fear and loathing in Mirkwood

Collin has a Polo. Brandon is pumpkin chunkin. Howard Shore redeems.

• Business card apps all suck

• Bloat charges!!

• Email signatures are terrible

• Science sidequest time!!

• Brandon picked all the pumpkins

• Chucking all the pumpkins

• Hobbit Movies…you know…

• Fear and loathing in Mirkwood

• Dangit Howard Shore…The Lord of the Rings - How Howard Shore Makes Us Care

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A VERY ROUGH TRANSCRIPT OF THE EPISODE

PROVIDED BY OTTER.AI

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

movie, part, good, weird, people, talk, feel, bad, work, bilbo, pumpkin, dwarves, interesting, told, love, smog, email signature, bit, writing, gandalf

SPEAKERS

Brandon, Collin

Collin  00:04

Welcome to Oh, a brother, a podcast of three brothers trying to figure it all out through hosts, Brandon, Cullen and Aaron, on this week's show, Fear and Loathing in Mirkwood. Boy, oh, boy. All right, I was I was talking, but I was also unmute, which is not is not the preferred way to record as I

Brandon  00:34

discovered a couple weeks ago, right and it doesn't really work out the best.

Collin  00:41

Oh my goodness, yeah, I

Brandon  00:42

was muted

Collin  00:44

because the dryer still going like, hey, dryer is not going and I didn't even have to touch it. So apparently, seven minutes is its maximum runtime, as we as we have learned,

Brandon  00:55

so you'd have to like whack the button and like unstick it right. Like, I think just

Collin  01:02

the mere threat of me getting up.

Brandon  01:06

Going scared it right and deploys enough

Collin  01:10

to silence silence at dad.

Brandon  01:16

Yes, yes. No, it is. It is done.

Collin  01:23

Yeah, so I am I am in the business card realm now and I have prepared one like one good reason. Well, not one good reason. But

Brandon  01:34

you're tired of people asking you why you don't have business cards. Yes. And then we have

Collin  01:41

Well, I do have a business card, but technically it's a magnet. And they look at me like I have I come a hydrostatic they're gonna. Like they're like it's a magnet. And like, Yeah, cuz it's not for you. Right? I don't want you to have this actually. So I went down this, this long road of, well, I know what I'll do. Oh, go paperless with these and what I'll actually do is I will just be make a digital card and I'll share it from my phone. That's what I'll do right now. But if you type in, so this is what I did. I typed in best paperless business card options. You get some really random sites that come up. Many of the sites are also blogs written by the paperless business card companies, which are always fun for like, look at Lance I am item an unbiased opinion on my

Brandon  02:42

cell paperless Business Card Services, coincidently

Collin  02:48

Yes, yeah. But then you get stuck up and it's like, okay, tech companies are terrible at naming things. They just can't name something. Something that makes sense.

Brandon  02:59

Like a really bad they don't really take a lesson from scientists. Scientists got it. Like, what do you call that blue bird over there? Why?

Collin  03:08

It's a bluebird, a blue Boomer and actually, yeah, I love this. So I'm going to read to you I don't know that the top as far as I can, oh, no, US ascertain the top five. And I want you to just know, these companies. Only the only thing that these companies do are make cards that you that you download an app to your phone, you add a photo some information, blah, blah, blah, and then you it generates a QR code so people can scan it, right. That's all these companies do. Here are top five number one poeple. poeple P O, P L. What's possible? That's okay. Number two, blink. D L I N q. Link now not check you. Oh, no. Then this I love this one. Number three.

Brandon  04:09

Beacon stack. One EBEACONST

Collin  04:13

A C. Belkin. statt. Oh, ye Oh, it's even better. Number four is vice. I don't know it's V than the number one. C E and it's all caps. V the number one see? Oh, no. Just one more here. Mo below. M OB i l Oh.

Brandon  04:42

That one might be the worst one of all. That's quite horrid. Oh,

Collin  04:48

I'm sorry. I gotta go. If we had blink. Now we just have link li in

04:51

oh, oh. Oh, man. Oh,

Collin  04:58

I'm sorry. None of these names me makes sense? Why is number seven? Why is it called a haystack? haystack? It's not the name.

05:05

God.

Brandon  05:07

I don't know, there's a lot of companies around town that are like that. I assume there's some sort of like, tech thing, because when I look at the sign, I have no indication at all of what they actually do. Right? And I feel like, This is bad. Okay. When you look at assign, you need to clearly be able to understand what your company does. Okay? And not with like, sub text. Right? Not with like, the name and then like, corporate logistics solutions, okay. Those are not actual that's not an actual sentence. Those are just buzzwords in a row. Okay, that doesn't tell me anything. Yes, right. Like, what? What is it? So I don't I don't know why you would have like a name that doesn't tell what you do? Yes. Because how will people know that they need you? Yeah, if you don't tell them what you do.

Collin  06:12

It's so hard to track down. Like, what's it? What's it when I see something that is just complete nonsense. My first thought is, this is not legitimate. Okay, this is just somebody who randomly banged on the keyboard for 13 seconds, came up with this and sent out this malware for me to download, it's going to stuck suck up and steal all of mine and your data. So

Brandon  06:35

that's true. Like he told me it was probably focus group. Yes. By whom? Terrible people there. Yeah,

Collin  06:45

right. Didn't ask us. That's the path. Right? See,

Brandon  06:48

this is? So I ended up downloading like, four of these.

Collin  06:56

Okay, well, because I wanted to know, like, what, what, what are you? What are you? What is this? Why? Why are you the way you are, and all of them are basically the exact same some of them. Like, I'm only going for free accounts, I'm not paying, I'm not giving these people money, like I'm not at all. So all of the basic features are the same. It's like, here's a little thing, it's your name, a photo, you some of them, you can include a website, some it's just a phone number, or an email or a logo or these things. And then they get more, some of them do get more complicated because because marketing people ruin everything. Now what happens is you can suck up the data. So if someone scans your phone, okay, you can have that suck up their data into your CRM, your customer relation, whatever, whatever it is, and like, track your QR code use so that if someone then shares your QR code, you can continue to track like that it was shared across multiple things.

Brandon  08:04

Is that important? I don't know. I don't know. I don't think like that doesn't sound useful to me. Like why would you? Why would you need to track that? Like,

Collin  08:18

I think some some people want to know, like, how, I guess for vanity sake, this the only thing that I can really think about is somebody who was like, Look, my QR code total totes got shared, like 30 times yesterday. Whoa, brah. That's crazy. Like, it doesn't mean any well, except if you're like, a contact kind of person. And your your, your goal is like I need to I need to have 100 points this week, and bla bla bla bla bla, but

Brandon  08:47

like, only in sheer exposure volume that only a small percent of that exposure is going to actually translate to actual like customer. Well, like, that doesn't, that there's not like a one to one correlation from like, view or share to customer. Right? Like, That's not. That's not how this works. Okay, this is right. Binary, weird. But if you're like, No, you're fine. I say I think this is one of those things that I felt this is like a bloat charge. Right? Ah, you know how we moan about cars, like, they have all these features that you don't actually want. But like, those are the base model features. Now. A base price of the cars like way higher than it probably needs to be because it has things that you don't actually need, but Right. They just stick them on their TV, like look at us. Look what we can do, right? I feel like this is a bloat charge. We like look at this. And you're like, This doesn't really seem very useful. But they're going to charge you for

Collin  09:53

Yeah, it's the it's the people and I know what people I know what people try and do with that right what they though is I'm going to give you as much value as possible.

Brandon  10:02

But if people, if you

Collin  10:06

don't need those features, it's a complete waste. And what ends up happening is someone like me goes, Oh, well, I would kind of like to change the colors on my card. So it would match my company colors, well, then immediately you're in the $3 a month range. And that's now you can do like, ooh, now, because that's the other thing is like, I wanted to get a business card just on my phone, where people scan a QR code, whatever, okay? Then you start seeing, seeing things we're like, well, we're a business card company that makes digital business. Also, we can make you a cool virtual background

Brandon  10:45

resume. And I'm like, How is? Where did that come from?

Collin  10:50

Like, do you need help with your email signatures? Because we can make them totally rad. And again, I'm going just, I just wanted a free business card, like what do you do

Brandon  11:00

about email signatures, I as a person that works in the school, right? The email signature for me is like, I don't even have one, I just type my name. Because I only ever use it for like, inter Office Communication, you know, like what it was made for. But like, are people just like, I like work, all people ever do is they put educator signatures, it's always like, your name, your position. And then quite often, some really dumb quote about education. Just like on the bottom, people show people fired, shots fired. They're really bad. They're some of them are really laid out. Right. So it's like, name, job title, or titles, you know, depending on who it is, and then then times just some really

Collin  11:54

cheesy quote.

Brandon  11:57

You know, like, just for what, why is that there? I don't need to know that. If you're just sending an email reminding me that. Kids are going to be late to class tomorrow. I don't need that.

Collin  12:12

Getting intense,

Brandon  12:13

here. Yeah. All right. So I was silly. I think it's silly.

Collin  12:19

Same thing whenever I was with, in, in universities and stuff, like it's really bad there. Where you get the people who, you you will know, everything about this person, all of the positions that they hold everything about their research in there, and it's it's real bad,

Brandon  12:45

their signatures longer than the email, they say,

Collin  12:48

the way it is, is so many of these it was was it was very, very bad. And you would, you'd look at it, and they'd be like, okay, and then there's like, seven lines below it. When I worked for the Department of Conservation, they actually, part of part of my onboarding, was making my email signature. Nice. I actually had to sit down with my boss, and walk through my email signature and what I was going to include in it crops, and why it was important that I do these things.

Brandon  13:23

I've been joking for years that I'm going to make one. And it's just going to have my name. And it's going to say like, sage and scholar. So that's all I want to say. Yes, I don't think anybody will find that funny. Like, three of my friends at work will think that's funny. Everyone else would be like,

Collin  13:45

What is this? Yeah,

Brandon  13:47

this person not taking the email signature line seriously.

Collin  13:51

Even better, what's going to happen is they're going to print it out. And then you're gonna have just sit and talk to your boss, and he's gonna hold up a printout of your email signature. And you're

Brandon  13:59

like, Yeah, I am both of those things. Yep. What do you like?

Collin  14:09

This, this gets to another conundrum that I'm having is that all of these have a mandated title field. So they do ask, like, what's your title with this company? And

Brandon  14:24

you're you're technically president. Yeah.

Collin  14:29

Well, so on if you go to if you go, if you go to the website, what we did, what we did is we, at first, we tried to come up with some like funny names, but like really punny, like that were like pet related or what we did, but those are so they get so dated, and they're just not funny. And whatever. So like, like Megan, she's Our she's our operations manager, right? She does all of the backend work scheduling route planning all that stuff. I my title is the the managing director of like, I don't know what that means, right? But and buzzword and Kobe is our general manager. Yes. Perfect. That's important. I need to make him a business card.

Brandon  15:22

That would be anyway. Pretty Excellent. Give people your dog's business. Oh no, but here's my general manager here

15:48

so,

Collin  15:49

so I did, I did go to chat GPT. And I did ask I asked, I said, I'm the co co owner of the dog walking and pet sitting company. What are some interesting titles I could use other than things like CEO coo odor? Yeah. Other than co owner right. So that's typically what I've been calling myself when people ask them like co owner and director right. And here's what chat GPT throughout. Okay, the first one is the worst of it to just go ahead and say that it is Chief. Very officer

Brandon  16:21

CFO. Okay. Yeah, no, thanks.

Collin  16:24

The second one I actually liked was lead leash holder. Okay, I kind of like that. Then we get into things like supreme fetch executive.

Brandon  16:34

Pretentious that word sweet cream is?

Collin  16:37

Belly rubs specialist. And then we get to some really bad ones called Master of woofs. Chief Chief sniffing inspector.

16:46

No. Oh.

Collin  16:50

Then I these were all I was

Brandon  16:51

gonna say like lead ear scratcher. Yeah, like, you know, the shaker, you know?

16:57

So

Collin  16:58

but but let's think of this. We are a pet care company. So I don't want it to be to like dog or cat and have the the other people not be bird enthusiasts. So just for fun you? Well, so on sidenote to that, if you are in the bird world, or the reptile world, you only stay within that world trying to get into that market is nigh impossible because they have this a very, very tight clique of people. They all go to the same shows, they all know the same people, they all know each other. So they just go within their circle. So But anyway, I said, Can you make some more than I asked? Could you make some more generic ones that would just work for pets in general? And it said absolutely. Here are more generic yet interesting titles that would work for a pet care company dealing with a variety of pets. The one that I really liked was the was pet care pioneer. It was like ah, oh, ah, but then you get into the pet care wizard. I think I think that's the one I'm going to use. But then it's other weird ones like gentle guardian for Play. Play. I this I do not like this one. This is almost as bad as the chief ferry officer ready? This is called playtime. Prodigy.

Brandon  18:25

That's weird. Confusing. No, I'm

Collin  18:27

not. Yeah, I'm like, No, I'm not. I'm not. Oh, the I could I could be my title could be a fluffed fanatic. Yeah.

Brandon  18:34

No. Are you fair? Like, I think if you're a sheep herder. Yeah, that could be good. All right.

Collin  18:43

That's good point. I could be a furry family facilitator.

Brandon  18:49

That's, that's no, let's see much later. So all

Collin  18:55

of these were a bust except I liked the pet care pioneer. So for now, for now, my car just says co owner and director. Although I am thinking about just saying pet sitter and dog walker. I think that's I think ultimately, that's what I do. Like,

Brandon  19:08

that's probably Yeah, I think that's what I mean. I'll walk your cat to but you know, most of them don't want to so.

Collin  19:15

Although, well, we did just get a request to walk our very first cat. Like a bagel. Or like sausage. You know? Like it's not like a savannah cat either. Oh, yeah. So that's the other one. Right? But it's just, it's just a house tabby. Just

Brandon  19:38

I feel like no. Okay, I feel like your business card actually just needs to be a picture of you pulling a goldfish in a wagon, like down the sidewalk. The Seussian whimsy of that, right? It screams fun. And but also we to all pets at the same time, right? Hey, that was

Collin  19:59

okay, so Yeah, I need to figure out how to go over to mid journey and goldfish for No, I'm just going to have aI generate a giant goldfish in baby heart.

Brandon  20:14

But in the bowl, it's real creepy if it's just like flopping around. Okay, fair, right. That's that sends the wrong message. That's okay. Like, fish market. Sure.

Collin  20:25

That's fair. That's fair. I will. I'll see what I can do here. Okay.

Brandon  20:29

Yeah, whimsically pulling a goldfish in like a red wagon. Oh, yeah. Okay,

Collin  20:38

well, man, I've got homework. I gotta take some notes here. Let's do this.

Brandon  20:43

With a hurt on your shoulder, like, oh, here we go. This is

Collin  20:48

me being mauled by all the animals. That's what

Brandon  20:52

it just got you over the old like the doctor do little. Yes. You just instead like, yes, but you in there. Okay.

Collin  21:01

Well, these are these are fantastic. fantastical ideas.

Brandon  21:05

Was that was that was that all creatures great and small was like a vet or something? Right? Ah, yeah, that's right. I just like to get in there.

Collin  21:16

I'll see. And I've got a lot of work to do. So yeah, this is all because I'll because we joined the Chamber of Commerce. And now I've feel like we have to go do these things. So whatever. They tell you, I told you, we were going to join the chamber to tell you about this decision that we

21:37

made. I think

Brandon  21:39

you didn't tell me that you actually did it. Okay. I think there might have been a mention of rumbling.

21:45

If not, yes,

Collin  21:46

yes, there was a rumble in in the tumbling. And we decided that we were trying to figure out a way to kind of like, how do we grow? Or how do we position ourselves, like, continue to differentiate ourselves from other people in other ways. And this is one of the weird parts of trying to be a non traditional business in a traditional business world. Because now like, we do have to fit a mold at some point, we can't just always be off, we know galavanting in the fields, not paying attention, right? Like, we can't do that all the time. So going, Okay, what what is like, what are some business see things that we that we should probably do? And obviously, business cards is one of them. But I'm refusing to do that still. So I'm making a digital one. And it's going terribly. So the Chamber of Commerce was was a step and trying to build a bathroom? Why? Oh, gosh, I went to the oh my gosh, okay, so I went to the, like baking most of your membership, welcome. And

23:06

they, they did this,

Collin  23:09

this thing, where kinda everybody in the room, it was for new businesses, or if, as a business, you can like pay for a membership for one of your employees to become a member to I don't really understand how it works. But it was like, here's learn everything about the chamber, the chamber, the chamber. And because there's so much going on, and they only had an hour for this, I understand why they did it this way. But I don't understand why they did it this way. So what they did was, they had a guy come out, and I could tell that he's like, he does facilitations or like, people, businesses pay for him to come up and do facilitation discussions and events at their corporate headquarters, which immediately made me dislike him very much, because he just had that air of like, he gets flown in to be like, hey, everybody break up into groups of like, I don't know, like, between three and eight, right? And I'm gonna hand out some cards here in a second. While you're doing that, I got a question for you, I just want you to shoot you to ponder and marinate on this, while you're writing this down. Okay, I we're gonna come back because we're gonna circle back to this here in a minute. So don't let this go. But really, this moments really powerful right now, because you're here, and you have a great opportunity ahead of you, but only only if you decide to make the most of it. So my question for you and get your be writing some stuff down, meet people. But my question for you is, what's one thing you need to get access to or an answer to, before you leave this room to make sure that your investment in the chamber was worth it?

24:52

How will you know?

Collin  24:53

Who do you need to talk to? What do you need to get connected to what event do you need to know about? Write that down and then we're going to Go back here in a minute. And I was like,

Brandon  25:03

Oh, my God. Like, my question is, of course, if you've just joined, how do you know? What you need to know? Right? It's your job to tell me. Yeah. Right, if like I knew, and I just like, I don't know, moved in, like, expanded operations to this town. I mean, what events? Do I need to know about? What do you even do? Like, I don't even this, tell me what the Jaber actually does? And then I'll tell you,

Collin  25:40

Yes, this is the crux of the matter. It assumes that somebody already knows all possibilities and needs more information about one of them. If however, you're like me and did zero homework and just showed up, because what I was expecting was, well, how many

Brandon  25:58

introductory meeting? Why would you do homework,

Collin  26:02

that's what I was expecting, as I think one would rightly so if like maximizing your membership getting to, you know, it was like for new members to get to know how to eat, I was expecting them to go at the Chamber, we have a lot of opportunities for you to get plugged in and involved. And there's a lot of information out there, what we want to do today is walk you through where to find that information, some of our popular things and our suggestion for you to get involved in various opportunities, but instead be much more useful, right? Because but what they don't, because what they don't want to do, they don't want to do that, because then it's quite a bit boring. And

26:38

they're people just being talked at. So we went

Collin  26:42

around, and they're like, right, one thing that you need No dude, and, and we then at our table, discussed everything, and then like, ranked them for like, whatever. And then around the table. And then he wrote them on the board as each table went through. And it was basically like, if you already have yours up here, just go to the next thing on your list. And then by the end of the table, people are like, you know, by last table, people like move or things are probably on there and don't really have a whole lot to say, but let me tell you about a comment that I have. Because I was thinking like, Oh my gosh. And I know so what, what ended up happening was people were just like, you know, they had very specific questions for them. Like as a nonprofit, I would like to know what kind of events I could get connected with to get look, and then someone else. So you only paid attention when you're one thing was talked about. And then it all disappeared. Because when someone's talking to you, and you don't have the full outline, you don't know what's coming up next. So all the information is kind of important. But when you just show up and kind of requires you to be a bit selfish, and only be engaged when your one thing is talking about and then literally nothing else is important to you. So what they did is they put everything on the big paper, and then they had representatives from the chamber come up and talk about them individually. And basically it was like, well, if nobody wants to know about how to register for an event, we don't have to have that person talk about how to register for events. So we can talk about some other stuff and just kind of work through everything as it comes up.

Brandon  28:19

And means that that

Collin  28:25

the breadth of topics discussed was very, very narrow. And we end up you end up walking up going well, did I learn 30% of what the chamber offers? I learned 80% What the chamber offers what I learned like 5%? Because I have no idea. I don't I still don't know everything entails. So I still don't feel prepared for what is going on. Yeah, that's this is. Yeah,

Brandon  28:57

that's bad. That's educational strategies gone wrong. And that's what that is, right. That's how that works. What you're supposed to do, right, what you're supposed to do is that fill in the gaps afterwards, right? That's what you're supposed to do.

Collin  29:12

Right? You're supposed to do that afterwards. You're supposed to do a long breadth of cover a lot of topics. I try and cover it all in a short amount of time. And then go if you have specific questions about something, talk to me afterwards or send an email or here's the person you need to talk to and blah, blah, blah, blah,

Brandon  29:27

blah. Or say things like, Okay, that's all really good. Here are some other things that we didn't have a chance to talk about. Boom, boom, boom, boom. If you would, like follow up on any of these things. Yeah, here are the people to email, right, something like that, right? You can just be like, right by like, Wait, hold because then what always happens is somebody like hijacks a conversation and it's like, you spent an inordinate amount of time talking about like one singular thing. And then there's a whole bunch of other stuff that just like doesn't get talked about. And like, Oh, but I needed

Collin  30:07

that. Like, yes.

Brandon  30:13

This happened with our, our grading our new software thing, like our student information system. That's what it's called. There you go. It's all right. Like we had to get a new one, because the old one, like, they stopped supporting it. They're like, Yeah, we don't want to do this anymore. So they sold it off, and somebody bought it. And then, so we had a thing if it doesn't work, by the way, still in the third week of school, I can't Oh, no, it sounds cool. Like that. Yeah, I never the next person to tell me the word seamless integration. I'm just gonna, like, throw it punch them because it sounds like a lie. Like it doesn't exist. But we had a, we had this whole thing like this training. And this dude was just like Yammer and on and on and on and on about, like, all this stuff. And I was like, I looked at my, one of my teacher friends. I was like, No, where did this person mentioned how to input grades? In the gradebook? Hmm, that's an information I need. Right? They just went on about like, you could make seating charts is like, yeah, I have paper. I don't care. Like you can do this. Like, also don't care, blah, blah, blah. Like all they're like, really extraneous features and all that stuff. Like, but grades though? Like, where's that? Yeah, the thing I actually need, right? It just like goes on and on about this thing. Because they like want to show you all the cool. They were talking about, like the flashy features or like, here's the exciting stuff. Like, I need the I need the like, skeletal system, right first, before you pack on all this other weird stuff. I need the foundation. Where's that? Tell me about that?

Collin  32:01

Yes, so that's where we had as well because they, they were like, Oh, let me just show you what your directory looks like. And then they kind of went on and they're like, Oh, and here's how you can edit it. And I was like, Oh, interesting. So I raised my hand. And I said, What if we can't edit it? And then they stopped and they looked at me and they went? Well, you'll need to talk to the person whose primary on your account. And I was like,

32:29

He's me. On the primary,

Brandon  32:33

and then Obi Wan meme here? Of course.

Collin  32:36

He's me. And he.

Brandon  32:41

Yep. And,

Collin  32:43

of course, they look at this again, where it's like, well, if we're just going to, like, be like jumping around things that don't really matter. This is something that's actually very important to me, and you're talking about it. So I'll take up some time. Because, you know, turns out that whenever I had set up my account,

Brandon  33:00

which I set up for me as in the business,

Collin  33:06

their system did not make me as primary OS. Which is

33:14

problematic.

Collin  33:15

So yeah, I had to go in and they had to go in and connected and connected on the back end, is what they said. And I was like, what? Cool?

Brandon  33:24

How, like, I set up this account for my business. No, you did it. Just kidding. Like, what do you mean by this is? Which is? Yes, which is fine. Yeah, but that's the word for it. Fun.

Collin  33:54

So yeah, so that's the we did decide, okay, well, we'll do this and but one of the aspects is now like, Okay, now, like, we have to do more than just be a member kind of, in order to make the most of it, we have to go do stuff. Which means going to events and things like that. So when I've have my my, my September is, is filled with businessy things, which is not fun, but I did, we did get because it's when you find this, I don't know if you have this when you're in your life where you're like, you're going to start something, but then you find that all the ancillary things that you actually need to like, kind of do that initial activity. And then you look up being like, oh my gosh, like I have toys for toys, and I have hats on hats, and this is not this is not good. Because we joined the chamber. We, you know, start to think about business cards and we went down that road, and also because we joined the chamber. I can't like I can, but I can't. I don't want to show up with just Have have like our generic petsitter shirts on because those aren't quote unquote professional. Right, it's Vaizey. So now what are we gonna do? What are we gonna do? We're it's business. We gotta get polos.

Brandon  35:15

Yeah, I was gonna say polos because that's what I wear basically every day, right? It's fine.

Collin  35:22

Yes. Okay. So I got to get you know, I had to get the Polo but what how? Like, what is what is it now we got to figure out what polos look like for us and by do all that fun stuff and everything. So

Brandon  35:35

it was oh, we had to get go

Collin  35:38

through all that rigmarole like now like, do we put our full logo on it? We just start name how do these things?

Brandon  35:44

It's always it's you know, that's true. Depends on the cost, right? Like that's how much you put on a polo? What's the embroidery cost for the little shirt frat thing, right? Like, then that's that's the determining factor. Because that gets insanity real quick.

Collin  36:06

So yes, well, and if you're Meghan, she, she goes on. How big of a logo can you put on the back? I went, I'm sorry. What actually goes yeah, when our logo on the back of it. And there was that? I don't think you understand how the photos work. Well, hey, however it is how these have opposed to like, it's going to be embroidered.

Brandon  36:33

So they're only

Collin  36:35

going to be printed. Yeah, it's not they don't screen for these. This is gonna be embroidered. So not only is going to wet is going to like triple the weight of the shirt. But also, it's going to be like black back armor plating.

Brandon  36:46

That's true. Good ninja turtle, right? Like,

Collin  36:50

yeah. To tell her. Tell her.

Brandon  36:53

No, no, no, no. You're thinking of bowling shirts. That's different.

Collin  36:59

Oh my gosh. Business. Why don't we get bowling shirts?

Brandon  37:04

Oh my gosh. See? Bowling shirts. That's what you want logos on the back. It's bowling shirt. Right? That's what it is.

Collin  37:14

You see? Not Polo? Yeah.

Brandon  37:21

You have the like that you could have like, the weird vertical stripes. Right? Or some other graphic dog bones. Or to have like, stripes, but their dog bones. Right? Yes. Got them. Right. Yeah, they always have like, just down the front. Like on each side of the button. There's like big stripe. Right. dogbone big dog bowl somewhere on the back. Right? Bowling shirts are really weird. So I'm just trying to think about like, really?

Collin  37:57

I mean, it definitely works.

38:02

Yeah, if you're gonna do

Collin  38:03

it, you had toy. Right? Yeah. Kind of lean into it. Yeah. All the way. So we, we did we have those? And so I've been able to wear that a couple of times. But yeah, so it's been just kind of a an interesting experience of all the all the little things that come along.

Brandon  38:24

Come along with it, but I will see.

Collin  38:28

See how this see how this goes. So that's that's all of our fun stuff.

Brandon  38:36

It's very exciting. Man. I don't know how you're containing your excitement with I know.

Collin  38:57

The year you're fully enjoying your air conditioning. It's rang. It's 67

Brandon  39:01

three lovely. Yep. Not quite that cold. But the kids are like, Oh my gosh, it's so cold in here is like Yes. Yes, it is. I was like do not speak. They're like they're talking about it. And they were like, it's so cool. Again. My other the other sixth grade classes. There's got fixed also, I think. And so they're like it's so cold everywhere. It's like just wait. It's like the other teacher. They don't even turn our heat on in the winter. They're like, what? Like, yep. So be ready. Bring that hoodie to class because it's not getting better. Yeah, well, that's

Collin  39:51

just a good life hack. They'll make the rest of their life.

Brandon  39:56

Time. Not really because they're still Haven't got them trained quite properly yet so like this was leave there's junk everywhere, right? It's just like all over the place like whose compasses no one knows whose book nobody knows. What is this? No one oh like no one's like I had a jacket. This is just a jacket. If I wrote like a hoodie I don't even know what it was doing. So I hung it outside my door with a post it note and said help I've lost that's kind of my go to strap. I just like hanging up on the wall. I'd say hell if I've lost. Oh man, it's fantastic. Yeah. If I put anywhere else they'll never see it. Like I have a loss of found like table basically like my back table was like put all their stuff there. They come in if you see my outlook on table, I don't know. I don't I don't know who's whose stuff is what just look over there. And they're just like, Oh, you found my thing? Like, yeah, yeah. Because you left it to know the floor. What are you doing? You know, D Come on, get with. Oh, that's crazy.

Collin  41:05

Yes, they're so weird. But

Brandon  41:09

so many things five, first couple weeks of school.

Collin  41:16

Yeah, pretty much how to add

Brandon  41:21

other other weird ancillary junk, like,

Collin  41:24

meetings and stuff. Like, I love it.

Brandon  41:27

Like, today, somebody came to talk to me about this, like, quote unquote, situation, right? And I was like, we discussed this and solve this. Three weeks ago. Why are you? Why are you bringing this up again? And they're like, Oh, well, we just was like, this is already like, why are you making me do this? Again, I was like, I we had a plan. I moved on my life. Right? What are you why? What is happening? That's terrible. So ridiculous. Like, you know, other people like not inside that grade level, right? They're like, Oh, well, I was just wondering about this, like we already discussed like, well, what are you doing with? We discussed this with all relevant parties. already? What are you? What do you want? Like? Like, I don't understand what where is this coming from? What are you doing? Why are you doing this? Like, just frustrating. But, yes, other than that kind of stuff, right? It's always it's always outside interference. It's my problem. Right now kids are too loud all the time. But they're, you know, whatever. Yes, they are. Children. Yes. Their children and they just shout all the time. Yeah, just are shouty again, we're at the age where like, I'm gonna say this phrase. Oh, maybe nobody heard me. I didn't get the reaction I want. What if I say it again? Yes. Yeah. No, no, no. Like, you know, I said something the other day, like, saying something louder. Doesn't mean it's funnier. I just looked at him. Yeah, like, just just for future reference. Just Just remember. Everyone's right. Yeah. We're working on it working on.

Collin  43:39

You know, slowly, slowly. Oh, it's

Brandon  43:41

fine. It's fine. I was just like, What are you doing? Why? Oh, no. Did I did Oh, I did have to go on a bit of a quest. Right. So today, we implemented the first official science side quest, ah, workshops as workshops on this very program. Ladies, gentlemen. History. Look at that. Yes. And the answer is you were part you were part of the creation of this. There you go. Good job. Job, people that I was struggling with trying to think of the first thing to do, right. I was like, I don't know. I don't know what to do. Blah, blah. And then because this is my way, right. Like it's now September. Right. Huh. Heavy show aversary By the way, and we won't Chanda. I was like, oh, it's technically almost fall. And then I remembered that Punkin Chunkin exists. Boom, this is my first project. Right? So okay, okay. We have we are now our project is throw pumpkin right? Now, we're going to do this like I needed a, like a fake pumpkin. Right? So if I'm going to have a project about slinging pumpkins, I need a pumpkin. And because I want to fling a pumpkin more than once, I need a not real pumpkin. Also, because I'm going to do this in that hallway, I think that not real.

45:21

Right? That's important.

Collin  45:22

The scope is getting narrower and narrower.

Brandon  45:26

So we bring that so again, right, it's after, after Labor Day, right? fall decorations plan everywhere. Right? That works. So I went to like every store trying to find a pumpkin that was suitable for my needs. Okay. Okay. This is a much harder endeavor than I anticipated. Right? Oh, no, because a lot of like the decorative pumpkins, they're made of like, foam. So they're really light. And so not good for accelerating through the air. No, no. You're out like, the dollar store like Walmart. Like everybody. Like, just any pumpkin I could find. It was like, picking it up. Like FDA kind of like pausing. It ended like I'm sure I looked insane, right? Like kind of pausing. It kind of be like nah, shaking my head, putting it back into been picking up something else. Like hefting it like

Collin  46:26

the pumpkin man's back.

Brandon  46:33

So the store that I went to, I only found like a cloth one, right? It's like about the size of a baseball. Interesting cloth. It's like, yeah, it's like stuffed. A lot of the other ones that are out there. Like they were like, a foam, like a Styrofoam with like a coating on them. So I figured that's not really good for throwing. No, because you don't have enough heft to get it to go. Right. So there's not enough mass there to really make a good projectile. Yeah. So using my knowledge of throwing things at you, when we were a child, I know that that's not gonna fly, right.

Collin  47:15

I'm glad it would be beneficial. Look, it's the gift that keeps on giving. Yeah.

Brandon  47:25

So like, I found whether like a, it's like a felt stuffed pumpkin. So I want to just because I found that they were taller. So I was like, Yeah, I'm getting there. Here we go. That's awesome. That was, that was a lot harder than I thought it was going to be. Okay. So did you like did you take it? Back? And

Collin  47:52

what so what are you what are you expecting? What kind of materials are they going to have? On hand? Well,

Brandon  47:57

I'm going to go, I told them I'm going to go. Just around, I'm probably gonna go back to Walmart to the craft department or the dollar store to the craft department. And like just pick up some like random stuff. I have some like things already at school, we're gonna have a whole bunch. And so I'm gonna go to sort of scour and just sort of like, get some random materials like Dell rotti things like rubberband string yarn, that kind of stuff. Like, little, you know, just stuff like that. Anything I could find this cheap, basically, kind of make a little stash. And then I told them if you have like, anything you want to bring from home, use that too. Right? If you're like, oh, I have these sticks in my house. Boom. Done. That works.

Collin  48:42

So I told them, like, the

Brandon  48:45

do like the plan is I told them the basically you have to make something to throw the pumpkins. So you can't like do it with your hand or your foot or your like, you can't do it with your body, right? Like kick your ass for some device, some device to throw said pumpkin. And

49:07

you have until like, you need to register at least one attempt by the 29th. That's the last school day of September, I think. Ah, so you have basically

Collin  49:24

until then, to

Brandon  49:27

try this task. Now. I also told them you have unlimited tries.

49:32

So like, if you do it one day, and it like is really not good. And then like three days later, he won't do it again. That's fine. Okay, like, you know, tinker with your plan or whatever.

Brandon  49:47

I also told them, You are my guinea pigs. So we're gonna see how this goes. And we'll change it. We'll make changes if necessary. So just know, just so you know, we're workshopping this on the fly. So like I said, I just told him that very clearly, like, we're sort of making this up as we go. So, as we notice problems, we're gonna work to fix them and make it a better experience for everybody. That's the plan. So, uh huh. It's no, it might not be perfect.

Collin  50:16

Okay, and what was what's the reaction through this? You're talking to them? Like, what are they? So I thought it

Brandon  50:21

was pretty interesting idea. They're like, okay, like they can you can see some wheels turning, they thought was cool. Yeah, of course, there's extraneous. So they're like, Well, what do you get if you when I was like, well, being that you are sixth graders? I don't know exactly. But it will probably be food related. They're like, Okay, deal, then it's good.

Collin  50:41

I accept your terms. Right? Yeah. They're like,

Brandon  50:43

they're like, Okay, I was like, it would probably be snack based. They like, sweet. Alright, let's go. Very straightforward. Very simple plan, right.

Collin  50:58

I mean, you know, if it works, why would you?

Brandon  51:03

Yeah, right. be bothered by it. Right? I may, I may do is just buy like, a box of popcorn. And like, the winners just unspoken up, make it into popcorn and class, like, whatever day they want to have popcorn be like, Okay, here you go, boom, you're done. Eat it. Where do they go? I read it.

Collin  51:22

I think this is a very good idea.

Brandon  51:24

Right? Is that cost effective?

51:28

So we'll see. Yeah, that's the that's the going plan right now. I'm gonna dedicate my one of my whiteboards to sort of just information about the plan.

Collin  51:43

And so, you know, we'll see, I guess, right, we'll see. What's up, although

Brandon  51:49

some of them were planning with a partner today, because his partner base that figure this good partner plan, right?

Collin  51:54

Yes. I think that that's a really good idea. Because it is because it is so unique. Right? I think that that's part of it. Like, it is supposed to be off the wall a little bit and in and outside of, of their comfort zone. So I think it's important to have a little bit of somebody who you can

Brandon  52:14

go back and forth on with that. Yeah, well, and like if they do, like, bring stuff from home to add to their pile of stuff, right? Like, not one person is responsible for doing everything, right. They can be like, Oh, I'll bring this straw if you bring some string, right, like, you know what, I mean, kind of share that too. Yeah, it's just like stuff lying around the house. I told them, like, just fine. Like, nothing. Don't buy things. That's silly. Just like, if you have random stuff be like, Oh, I bet that'll work. And if it doesn't work, take home trust.

52:46

Who cares? Right? Yeah. Doesn't matter. It's not that big of a.

Collin  52:50

I mean, it is a big thing. But it's not that big of a thing. At the end of the day. Yeah,

Brandon  52:53

yeah. Cuz it's just gonna be like, I'm gonna give them points for this. But like, if they do it, they're gonna get points for it. Right? Sure. I'm going to do some more, I have some other ideas for like,

53:06

like more?

Brandon  53:08

Because I'm gonna switch around, like, is it the same all the time? So like, sometimes I think it's gonna be like research based, right? They're gonna have to, like, do something, you know, like, and that can be like an individual. You know, just like when we have free time, just here's the guidelines. Work on this. Whenever it's done, give it to me. And it's Yeah, right? I'll take off the list, right? Like, that way. It's it makes because like, not everybody likes to work with other people. Some people really thrive doing things by themselves. Some people need to, like, have somebody else there to help them. So like, trying to figure out a balance. So it's not all the same thing. Right? I do have a devious idea that I've been kicking around in my head for several years. And I think this is the time to do it. Right. So so I don't know what, right, but I want it to be like a, like a research or like a presentation project. Right? Some kind of presentation project where you have to like, I don't know exactly, but I want to give them it's going to be in partners, but your your partners are not going to be in the same class as you. Oh, okay. Yeah. I would assign the partners right, I would just pick it randomly. But I want to, so that like everybody will be responsible for something. But they won't be like, able to, like really talk to each other in person. They can like us, because we have like one to one devices. Right. And so we have all these tools, so why not use them?

Collin  54:57

Well, yeah, I mean, get start To start doing that collaboration, do it like remotely with that remote clever. Yeah.

Brandon  55:07

Right. And it's gonna be the same thing. Like, you'll have a deadline. And it's going to be like, you know, three weeks or whatever. And you have until then to finish your part. Don't Yes, I, I like this very much. I think I think I'm gonna be cool. I don't know if I want to be like, Okay, everybody in this class is responsible for like this section. I don't know if I want to assign that or be like, these three things have to get done. figure out who's doing what go. Feel like that might be a bit much. I might have to assign tasks, maybe.

Collin  55:40

Yeah, I think I think especially especially for the

55:44

if I was gonna do

Brandon  55:45

this until like, later in the year. Yeah, that's gonna be that's like a springtime one. Right, like,

Collin  55:50

very much. So I think I think that would be be neat to do that. And I think you would need to assign that, especially if it's the first time you know. Yeah, I mean, later, if you decide to do like two of these maybe the second round, you could, yeah, have

Brandon  56:07

them. Pick it up. Yeah, but it might be good just to be like, Okay, do this and then go but, or just like, randomly assign them one that could be better, just like spin a little wheel? Like, okay, you are doing this? Like, but just assign them the piece. So that'd be something that has like, three distinct sections, because I have three different groups. That's why it's three. Right? So like,

56:33

but I think that'd be

Brandon  56:34

fun. I've been thinking about that for a long time. And I have to had no place to put it. For lack of better term, right? I told him this too. I was like, I have several ideas about like projects or things that we could do. But I don't have a good place to put. It doesn't like fit at all. Right? So if we make it just like, the extra thing, then it doesn't really matter. If you just feel like, Yeah,

57:06

stick it somewhere.

Collin  57:07

Well, again, low stakes, right? Everybody knows, okay, okay, this might be a little weird at first, but we're gonna be okay. Like, we're all gonna survive.

Brandon  57:16

It's all good. Yeah, it was like trying it out. See how it goes?

Collin  57:23

You know? That's is, is the problem with my

Brandon  57:29

methodology, right? Like, a lot of times, I will. Like, I don't know what whenever we have meetings about this, like, everybody's like, Oh, you have to, like, plan everything meticulously, before you start. And I'm like, Nah, we're just gonna, we're just gonna do it. And then we're gonna see what happens. And then we're gonna fix it for next time.

Collin  57:52

Well, especially,

Brandon  57:54

but like, I tell the kids that go again, like, I'm honest with them, like, Listen, this might not work.

Collin  58:00

We're gonna try it to see like, I don't know, either move as well. So we're gonna. And I think that that's, that's what's important is that you're involving the, the students with it, too. Because they, they get to be part of that science process of trial and error. And, and it becomes much more than it takes the takes the project, and it makes it so much more than the project that

Brandon  58:34

we're doing other things to think yes.

Collin  58:46

Well, that's cool. Well, I can't wait to hear see. Picking all the pumpkins chucking all the pumpkins?

Brandon  58:54

Yes, I started to get a refund. So yeah, I don't know what else we're gonna do later. But, you know, whatever mood strikes me for next project, one will, I guess, will be in November, if I do it this way. So kind of think of something and see where we are to in science, because it could be, it'd be rock related. So I could do something rock related, which is good. rock throwing. Oh, no, no, no. No.

Collin  59:26

Rocks. Now, fine, whatever. Yes. Yeah. Well, I mean, you know, some things that have also been described as that's not good.

Brandon  59:44

Well, I was talking about, you know, who throws good rocks.

59:47

Ah,

Collin  59:48

see, that was probably a much more unbiased opinion.

Brandon  59:52

It's true. It is. It's a much more nice opinion. And it's much more true story because we know the hobbits throw rocks, right? I don't really know. The source of this, but like in every Lord of the Rings, video game and our movie, hobbits are really good at throwing rocks people. Just like I didn't encounter this in the Summerlin anywhere but you know, maybe maybe somebody more learned than I did tell me the source

1:00:20

of this information. Well didn't

Brandon  1:00:24

give us just a lot of the rings because they throw rocks people are there but anyway, listeners, it was time for The Hobbit movie retrospective than denena trilogy, I guess. Now already columns angry. Because it's well documented that Colin and I have very different opinions on this particular topic. I'm in the camp of like, it's done so bad. And Colin is in vehement hatred, I think is that word? I think that's really? Yes.

Collin  1:01:04

I mean, so.

1:01:09

It's, it's hard.

Collin  1:01:14

Because I don't know, I don't know where you want to start with this. Or worry. We'll

Brandon  1:01:17

start with this really? Well, I don't really know either. Guess what to start at the beginning? Yeah. In the hole in the ground. So I Okay, so the Yeah, I don't really know where the best place to start either. I guess we just start with your, we'll start with your thoughts. And then we'll go from there. I'll provide some good, I do have some negative thoughts. Right about like, there are definitely some problems and some interesting choices that were made. We'll start here. We'll start here. The first problem I have. Okay.

Collin  1:01:57

This is a big one. So

Brandon  1:02:00

I realized I'm pretty sure the release of these movies was handled by different production companies, right? Because New Line Cinema did Lord of the Rings, okay. And I believe the hobbit it was like MGM and like, Warner Brothers, because they bought at weird things. Studio buying something. However, a big problem I have on the theatrical Extended Edition DVD releases, which I own. Okay. It's well known that the order the colors of the discs, bother me, okay, The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings. It's like, it's like what it's like, green. For the first one, and then red, and then blue. And the Hobbit, it's red, and then green and then blue. It's totally, it just looks bad on my shelf. Okay, that's all I'm saying. I really,

Collin  1:02:57

they really did. Like got valid rock. Ah,

Brandon  1:03:04

that's bizarre. It's really bizarre. And I'm like, what, what is this? Why? On My Shelf, it looks odd. Because of this design choice. I say, I'm not a fan of that choice, in particular.

Collin  1:03:26

Because this was who hold on. I was trying to remember. Oh, yeah. Guillermo del del Toro was was was a part of the production of this right, didn't he? I don't remember. Yeah, he because Peter Peter Jackson did was not involved in these. That's something Yes, he

Brandon  1:03:50

was. Yes, it was. Yes. Yes, he was. It was a different studio, though. I think is the problem. Okay,

Collin  1:04:03

well, I guess I Yeah, were they both involved? Because I I know that Del Toro had a different it did have a different vision for these for each of these movies, and I will go I will go ahead and just say right now that the decision the the I don't know, whose decision it was to make these into a trilogy

1:04:27

and

Brandon  1:04:28

that's the studio I know that that was in the studio because I think Peter wants to do too.

Collin  1:04:34

Ah, so what happened was is del Toro was originally set for all to do all of them, but he was let go because of disagreeing disagreeing on what to do and then Jackson stepped in.

Brandon  1:04:48

I can't imagine a gear more Del Toro.

1:04:53

Yes. Yes. So now

Collin  1:05:00

I feel I feel, I wish that

1:05:05

that this had not been

Collin  1:05:06

a trilogy. And I know what they're trying to do is keep it in the same vein as Ooh, there was a Lord of the Rings trilogy. So let's make a Hobbit trilogy. And dear listeners, if you go back and you listen to our previous episodes where we walk through the book, you may be thinking to yourself, self, I don't think there's a whole lot that you could put into this to seems pretty brief. And a has some deep moments has some other naughty moments, a lot to put into a trilogy.

Brandon  1:05:36

Right? What they did was they put all those times where like some time passed, they just put all that time in the movie. Whatever the bill has just stayed around for like three days in a row. Not doing anything is added. Yes.

Collin  1:05:52

Yes. It's well, he did.

Brandon  1:05:54

Yeah. So there are some I did go appendix diving. Yeah. So I found I read through some of the Unfinished Tales, and the appendix three of Lord of the Rings, where some of the stuff from the movie came from. Right. Okay, so we I know that some of that stuff is there. And it's round. And like they kind of added it in again, the timeline is slightly off, because like, in token universe, nothing happens quickly. Everything happens like over 12 years, right? or longer. So but those events that are relevant, they did put in there. So like the whole thrain, finding thrane And they'll go to or whatever the wandering that that is in there someplace, right? The stuff about the Battle of Moria is in there, right? That's all in there in the appendix. So some of that stuff they reference and talk about and put in there is material that is exists, but like out sort of outside the Hobbit, but you know, it's in there. So like, some of it is told, like canonically, like it's told to Frodo after the Battle of after when, like, after Lord of the Rings is over. And they're at the crowning of Aragorn, spoilers for Lord of the Rings. Wow, like Gimli. And Frodo and like Merry and Pippin, and Gandalf are all hanging out. And they asked Gandalf about the whole Lonely Mountain thing. And Gandalf tells him parts about what happened. So like that, that's where some of the information is not in the book comes from like, where did Gandalf go anyway? Okay, enough tells him that, yeah, tell them some other stuff. So like, that's there. There's some stuff in the appendix. That's really good. about like, what Jordan was doing, like when Gandalf meets story, and before, you know, and all that, like they talk about the plan to go meet, meet Bilbo and all that stuff. Like, that's all in there. So, there is some other background information that exists to say that.

Collin  1:08:17

Yeah, but yeah. Hello. And I know, yeah, a lot of the these, these movies were very intensively like, labored over in the very beginning with, I was reading some stuff about some of the production of the early days, they were writing for 12 or plus hours a day to create these things. And how when Del Toro left, they were saying that it would have been, it was kind of a loss, and people thought it would have had much more of a fantasy element to it. And as opposed to some of the visuals that

1:08:54

that oh,

Collin  1:08:58

my gosh, my brain. Jackson. Lee. Yeah. So Jax is that Jackson was bringing into it. And so and I think that's, you know, yeah, I can't really I can't really imagine what a Del Toro version of this would look like. Yeah.

Brandon  1:09:13

All right. It also I guess the other elephant in the room is the the film medium that Jackson shot it in? Right it's like a weird camera speed. Right. I don't remember off the top my head when it was shot and like a very high camera speed. And it's also shot for like, it was released. Don't forget it was released in like, IMAX 3d. Yes. Yes. I was just about to say huge format. Right. So when you watch it back on like a normal TV, it looks kind of weird. Sometimes like it's a very different aesthetic than like Lord of the Rings. But part of that is the high frame rate and the large format that he released in and as somebody who saw all three movies in IMAX 3d. It was kind of RAD. All right, I'm not gonna lie. Right is regal. Yeah.

Collin  1:10:08

Yeah. No, that was uh, but I mean, because this When did okay. When did these movies come out? Officially? When did they? Was it 2010?

Brandon  1:10:18

Somewhere around there?

Collin  1:10:22

Did they come out? Gosh, yeah. Because at the end

Brandon  1:10:24

of the day, and then I forgot. Yeah,

Collin  1:10:25

I've completely, completely no idea. Oh, yeah. 2012 was the first movie. Yeah. 2013 2014 14 Yeah, this was still in that era where 3d movies were trying to make another comeback. Right. Like, this is where,

Brandon  1:10:41

like, they weren't a lot. There was a lot of them came out. Yes. Yes. And

Collin  1:10:46

I understand why the decision was made. I just feel like it was not

Brandon  1:10:52

appropriate. Because it doesn't, you know, it doesn't hold the same timelessness value. Right. So like, again, if you watch Lord of the Rings, and if you watch other contemporary movies like Harry Potter, right, well, one of those movies looks really good today. 2023. And the other one is Harry Potter. Right? And it's like, it looks dated. It looks kind of like wonky. And so yes, there was a lot of talk about, like, his decision to move away from, like, live action makeup. And there's a lot more CG in this movie in live stuff. And I don't know if that's due to like budgets and stuff and a wet but like studio pressure and to use all the fanciness but you know, for various reasons, things that like walked out. And so it does have a bit of a visual visual, like, weirdness to it. But

Collin  1:11:49

so there is that right.

Brandon  1:11:52

And then there's a couple other additions that are odd. Right, and we'll talk about those here. Just a minute but like, just to start at the beginning, right, like the opening of the movie. Pretty Excellent. Right? Like the opening of the first movie The Hobbit The unexpected journey. Yes. It's really good. Right? We get a lot of the book right we stay pretty close. We're doing a lot of stuff with the party and all the doors showing up and, and all this right. We do have, you know, Thor and a bit more emo in the movie then, like, in the best, right? Like,

Collin  1:12:28

lately, much more broody Emo, like, yes. Already from the very beginning. Now, he's not the most cheerful fellow in the book, but like, this is this is definitely like, an immediate darker tone like this is this is an angsty, like, Emo like, that kind of

Brandon  1:12:45

kind of person. Okay, now, now that you did say that, though, if I can find this page, right. I would like to show where I believe some of this character design came from. Right. So if we I believe it was here, bookmark. Bookmark. Yeah. All right. So if I'm going to read you this just small excerpt from Appendix A, from The Return of the King, right. Okay. This is sort of Thorens minds. This is before

1:13:24

he decided before

Brandon  1:13:25

he meets up with Gandalf and they decided to go on this quest for the Lonely Mountain, right. It says, The years lengthened the embers in the heart of Thoreau, Thor and grew hot again. And he brooded on the wrongs of his house in the vengeance upon the dragon that he had inherited. He thought of weapons and armies and alliances, and as his great hammer rang and his forge, but the armies were dispersed, and the Alliance is broken. And the axes of his people were few in the great anger without hope burned at him as he smoked the

1:14:01

red iron on the anvil. Okay,

Collin  1:14:07

this is a birdie guy. Yeah. Yeah.

Brandon  1:14:10

Right. So some of that is race to character development comes directly, I believe, for that exact period. That's,

Collin  1:14:18

you know, when you Okay, when you put it like that kind of

1:14:25

right. So that's a

Brandon  1:14:26

weird. So, like, I think aesthetically, the first release, it starts out pretty strong, right? We do good. We do all this stuff. The troll thing is pretty funny. You know, they kind of play into the humor, right? Where it's kind of like, they're in peril, but like, like we talked about in the book, like they're in peril, but like just a little bit of peril, right. It's a wee bit of peril, you know, the problem. There is an ASIC problem in this book in the movie. So, so the first the first major like Lower problem that we have is the as OG problem, because he's dead. Yeah, right. He's He's a wee bit dead. Because at the Battle of Moria, right? Where as OG kills the roar deign iron foot actually kills as OG. Hmm. Um, and so. So yes. The reason he's included I don't know why he's in the movie. Right? And I feel like the he has not good character motivation. Right? His character motivation in the movie is, well, I killed your grandpa. And I almost killed your dad. So I feel like, I need to kill you.

Collin  1:15:55

Yep, sounds good.

Brandon  1:15:58

Right. And so that's a weird, that's not a very strong motivation. Right? I feel like a choice that would have made more sense, right? If you've replaced the Azov character with a dog who is as ox, like, son, whatever. Then the motivation becomes now I want. Like it's a revenge cycle. Right? My dad killed your dad. Your cousin killed my dad right now I want to kill you. Right that this is like revenge motivation makes a lot more sense. You know? And then you could have had just if you have the main guy be bold. And then the other guy be the as so too far unnamed bodyguard of Bolg. Right? You can give them you can make up a name for him. That's a bit clunky, right? Yeah, but none of the other made orcs have names. So like, just be like you go give him a crazy visual design done. You know, he's a bad guy. Yes, it would have liked. I feel like that motivation, like makes more sense. So you could still have like a baddie, right, you could replace random wargs with like, a baddie. But it's more appropriate. And he has an actual motivation. Right, like? Yeah. That's the problem. Right? That's another big problem. You know, some say? Yeah, other than that, I don't have any problems at the first movie. I like it. I like again, I have on record, I believe is saying that's my favorite

Collin  1:17:44

one. Yes. Now, I will say that this, I think this may stem from the early production, because Del Toro is on record saying that the first movie was actually supposed to be a standalone movie. And that he envisioned, because it was originally supposed to be two movies. And he the first movie of Hobbit was supposed to be a standalone. And then the second movie he envisioned as being a bridge into

Brandon  1:18:15

Jackson's world. So you can kind of

Collin  1:18:20

there's still a lot of that in it's in the first movie be feeling very, very self sufficient. I don't get the feeling that it is any. You know, there's it is it. It all feels very nicely wrapped up and for the most part makes make sense. Besides that, as that's that notwithstanding. I, I will I will give that the first movie does at least that and that. That's so kudos to

Brandon  1:18:55

that aspect. Yeah, I liked. I really, I watched them again this last week where Susan, and she looked like some tea. So we watched him. And I didn't really have any other thoughts on that one. I like it is paced pretty good. It doesn't really feel too long. Right. Some good. Interesting things, right. I feel like Yeah, I mean, I liked it. They tried to do something like visually interesting with all the dwarves because like, again, most of them are basically not important. And like, just like, there's a couple. They gave some of like Bollen stuff to like, bah, bah for right. Just to give it another door for chance to speak. Right.

Collin  1:19:42

Yeah, they didn't write some of those lines and spread them out. For sure. Yeah.

Brandon  1:19:47

Which is cool. That's fine. Right? Give them more like there's 13 of them. And in the book you hear from three right you don't get you don't really get a lot right you just So like, having them be very distinct visually having them be like, a little bit like you could there's just like you think even like one or two lines they deliver like some like pork and you kind of understand what their character is about a little bit. You know, even like in the first movie like you don't you know that like it's just what it you know, a couple of these guys are like serious dwarf warriors. Some of them are also there. Right, so you know already like Wallen isn't you want to all in around, you know, Ori, whatever, like, it's fine. But yeah, so UK. That's a good choice, I think to make them sort of visually distinct. They do look weird with the hair itself, but like, also the fact that a lot of them don't have very large beards indoors are known for beards, but that's, you know. Like, interesting choices, right there are times when the movies to brown like Yeah, I mean, even though I mean, even the

1:21:06

DVD cover the

Collin  1:21:08

photo, the the movie release posters for these. They're not the moat, they're all very, rather drab. And it's totally weird. It's weird, right? So

Brandon  1:21:17

there's some weird color washing happening, but like, you know, overall, I think the first one follows pretty good, right? I forgot to write down a lot of notes. Why Washington? So like, I doing this by memory, but like, I've the first one does go there. They throw in like, some random lore stuff in there. Right? It's bad. I like it. Alex Ferguson. Okay. That's pretty good. Yeah,

Collin  1:21:38

I do think the just go back to that as org thing. I think it's an interesting choice to introduce that Nemesis into the It's so early, it's really early, right. And we read the book like that, but I know what they were trying to do. They needed a driving factor, right? They needed at two o'clock, to push things a lot to push the plot along. To give things a sense of urgency, because now in the book, you're just kind of like, Oh, we're, we'll you know, we'll get there. We'll get to the mountain when we get to the mountain. And now it's like, no, we have to go like we must go. Yeah. And we're being pushed there. Which makes it It definitely changes that tone of it aspect as well. Yes.

Brandon  1:22:29

I mean, that's not bad, either. Right now, like, who it is, which is a choice, but whatever. They have the big bad. They, you know, get it you know, it ties in with the rest of the story anyway, so like, it's alright, it's fine. Yes.

Collin  1:22:45

And then we get to The Desolation of Smaug. Uh, yeah. This is the one that is my least favorite.

Brandon  1:22:54

Okay, that's interesting. That's interesting. Yes. Okay. It's too long. Yeah.

Collin  1:22:59

This is because what's its runtime? What? It's a like a few hours. Years. Two and a half hours?

Brandon  1:23:05

Maybe? Something like that. Yeah. Oh.

Collin  1:23:10

Yeah. Like, yeah. Yes.

Brandon  1:23:13

So it starts off good. Right. We're doing good. We got we see our boy Bay. We're right. Good. Pretty good. They're

1:23:19

like,

Brandon  1:23:24

the Mirkwood stuff is pretty good. Right? This is definitely Jackson leaning into, like, the weirdness that he used to do, right. Because it's very, like, it feels uncomfortable to watch. Like, yes. Yeah,

Collin  1:23:34

it's not it is not a yeah, this is Jackson kind of kind of flexing a little bit here being like, yeah, you know, this is not pleasant.

Brandon  1:23:43

Yeah, it's like fear and loathing and Mirkwood it's really kind of weird, right? Like but it it does a good job of like portraying that discomfort. And I think that part is good too. Right? It's it's pretty follow along. Janos like, oh, sorry. Actually, I gotta go by and my friends away yet we do add in this stuff. Here. No. Isn't the other one. Yeah, with the you know, some of the L Rondi. stuff when they're in Riverdale. It's in the first one but yeah. You said that scene with those familiar characters. Right? And that pays off here a little bit but that's I think it's alright. You know, you get the best thing in The Hobbit you get the you get that message driven home already of like the Gandalf believes in like, good and good deeds. Right. It's kind of like the message overall movie, right? Like just doing the right thing. Boom.

Collin  1:24:38

And so yes, it definitely gives Gandalf more of a how is this like, an opinion or voice in that matter? Because in the books, Gandalf is just more like, I don't know. Good. Yeah.

Brandon  1:24:58

And so yeah, but that, that kind of you get that set in the first one, I forgot what that parts are. And then you know, when you move into The Desolation of Smaug, it's all pretty good up until

Collin  1:25:08

elves, right?

Brandon  1:25:11

And like, even that part is like, fine. But now we have the big problem of the whole of the whole series, right? We run into the Toriel problem. Right? It's just, it's a bit weird, right? Like, okay, we have like, another elf to do, like, cool LP stuff. You know, that's fun. We like that. We like cool LP stuff, right? We liked Legolas in the trilogy, Original Trilogy, you know, he went out there. We like, you know, I don't even really care that Legolas is here. Like, it doesn't really matter. Like, no, it's not because we know that he's from the Woodland Realm. We know that his dad was the Woodland Realm King. So like, it makes 100% sense that there just be a Legolas here, right? Like, it should. And yes,

Collin  1:25:57

and I don't, again, we're pulling on the name recognition we're pulling on, you know, the the cachet of having him, you know, reprise his role in this. But for the intents for the all intents and purposes of this movie, he could have just been in a background seen, like, walking by, right. Like, yeah, there he is, right. It's not it's not necessary to have him here. But it to me, right. It's, it's fine. It makes sense. But yeah, yeah.

Brandon  1:26:24

The real problem is the Tyrael problem. Because like, this weird like, loves thought like, why stop putting love stories? My big Why are you doing this? Like, I know that you need, you feel like you need to replace Aragorn and Arwen. Right. Ah, the, you know, Forbidden Love between the elfin the human right. And then, like, there's actually stakes to that. And that's, like, historically grounded and starkly grounded, but like, more grounded with like Baron and Lucien and like, a long line of similar things happening in the Tolkien verse, right. So, like, in order for r1 to love Aragorn, she has to give up something. You know, like, this weird thing is like, ah, but what is the dwarf is cute, though. Right? And all this really is that I know, I understand why this is happening. Okay, because we have to make Billy and Kelly's ultimate deaths actually, like mean something? As opposed to in the book where they're like, Oh, yes, they're also dead. Anyway, which Alexa t like. So it is, we do have to like, this is a way to, like, make those characters more important. Like, ah, now we have stakes in like, you know, with Billy here, like, oh, it's important. And he has an art, and he is at the forefront. And he's part of the story. Because if nothing happened at all, and then they're just like, oh, he died. Like, there's no gravitas to the death. Now, that doesn't have any impact on the audience whatsoever. Kind of like it doesn't have any impact when you read the book whatsoever. It was like, oh, turns out that one guy died too. Okay. Like, yeah.

1:28:24

But but to,

Collin  1:28:25

to use that through the tutorial thing, like it just it is just weird to now all of a sudden say, here's a brand new character

Brandon  1:28:32

who's great on their own, right and

Collin  1:28:36

cool, have cold see that great interest, new character, strong, whatever. But then like,

1:28:43

Oh, really, the

Collin  1:28:44

only reason that toggles here is to be in this weird love triangle. So that later on it's like, I didn't need to do that. It does kind of ruin the, the introduction of that character. Because you know, it's like, it's really only for this one thing.

Brandon  1:29:01

Yeah. So like, if you want to put her in there, you want to have lady elf character doing cool lady girl stuff. I'm okay with that. That's fine. Yeah. But like it's it does feel a bit forced, right? A little bit. It's you know, whatever. And then And then so that part happens. They escape like I do, like the escape from

1:29:29

the Elven halls.

Brandon  1:29:30

Right. I like the barrel thing. Okay. And I don't care I like like the wrapping down the barrels and running away from the orcs. It's weird that the orcs are there chasing them again, but you know, whenever,

Collin  1:29:42

again, not needed. They're already in the barrels fighting for their lives. Like we don't need to heighten the stakes here at all. But

Brandon  1:29:48

at least like fun, right? Yes. It's kind of like fun. And like it's a it's a very enjoyable sequence to watch. Right? Like it's a very again, this part of the story is just them walking for ever. Yeah, and nothing is happening. Right in the book. It's just like, and they floated down the river. Like, the doors are just in the barrels and you don't see them. That's not a good movie. Okay, so like this at least bring some steaks, and some like fun, right? And so, like, I'm okay with that. It's fun. I like it. The Escape. Right? And all that it's, I like that part. Right? Sure. I can't help but giggle at the part where like, Boffer bobber like, fights in the barrel. This is funny. I like it. Because,

Collin  1:30:39

you know, that's what brothers would do. Right? Yeah, sure. We're dying, and it's imperiled. But also on my side.

Brandon  1:30:47

Yeah, so that part's fun. And then we Bard. That's okay. Bart is also a bit of a broody boy. Right? Didn't like the Laketown stuff. Like, the master and the guy in black whose name I can ever remember? Because he's not important. Really? That whole thing is like, okay, I get it. You are discount Wormtongue Yeah, so like, you're like dollars dollar store. Wormtongue. Okay, and then this other guy's just like a greedy buffoon. But like, they're, they're making like weird jokes. And like, their whole scene goes on, like, way too long. It's like, hold it like, this is not needed. Oh, I don't like that part. Cuz, again, you're a bad guy. But I get the payoff here.

1:31:44

This is,

Collin  1:31:46

again, where like we said, like your views that have like, this is them stretching this material? Like there and I get it going like, Oh, what if we like really got into Laketown and like, really all like, let's really understand what's going on and figure out how terrible these people actually are and all the stuff. But it's not. I understand again, this is like, well, let's make people really care about this. Because in the end, the town's going to burn, right and people are going to point fingers so like we need to, we need to do all of this stuff. So you can really see what's going on. But like yeah, discount we're not necessary.

Brandon  1:32:23

Like no weird. Jokes about animal testicles. Is that necessary? No. That's ridiculous. Like what are you doing? Stop it. I got like, what's

Collin  1:32:37

grosser

Brandon  1:32:37

than eating that cherry tomato? I know what?

1:32:41

Yes. Like like, oh,

Collin  1:32:44

we can one this up? Yes. Let's do that. That's definitely necessary.

1:32:48

Like to be.

Brandon  1:32:51

Don't need to. Yeah, so that part is whole weird. Like I get it. Like you said it made me have to set the scene and we have to put the stakes up because we have to know that this is a corrupt place. We have to know that. That people are suffering. And we have to care about them for when smile does come and you know, burns it all to ground. Like, we have to have a stake. Right? We can't be like yep, there was a town but like anyway, many days later, we reached the river by

Collin  1:33:27

well, and also this time we're given the in the book, this I think is this is where they also introduced that like Bard has the super secret special arrows that later right. Is that that comes maybe later a little bit later. Okay. Yeah. All right.

Brandon  1:33:47

I don't remember because in the book, they're like, yes, Bart is there anyway. Like, yeah. Dude named Bart here. And then they like, so.

Collin  1:33:55

Sorry, they, this is to that comes after smog is awakened, I think or whatever. But like, Okay, right. Because I've tried to when we're talking about it was like, or the movie, because it's weird. Because then this is, yeah, we're at Lake town. And then they leave and they go up and this is where he accidentally, uh, you know, wakes up. Smile.

Brandon  1:34:15

Right? And after he finds the Arkenstone Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I was trying to

Collin  1:34:22

desert this. This is where the movies for me just start to get super super choppy. Because then because I know one apart that I can this trying to imbue super special significance to things that aren't necessary in the book. Bard just happens to have this black arrow and he's like, you've never failed here we go shoot you off. But like movie it's like a big deal that he has this arrow and it's like it's the it's known to be the only thing that can kill. Yeah, well, and we get

Brandon  1:34:53

like, we don't know in the book to like later. They're like, Oh, yeah, anyway, Bart is actually a descendant of the last king of Dale and that you know, Andy, we don't learn that until Bard like magically speaks thrush, right? Like, oh, man oh,

Collin  1:35:06

which what a much better pay off in a movie to have that to have that, you know,

1:35:12

if he's so goofy.

Brandon  1:35:14

Turns out bards a Disney princess can can talk to birds like, oh, that's

1:35:21

fine, whatever.

Collin  1:35:22

Anyway, I would have much like to see that in the height of it. The little thrush lane on his shoulder, and he turned and he like, whistle something back and then the bird like, I don't know, does a jig and jumps off his shoulder like yeah,

Brandon  1:35:34

folds his socks and puts them on the clothesline and like, whenever they show that part where the thrush is, like knocking on the wall, I started laughing uncontrollably. And Susan was like, What is the matter with USA? Listen, did you know that thrushes can talk right. So I, I don't I

Collin  1:36:03

again, now now we start out this is where to me the movie like, just like, I'm gonna say the word goofy, like goofy things start to happen or like, I don't let the orcs attacking the town now.

Brandon  1:36:15

Right and now. Yeah, that's weird. Like right. Now, like contrivance of like, again, this is the the orcs don't have a motivation is bad. Right? There's like, Oh, they're dwarves so we should kill them.

Collin  1:36:31

Yeah, that's it.

Brandon  1:36:33

That's the only motivation. That's not a very strong character motivation, right, like, because they're not even after like Doron. It's like Fili Kili. Boffer and the one with the year trumpet. I don't even know. I have no idea. Like, I don't even know who that is now. Like I watched all three movies last week. No idea what the guy's name is. Like, Elaine, or is it like loin and Aucoin is, but like it's weird, anyway. Yeah, that part's weird. We get weird, like send off to go to the mountain. Right.

Collin  1:37:12

takes them forever. And then they find the door.

Brandon  1:37:16

That part's good. I like that part. Yeah, that's good. And then like the real money though, is once he's once once. Once Bilbo is actually in the mountain with smog. This is the best part of the entire movie. Yeah, we, we sort of glossed over the part with Gollum in the cave. That part is really good. Oh, yeah. Right in the other one, but like this part is. This part is great. Right. Like, this part is excellent.

Collin  1:37:48

Well, and I think I remember reading that smog was the first thing they started working on. And it was the last thing to be finished for the movies because they knew they had to nail. Yeah, smog was great.

Brandon  1:38:01

He's great dragon. Right. He's Excellent. looks excellent. Cumberbatch is magnificent. Right. As dragon. Right. And so that whole thing is just good. I really liked

Collin  1:38:17

Yep. I agree. I think smog was a good. They did nail his, his his development there.

Brandon  1:38:26

Yeah, I like it a lot. And I feel like that was a good time to sort of talk about like, sort of Martin Freeman. In general Bilbo like, yeah. I think his performances below is really good. Okay, right. I really like it. I think it does a good job of being. He does a really good job of like putting across like Bilbo is even though he's a burglar. He's honest. He's very sincere person. Yes. Right. He is. Like, struggling to understand the world that he's found himself in. Right. I think that really shows in this performance. I think he does a really good job. I don't want to before I forget, I don't want to undervalue Martin Freeman is below. I think it's excellent.

Collin  1:39:09

i i I personally don't have any problem with any of the performances in this that I can remember. Like, I feel like everybody is really like I don't think it's the performer. I don't think there's any issue with performers in in any of these movies. That makes me kind of cringe at all. I know. Did you do you in general Did you did you have any? No

Brandon  1:39:37

I don't I the writing that lets it down in some spots, right? Yes. But I just wanted to say that right now. I was thinking about this part of him in the in airborne with smiled like it's really good. And I really just like I like his performance a lot. I think he did really good. So I just wanted to say that just why I had it on my mind. Okay, right. If that makes sense, yes. Yeah. Yeah. But yeah, that's basically the end of this movie. Right? Like you make small guy angry. No, it's weird,

Collin  1:40:12

isn't it? We've got to throw in a couple of Don't we have to throw in the Gandalf thing, right where he goes to Dol Guldur.

Brandon  1:40:21

Oh, he gets captured in double door. Yes. Yes.

Collin  1:40:24

We have to have that random side quest pop up here. That's you right now because he that's where he finds

Brandon  1:40:29

thrain. Right. He finds thrain There. Now in the book, I don't in the writing. I don't think he finds thrain at Kilgore at this time, but he does find him but it's always weird. The timelines weird, but okay. Yeah. Do you find that he's alive? So help me with this? Because when so is

Collin  1:40:52

this, this the scene and stuff? This actually is retold some other place? Yeah. Right. It is okay. Yeah.

Brandon  1:40:59

Okay. It's like it. It's in some of the appendices and stuff. That's like, when, when, or maybe that's an Unfinished Tales, right. This is I think when photos like yeah, oh, tell us about that. Gandalf says like, Oh, yeah. And I also had to go do this. So this there is some writing about like, where did Gandalf go? Sure. He like disappears, right? Like, what the heck is he doing? He's at investigating don't go door to door and necromancer right and discovering that it is actually Sauron. Right? That's, that's, that is actually happening. Okay, at this time, right.

Collin  1:41:38

And so thrain So trains alive during this and that's what I was also confused about.

Brandon  1:41:47

Now, that part I don't really that part is a little bit unclear, right? Like he's like, because at some point thrain has been captured. Right? Because they need the Sauron wanted the ring back. Oh, right, because he's collecting the Rings of Power. So in this part of the timeline whenever he has not, like announced himself as being like, that, sucker, right. He, he is like, looking for things that will help him regain his strength. He is actively looking for the one ring, but as Gollum has it in a cave somewhere, he can't find it. So he's also trying to find the other rings. Right. Okay. He is trying to get the ring Wraith dudes to come back. He's looking for the dwarf rings. He wants the elf rings. But like he didn't make those, like, you know, hard wants them. But he didn't make them so they're not like villainous. That's why Gandalf can wear the elf ring, right? Because Kilbourne actually made that and Nazzaro. Anyway, that's enough of that. But so he's looking for the doorframes and he wants thrain to ring. He can't find all of the doors rings because some of them have been eaten by dragons. They're gone. So he's looking for those because he needs them to help regain his strength. So that's why he's that's why he's hunting for thrain

1:43:16

That's why thrain has been captured. Because he wants to bring Okay, yeah, that makes sense. Okay. Yes. So that is there is stuff about that. Okay. Well, and

Collin  1:43:28

then we also like, also right at the very end isn't this when this because the movie ends with? With smog having been flying away towards lockdown having been covered in gold, right. Yeah. Use his fire to restart the forges. Yes.

Brandon  1:43:44

I tried to defeat him. Right. Yeah. And they they try to defeat a dragon with no plan right now. Yeah. Yeah. Again, yes.

Collin  1:43:52

This is me going doing it visually very stunning, right, like visually, but also, like, if this is just silly. This is where I'm like, Okay,

Brandon  1:44:02

this is this is a tiny bit silly here. Isn't that like, anyway, and that's your ad. Some of that does go on for too long.

Collin  1:44:09

Right? There's a little bit too much of that. Sure. Like some is okay. Some is fine. Some makes sense. You know, it's a little too much. Just like pacing wise, like, it's a little too much. But then,

Brandon  1:44:25

you know, they do cover him with the gold. And I think that might be like a slight reference to that, you know, he is referred to as like, gold covered because he like, has gold stuck in his scales from laying on it so long. Yeah. I feel like that's like a allusion to that maybe a little bit. But you know, that's why there's a weird place for the movie to end. Right. Especially, because when the third movie starts, he's dead in like 20 minutes. Yeah, yeah.

Collin  1:44:55

This is this is I work for the movie. Eat. That's called The Desolation of Smaug, which I know is also referred to as like the mountain and the area of living area that he burned. Yes. But also the double meaning meaning like the destruction of smog, right? the ruin of smog. That doesn't happen until the third movie, which is when I, you know, I know like, they were trying to live on a cliffhanger there. But that was a weird line. That was a very odd way to start the third movie and I cannot disagree more emphatically that that was an idol. I hate that. So bad.

Brandon  1:45:39

I mean, they were saving all the climaxes for the bed for the third movie, right. But yeah, it is a weird it's a bit weird to see that. Yeah. Right. And to have smiled by with it's literally like 20 minutes. It'd be like, Oh, well. Okay. Yeah, and then we start to see the descent of what did you think of the depiction of Thorin at this point? As he's kind of spiraling looking for the I actually kind of liked it, right. I like this part. I like where he kind of slow descent into madness. And even the part where they, you know, when the other dwarves everybody leaves like town, right? Barges leading him up, right? Dealing with that really annoying discount Wormtongue guy and the other other doors come up and Bilbo is like running out. It's like, no, no, you guys don't really want to be here right now. Because you're not going well. It all

Collin  1:46:44

is it is built on there.

Brandon  1:46:45

And I like that part. I like the the full sort of dissent intimate now. Because like, this is where we talked earlier about like the word being a little bit too emo. Right. I feel like it's Oh, it kind of makes a little bit of sense. Because like, it would be really weird. If he went for like, happy go lucky guy to like, full on like, rooting villain. I'd be a bit much Right. So. Sure. Yeah, you know, it makes sense. And he does. But the port this, I like this descent part where he like gets more and more like, manic and like, he's like real paranoid. Right? And he's real. So you can really tell that it's affecting him quite strongly. Like it's already kind of in a slow build like this. You can already kind of tell like, the closer he's been getting, like, he's, you know, acting a little bit weird. But like, now that he's in there, it's like full on. And it's nuts. Right? Like I like it. I think it's a good job. I've done that.

Collin  1:47:49

Okay. Yeah, I agree. It definitely makes it more. I think that they that you hit the tone pretty well, with the with what's happening here. Like, yeah, it really is a descent into kind of the uncovering of, of who he was

Brandon  1:48:08

before. Yeah, I think it's a good job. But then, like, the concept, like, I don't know, the all of the stuff with like the Laketown survivors, though. I feel like it draws out way too much. You know, like when they're with Bard and all the people in Dale, right and again, thinking Dude, I don't that's just the why do we kept keep going back to discount where I'm counting like this? I didn't go away already. Like I don't. He's not funny. He's just annoying. Yes, like all that stuff. He's like, but and then interspersed with that is the rescue of Gandalf. From dogs who are also Yes, yes. Which is, you know, nothing. Like it's fine. Like I don't care. But it is a again, it's taking up a lot of movie time.

Collin  1:49:09

Yes, it is. It is. And it this is definitely the like, no, really, there's a connection here like this is that happens a couple times about this, but it's like the Oh no, no, those movies that came out before like this. This is remember that there's a connection here. Don't forget about that. This is we're going to get there. Don't think don't forget when it's like oh my gosh, like this. This wasn't this isn't about Sal Ron, it wasn't about that. That's not the purpose of this movie or this book. I'll say that but they're really pulling hard to make sure that you understand

Brandon  1:49:44

what's coming right yeah, I do like though when? Okay, so like, I do kind of like the part where she'd been she'd like, oh, collateral when she like, blows up Sauron like, banished him. out, right? She's holding the vial of collateral, but she's gonna give you get Frodo later. Uh huh. So I like that part. That's cool.

Collin  1:50:11

Visually, visually. I love seeing collateral L Ron Salmaan. Right sermon. And I love seeing them kick butt. Like it's really neat to see them all doing this stuff and doing this, but like, okay, like I get it. Cool. Okay.

1:50:27

Next avato Yeah.

Brandon  1:50:31

This this is already there's also a lot. This movie also takes years to end. So.

Collin  1:50:40

Yeah. And weirdly, weirdly, I

Brandon  1:50:42

think this movie is shorter than the first movie. I think you might be right. So it's like, all end. Yes. That's all this is. It's just

Collin  1:50:56

colons and semicolons. It's nothing but like it's just as big run on sentences.

Brandon  1:51:00

Yes, but it's visually good. Right. Like when that when that so yeah, that we're we go back, you know, the standoff at the mountain. That part's good. I like that parts. We get the, you know, we're going to you know, do you not want to parlay you gave us your word. All that stuff is really good. There is I didn't notice, right, I'd never really realized this cuz I had read the book read it forever. But there are like fellow sneaky shots. Where you see like ravens flying out of Erebor? Sure, because of course dwarves speak Raven. Yes. Not thrush. Obvious, right? Yes. No rash. Beard. And so you get this I've you know, I didn't notice that little detail. Like, oh, oh, there's a raven flood that's, they're sending to Dane right now. I got it. Uh huh. So that's really interesting, right, if you know what's happening. But that part where like, Doron and Bart are talking to the door. Like that's, that's a good part, right where Thor is like, just full on. Crazy man. In the bar is like, what do you mean? You know what? Like, we just want to help each other today? No, well, no one do you like what? Okay, this guy? Well, we're gonna have to take some drastic measures because he sounds completely unhinged. Right? Because he is not making any sense at all. Uh huh. That I think that does a good job of showing like really just helped Fargo on Thorin is at this point, like that part. And he's like, yes, we will fight and they're like,

1:52:51

Okay. Bye

Brandon  1:53:01

bye, which then followed by the part where he's like, really suspicious. Thorin is really suspicious of all the other doors and he's like

1:53:08

telling Bilbo. He's like, I think one of them has stolen it. And there was no who would do that.

Brandon  1:53:18

They're all like getting the armor on a they get dressed and they get below the material thing or whatever. And he's like, I just like that part. Like, one of them has betrayed me because like, no

Collin  1:53:33

one would do that. Such a thing. Ah,

1:53:37

yeah. Yeah. There are.

Collin  1:53:40

So dark bits of humor and stuff like that comes up and and he, what's his name? Yeah. Who plays him? Who plays Bilbo? Martin Freeman? Yeah, Murphy. Again. Does it really well. Like, again, this is this is genuinely a funny moment. And like, it's also a tense moment. And like it, this movie has those in there. And but they're kind of hidden and they're, they're covered under so much heaviness and fast paced. And like it's just this movies very confused about what it's supposed to be and what story it's actually trying to get

1:54:19

told. Yeah, there's some conflicting themes, right? Like, they really drive home. They're like, treasure is bad. theme, right? Like, yes, but also with like, you can be good, the like, it's a little bit weird.

Brandon  1:54:38

But through all that, you can really see Bilbo struggling with his decision that he's trying to make, right. He's trying to figure out what to do to help everybody to keep them from becoming dead. Yes. And so his struggle, really, I think they do a good job of showcasing that his struggle to overcome this,

1:54:55

right?

Collin  1:54:56

Yep. Something that is a theme is picked upon in the book But really I do agree that it is displayed here very well amongst a lot of confusing other aspects but like that I feel like I don't know who wrote that or who put that together but like that was that was done well in this.

1:55:12

Yeah.

Brandon  1:55:14

Let me get the part where he escapes right he goes and he meets with barred and threatened we'll and oh again those back he when he knew he was okay no has gone and he gives him the stone and then he sneaks off back to thing right. So that leads to the ultimate conflict the next day, you know, where we get the part where bardzo like, Are you sure you want to fight? You know, we could still talk and Saurons like, Oh, you have nothing I want you can't do anything and she's like, Oh, really?

Collin  1:55:51

What about what about this

Brandon  1:56:01

that bars like it's a big showdown. But then like, just at the last moment, here comes Billy Conley. I mean Dane iron foot.

Collin  1:56:13

Oh my gosh. I I don't Okay, so Billy. This is a weird I don't What did i This is a weird casting. This is a weird weird casting. For me.

Brandon  1:56:28

It's a bit weird, but like, ultimately, I think it works because it's just so funny. It's

Collin  1:56:34

i i would love to know the

Brandon  1:56:41

negotiations

Collin  1:56:43

to get him to play this role. If he was like, what what swung i just i It's so weird, like when I am so it's a it's such a confusing casting for me. But it

1:56:58

it works. It's just

Brandon  1:57:00

so bizarre. This bizarre I remember the first time I saw it. I was like, what are they called me? Yes. What are you doing here?

1:57:09

He took a wrong turn.

Brandon  1:57:13

But this is like, this is also interesting, like cinematically because this is the first time we get to see like, the dwarf army. Yeah, right. Like that we've only ever see in the in the whole trilogy. The Lord of the Rings trilogy, we saw like, a dwarf. Right? Yes. Is that one. And then? I mean, I guess technically at the very beginning in Rivendale. There's a couple of other ones that are there also, but like, we just have one, right? And this movie, we get like 13 but they're not like it's like some ragtag dwarves they don't really have, like, you know, Army stuff. So seeing like, the full dwarf, like contingent, I think is actually pretty cool. Right? Just like cinematically, I think it's really neat. In the, the way that they presented them was kind of cool. Right? I liked that part. Yeah.

1:58:07

Yeah, it really

Collin  1:58:09

does. We've been commented about that in the book of just like, how imposing this must have been, and how it the doors that we had been exposed to up until this point have been the Philly and Killian bomber and from Bofur and all those people and and to see them in the in this context now verbally. Oh, like this is? This is different like this is this has been a tonal shift in the kind of people who were interacting with.

Brandon  1:58:34

Yes, very much so. So yeah, they I like that part because it's kind of cool when they start fighting the elves right. It's a little interesting, but like, my, my favorite part and like the whole movie, right is the part where the work show up. Right? And then the giant trimmer worms, whatever, I don't care but like the orcs show. And the the elves it looks like the elves are gonna leave right there. And it was like, Oh, well, no, just kidding. I don't wanna deal with that. Let's go. And the dwarves come and they like reform the pike formation thing right with the shields in the Spirit. And then as the orcs are charging them, the elves like leap over the dwarves and start fighting

1:59:27

I love that part

Collin  1:59:29

visually very very

Brandon  1:59:31

funny. Yeah, it's so incredibly epic yeah yes. Oh my gosh was and then like just chaos ensues everywhere for like that one part. I just love that part. Right it's like the best part in the whole battle. Sure think. Cuz then it gets like real wonky right like we go, we get we bounced around a lot. We're like on the field of battle, where in detail with the men attacking over the orcs over there. And then like, there's a bunch of back and forth. I do like, though how we interrupt it with the, like, regarding between that we're seeing that it's not going well anywhere, you know. And then we go to Thorin sitting on the throne alone in that room and it's like, quiet, like no noise. And he has that conversation with the dwelling. Right? Yeah. About like, why are we still in here? We need to go help. Our friends are dying and thorns like,

Collin  2:00:41

yes. We should help move the gold deeper into

2:00:46

the mountains, so they can't get it.

Brandon  2:00:52

Yeah, he's really struggling. Yeah, but it's a nice counterbalance. Right to see like, Sure. What's going on there? But then, yeah, there's some. You know, just some like visual chaos or like weird battle and stuff. But

2:01:17

I do, what do you what are your thoughts

Brandon  2:01:18

on the Thor and confronting the dragon sickness part? Right? Where he's in that room with the gold floor? And he's just like, going absolutely crazy. What is this

Collin  2:01:34

thing? Is this where he's being swallowed up? By all the girls? Yeah,

Brandon  2:01:37

yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Like he sees the dragon in the floor. Right? What do you think about

Collin  2:01:43

this? Well, so this is actually so visually eye to the dragon sickness, it plays a very important role in a lot of these events. In the book, it's hardly touched on at all, except to say that it is a thing and

Brandon  2:01:59

it can impact people like I think

Collin  2:02:04

the striking part of this was the in comparison, I don't know how how apt This is. But in the ending of the last film, we had a dragon that was literally consumed by gold, right? And this is him kind of going into down that same same path of where he's going to go. So I thought it was an interesting metaphor of being coming all consumed by the gold and just kind of what that meant for him. Because yeah, we don't really otherwise. It I understand is a hard thing to show what's going on on the inside of somebody's mind or it's it's always something that's hard to display visually. So I I think they didn't know and Okay. Showcasing that in this, it's, it's not I don't think they did a bad job with it.

Brandon  2:03:00

I was like, the part I like, he's got all that. Like, there's a lot of auditory noise happening. Like of like people, like, you know, there's like, him like thinking about, like, thoughts and things he said to people and things other people have said to him, right, like, oh, you know what, yeah, replaying all those back. Yeah. Where he's like, I'm not my grandfather were like, it's been brought up several times. That thrower also had this problem, right. He went crazy because of all the gold, right? He had the madness. And he's talking, it's like him repeating that and like ballin, and Boffer or whatever, like talking about, like, how we can't leave our friends to die. Right? But like at the end, like the voice that like cuts through, and like makes him pause. Is Bilbo Yeah, right. It's Bilbo saying, like, you know, what have you doing? Like, and it's just that it's Bilbo his voice that is making him go? Oh, oh, oh, Whoopsie daisy. And then, like that, that part that this transition from that scene where he like, is getting swallowed by the gold, right? I like that part. Right. But so he's in like, full kingly royal regal vestments, right. Cut to him walking out of that door towards the rest of the doors, and he's just wearing his normal traveling clothes again. Right? He's just wearing his shirt and his pants and his like little male vest. That's it. So you have a very clear visual representation of Ah, all right. Now, okay. Now he's back. Right. Okay. Lauren's back. Yeah, yeah. When they're like, oh, we can't stand here and he's like, he's like, we can't just sit in here and watch our friends die and he goes Yes, you're right. Let's go. Oh, uh huh. Okay.

Collin  2:05:05

And they all call to arms. Yeah.

Brandon  2:05:09

I mean, yeah, they go out, they go forth. For 45 more minutes.

Collin  2:05:17

Oh my gosh, yes. Again, you're like, it's this. I'm going to use a word here to describe this movie. Mostly. It's just exhausting. Because, yeah, I mean, you said it's a movie of endings. And there's just like, oh, my gosh, how is there still so much more? Like, there's still so much more and now now we understand why token would say, and some time passed, right? Yeah. Like, Oh, I get it now. Because this, this is annoying.

Brandon  2:05:48

Yeah, yeah. So like, again, it's visually interesting. They go out, they decide to go confront as OG because he's up on the mountain, on the hill, giving directions, doing generally stuff. So like, oh, we should probably kill him. So that they stop getting orders about what's the plan, right. So, off they go. Right. They go off the thing. Some stuff. I do, like the design choice of the dwarves writing the like, attack goats. Like that's, that's great. I like this choice. This is it well, it's yeah, it's like in I guess it's a little bit of, of comedy in there. Yeah, it's an interesting, so I like this a go up towards the hill. fight off. baddies do things Legolas is there for some reason. Yeah.

Collin  2:06:48

It's gotta be right. You know,

Brandon  2:06:49

that part? Again? It's visually long. But ultimately, we have the showdown with as OG right. Oh, after feeling killer die. Oh, by the way care. You care about them? They didn't die off camera.

Collin  2:07:03

Say didn't we saw it? Ah. Imagined off camera. Who would do such a thing? Exactly.

Brandon  2:07:15

Yeah, yeah, the ultimate showdown like the fight with as interesting on the ice. Right.

2:07:22

Right. Yes. For him, you know, basically sacrifices himself. In order to end as OG you know, the old.

Brandon  2:07:35

I'll let you stab me. But surprise, I'm gonna stab you being stepping back. Yeah. And he's Debbie. What is very, you know, it's pretty cool visually in like, totally. It's interesting that he decided to do that to sacrifice himself to stop this to save everybody else, you know, to avenge his cousins and whatever. So or nephews, I guess, nephew. So that's cool. And then the bill but him and Bill those moment is there. Instead of in Dale in hospital tent. You know, he has his moment with,

2:08:13

with Bilbo here, yes. Where he gets his chance to apologize to below and say, Oh, I'm sorry. You know, blah, blah. So yeah,

Brandon  2:08:24

it's there. They still get to have that moment. And it's still very powerful.

Collin  2:08:27

Right. So I think it's good. Yeah. That's pretty much it. Right? Yeah. Yep. And then And then again, because the movie must have connections to the other ones. Bilbo is throwing a birthday party at the very end of this. Right, right.

Brandon  2:08:46

Well, yeah, but that's where it started. I'm okay with that. That's what I'm okay with. I don't mind that decision. Because he's writing in that book. In the, in the first trilogy, right. Like what Frodo does catch him. That's, that is what he's doing. He's writing. So life's you know, I don't I don't mind that too much. When we flashback in though it's in home again, like Oh, hello. Like, you know, that's okay. I don't mind that at all. I like that. Little bit of continuity where because it's kind of like, you know, from a storytelling perspective, it is like it's basically Bilbo remembering. Yeah, right. The whole thing is like II and home Bilbo remembering this journey that he had as Martin Freeman below, and then you know, wrapping back so like, again, you know, you can take with that what you will like with how reliable is the narrator when we added things like this, like, Oh, it's a little bit weird, but you know, it's old Bilbo remembering young Bilbo is life and all that stuff. So I don't I don't mind that. I think that's okay.

Collin  2:09:55

Sure. No, and it's interesting that this in this movie The Battle of Five Armies is the last film for in Homs. And Lee's final live action film as well. True. Yeah, that this was both before they before they passed away. Yeah. So interesting. I don't even cap Capstone or you know, final for them in those because he was

2:10:21

How old was? Yeah, his

Brandon  2:10:24

home was very old. He I remember that, like, Elijah Wood had to help him read his lines. And like, help him do all that stuff. Yeah, cuz this

Collin  2:10:33

film was when Okay, so Battle of Five Armies would we say came out in 2014 14? Yeah. 2014 in home died six years later, so he was 82 when he filmed this movie. Yeah. Christopher Lee. Yeah. Die. He was. Okay, everybody ready? This movie came out in 2014. Yeah. Christopher Lee died in 2015. At 93. Yeah, he was. He was like, 192 when he filmed this. Does everybody like, that's what he was doing? He like, The Hobbit when he was 9192? Like, what? Yeah. So? Yes. Okay. So, I, overall, the trilogy, I have a hard time standing behind the trilogy as a whole because it's a trilogy. I don't mind the first movie, but I have I after the first movie, it all kind of unravels for me, mostly because by the time we get like, first movie, pretty well knit together, moving ahead, some weird things here and there with the orcs and whatever. But like, that's, that's fine. We're moving. By the time. I know, it's hard for me to understand how we went from that to what happened ended up being the third movie of like, how disjointed and how frantic the whole thing

2:12:00

felt. I mean, it's a battle.

Brandon  2:12:04

Like, yes, but I it is a lot of they've, they've made too many paths to follow. Yes. Right. And you have to knock them all up in certain ways. So that it gets jumpy, right, jumping here jumping there. Because we already had like a billion characters. So when they added more, right?

Collin  2:12:25

Yes, that's what I've gotten. Again. It's, it's one of those. Everything is of the utmost importance. We can't not talk about this, obviously, because you're like, oh my gosh, like I just need a little bit more, a little bit less of some things to help me understand what's going

Brandon  2:12:41

on. That's true. That's true. But you know, you know what does help you understand what's going on. And one thing that we have talked about before we wrap this up, oh Howard Shore Yeah, dang it. How does the soundtrack is so stinking good, like actor. Like, a lot of the cues and a lot of the emotional is delivered through this soundtrack. It's just, it's amazing. Yeah. Yeah. The one thing what Yeah, fair enough. Fair enough.

Collin  2:13:23

The score for this for this film and all of the films right, he did the original trilogy. Oh, wow. But like these, he really was, I don't know what they what directive he was or was not told to do. But the it was, it's really him. Just laying it all out there. It's it's an amazing, amazing

Brandon  2:13:45

score. Yeah. So I feel like I feel like that the thing that's really sort of underpinning all of this, like I'm like, no matter what's happening, like, the score, this movie is just incredible. Yeah, like a lot of the emotional stuff can just be delivered just straight from there just like let Howard Shore do his thing. And it's terrifying. And you can't help but like certain parts of it because of the underlying music in the background. That's just like blasting away it's like yeah, this is just like you just get sucked in automatically. You can I can't help it like without themes in the door theme and then like the Shire theme poking through here and there. You really get some of those billboards like in the book where it talks about like Bilbo thinking about home and blah blah like the movie just like how it's we're just like, pokes the Shire theme in randomly in spots and you get it

2:14:40

right. It is

Brandon  2:14:45

like, Oh, this parts really Bilbo is really struggling with something What's he struggling with? Oh, is that the rings theme I hear Ah, it is like ah, By the way that he uses beam and stuff to like interweave these ideas, and like, create new scores, wasn't it?

2:15:09

It's okay. Yeah, I'm gonna actually

Collin  2:15:12

include a YouTube video and I'll text you this too, as well of a YouTuber breaking down. It's called The Lord of the Rings, how Howard Shore makes us care. Like, yeah, where it shows scenes with the, it's kind of cool because he breaks down scenes with the actual sheet music overlaid on the screen as well. So you can kind of see what's being played during specific moments, and just how it's all put together. So it's, yeah, it's very interesting how they put it together and

Brandon  2:15:51

the instrument choice to the way that he weaves the different themes together and certain it's up and it's credible. So you really get a lot of that emotion from like, not only the performances from the actors, which are, I think, pretty good overall. You know, and, and then add in that soundtrack, it's just like, well, I can't have too mad, right, like, I can't

Collin  2:16:16

know anything. If we're if we're honest. Anytime we get more Howard Shore.

2:16:22

It's a good Yeah.

Collin  2:16:22

So you're you're right, you're right. All three movies totally redeemed. I love them all. Okay.

Brandon  2:16:31

And it does help. Right. It does help we watch them. Like, I will say, like, we didn't watch them, like, a stretch. Right? When we watched the movies, like we would watch them for a little bit and then we would like pause it. Yeah, like a break. And then like, now you just

Collin  2:16:48

cannot watch all these in one stretch. Like it's just, it is impossible.

Brandon  2:16:52

I mean, it's not. I watched all the Lord of the Rings one stretch before Well, you know, but like, so that helps kind of break out some of that weirdness, right. kind of alleviate some of like that, like, well, this is still happening. If you're like, you know, we break make supper, do this, blah, blah, do that. Or even you know, we're watching this one, watch half the movie today. Whatever we just had to because at the time, like we have to understand it's so like, we had to watch half the movie and then the next day watch the other half like it's it makes it like way not so bad. Right? Like, okay, like you the pacing problems go away when you only watch it halfway

2:17:40

Yeah,

Brandon  2:17:40

I the only one that I really struggled to get through is the second one. Just because there's so it feels long. Yeah, you just feel so like so much stuff in that movie. Like, I think, you know, just so much stuff. Right? If you made it. If you made the Battle of the Battle of Five Armies shorter, you cut out some of that stuff. You moved some of the second movie to there even like, more Smaug alive and I think it was like, Yeah, everything else but just like shifted around a little bit. Like I think that's

Collin  2:18:19

why the third movie is so exhausting for me, because you don't get a break like it there because there is it's Yeah, started out with that being Yeah, it's in it. By the end of it. It's like I have lost all of my care, because it's just like, I can't eat anymore. Like it's just so exhausting in that way. And you're right. I think if they really had trimmed down that and expanded like yeah, I would have loved to see more. More desolation. Bye. Bye and Have smug. Whoa. Alright, did you hear that motorcycle goodbye? Or was that mean, then either? Okay. Sorry, was very loud. Yeah, some more desolation of and by smog. Like that would have been really cool to see since he's kind of the, you know, a big deal in the movie. Yeah. But anyway, we'll submit our note our sternly written letters to for the for the remake in 20 years.

Brandon  2:19:12

I mean, all that being said, there are a lot of other movies that I would like, watch this in front of, right. There's, there's a whole ton of other like, just because I feel like these movies didn't live up their potential. Like I don't think they're like, terrible, and I would still rather watch them than a lot of other stuff. Right. I feel like that's important little asterisk to add back here. Like, the harsh because I love it. But like, there's also I would also I would much rather watch this and like many other things. So I just want to

Collin  2:19:54

warn him of that. No. Yes. Well, and you know, and on that bombshell, I think we'll go Cool. All right. Very good. Okay, well, I hope you enjoy the rest of your evening and we'll do this after this again soon. All right. Love you