WATCH ALONG: Fellowship of the Ring

Ashleigh, I know so many have told you this a million times here, but LOTR is a masterpiece of British Literature and is no way in the same league as Willow. (Sorry rant over) The ring has the power to force its will over over most mortals and almost impossible to resist except Frodo who had pure heart and good person which the ring finds hard to control. The length of the movie should not be the way you view this story you should look at the whole 3 books make up the whole story is 12 Hours plus and that’s the way you should continue. this is just the introduction to the immediate core of characters, if you continue there so many more people you’ll be introduced to.

RebRox65

This was a frustrating one to watch. I was legit YELLING at my laptop screen when you were trashing Boromir. The Ring corrupts pretty much EVERYONE who's anywhere near it. It can't get much of a foothold in a Hobbit (at least not quickly) but everyone else is feeling the effects. Boromir feels it first and most because his people are already being attacked by the forces of Mordor. He is absolutely desperate to protect his home and the Ring uses that desperation. Asking Boromir to be unaffected by the Ring is like asking a man dying of thirst to ignore the ice-cold pitcher of water next to him. And Boromir's death scene is one of the most heroic and heartbreaking death scenes in the history of cinema. So watching you witness that and speak of him almost contemptuously was very difficult. Of course, you are not required to react to a movie in the same way as anyone else, and we love your channel for your honest reactions. But this one was hard for me to watch.

Rosanne Stewart

I hear where you're coming from. When I hear people say "This reminds me of XXX" when the movie they are watching was the main inspiration for XXX, it kinda bugs me, too. You want to hear "Oh, XXX must have been inspired by this." but as you said, that takes deeper knowledge of the material in question and also a willingness to think before you speak - neither of which are common with the millennial+ reactors.

Thomas Yanez

I shouldn't have to explain this, but her saying that LotR reminds her of Willow probably means she thinks LotR copied from Willow, which we know it didn't. Not everyone knows the timeline here however and it's frustrating that anyone would think that just because they saw one before the other. And if she did know the timeline that would be even worse. Truth be told, the idea of comparing Willow to LotR in any way other than in the negative irritates me.

Richard Maurer

why would anyone pull their hair out at that? By your own statements, that Willow was trying to make LotR, it would make sense that this reminds her of Willow. It's not like she's saying Willow was better. Which, for the time it was released, Willow was great. It definitely didn't withstand the sands of time, but it was what it was.

Haughtbreaker Nic

Please don't compare The Blues Brothers to LotR. BB's just isn't in the same league.

Richard Maurer

Don't worry about the length. The extended cuts are more complete in terms of the storyline anyway. You should totally do all 3 LOTR extended cuts... and THEN do the extended cuts of the Hobbit movies. In truth, the Hobbit and its movies are more like the prequel to LOTR, but since LOTR came out in the movie theaters first, I think you'd enjoy the Hobbit series more having watched the LOTR series first. :)

J C

On a different note, did anybody else want to pull their hair out when Ashleigh was saying the movie gave her Willow vibes? This is worse than when people say it reminds them of Harry Potter, Willow is Dollar Store LotR -at best. I think she may not realize that while the movies were made after Willow, the LotR novels were written long before, and that Willow was basically an attempt to make LotR without paying for the rights.

Richard Maurer

I do however think she will like Two Towers and Return of the King more. People who aren't Tolkien fans tend to prefer those over Fellowship.

Richard Maurer

I think you nailed it. Her problems with Fellowship were every bit true of the theatrical as the extended. Same abrupt ending. Gollum is pretty much a no show. She hated Boromir. And that last one is even more true of the theatrical than the extended version by not including his conversation with Aragorn at the Shrine of Narsil (making him look like a complete jerk to him) or the scenes of him bonding with Merry and Pippin. And then there was the apparent technical SNAFU of her copy not having subtitles for the elvish language scenes. But I get it. People were hoping for the same "five out of five" enthusiasm that she has had with other franchises (MCU, Harry Potter, Pirates). As a huge Tolkien nerd, I would have liked that, too. It just wasn't in the cards for this franchise.

Yeah I don't understand the contingent that regards anything short of 5 out of 5 stars as "She hated it"

Paul Johnson

I watched on HBO Max and same - the subtitles are just there, no need to do anything.

Richard Maurer

It's funny. Reading the patreon comments sections of the YT edit, I went into this watch along thinking I was going to have sit through Ashleigh griping about having to watch the extendeds every five minutes. Turns out she barely mentioned the run time during the movie. And she certainly didn't hate it as some people in comments insisted incessantly she would every time I posted a request for her to watch them. And some of those people still seem to think they were right, that she did hate it, even though she clearly stated that she didn't. Confirmation bias at its finest. Did she love it as much as I hoped she would? No. But, unlike the ones who said she would hate it, I was never stupid enough to claim she would love it. And yes, claiming to know whether or not someone will hate or love a movie based solely on run time is stupid. I recommended the extendeds for many reasons, but mostly because I consider them the superior version. I wouldn't recommend the inferior version just because I think someone might have short attention span. I have done full watch alongs of the extendeds with 7 different reactors and one group reaction, and I am happy to say that so far Ashleigh's reaction is comparable to those excellent reactions.

Richard Maurer

I was really surprised when she mentioned there were no subtitles for the Elvish. I watched it on Amazon and it was just IN the movie. I don't watch with CC.

Gryff

A technical note Ashleigh: most of the scenes of people speaking Elvish to each other do have subtitles. Another reactor I watch ran into a situation on Disney+ where the English subtitles translating characters speaking other languages were disabled when she had subtitles for the whole show on. You may have a similar thing happening here.

MrHolbyta

That's fine. You're wrong on every point, though. She hated the extended version of The Blues Brothers. I think she would've liked the theatrical version. Why? Too much extraneous garbage in the extended versions. I will almost always recommend the theatrical version for the first time viewer. Extended versions are for repeat viewings. Especially for 3+ hour long movies.

Yahouti

Roger Ebert, film critic for the Chicago Sun-Times, panned the first two movies. One of his points was that there were "too many characters". When he saw the _third_ movie, he retracted his two previous reviews and gave the trilogy a rave. (He had never read the book, so he only understood the context after seeing the whole work.) I would encourage you to view this as a single work, spread across 9 hours of film. The book was everything that the term "saga" implies: long, complex, detailed... and worth the trip.

N1nth Sh4dow

As far as extended editions go, this first one has the more "boring" added scenes. For the next 2 movies, the extended scenes really do add to the story. Considering how engaged you are able to be with the story on a first watch, I think you will have a good time continuing with the extended versions. You will get some answers to questions and extra info that I think will make it overall more enjoyable for you

Hannah Mather

hard disagree on every point

Hannah Mather

It could be a result of the new 4k mastering, but I'm just guessing. Every edition I've seen has had the subtitles hard encoded onto the image.

Alexander Fish

Agree completely. Watch the theatrical releases. Much better watch.

Brent Fugett

I would ignore the people telling you to watch the extended versions, if you decide to watch the next two movies. Those are for folks who have seen the movies, probably also read the books (twice for me), and love the lore so much they need more. Although, by the time the director got to the third one (Return of the King), he was obviously getting less selective about which scenes to put in, so there is quite a bit of unnecessary garbage that just doesn't need to be in there. The theatrical version is a masterpiece, but the extended version is pretty awful. Anyone who disagrees with me, I have two words for you: Skull Crunching. I definitely recommend that you switch to the theatrical versions, and also make sure you see a version with subtitles.

Yahouti

So, just a clarification for Boromir, the one who tried to steal the Ring from Frodo. Boromir was a good man. In Gondor, he was known as a very kind, and noble person. One who truly, wanted the best for his people. He was never evil. He was afraid for his lands and people. The Ring worked on him and used his fear to try and corrupt him. It isn't really his fault. The Ring can corrupt the will of, almost, ANY being when it focuses on them. Even Gandalf and Galadriel would have been corrupted, the moment they picked it up. Hobbits, by nature are peaceful and kind folk. They have the least greed and violence, among all the race. And that gives them, considerable protection. Considering that Bilbo is the first creature in history that was able to, voluntarily set the ring aside and walk away, and that was after carrying it and using it for 60 years. Others become corrupted and covet it after looking at it from across the room. Boromir fought it, but didn't really believe it couldn't be used safely. And the Ring used that, knowing he was the weakest of the group. In this world, humans are, as a people, the most susceptible to greed and lust for power. Whether you respect of hate him, just wanted you to have the context of his situation. Also, it made me crack up, every time you compared it to other movies, like Willow. The Lord Of The Rings trilogy is, genuinely, the founder of the Fantasy genre. Almost every fantasy story is taking aspects from J. R. R. Tolkien. He is the Shakespeare of Fantasy.

Samuel Vincent

I laughed when you asked if Lady Galadriel reminded us of a Marvel character...the golden lady in Guardians I think you said....stayed tuned, you'll see Cate Blanchett very soon lol

Nate Terry

This was one of the best reactions to this film ive seen. You really seemed engaged with what was going on in spite of the long run time. I hope you continue with the extended versions. Also, Im not sure what was going on with the subtitles for you, the elvish conversations usually have subtitles even if you havent turned subtibles on. Hopefully that works correctly next time. anyway, thanks for this

Hannah Mather