh, they say, like,

1145
01:01:57,080 --> 01:01:59,520
Speaker 1: well wait a minute, Like is Tolkien a big thing

1146
01:01:59,560 --> 01:02:02,280
Speaker 1: in Russia anyway? Like what you know? Would people have

1147
01:02:02,360 --> 01:02:04,720
Speaker 1: been into this? And I want to read her response,

1148
01:02:05,320 --> 01:02:09,680
Speaker 1: He's massive. After Jackson made his great trilogy interest sward back,

1149
01:02:10,120 --> 01:02:13,600
Speaker 1: Russia is full of fans, cosplay and everything. A friend

1150
01:02:13,640 --> 01:02:16,200
Speaker 1: of mine was out looking for mushrooms in the countryside

1151
01:02:16,280 --> 01:02:19,160
Speaker 1: near Moscow and she ran into a band of elves

1152
01:02:19,280 --> 01:02:22,520
Speaker 1: with bows and arrows. I know a blacksmith who makes

1153
01:02:22,560 --> 01:02:25,640
Speaker 1: a fairly decent living from hammering out swords and helmets,

1154
01:02:25,880 --> 01:02:28,400
Speaker 1: and he told me about a gangster who had ordered

1155
01:02:28,480 --> 01:02:32,200
Speaker 1: gates for his mansion. Quote like in more door. Oh

1156
01:02:32,320 --> 01:02:37,520
Speaker 1: my god. So some like Russian oligarch crime lord is

1157
01:02:37,640 --> 01:02:40,480
Speaker 1: also a Lord of the rings fan and has outfitted

1158
01:02:40,520 --> 01:02:47,840
Speaker 1: his dacha to be I don't know, the baradur or something. Okay, okay,

1159
01:02:47,880 --> 01:02:49,480
Speaker 1: maybe we need to wrap it up there. But Robb,

1160
01:02:49,520 --> 01:02:51,760
Speaker 1: I have so enjoyed going on this, uh, this, this

1161
01:02:52,160 --> 01:02:54,800
Speaker 1: this hero's journey with you. Yeah, This has been a

1162
01:02:54,880 --> 01:02:57,080
Speaker 1: lot of fun and uh, you know, a chance just

1163
01:02:57,160 --> 01:03:00,480
Speaker 1: to discuss token adaptations in general of a Also, this

1164
01:03:00,640 --> 01:03:04,360
Speaker 1: this particular attempt, it's it's it's pretty it's pretty interesting.

1165
01:03:04,440 --> 01:03:07,280
Speaker 1: So again I advise folks out there who are interested,

1166
01:03:07,520 --> 01:03:08,960
Speaker 1: even if you don't have it in you to watch

1167
01:03:09,040 --> 01:03:11,920
Speaker 1: the entire two hours, um, you should at least check

1168
01:03:11,920 --> 01:03:14,160
Speaker 1: out that highlight reel. Though that highlight real is not

1169
01:03:14,160 --> 01:03:16,760
Speaker 1: going to give you everything. No, no, no, no, especially

1170
01:03:16,800 --> 01:03:19,520
Speaker 1: some of the musical qualities we've been talking about. If

1171
01:03:19,560 --> 01:03:21,080
Speaker 1: you don't have it in you to watch the whole

1172
01:03:21,160 --> 01:03:24,840
Speaker 1: two hours, you're just you're weak. You know, you don't

1173
01:03:25,360 --> 01:03:28,760
Speaker 1: you don't have you don't have intellectual willpower, you don't

1174
01:03:28,800 --> 01:03:31,800
Speaker 1: have the courage the heart. Come on, you can if

1175
01:03:32,360 --> 01:03:34,920
Speaker 1: if Sam and Frodo can journey across all of Middle Earth,

1176
01:03:35,000 --> 01:03:40,240
Speaker 1: you can watch this two hour weirdo stage production absolutely

1177
01:03:40,360 --> 01:03:43,800
Speaker 1: so uh yeah again, I'll put I'll put embedded versions

1178
01:03:43,840 --> 01:03:47,440
Speaker 1: of these videos up at Samuda music dot com, along

1179
01:03:47,560 --> 01:03:50,000
Speaker 1: with some of the music we were talking about, the

1180
01:03:50,000 --> 01:03:52,440
Speaker 1: aquarium music, for example, so you can check that out

1181
01:03:52,480 --> 01:03:55,000
Speaker 1: as well. All right, well, yeah we're gonna go and

1182
01:03:55,080 --> 01:03:56,840
Speaker 1: close it out then, But if you want to listen

1183
01:03:56,880 --> 01:03:59,280
Speaker 1: to other episodes of Weird House Cinema. It publishes every

1184
01:03:59,360 --> 01:04:02,440
Speaker 1: Friday in Stuff to Blow Your Mind podcast feed were

1185
01:04:02,480 --> 01:04:06,760
Speaker 1: primarily a science and culture podcast. Our core episodes come

1186
01:04:06,760 --> 01:04:10,760
Speaker 1: out on Tuesdays and Thursdays. You'll also find an artifact

1187
01:04:10,840 --> 01:04:15,160
Speaker 1: episode on Wednesdays, as well as a listener mail episode

1188
01:04:15,480 --> 01:04:18,560
Speaker 1: on Monday. So certainly right in if you have thoughts

1189
01:04:18,880 --> 01:04:22,880
Speaker 1: about this particular film. If you have, especially if you

1190
01:04:23,440 --> 01:04:26,280
Speaker 1: say watched it on Russian television back in the day,

1191
01:04:26,520 --> 01:04:29,240
Speaker 1: or you have you have. I know we heard after

1192
01:04:29,360 --> 01:04:32,000
Speaker 1: we watched Teens in the Universe or Children in the Universe,

1193
01:04:32,200 --> 01:04:34,400
Speaker 1: we heard from at least a couple of listeners who

1194
01:04:34,920 --> 01:04:38,160
Speaker 1: who had Russian backgrounds, and we got to learn so

1195
01:04:38,360 --> 01:04:42,880
Speaker 1: much about about the viewing of that film and interpretations

1196
01:04:42,920 --> 01:04:44,800
Speaker 1: of that film. I would love to hear what you

1197
01:04:44,880 --> 01:04:48,120
Speaker 1: have to say about this one as well. Huge thanks

1198
01:04:48,160 --> 01:04:51,520
Speaker 1: as always to our excellent audio producer Seth Nicholas Johnson.

1199
01:04:51,680 --> 01:04:53,160
Speaker 1: If you would like to get in touch with us

1200
01:04:53,240 --> 01:04:55,760
Speaker 1: with feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest

1201
01:04:55,840 --> 01:04:57,800
Speaker 1: topic for the future, or just to say hello, you

1202
01:04:57,880 --> 01:05:00,560
Speaker 1: can email us at contact at stuff to Blow your

1203
01:05:00,600 --> 01:05:10,360
Speaker 1: Mind dot com. Stuff to Blow Your Mind is production

1204
01:05:10,480 --> 01:05:13,160
Speaker 1: of I heart Radio. For more podcasts for my heart Radio,

1205
01:05:13,400 --> 01:05:16,040
Speaker 1: visit the i heart Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever

1206
01:05:16,160 --> 01:05:17,480
Speaker 1: you listen to your favorite shows.