A Film at 45 - Lord of the Rings

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Hello everyone, and welcome back to
the year nineteen seventy eight and a Film

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Buys limited series A Film at forty
five. I am David Burns and I'm

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Scott Hoffman, and thanks for joining
us again. As you know, we've

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said this several times, but just
a reminder what we're doing here. So

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for a Film at forty five,
we're dusting off the end of a decade

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that changed cinema forever with a fresh
look at modern classics, at hidden gems

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that we can't stop watching even forty
five years after their debut. With today's

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episode, we're drawn into the animated
world of Ralph Backshee's Lord of the Rings.

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It's the Ring, isn't it Bilbo's
funny magic ring. Give it to

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me. It is all together evil. It will corrupt and destroy anyone who

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wears it. One ring to rule
them all, one ring to find them,

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one ring to bring them all,
and in the darkness bind them,

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one ring to rule them all,
one ring to find them, one ring

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to bring them all, and in
the darkness them That's right, everyone,

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We are heading to Middle Earth to
join the Fellowship of Proto, Mary Pippin

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and others tackling our first animated film
of nineteen seventy eight. So Scott,

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you know we've been spoiled with Peter
Jackson's Lord of the Rings. We know

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what an incredible series of movies that
is. Ok, it's hard to imagine

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what it was like when we didn't
have that. But for those who have

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not seen this animated version, how
would you describe this to someone? Well,

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that's a good point. I mean
describing this is going to be to

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someone who hasn't seen it as a
little tricky. It's a story that's been

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popular since it first came out in
nineteen fifty four, and it's become even

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more iconic, like you said,
with Peter Jackson's cinematic masterpiece of a trilogy

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in two thousand and one. Just
in case there's somebody who hasn't seen it.

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How do we sum this up?
This is the first cinematic adaptation of

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the one of the most seminal iconic
works of fantasy literature. Imagine a world

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much like our own back in the
fifth century, a world of knights and

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castles and wizards. But in the
world of Middle Earth, the magic is

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real. It's dungeons and dragons,
orcs and ogres, dwarves and elves in

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a land that was once almost conquered
by the evil Sauron and his Ring of

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Power. Although Sauron was killed,
his evil lived on in that Ring,

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which waits for someone to bring him
back to life. When that Ring falls

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into the hands of a simple halfling
farmer named Frodo, he sets off on

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a quest along with a mighty little
fellowship friends that destroy the Ring, resist

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the temptation of its power, and
fight the rising forces of darkness or if

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you've seen clerks too, it's a
lot of walking. It's a lot of

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walking. Right. Um. So
yeah, this this version, which I

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guess should have been called The Lord
of the Rings Part one but it didn't

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happen, um, is based off
of what Gerard Tolkien's novels, The Fellowship

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of the Ring in the Two Towers, right, the first two books.

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Yeah, it's almost So you've got
this trilogy at it's part one that takes

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over the first two books but doesn't
quite get to the third, right And

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you know, I know we're going
to get to eventually the animation style and

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we're going to talk about that a
little bit. Um. But for me,

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when I was when I was a
kid. I remember seeing this movie,

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and I want to say it was
early eighties. I had seen Ranking

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in Basses The Hobbit, uh you
know which, you know, I saw

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that one first, so when I
went so when I went to go see

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The Lord of the Rings, you
know, I was expecting that traditional animation

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style that we got with Ranking in
Bass. You know their style. So

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when the movie started, you know, you get the credit role, Okay,

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cool, cool, But then when
it rolls into talking about what you

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know, the Lord of the Rings
is about the rings and all those kind

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of things, you know, you're
like, what's what's what's going on here?

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What's going on? What kind of
animation is this? I'm confused?

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Yeah, you know, And then
you know I liked you get the opening

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sequence with where you get like the
act the live actors that are silhouetted with

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that like red background, you know, when they're talking about sniegel Um.

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You know, I was a little
confused when I saw that. So young

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David came out of that movie a
little confused, a lot more. This

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movie is a lot more adult than
The Hobbit was. Would you agree with

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that? Absolutely? And like you
said, it came out in a really

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interesting time. By the time I
was catching it, I'm guessing it was

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I don't know if it was on
HBO or what or syndication, and you

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know, catching it on TV several
times, but I was in the same

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boat. My first exposure was The
Hobbit by A Rank and Bass, and

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you know, it's an animation and
style that automatically caught my interest because of

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growing up with seeing that style in
things like ThunderCats, right, being that

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style on some of the the Halloween
specialist Lorty on some of the Christmas specials

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that were hand drawn, and recognizing
that name Rank and Bass so incredible voice

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acting. I know that that was
a little bit more geared toward children and

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made for the for television instead of
on film, but was still very impressive.

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And anytime that I would see this
one, because at that point they

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were showing both The Hobbit and its
sequel from Ranking and Bass, Return of

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the King, anytime I would catch
this one, I would be a bit

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disappointed because it didn't have that style, and it almost kind of seemed like

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someone who was trying to do the
same movie in a different way. And

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this is before I understood any of
the you know, the actual story and

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anything else that we grew up with. So for the longest time, i'd

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say, for I don't know,
the past forty years, I've been kind

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of dismissing this movie as that other
Lord of the Rings that's not in the

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style that I like. And I
think I've been kind of doing a disservice

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to a movie that has an interesting
place in history, because I think without

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this we wouldn't have a lot of
what we have today. I mean,

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this is something that inspired Peter Jackson
when he was growing up, absolutely to

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do something with this. And just
looking at the you know, you know,

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the scope and the spectacle that went
into Peter Jackson's trilogy, imagine trying

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to do that in nineteen seventy eight
with a modest budget, very limited time,

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and and not a lot of people
around you that that understand what this

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is supposed to be, right,
And that's one thing you got to consider,

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you know, this is this is
the seventies. The only way you

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had Lord of the Rings was either
in book form or you had the the

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BBC. They did a broadcast with
like the actors and stuff on the radio.

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You know, you didn't have The
Lord of the Rings on the big

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screen, you know, like we're
spoiled today with So this was huge and

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there were a few people that were
making attempts to bring this to the big

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screen with various results. There was
somebody who preceded backshe and trying to do

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so, and there were discussions about
trying to cram all three books into less

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than two hours, which to anybody
who has it kind of you know,

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appreciation for the books and the need
to kind of take the time with the

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scale as backs. She was was
like, no, we're not doing it,

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and he was. He was very
It was very important to backsh to

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you know, get permission from the
Tolkien family to do so. And I

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had read that he you know,
traveled the way to England to visit h

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Tolkien's daughter Priscilla and and get permistion
to do so, um and basically making

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sure that they would they would do
it right. Very hard for something that

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was popular but was a little bit
more underground like in today's day and age,

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you know, Stranger Things has certainly
brought dungeons and dragons into the spotlight.

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Peter Jackson again has brought that into
the mainstream. So a lot of

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people that normally wouldn't have heard that. It's kind of a household thing,

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right, Um, but back then
it was kind of like the thing that

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a few people knew about, and
it was kind of like this, you

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know, this secret thing, like
do you know about this thing? Then

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when you do, it's it's epic, right, absolutely, And had a

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really small budget. You mentioned it, it's only four million dollars, but

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if you look at what it earned, this was a very successful film.

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Yeah, thirty million dollars, I
believe so. I mean it clearly made

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its money back in a lot more. Yeah, And it's a it's a

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longer movie for an animated movie.
When in the popular culture you have a

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lot of the Disney features and things
like this. It's a it's a pretty

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big one, one hundred and thirty
two minutes, which, looking at what

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we know about it, seems like
not enough time, right. There's a

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lot of shortcuts that were taking a
lot of things they had to do to

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get it into that time frame.
But yeah, thirty million domestically the box

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office when it opened on November fifteen, nineteen seventy eight, and got a

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lot of praise, got a saturn
Award nomination for Best Fantasy Film, a

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Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation,
Golden Globe nomination for Original Score, and

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some international acclaim as well. So
people were really soaking it up and chumping

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in the bit for something that they've
been winning a long time to see.

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I think one of the things that
I've seen and you just mentioned it how

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you haven't seen us in a while
and you know, not giving it the

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justice that it deserves. Now if
you've seen it again, you know,

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I'm just in a similar boat with
you. Look watching it again, reviewing

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it, you know, I do
feel it deserves a lot more respect than

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I have given it over the years. And people talk about after this came

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out and they learned that there was
not going to be a part two because

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the studio, you know, refused
to back it. You know, got

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really upset at this movie because and
they took it out on it like saying,

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well, you know, I'm not
gonna like this movie because I'm not

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going to get a sequel. But
thank goodness that Rank of Bass did the

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Return of the King, because after
people had seen that, then they realized

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exactly what they had with the Lord
of the Rings a more adult version of

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it, and they respected a lot
more over the years, and I think

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a lot of people have that Scott, So I feel like we both fall

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in that boat now. Yeah,
I mean I feel like it used to

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be a kind of like Team Rank
in Bass or Team Ralph Bacchi exactly like

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which one. But when you look
at the totality, if you wanted to

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absorb the story in the animated world, I think it would be a great

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idea to start with the Rank and
Bass Hobbit, follow with Bakshi's Lord of

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the Rings, and finish with Rank
and Basses Return of the King. They

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all have such fantastic voice work,
especially Gallum in the Rank and Bass,

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that I can't shake that one.
And I know we're going to have to

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make sure that we're not talking about
both here, but I think both really

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do a lot of interesting things in
the world of animation with this, and

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I think we have the benefit of
kind of looking back when I think about

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if I had watched this without seeing
the Peter Jackson trilogy, I probably would

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have a much harder time respecting it
and appreciating it. Yeah, because as

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I'm watching this movie, I'm filling
in the gaps in my mind by remembering

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what happened in the Peter Jackson trilogy. Right, Yeah, you can't help

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it. There were a lot of
times when I was almost like, well,

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it's not my preferred animation style.
It's not something that would have hit

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with me. But I can fill
in those gaps, and I can almost

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treat this like I'm watching ainematics or
an animated storyboard. That's kind of like

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what if in nineteen seventy eight.
It's really surprising that it took until two

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thousand and one for somebody to pick
up those rains and run with it to

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do what we had to do,
But it makes sense, like waiting for

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the technology to catch up and make
that shot of stuff possible. Yeah.

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Absolutely, Well, let's talk a
little bit about this cast that we got.

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I did a little digging in some
of these guys, and a lot

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of them have got a lot of
television work, nothing really major cinematic.

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Christopher Gardis Ferto, he did a
lot of television. Williams Squire as Gandolf.

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He was in the Blake seventh series
in some Doctor Who, which I

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found quite interesting. Yep. Michael
Scholes as Sam again, another guy who

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had a lot of large body of
work. The next guy name everybody's going

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to know that is, of course
Eric Irn, played by none other than

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John hurt yea for those who know
it. I'm sure everybody who listens to

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this podcast listen to a film by
you know who, John hurt Is.

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But we know the next year,
in nineteen seventy nine, he's gonna play

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Kane, who's going to have an
alien burst out of his chest. But

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for those a younger crowd out there, you would know him as Oliveander from

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Harry Potter series. He is.
This guy has been around a very very

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long time, Scott, You and
I will also be talking about him in

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another animated movie. He played a
Hazel and Watership down that we'll be talking

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about soon. Yep, exact same
year. So moving on with Simon Chandler

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as Mary, didn't we have Dominant
Guard as Pippin, Norman Bird as Bilbo.

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And here is another familiar name playing
Legolis, Scott. Who is this

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Anthony Daniels none other than C three
Po himself. That's right, the man

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the myth C three Po himself,
Anthony Daniels voicing Legolis, and we have

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David Buck as Gimili and then Peter
Woodthorpe as Gallum, which I find interesting

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about Peter Worthup. He actually played
Gallum too in the acclaimed BBC Radio adaptation

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of Lord of the Rings that I
mentioned earlier. Yep. What I think

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is interesting about his voice characterization of
Gollum is you can definitely see a blending,

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I would say, of the rank
and bass and the backsheet Gollums into

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what we got with Peter Jackson's absolutely
And I don't know that for sure.

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I haven't done the research to see
if Andy Serkis had that kind of you

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know, in mind when he was
going through it, but kind of the

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the gravelly approach that we got in
the rank and bass version, and the

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um kind of the intonations and the
speech patterns that we get with Peter Woodthrop.

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I know a lot of that comes
through in the book itself, you

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know, right, the lines that
he had and things like that. But

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I can definitely see notes of that
that appear in the circus version. Oh,

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there's there's no doubt about that.
And Scott, I don't know about

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you, but when I was a
kid, Gollum scared the crap out of

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me the animation and in both Ranking
and Mass, and in you know,

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A Bakhi's version. Um Gollum scared
me, man, anytime he was on

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screen. Man, it just gave
me chills just thinking about him, you

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know, just creeping around, you
know. Yeah. Well, one of

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the things that came to mind when
I was looking at this version was and

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Jerome from House of Plastic is gonna
have to keep me honest, but I

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think there's a line of toys called
back Star when they had these kind of

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like flint things in their chest you
could make sparks and whatever. I think

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you're right. Yeah, they would
come with these little companion goblins that were

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like green and hunched over and orange
and hunched over and have that very emaciated

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You could see their ribs, you
could see their hips and all this other

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kind of stuff in this very menacing
kind of look. They definitely captured that

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in this one, and hats off
to him for doing it. I think

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Callum is one of my favorite characters
in these things. I think so too,

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And you are right. I mean, we can talk about the Umpact

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a little bit later, but Peter
Jackson was very, very influenced by all

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of this, and you can see
that in his in his series, and

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we'll talk about that a little bit
later, but before we move on,

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we really need to talk a little
bit about the director himself, and of

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course that's Ralph Bakshi. For those
of you who don't know who that is,

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definitely take him. Look him up. He directed Cool World, He

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did animation work on Cannonball Run two. He directed Fire and Ice Wizards,

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Fritz the Cat, which I find
absolutely hysterical, did some work which I

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did not know this Scott. He
did work on the sixty eight through seventy

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animated Spider Man series. I did
not know that. He had a lot

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of hand in a lot of aspects
of animation that I was not aware of,

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Like some of the more cartoonish things. I think it wasn't Looney Tunes.

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I think it was He's like Mighty
Mouse and things like that. But

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yeah, a really weird connection to
think about. You know, that Spider

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Man that we grew up, the
pointing Spider Man that everybody like the meme,

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right, but all the way to
something like Fritz the Cat. Very

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controversial, very controversial, and kind
of pushing that envelope of adult animation.

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Some objectionable things for sure in his
work, again, a lot of controversy

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and kind of you know, using
that medium to tell stories in a different

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way. There weren't always meant for
kids, right, And I think that

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says something to what he was trying
to do with this. I don't get

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the sense that it was kind of
like, I need to make something animated

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so it's accessible to the whole family. I think that animation is one of

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the best ways to get this kind
of story across in a feasible way with

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the technology available in nineteen seventy eight. Yeah, you need people like this

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who are pushing those boundaries because that's
what helps force change. You know,

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if you don't have people like this, you know you're gonna keep getting the

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same things over and over and over. So, you know, sometimes his

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00:18:36.559 --> 00:18:41.440
animation style I may not like truly
love, but I do respect and appreciate

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it, especially a lot more as
an adult I do, you know,

250
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And when you realize wherever back she
came from, his family left Israel escaping

251
00:18:51.279 --> 00:18:56.359
World War Two in nineteen thirty eight, they would end up in Brooklyn,

252
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which is where he would you know, start working with his cartoon and animation

253
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and stuff like that. Um.
The one thing that I disagree with actually

254
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apparently he dislikes and it is very
critical of Don Bluth. Interesting. Yeah,

255
00:19:11.240 --> 00:19:15.319
I don't know, um, but
I'm I'm sorry, Ralph. I

256
00:19:15.400 --> 00:19:18.240
love Don Bluth, so I have
to disagree with you on this one.

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I didn't really look into why he
dislikes. It was very critical of him.

258
00:19:23.440 --> 00:19:27.559
Um, but I'm sure some kind
of competitive thing because they're both animators.

259
00:19:27.960 --> 00:19:32.160
Maybe maybe Don Bluth stole a job
from him. I don't know.

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00:19:32.319 --> 00:19:36.119
I didn't find those details, but
I did see that, and I was

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like, very that's very interesting,
Ralph. Okay, yeah, yeah,

262
00:19:40.039 --> 00:19:42.599
well, and it's it's also interesting
thinking about just like you know, opinions

263
00:19:42.599 --> 00:19:48.519
of different styles, right right this
guy. Um. You know, critics

264
00:19:48.519 --> 00:19:51.559
were kind of harsh of this one. They thought they were it was confusing.

265
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Uh. They thought that his use
of rotoscope was cheating. Even though

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it's something that was used to great
effect in a lot of Disney features,

267
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it was maybe not this specific level
of it. You know, you could

268
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see that the movements were captured based
on somebody's style and then that was used

269
00:20:11.359 --> 00:20:15.799
as inspiration for something or is used
as the basis for something I think the

270
00:20:17.920 --> 00:20:22.200
Superman Fleisher cartoons. It seems like
it had a fair amount of rotoscoping that

271
00:20:22.359 --> 00:20:27.039
was used to great effect. But
what is cheap noad? Sorry, no,

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00:20:27.119 --> 00:20:30.200
they would just think they thought it
was a cheap um. They thought

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it was a cheap way of doing
it and was using too many different styles

274
00:20:36.400 --> 00:20:40.319
and the same thing, and apparently
just um, you know, I had

275
00:20:40.319 --> 00:20:44.960
a field day with chopping at it. And I felt the same way when

276
00:20:45.039 --> 00:20:45.920
I was young, and when I
was seeing it, I was just kind

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00:20:45.920 --> 00:20:49.000
of like, what is this?
It looks like you know, um,

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00:20:51.319 --> 00:20:55.720
I can see the costumes, it
looks like footage. It doesn't look like

279
00:20:56.079 --> 00:21:00.359
animation that I'm used to, which
is kind of that traditional to the great

280
00:21:00.480 --> 00:21:06.480
animation again it I think for somebody
like me, it takes time and distance

281
00:21:06.480 --> 00:21:10.640
and perspective to to appreciate what was
what was going on with this one.

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00:21:10.920 --> 00:21:14.000
It doesn't. It's it's training your
brain, you know, when when when

283
00:21:14.039 --> 00:21:17.559
you you you enjoy things that you
love thunder Cats and g I Joe and

284
00:21:17.599 --> 00:21:21.680
all that stuff that we were growing
up with, and then you ranking ambass

285
00:21:21.920 --> 00:21:26.279
hobbit when you go to this it's
way out on the left field, you

286
00:21:26.319 --> 00:21:29.039
know, and your brain is so
trained on that stuff, so when you

287
00:21:29.079 --> 00:21:32.200
see this, your brain's almost like
rejecting it, you know. So,

288
00:21:32.839 --> 00:21:36.480
but you're right. When you put
time behind that and you you look at

289
00:21:36.480 --> 00:21:40.720
it through a different lens, then
you realize and appreciate that a lot more.

290
00:21:41.039 --> 00:21:42.920
But you know, you mentioned rotoscoping. Can you tell us about that?

291
00:21:42.920 --> 00:21:47.759
What is that? Uh? So, as I understand it, it's

292
00:21:47.799 --> 00:21:53.160
basically a process of filming live action
footage. So you have a performer go

293
00:21:53.279 --> 00:22:00.319
through the scene and then the animation
is laid in over that footage. So

294
00:22:00.480 --> 00:22:06.319
when you see somebody who's you know, an animated character that's that's running along

295
00:22:06.359 --> 00:22:10.680
and it almost looks like a real
person is doing it from this kind of

296
00:22:10.759 --> 00:22:18.240
decade, it's most likely rotoscope.
He had a lot of different techniques that

297
00:22:18.279 --> 00:22:22.000
he was doing in this, not
just rotoscoping, but other I don't know

298
00:22:22.039 --> 00:22:25.480
the technical terms for them, but
other ways of kind of almost like a

299
00:22:25.559 --> 00:22:30.640
Xerox kind of approach to creating some
of the animation. In some cases,

300
00:22:30.799 --> 00:22:37.240
it was animation that was kind of
adding texture to actual footage. So you'll

301
00:22:37.240 --> 00:22:41.200
see a lot of shifts in this, and it was a limitation of the

302
00:22:41.200 --> 00:22:45.799
time, they didn't have computers doing
any of this kind of stuff, and

303
00:22:45.839 --> 00:22:49.319
back she wanted to do this for
that sense of realism that would come with

304
00:22:49.359 --> 00:22:56.039
it, So instead of there were
some places where instead of tracing the photograph,

305
00:22:56.039 --> 00:23:03.920
he would put the actual photograph in
high contrast on the animated cell and

306
00:23:03.079 --> 00:23:07.960
paint it so um it allowed him
to to save a lot of money,

307
00:23:08.079 --> 00:23:11.359
but also to get the specific kind
of look that he was looking for and

308
00:23:11.440 --> 00:23:18.960
be able to direct it like an
actual film. It seems like they well,

309
00:23:18.960 --> 00:23:22.680
according to what I heard, they
also had to shoot all of the

310
00:23:22.759 --> 00:23:29.640
actual footage first obviously, and then
animate over it. But they had to

311
00:23:29.640 --> 00:23:36.000
shoot the footage before the voice actors
were able to apply the lines to the

312
00:23:36.079 --> 00:23:41.720
characters. So I know that he
had a huge team of animators working on

313
00:23:41.759 --> 00:23:45.160
this, a big team that he
really trusted. It seems like it's upwards

314
00:23:45.160 --> 00:23:52.359
of three thousand animators working on the
established footage. There were there were places

315
00:23:52.359 --> 00:24:02.640
where he had to basically be directing
on set while also communicate with his team

316
00:24:03.279 --> 00:24:06.880
back in the States in order to
get the production going. So he definitely

317
00:24:06.880 --> 00:24:10.839
had his full hands full with this
one. Yeah, you and when you

318
00:24:10.839 --> 00:24:12.799
look at, like, because some
of the animation, like some of the

319
00:24:12.839 --> 00:24:18.160
scenes, you know, is really
close to traditional animation. So a lot

320
00:24:18.200 --> 00:24:22.000
of the battle scenes and stuff like
that, you know, specifically like in

321
00:24:22.039 --> 00:24:25.680
the Two Towers when they're battling at
Helm's Deep. You know, I can't

322
00:24:25.720 --> 00:24:30.279
imagine animating all of that, you
know, so I can kind of see

323
00:24:30.319 --> 00:24:32.559
the rotorscoping that they were doing with
that, because I guess it was a

324
00:24:32.599 --> 00:24:34.839
little bit easier, you know,
to hire all those actors and then just

325
00:24:34.960 --> 00:24:38.640
film that footage and then just animated
over top of that. Because man,

326
00:24:38.680 --> 00:24:41.160
that was just you see it in
Peter Jackson to I mean, that's mammoth

327
00:24:41.200 --> 00:24:45.440
Man. That's huge, right,
absolutely, like thinking about what he had

328
00:24:45.519 --> 00:24:52.160
to do to coordinate all this and
and get people to act things out,

329
00:24:52.720 --> 00:24:57.319
and knowing that he'd have to make
up for you know, you have to

330
00:24:57.359 --> 00:25:03.119
have an entire army without casting an
entire army. You have to take a

331
00:25:03.200 --> 00:25:08.440
very small crew, very small cast, and shoot them doing the same thing

332
00:25:08.480 --> 00:25:15.920
in very different situations, and then
somehow edit that together. There's a great

333
00:25:15.079 --> 00:25:21.839
article that I found by David Weiner
if I'm pronouncing his name right, did

334
00:25:21.839 --> 00:25:26.680
an interview with Ralph Bacshe on a
blog called it came from when he was

335
00:25:26.680 --> 00:25:32.000
looking back at the production, and
there was a great quote in there where

336
00:25:32.079 --> 00:25:37.680
he talks about Helm's Deep. So
back, she says, I'm on the

337
00:25:37.759 --> 00:25:41.359
wall of the castle. It's windy, it's cold, I'm freezing. Coming

338
00:25:41.359 --> 00:25:45.799
in from various towns or hundreds and
hundreds of town folks. They all line

339
00:25:45.880 --> 00:25:48.599
up, they get fed, they're
going to be orched with shields, spears,

340
00:25:48.640 --> 00:25:52.640
costumes. All morning and all the
afternoon we're dressing and running around and

341
00:25:52.680 --> 00:25:57.519
doing composition. He was rolling several
cameras, up to five cameras all at

342
00:25:57.519 --> 00:26:03.039
once to have one. So he
has all these cameras rolling and by the

343
00:26:03.079 --> 00:26:10.519
time he gets cameras six setup um
one of the people, apparently one of

344
00:26:10.519 --> 00:26:12.599
the extras, stands up in the
middle of the composition, takes off his

345
00:26:12.640 --> 00:26:18.960
head and helmet and says time for
lunch. Everybody drops their spears and their

346
00:26:18.960 --> 00:26:22.160
costumes and they walk off to lunch, but not to miss a shot.

347
00:26:22.200 --> 00:26:26.480
I keep the cameras rolling. So
there's a scene I don't remember. I

348
00:26:26.480 --> 00:26:27.799
don't know if you remember it,
Dave, But in Holme's Deep, when

349
00:26:29.119 --> 00:26:33.279
Gandolf comes back and spoilers, but
come on, yeah, come on.

350
00:26:33.640 --> 00:26:41.599
Yeah. So in that battle Gandolf
shows up, all the the forces of

351
00:26:41.640 --> 00:26:45.880
evil freak out and start running away
and dropping their dropping their equipment. That

352
00:26:48.119 --> 00:26:53.799
sne Yeah, So he wanted to
get the scene of them walking away in

353
00:26:53.920 --> 00:27:00.799
disgust, so he decided to use
that shot in the Enemys where they're actually

354
00:27:00.839 --> 00:27:04.039
dropping their shields and all their stuff
to Russ for I think that's brilliant.

355
00:27:04.839 --> 00:27:08.079
That's like a we've talked about those
kind of things before, right, Like

356
00:27:08.119 --> 00:27:11.920
the ingenuity of the time, having
to work with the technology that's available,

357
00:27:12.480 --> 00:27:18.319
Just those little nuances, those little
things that show you know somebody really cares

358
00:27:18.359 --> 00:27:21.680
about the production, and just the
ingenuity of being able to get that kind

359
00:27:21.720 --> 00:27:23.799
of thing done. I tell you, always keep that camera rolling because you

360
00:27:23.839 --> 00:27:26.640
never know what you're going to capture. And look, he was able to

361
00:27:26.640 --> 00:27:30.279
capture that and was able to use
it in this film. That's incredible.

362
00:27:30.480 --> 00:27:33.519
Yeah. I did not know that. Yeah, that's that's cool. Um.

363
00:27:33.599 --> 00:27:37.559
I know, um, there's only
one scene in the entire movie that

364
00:27:37.680 --> 00:27:42.759
was not rotoscope. Do you know
what scene that is? Is it?

365
00:27:42.799 --> 00:27:47.200
Treebeard? Yep, you got it. It's Treebeard the only character that was

366
00:27:47.240 --> 00:27:49.240
not Rotoscope, which kind of makes
sense, I guess because he's a big

367
00:27:49.319 --> 00:27:53.240
tree. Yeah, although that is
kind of surprising, Like there's a lot

368
00:27:53.279 --> 00:27:57.680
of characters in there, like Gallum, I guess is a pretty good example.

369
00:28:00.519 --> 00:28:06.400
His his look is so stylized that
it seems a bit different from the

370
00:28:06.400 --> 00:28:08.160
rest of the characters. The rest
of the characters, I can kind of

371
00:28:08.160 --> 00:28:12.759
see the actors faces through it.
Um. I know that one of them,

372
00:28:14.559 --> 00:28:18.720
a very well known actor that I
was able to recognize um is Billy

373
00:28:18.799 --> 00:28:26.880
Barty Okay, who, as I
understand it was the inspiration for Sam,

374
00:28:26.440 --> 00:28:32.680
or was the footage used for Sam. And Billy tends to have a um,

375
00:28:33.599 --> 00:28:38.279
a certain look when he's when he's
using certain lines and I'm thinking back

376
00:28:38.279 --> 00:28:41.200
to like, you know, cringe
if you want to, but the Masters

377
00:28:41.200 --> 00:28:45.880
of the Universe Live Action movie,
when he when he's saying certain lines and

378
00:28:45.960 --> 00:28:49.160
there's one eye that's a little bit
more closed than the other. Yeah,

379
00:28:49.200 --> 00:28:52.880
I could definitely see that in Sam's
face. And as soon as I knew

380
00:28:52.880 --> 00:28:55.599
that Billy barty I was involved,
I was like, there he is.

381
00:28:55.799 --> 00:29:00.200
You can see that. Yeah.
Yeah, And it's a great thing have

382
00:29:00.279 --> 00:29:04.319
show through. I know there's a
lot of hard work done by by all

383
00:29:04.359 --> 00:29:11.000
the actors and knowing that they would
have to not only kind of get that

384
00:29:11.079 --> 00:29:15.160
performance out on camera and get the
facial expressions and everything for the animators to

385
00:29:15.119 --> 00:29:21.039
catch up on, but then they're
the basis for the voice actors to later

386
00:29:21.480 --> 00:29:25.039
dub their own lines in, right, So they have to be able to

387
00:29:25.039 --> 00:29:27.720
have something that they can kind of
focus in on. That is really interesting.

388
00:29:29.599 --> 00:29:32.799
I didn't know that, but you
can definitely see that in the performances

389
00:29:32.839 --> 00:29:37.680
now that you mentioned that, interesting, right exactly. Yeah. Apparently Tim

390
00:29:37.680 --> 00:29:41.200
Burton worked on some animation in this
movie too. Yeah, he was an

391
00:29:41.200 --> 00:29:45.640
in between her. Yeah, that's
crazy, man. You see the people

392
00:29:45.640 --> 00:29:48.599
who work on stuff that you didn't
realize it until you start, you know,

393
00:29:49.079 --> 00:29:52.359
digging into these kind of things.
You're like, wow, how everything

394
00:29:52.440 --> 00:29:56.039
just so connected? It's crazy,
very well connected. Yeah. Yeah,

395
00:29:56.480 --> 00:30:00.319
there's there's a lot of crazy connections. I mean, Anthony Daniels, John

396
00:30:00.400 --> 00:30:06.640
Hurt, Billy Party, the cast
that you listed is just phenomenal, and

397
00:30:06.680 --> 00:30:10.799
there's some interesting things about people that
were almost part of it. And we'll

398
00:30:10.839 --> 00:30:15.559
get into that after. Take a
short break. Now, Jeff, you

399
00:30:15.599 --> 00:30:18.279
know I love my extras and my
bonus features. Now are you ready to

400
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offer some to our listeners? Absolutely, brad. That's why we've launched via

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a production assistant to receive a film
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content. That's right. Each month, we'll be offering up everything from episodes

404
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about our favorite actors to audio commentaries
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And for you fans of the familiar, we've got a nice surprise,

406
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right Jeff. That's right, brad. Our Patreon is the only place you'll

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00:30:52.119 --> 00:30:57.480
get access to the lost nineteen eighty
six episodes. We're covering twenty more movies

408
00:30:57.519 --> 00:31:02.680
from nineteen eighty six, and we've
got some of our favorite guests joining in.

409
00:31:02.960 --> 00:31:08.960
Now, you mentioned merchandise stickers,
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410
00:31:08.960 --> 00:31:15.640
cups exclusive to the Patreon. So
join today and get in on all the

411
00:31:15.759 --> 00:31:22.839
great bonus content. All right,
welcome back, And so let's talk about

412
00:31:22.880 --> 00:31:27.440
some of those what ifs, Scott. Yeah, so I'll take about I'll

413
00:31:27.440 --> 00:31:33.039
talk about two what ifs. Well, I'll set up two what ifs that

414
00:31:33.119 --> 00:31:36.559
are specifically rooted in the land of
music, which I know is near and

415
00:31:36.640 --> 00:31:41.000
due to your heart, David is
the one that I'll talk about is one

416
00:31:41.039 --> 00:31:45.880
that surprised me. Mick Jagger,
front man of the Rolling Stones, apparently

417
00:31:47.720 --> 00:31:52.599
learned about the production and wanted to
get involved. He actually called Backshee at

418
00:31:52.640 --> 00:31:59.319
one point to see what they were
doing on the in the studio. So

419
00:32:00.079 --> 00:32:04.039
he walks Jagger through the studio and
apparently there's this, you know, two

420
00:32:04.079 --> 00:32:09.200
to three thousand people that are just
you know, dazzled by the star struck,

421
00:32:09.519 --> 00:32:16.440
starstruck presence of Mick Jagger, and
apparently he wanted to do the voice

422
00:32:16.480 --> 00:32:22.079
of Frodo. Interesting he told him
that he would have used him easily,

423
00:32:22.599 --> 00:32:27.440
but he was already recorded and everything
was already done. So there's another universe

424
00:32:27.519 --> 00:32:31.440
where we could have had Mick Jagger
as Frodo. I think this would have

425
00:32:31.519 --> 00:32:37.839
had a very very different reception with
that literally power in it. Yeah,

426
00:32:37.119 --> 00:32:43.079
yeah, absolutely interesting stuff. Um. I do know. The other one

427
00:32:43.599 --> 00:32:50.319
that you probably want to talk about
is led Zeppelin was considered to be used

428
00:32:50.440 --> 00:32:53.640
their music to be used because I
believe they've got like several their songs Misty

429
00:32:53.720 --> 00:33:01.079
Mountain hop with it over the Hills
and far Away ramble ramble on and um

430
00:33:04.200 --> 00:33:07.680
yeah, all referencing you know,
characters from Tolkien's books. Um. But

431
00:33:07.759 --> 00:33:09.720
apparently they couldn't get the rights or
anything like that. But could you imagine

432
00:33:10.680 --> 00:33:14.000
now, I tell you it would
be a completely You're right, the same

433
00:33:14.119 --> 00:33:15.839
thing with Mick Jaggard. It would
be the same thing if we had gotten

434
00:33:15.920 --> 00:33:20.640
led Zeppel music in this movie,
WHOA what reference? I think they would

435
00:33:20.640 --> 00:33:23.319
have gotten some some more time,
and I'm absolutely sure it probably would have

436
00:33:23.440 --> 00:33:28.039
resulted in a sequel, especially if
you can get that back into it.

437
00:33:28.319 --> 00:33:32.640
UM. Actually apparently approached the band
um and they were on board. They

438
00:33:32.680 --> 00:33:37.799
were ready to do it, but
um, they couldn't get the rights and

439
00:33:37.240 --> 00:33:42.279
the contract prevented them from working on
another label. So I passed it on

440
00:33:42.400 --> 00:33:50.359
to Leonard Rosenman to do the orchestral
soundtrack, which but the entire time I

441
00:33:50.599 --> 00:33:52.839
was thinking about like where they would
have peppered this in with led Zeppelin.

442
00:33:52.960 --> 00:33:55.799
I do too, you know,
like Battle of Helm's Deep and all this

443
00:33:55.839 --> 00:34:00.319
other kind of stuff. It's hard
to not imagine that, especially like you

444
00:34:00.400 --> 00:34:04.000
know, seeing it applied to thora
Ragnarock and movie he's like that. I

445
00:34:04.119 --> 00:34:08.679
wonder if anybody has put together like
a music video with the animation from this

446
00:34:08.800 --> 00:34:13.760
movie using led Zeppelin's music, that
would be pretty cool. I wondered about

447
00:34:13.760 --> 00:34:15.960
that too, like the whole Wizard
of Oz, Pink Floyd, Yeah,

448
00:34:16.079 --> 00:34:19.519
bang, you know, something like
that, that would be cool, that

449
00:34:19.599 --> 00:34:23.000
would really be interesting. Yeah.
But speaking of Leonard Rosamond, who ended

450
00:34:23.079 --> 00:34:27.000
up doing the score for this,
I thought he did a fantastic job.

451
00:34:27.559 --> 00:34:30.360
Yeah. I know. He known
for music for Star Trek, The Voyage

452
00:34:30.400 --> 00:34:37.440
Home, which we did nineteen eighty
six limited series about he did like RoboCop

453
00:34:37.480 --> 00:34:43.079
two, Battle for the Plan of
the EAPs, lots of television work Rosenmand

454
00:34:43.159 --> 00:34:46.000
had done. And if you've never
seen the movie The Car, which I

455
00:34:46.079 --> 00:34:52.079
believe came out and I want to
say seventy six or seventy seven, definitely

456
00:34:52.159 --> 00:34:53.800
checked that out. That isn't a
very difference, kind of kind of like

457
00:34:53.920 --> 00:34:58.519
Christine, definitely check it out.
Interesting. Yeah, but yeah, I

458
00:34:58.559 --> 00:35:01.719
thought Rosamond's music was real well done
in this. Uh, it hit the

459
00:35:01.880 --> 00:35:06.920
it was epic where it needed to
be, it was calm where it needed

460
00:35:06.960 --> 00:35:09.960
to be. Um. I thought
it was perfect. Yeah, Yeah,

461
00:35:10.039 --> 00:35:14.079
it's one of the things that really
works about this production, it seems like

462
00:35:14.119 --> 00:35:17.280
it's appropriate for it. Um.
There are a lot of good things that

463
00:35:17.360 --> 00:35:21.360
are that are going for this.
When we've already talked about the voice acting

464
00:35:21.440 --> 00:35:24.719
them, I think the emotion that
they get through, UM, in the

465
00:35:24.800 --> 00:35:30.800
scene where a Boomer dies, UM, in particular, the blend of performances,

466
00:35:30.880 --> 00:35:37.679
the voice of John Hurt and the
the live action UM actor live action

467
00:35:37.760 --> 00:35:43.880
actor. I'll just be redundant.
That's fine, UM, but they get

468
00:35:43.920 --> 00:35:47.440
across that kind of emotional heft of
that scene. UM. I like,

469
00:35:47.800 --> 00:35:52.840
I think there are a lot of
things that work well with that, And

470
00:35:53.039 --> 00:35:57.360
as much as I want to respect
it, there's a lot of things that

471
00:35:57.880 --> 00:36:04.679
don't quite work about this movie.
Okay, please enlighten us. One of

472
00:36:04.719 --> 00:36:07.679
them I could think of in particular, and I know it's a limitation of

473
00:36:07.760 --> 00:36:13.400
the time, but man, that
balo rog Oh gosh, yeah, that

474
00:36:13.559 --> 00:36:16.360
was cringe worthy. Man, A
giant lion. It kind of looked like

475
00:36:16.519 --> 00:36:22.519
a you know, UM, imagine
like a high school production has to put

476
00:36:22.599 --> 00:36:27.039
together a giant rig. And I
feel like I'm heavily insulting the people that

477
00:36:27.159 --> 00:36:30.280
put this together. So please,
you know, understand, I appreciate the

478
00:36:30.320 --> 00:36:34.840
limitations of the time, but absolutely, you know, Peter Jackson ballot rog

479
00:36:35.079 --> 00:36:39.559
versus this one. It's hard.
It's hard to look at that, and

480
00:36:40.320 --> 00:36:45.079
it's easy to see where it may
have given inspiration if this is something that

481
00:36:45.119 --> 00:36:47.800
Peter Jackson grew up with, because
beat for a beat, it's very very

482
00:36:47.880 --> 00:36:54.280
sea. But it's essentially a guy
in a giant lion head with great,

483
00:36:54.360 --> 00:37:00.039
big fuzzy boots and these big like
you know, early actions of a kiss

484
00:37:00.039 --> 00:37:07.599
concert bat wings and this weird flame
torch and I'm just like, what is

485
00:37:08.119 --> 00:37:14.280
this? It's funny? Is I
don't remember that until I went and watched

486
00:37:14.280 --> 00:37:19.119
it again getting prepared for this podcast. So I'm like, all like excited

487
00:37:19.199 --> 00:37:21.719
for this scene because again, you
know, not to go back to Peter

488
00:37:21.840 --> 00:37:23.840
Jackson's but you know how good that
was in his movie. I was excited

489
00:37:23.880 --> 00:37:27.440
to see it in this one.
And then we got that and what is

490
00:37:27.559 --> 00:37:30.679
going on? Yeah? Yeah,
And I think that's one of the drawbacks

491
00:37:30.760 --> 00:37:36.320
of you know, trying to do
this so much based on live action.

492
00:37:36.519 --> 00:37:38.480
I feel like maybe that would be
a place where it would have been better

493
00:37:38.639 --> 00:37:46.599
served by animating it originally, right, Like if they had already done so

494
00:37:46.760 --> 00:37:51.480
with a treacher like Treebeard who was
supposed to kind of, you know,

495
00:37:52.440 --> 00:37:55.280
have this kind of scale to it. Balog is another place where I think

496
00:37:55.320 --> 00:38:00.440
they should have done so. I
just think it takes you out of moment.

497
00:38:00.800 --> 00:38:02.400
You know, there are a couple
of points when when you can really

498
00:38:02.519 --> 00:38:07.239
see that happening in the background,
you can really see the live action basis

499
00:38:07.320 --> 00:38:09.159
for it. I think there are
some parts of the Battle of Helm's Deep

500
00:38:09.159 --> 00:38:19.360
where you could see the separation between
the the performer's glove like their orchand glove

501
00:38:19.559 --> 00:38:22.599
and things like that pokes through and
it's just kinda it takes you. It

502
00:38:22.679 --> 00:38:28.320
takes you out of its time of
time. Yeah yeah, so um,

503
00:38:28.360 --> 00:38:30.519
I know you've already quoted somebody.
So I found it in their interesting quote

504
00:38:31.280 --> 00:38:35.320
from Ralph Bacchi himself, and I
find it interesting. He says, I

505
00:38:35.360 --> 00:38:37.599
think it's impossible to do J.
R. R. Tolkien. It's impossible

506
00:38:37.639 --> 00:38:42.840
to get the brilliance of what he
wrote about just the medium the book.

507
00:38:43.000 --> 00:38:47.719
The novel gives you other areas of
imagination that film can't allow. Film has

508
00:38:47.760 --> 00:38:52.199
to describe and show with the brilliance
of his words and his scenes. You

509
00:38:52.360 --> 00:38:59.119
imagine whatever you want. I'm sure
various people imagine different things. He's right,

510
00:39:00.159 --> 00:39:01.480
it's so hard to kept and it
is with any book, man.

511
00:39:01.639 --> 00:39:07.760
You know, it's so hard to
capture what a book can do because everybody,

512
00:39:07.079 --> 00:39:12.719
when you're reading a novel, everybody
is looking at that scene a little

513
00:39:12.760 --> 00:39:17.000
bit differently. They have different pictures
in their head and it's hard to bring

514
00:39:17.199 --> 00:39:22.480
that to the screen. But I
respect rough Boxy for what he did,

515
00:39:23.239 --> 00:39:28.000
just like I respect Peter Jackson for
what he did. You know, this

516
00:39:28.159 --> 00:39:32.840
is what was in their imagination and
I'm okay with that. Yeah, absolutely,

517
00:39:32.960 --> 00:39:37.920
and you really have to respect it. I mean, this is this

518
00:39:38.159 --> 00:39:44.000
is a time when it wasn't fantasy, wasn't getting a lot of love that

519
00:39:44.079 --> 00:39:46.159
it that it needed, and they
didn't have the kind of you know,

520
00:39:47.199 --> 00:39:52.960
pop culture reach that it has now
At the time, I think Dunson and

521
00:39:53.079 --> 00:39:59.880
Dragons itself had just recently come out
in nineteen seventy four, so it didn't

522
00:40:00.119 --> 00:40:05.559
have a lot of traction yet.
And just knowing that for some people,

523
00:40:05.719 --> 00:40:09.480
this is where it started to take
with being able to see something like this,

524
00:40:09.679 --> 00:40:12.840
a book that had come out in
the fifties, the first time we

525
00:40:12.880 --> 00:40:15.679
were able to see it on the
big screen, it becomes real, it

526
00:40:15.800 --> 00:40:21.719
becomes a bit large up there on
the silver screen. So it definitely deserves

527
00:40:21.760 --> 00:40:27.440
some respect for getting it there and
just knowing that the passion for not only

528
00:40:28.360 --> 00:40:32.039
the work, but the love that
he had for his fellow animators. On

529
00:40:32.159 --> 00:40:39.280
this I found another quote again from
Backshee talking about how how difficult it was

530
00:40:40.119 --> 00:40:44.679
going through this and how much he
respects the people that helped him through it.

531
00:40:45.559 --> 00:40:49.880
He said at that same interview with
David Weiner, I nearly died.

532
00:40:50.800 --> 00:40:52.320
It was the hardest thing I had
to do in my life. I didn't

533
00:40:52.320 --> 00:40:57.360
have the budget for producers. As
I was shooting the picture live action in

534
00:40:57.480 --> 00:41:00.719
Spain. I was running the company
on the phone through my secretary and my

535
00:41:00.800 --> 00:41:04.480
production manager. I didn't get much
sleep. It's the hardest thing I ever

536
00:41:04.559 --> 00:41:07.239
had to do. But the animators
loved me, and I had tremendous support

537
00:41:07.559 --> 00:41:12.280
on all my films from these guys
because they loved what they were doing and

538
00:41:12.400 --> 00:41:16.599
they knew what I was trying to
do. They held it all together for

539
00:41:16.760 --> 00:41:23.280
somebody who had so much, so
much of an impact on animation at the

540
00:41:23.360 --> 00:41:28.599
time, and kind of pushing that
envelope. You got to respect the love

541
00:41:28.639 --> 00:41:32.360
that he had for his crew kind
of helping him through this. At the

542
00:41:32.440 --> 00:41:37.360
same time, when it comes down
to it, if I still had to

543
00:41:37.480 --> 00:41:40.360
choose, I'd still go with Rank
and Bass, and I don't doubts,

544
00:41:40.440 --> 00:41:45.280
probably due to just you know,
nostalgia if nothing else, but it's just

545
00:41:45.480 --> 00:41:49.800
the style that hooked me. As
soon as I saw the Peter Jackson movies,

546
00:41:50.239 --> 00:41:53.000
I wanted to go back and rewatch
those and you know, the songs

547
00:41:53.079 --> 00:41:58.159
that get stuck in my head.
They work. So I think rather than

548
00:41:58.239 --> 00:42:00.639
saying like pitting one against the other, I think it's looking at him in

549
00:42:00.719 --> 00:42:05.039
totality and seeing what they're bringing to
the whole experience. Yeah, I agree,

550
00:42:05.079 --> 00:42:08.440
absolutely. So, you know,
speaking of the impact that we get

551
00:42:08.719 --> 00:42:12.599
from this film, because we love
to talk about you know, that's one

552
00:42:12.599 --> 00:42:15.360
of the main reasons why we do
this a film at forty five, because

553
00:42:15.400 --> 00:42:20.960
we want to talk about those movies
who have had a huge impact on movies

554
00:42:21.360 --> 00:42:23.679
in the eighties, nineties and up
to where we're at today. But this

555
00:42:23.840 --> 00:42:28.159
one was gigantic because, as we've
already discussed several times, you know,

556
00:42:28.320 --> 00:42:34.920
Peter Jackson, you know, use
this to influence himself and making the series

557
00:42:35.039 --> 00:42:38.000
that we know and love today.
One of the scenes that I do love

558
00:42:38.159 --> 00:42:45.840
in this movie is when Frodo and
Marian Peppin are leaving the Shire and they

559
00:42:45.960 --> 00:42:49.280
get off the road and that black
writer shows up and you know, and

560
00:42:49.360 --> 00:42:52.599
they're they're they're hovering down underneath that
that that tree route and like you know,

561
00:42:52.760 --> 00:42:57.159
he's like hovering over them, like
trying to find them, and Frodo

562
00:42:57.280 --> 00:43:00.039
battling himself like getting ready to put
that ring one. That was a huge

563
00:43:00.079 --> 00:43:05.559
influence on Peter Jackson, and it's
almost exactly the same scene in the movie

564
00:43:05.679 --> 00:43:12.280
that he did, but it's also
later on when they show up in the

565
00:43:12.960 --> 00:43:15.320
not a hotel but the tavern and
like all the Nationals start tearing up the

566
00:43:15.360 --> 00:43:20.239
beds and stuff like that they're not
there. Peter Peter Jackson took that again

567
00:43:21.119 --> 00:43:23.440
and used that in his movie.
So what a huge impact and influence it

568
00:43:23.599 --> 00:43:28.280
was on him. Yeah, And
I mean it's one of the things that

569
00:43:29.440 --> 00:43:32.239
when you mentioned that first scene where
they're kind of hiding from the Black Writer,

570
00:43:35.239 --> 00:43:38.079
it almost seems like the look and
the feel of those black writers kind

571
00:43:38.079 --> 00:43:42.800
of changes in the production. Yeah, and I think if I didn't have

572
00:43:43.119 --> 00:43:46.199
the Peter Jackson as a basis,
I might get confused as to whether they're

573
00:43:46.199 --> 00:43:51.400
actually the same kinds of character.
Right. I think it's one of the

574
00:43:51.440 --> 00:43:59.480
places where that rotoscoping and the application
of shadow is used to great effect there

575
00:44:00.199 --> 00:44:07.039
because that particular actor being very hunched
over, kind of almost kind of like

576
00:44:07.159 --> 00:44:13.719
Gallum kind of things, but a
bit more menacing with great vocal effects that

577
00:44:13.840 --> 00:44:15.679
are kind of giving it a little
bit more of that kind of extra feel.

578
00:44:16.159 --> 00:44:21.440
I think as we get further in, I feel like the Black Riders

579
00:44:21.559 --> 00:44:23.599
lose that. Yeah, you can
start to see more detail, they start

580
00:44:23.639 --> 00:44:27.320
to come a little bit more real. They're less shadow and a little bit

581
00:44:27.440 --> 00:44:32.599
more like actual people. It just
takes something away from me, but you

582
00:44:32.639 --> 00:44:37.840
can definitely see how it has an
influence. It also makes me think of

583
00:44:37.039 --> 00:44:43.360
the scene when they're in the river
and they're getting washed away. That wave

584
00:44:43.519 --> 00:44:47.360
made of horses looks fantastic. It
does. I'd love to see more of

585
00:44:47.400 --> 00:44:51.000
that, But you can absolutely see, like what I mentioned before, like

586
00:44:51.079 --> 00:44:54.280
it's almost like you're watching an animatic
or a storyboard, an animated storyboard for

587
00:44:54.440 --> 00:45:00.840
Peter Jackson's movies. You can definitely
see that, but I don't know in

588
00:45:00.880 --> 00:45:05.000
in nineteen seventy eight, I can
understand why the audience wasn't quite getting it,

589
00:45:05.039 --> 00:45:07.920
because if you didn't know the source
material, if you didn't already know

590
00:45:07.039 --> 00:45:10.880
the story, there's a lot of
abrupt jumps, there's a lot of abrupt

591
00:45:12.119 --> 00:45:15.360
edits where you can kind of get
lost. Yeah, and you know,

592
00:45:15.840 --> 00:45:20.960
we've talked about the rotorscoping and what
a huge impact that is. You know,

593
00:45:21.400 --> 00:45:24.039
I feel that rough Box she was
a little bit ahead of himself at

594
00:45:24.119 --> 00:45:30.039
times, and maybe why this didn't
get consumed by so many people because you

595
00:45:30.119 --> 00:45:35.960
know, look at what that impact
has done on gaining You know, you

596
00:45:36.119 --> 00:45:40.039
have actors who are putting these balls
and stuff on them, and they are

597
00:45:40.360 --> 00:45:47.039
you know, videotaping their movements and
animating over that today. You know,

598
00:45:47.480 --> 00:45:51.360
same thing with CGI. I mean, that's exactly what they did with Andy

599
00:45:51.440 --> 00:45:55.840
Serkis when he played Gallump. The
same thing. This is all coming from

600
00:45:57.000 --> 00:46:00.039
you know, rough boxual what he
did in his animation, So he was

601
00:46:00.079 --> 00:46:04.960
ahead of himself, you know,
and it proves it to what we see

602
00:46:05.320 --> 00:46:08.199
in Hollywood to this day. Yep. Yeah, it's it's almost a shame

603
00:46:08.280 --> 00:46:13.119
that it didn't get that sequel either, because I think that kind of works

604
00:46:13.119 --> 00:46:20.239
against it. There's a very abrupt
ending where they basically this is kind of

605
00:46:20.280 --> 00:46:24.960
a laughable scene, but you know, Gandalf comes running onto the scene.

606
00:46:27.360 --> 00:46:32.000
All the Orcs run away because somebody
had lunched, and they kind of celebrating.

607
00:46:32.079 --> 00:46:36.960
Gandalf kind of tosses his sword into
the air and it says, so

608
00:46:37.320 --> 00:46:40.519
that's it for this first part of
Lord of the Rings, and it fades

609
00:46:40.559 --> 00:46:45.880
out. That's gonna like, so, hello, what happened next? Like

610
00:46:45.960 --> 00:46:51.239
the whole time Fredo was trying to
destroy the ring and he just gets lost

611
00:46:51.320 --> 00:46:54.840
somewhere. Apparently it didn't matter because
if if we knew Gandolf was going to

612
00:46:54.880 --> 00:46:59.440
write on the scene and drive all
the evil away, it should be like

613
00:47:00.199 --> 00:47:02.679
Gandolf's movie, right, and it's
it's not. It was just very odd,

614
00:47:02.800 --> 00:47:06.360
And I can see if I watched
that at the time, I'd be

615
00:47:06.559 --> 00:47:10.079
thoroughly confused. I would do absolutely
all right, Well, let's rewind a

616
00:47:10.159 --> 00:47:14.519
little bit here, Scott. Any
favorite scenes in this movie, anything you

617
00:47:14.559 --> 00:47:22.599
absolutely love about it? Um hm? I mean the ones that stand out

618
00:47:22.639 --> 00:47:29.880
to me the most are probably the
ones we've already mentioned. I would say

619
00:47:30.760 --> 00:47:36.280
one of the best scenes, the
probably the best part of it for me

620
00:47:36.599 --> 00:47:39.760
is anything that involves gall them.
Yeah, cover to cover. I think

621
00:47:39.840 --> 00:47:45.119
that performance was really, really well
done. It's just a shame that we

622
00:47:45.159 --> 00:47:49.159
didn't get to see it go all
the way through. It was very hard

623
00:47:49.159 --> 00:47:52.119
to watch this movie and not have
that song from Return of the King froto

624
00:47:52.239 --> 00:47:57.440
the Nine Fingers in the Rings Doom. Automatically, I was like, I

625
00:47:57.599 --> 00:48:00.599
need to go watch that animated movie
now because it is going to be stuck

626
00:48:00.639 --> 00:48:02.760
in my head until I hear it
again. What about you, Um,

627
00:48:04.039 --> 00:48:07.079
you've already mentioned one of mine earlier, and that's Bourmer's death. M I

628
00:48:07.159 --> 00:48:13.239
thought they handled that extremely well in
this animated But also the only one I've

629
00:48:13.280 --> 00:48:15.920
mentioned was Helm's deep. I'm a
big fan of that in Peter Jackson's but

630
00:48:15.960 --> 00:48:20.679
I thought it was really neatness too
to watch that. Um, just what

631
00:48:20.840 --> 00:48:23.159
they had to go through to animate
this and make it happen. I thought

632
00:48:23.159 --> 00:48:27.199
it was pretty neat to see.
Yeah, that was the place where I

633
00:48:27.519 --> 00:48:30.800
could hear the led Zeppelin music that
was messing. Oh. Absolutely, it

634
00:48:30.880 --> 00:48:36.480
would have been very interesting if they
had taken an approach similar to what Queen

635
00:48:36.559 --> 00:48:42.320
did with Highlander and recorded an original
soundtrack with original songs specifically for this.

636
00:48:42.960 --> 00:48:46.000
Yeah. I think we could have
if we had a little bit more time

637
00:48:46.039 --> 00:48:52.320
to apply that. There's a multiverse
somewhere where that happened. Yeah, me

638
00:48:52.440 --> 00:48:55.800
too. All right, So where
did you watch this that Scott um?

639
00:48:57.039 --> 00:49:01.599
I saw it on Amazon Prime.
It's got a very reasonable four dollar rental

640
00:49:01.679 --> 00:49:05.679
there. I tried to get it
from the library but it just didn't show

641
00:49:05.760 --> 00:49:08.599
up on time. So you have
a chance. There's several avenues. What

642
00:49:08.679 --> 00:49:12.239
about you. Yeah, same with
me. Rented on Amazon Prime. It's

643
00:49:12.280 --> 00:49:15.159
worth three ninety nine. Come on, it's been a little money to give

644
00:49:15.159 --> 00:49:16.480
it. Give it a shot,
take a chance, especially if you like

645
00:49:16.559 --> 00:49:19.920
Lord of the Rings and you've never
seen this before, you know, take

646
00:49:19.960 --> 00:49:22.679
a trip back, watch it and
tell us what you think about it.

647
00:49:22.239 --> 00:49:27.440
Although I would recommend if you do
so, you've never seen anything with Lord

648
00:49:27.440 --> 00:49:30.400
of the Rings before, watch the
Peter Jackson movies first. Agreed. Yeah,

649
00:49:30.440 --> 00:49:34.079
and it's it's an investment, you
know, Honestly, it's an investment

650
00:49:34.119 --> 00:49:37.199
in time to do any of this
stuff. But i'd go there first before

651
00:49:37.280 --> 00:49:38.559
watching this. I think it will
make a lot more sense. Yeah,

652
00:49:38.599 --> 00:49:45.320
I completely agree, and do yourself
a favor. Go watch Leonard Nimoy's The

653
00:49:45.440 --> 00:49:51.400
Ballad of billbo Baggen's music video from
sixty eight. It's turtle nicky goodness.

654
00:49:51.639 --> 00:49:55.519
You won't be disappointed. All right. Well, I want to thank all

655
00:49:55.559 --> 00:50:00.920
of our listeners for tuning in and
listening to what we have to say.

656
00:50:00.480 --> 00:50:05.199
Once again, I want to thank
Jeff and Brad for giving us the opportunity

657
00:50:06.000 --> 00:50:10.199
to talk about movies that we love
to discuss. We could do this all

658
00:50:10.239 --> 00:50:14.599
the time. We appreciate it very
very much. Do you have anything that

659
00:50:14.679 --> 00:50:15.519
you want to say to us,
You know where to find us. But

660
00:50:15.599 --> 00:50:20.039
we'll talk about that, Scott.
What's next? Well, the next thing

661
00:50:20.079 --> 00:50:23.400
we're going to dip into another animated
classic, and this one the emotionally scarred

662
00:50:23.559 --> 00:50:30.039
generation. I think Watership Down,
which was again something that was just on

663
00:50:30.480 --> 00:50:36.119
heavy rotation when I was growing up
and always loved seeing it, but just

664
00:50:36.400 --> 00:50:39.320
forgot each time how heavy it is. So we'll talk about that next on

665
00:50:39.440 --> 00:50:44.880
the main podcast. On a film
by we're gonna be talking about James Gunns

666
00:50:45.000 --> 00:50:49.280
super awesome. All right, Well, if you want to leave a combat

667
00:50:49.360 --> 00:50:52.559
discuss what's next or even half saggestions. You can find us at www dot

668
00:50:52.760 --> 00:50:57.599
film by podcast dot com, a
film by podcast at gmail dot com.

669
00:50:57.880 --> 00:51:01.519
A film by podcast on Facebook,
Twitter, and Instagram. Until our film

670
00:51:01.599 --> 00:51:06.679
real will start rolling again. Go
wat watch something new, watch something different,

671
00:51:06.880 --> 00:51:09.800
and who knews what you would discover
next? Thanks everyone, Thanks see

672
00:51:09.880 --> 00:51:21.280
let's said caught caught, cat caught? Was that a Dumont reference? God

673
00:51:21.320 --> 00:51:22.239
bless you, David Berthe