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“One Podcast to rule them all. One Podcast to find them. One Podcast to bring them all and in the darkness bind them.”
Forrest Miller, Conan Neutron, J. Andrew World and are joined by Middle Earth expert: Lauren Chouinard (one of our regulars), and another member of our Fellowship: actress Kt Baldassaro of MovieRunTime and What If I Don’t Like it? to talk about  The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers and The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King. Yes, all THREE of them.

Fellowship of the Ring:
Peter Jackson’s first Lord of the Rings film does exactly what you’d expect: a big budget impressive (especially for the time in terms of VFX/CGI) fairly faithful adaptation of Fellowship of the Ring. Greatest adventure and fantasy movie of all time? Maybe! Timelessly great.

Man, you’d think those dwarves would have put in a handrail or something. Gonna get OSHA called on ‘em operating like that. 

Is “You Shall Not Pass” one of the hardest and most badass lines and scenes in all of cinema? Assuredly.

This really was the golden age of special features in physical media. Streaming has (mostly) destroyed that and we need to go back. The Extended editions of these are such a treasure. We had it so good, streaming content and algorithms are the worst thing to happen to movies. We are brave enough to say it.

Absolutely insane!

The Two Towers:
This is where the source material kind of just starts to drag for some people.
Is Gandalf the White one of the all time best glow-ups? Possibly!
The palace intrigue is a lot, but the extended edition fills a lot of that out and makes it flow easier. Definitely the one with the longest extended edition runtime, but also the one that benefits the most from the extra scenes. Builds eloquently on what Jackson did with Fellowship. And features incredible visual effects that still look amazing (perhaps less so in the 4K)

The weakest of the three to some, but still far ahead of almost everything that has come since.
The battle for Helms Deep is pretty impressively created though. And, for the final third of the film that’s pretty cool.
The Frodo-Sam-Gollum dynamic is great 

Gollum has to be the first believable CGI character, right?

Treebeard and the Ents have only gotten better with age.

Seeing the battle of Helms Deep in a crowded theater? Pretty great. Some of us got to do that.
One of the longest build ups for one of the greatest battles ever in all of cinema! Battle of Helms Deep. Seeing the Ents jack up Sarumon’s Orc meth lab is a real treat.

You can definitely feel it building towards the giant conclusion of Return of the King.. 1) the problems of Rohan feel small by comparison and 2) it’s a bit hard, at times, not to feel like some of this three hours drags a bit. Yet weirdly the extended edition doesn’t seem to drag as much?

We love Legolas and Gimli counting their kills, as well as the secret ambush passage at Helms’ Deep.

Return of the King:

“Gondor calls for aid!!!”

“And Rohan will answer!!”

Man, what an awesome absolutely epic end to the Lord of the Rings trilogy.

Filled with classic “ohhh shit” moments. It doesn’t feel 3 hours and 21 minutes. Extended edition totally rules and has some worthy stuff, but not all is essential.
Surprising that they cut the Death of Sarumon scene. He’s so important to the movie before it’s weird that they are just like: “oh yeah, that’s all sorted out” at the beginning.
The MOUTH of Sauron is such an amazing character. Blumhouse or whoever could make an entire series based on the character design. Wild that the whole thing got cut. But it does take away a bit from Frodo and Sam completing the mission, and frankly Aragon just chopping the guy’s head off is pretty distracting. He may be awful, but he is an ambassador man… bad form.

“I am no man!” scene is amazing.

What should be the “quieter” storyline (I mean, the other one is a sweeping epic Battle for Gondor) with Frodo, Sam, and Gollum climbing up and up and up through Mordor is filled with enough action and pathos that at times you’re like okay enough battle sequences where are the Hobbits???? Gotta love Gollum’s weird little dance/the ring going into the magma.

Despite having 17 false endings this one goes and goes HARD! Most movies can’t pull off one of the two most epic adventure things that happen here. This does both.
Prayers up for the Mouth of Sauron, god DAMN did that guy look awesome. Of course Aragorn straight up chopping the head off a diplomat is kind of bad form.
Dictionary definition of epic.

“You bow to no one.”

😭😭😭
Hell. Yes.

“The hobbits coming home to the shire to no one really giving a shit is exactly like what coming home from tour feels like.” –jamestgl

One of the best movie series of all time and one of the best adaptations of all time, hands down.

And thus has our longest movie discussing adventure concluded. (cuts to a dozen different endings)

(part 1 is a technical deep dive on the movie)