Triforce! - Triforce! #211: The worst Lord of the Rings movie you'll never watch

Episode Date: March 16, 2022

Triforce! Episode 211! Lewis has been delving into the life of Anna Delvey, Sips has been hate-watching more Love At First Sight and Pyrion explores the alternate universe of a James Corden and Bruce ...Willis Lord of the Rings! Go to http://manscaped.com and use code TRIFORCE to get 20% off with free shipping. Support your favourite podcast on Patreon: https://bit.ly/2SMnzk6 Music courtesy of Epidemic Sound. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Starting point is 00:01:15 Hello and welcome and good morning. Happy returns to the Triforce podcast. Thank you. I've just woken up zips how are you doing i've also just woken up um well ish you've had covid this week how are you feeling well i i didn't have it but uh the rest of my family did yeah i i never you i thought you'd had no i never i never tested positive for it i i was just stayed somehow isolated from your family in your house yeah you've done it and with the with the restrictions being as they are it was pretty useful because it meant that while you're sleeping on the sofa or something what was the deal no i just like just normal i think i spend like uh you know a lot of time in the garage by myself so maybe that's how i avoided it i don't know i am amazed but uh oh it was super useful because
Starting point is 00:02:05 I because I didn't get it and the the isolation restrictions being um as they are currently it meant that I could go out and buy food and and supplies and and actually go do stuff so I was kind of like the uh more so than usual the logistics man around the house you know I had to go I had to go and and I was the hunter-gatherer for the for the house you know i had to go i had to go and and i was the hunter gatherer for the for the clan you know it was it was it was all right i can't believe it i just assumed you'd been infected no that's amazing no um how are you pfax you feeling good i'm feeling great um my mum was up last week uh to stay for a week and she got very annoyed my eldest was poorly at the start of the week and then my mom
Starting point is 00:02:45 got sick and i was i was worried because you know she's nearly 80 and and uh i thought for god's sake please don't let her have caught covid here because that would be like a disaster but it was not it was just a really nasty chest infection uh tried to go to the gps just to all you need is prescription for amoxicillin or something like that some kind of you know um like a penicillin based antibiotic yeah and and they were like oh no you'll have to go to the walk-in clinic at the hospital i was like oh fuck so we got there and it was to be fair didn't take long and she got the prescription everything and she was all right i had to drive her back on on sunday and and so i was just so like i was just really worried but she also didn't catch covid she she just had a really bad chest infection uh and a whole bunch of people that week that i play
Starting point is 00:03:29 dota with or that i know in the uk came down with the exact same symptoms and feelings so it's weird how you know we we kind of think we can control these diseases but like we said before like i don't know how it's possible that I know like 10 different people that same week that have the same cold. It's bonkers. It's absolutely bonkers. It's wild, isn't it?
Starting point is 00:03:50 It's really weird. Like that. I don't know how much of that is just, um, bad luck or the fact that you're talking about it, that makes them aware of it. You know, I don't know how much coincidental stuff happens anyway,
Starting point is 00:04:03 or how much you, you, you do it by discussing it. Do you know what I mean? I guess. If you hadn't discussed it, would you have found out that other people had? Would you have thought, hmm?
Starting point is 00:04:13 Well, I mean, I didn't open the conversation with, do you have a cold? It was just like... Oh, I see. It was literally like we'd be playing Doberman and someone would be like, they're going to meet up. And you'd be like, oh, you sound awful.
Starting point is 00:04:24 Oh, yeah, I've got a cold. You're like, Oh fuck. Having an old relative like that, it's a little bit like having a fragile pet, you know, that you have to kind of drive them around to make sure they're okay. You have to like put them in, take them to the vet more regularly. Yeah. I can see that see that yeah it's a stress i mean i've you know i know that it's uh well as you get older your parents stop being you know the ones that look after you and you sort of basically have to look after them yeah i mean it's interesting
Starting point is 00:04:57 because i when you if you think about the role reversal i'm now the one who has to tell my mom how the remote works and how to how to do things and previously you know she'm now the one who has to tell my mom how the remote works and how to do things and previously you know she would be the one teaching me stuff so uh i just think you know you got to pay back what they did for you um so i'm always gonna look after her yeah i hope other people do the same thing if they can it's different uh cultures do right? Like there's more, I think there's, I think in like Asian countries, especially there's more of, there's more of that, right? Oh, it's absolutely. I got to pay, I got to look after my parents. Like, you know, they looked after me sort of thing.
Starting point is 00:05:38 But I feel like in the West, it's not like that so much at all, right? Like people just sort of dump their parents into a into a home and and never see them again kind of thing yeah i don't know if i don't know if they have bigger houses in asia i kind of doubt it no i wouldn't have thought so but you never know but yeah i just think they're culturally set up to say yeah and also i'll be honest with you i i understand that we have a very strong desire in in the, I would say, I'm not going to speak for other places because I haven't lived there, to be independent from your parents as soon as possible, really.
Starting point is 00:06:11 People want to get out and they want to get on their own. They basically want to just drop in and see them at Thanksgiving or Christmas or whatever. And you'll see them occasionally, but you basically want to be independent. And I know a lot of parents that want to be independent from their kids once their kids get to a certain age. Yeah, for sure. But this is not a natural human way for things to be, to be isolated from your family. We basically should be with them all the time. Yeah. And imagine now, I know a lot of people that talk about the cost of healthcare, sorry, childcare. The cost of childcare is prohibitive to a lot of people.
Starting point is 00:06:44 Imagine if you had some old person or a couple of old people living with you who had their pension coming in, looked after the kids while you were at work. Right then, you've got some extra income, right? You've got childcare sorted. You're with your family, even just from an economic point of view. If you want to be that brutal about it, I think it might actually be pretty beneficial yeah there's a lot of downsides when my mom was here i almost lost my mind but it happens you know i'm sure you you get used to it um but yeah i mean i didn't have to do any housework for like a week she did it all before i could even notice she'd doing it she was she was doing it yeah so i'd just be finishing dinner
Starting point is 00:07:20 and the dishwasher's already going on i was like what the fuck like sit down and relax for a minute she's like i can't relax till this is done having some old person around breaking their back doing all the shitty jobs you don't want to do it's great in all honesty if if that's like the the situation like with your parents and i think yeah go for it but i think for like with a lot of people it's it's not like but like my parents would for example not do that like if my parents lived with me it would just be a hindrance and and not like but like my parents would for example not do that like if my parents lived with me it would just be a hindrance and and not a help like it would just be the worst um but i but i know a lot of people whose parents are like are really good like that you know really yeah really hands
Starting point is 00:07:56 on help with like everything help with the kids and stuff i mean in my situation it's a bit different as well i live very far away from my parents So that day-to-day sort of stuff would never be anyway kind of thing. But yeah, it's a weird one, isn't it? I don't know. I think if you're lucky enough to be close to your family and they're still a really big part of your life going into you having children of your own and building a life and everything. I think it's got to be great, right? Yeah. It doesn't work for everybody for sure.
Starting point is 00:08:29 No, obviously. I mean, I know a lot of people who couldn't wait to get away from their parents because their parents were incredibly toxic and unpleasant. Yeah. That's another thing. Yeah. And I mean, you have to get away from them if that's the case, because you can't have that in your life, right? I haven't checked with someone this week because they were like i've watched i watched this um inventing anna on netflix right it's kind of about this anna delvey kind of saga where she i saw yeah that's the most watched uh show on
Starting point is 00:08:54 netflix in like in a while very long-winded and it's like a dramatization of this relatively short story actually that probably could have been done in a half an hour long documentary but it sort of dragged out to eight hours of um fairly mediocre tv but julia garner's great as this kind of weird yeah she's like a fake heiress or something like yeah it's kind of like and it's come out at the same time as the tinder swindler um on netflix as well which is this kind of thing that's sort of taken on a bit of its own. Are you the Timber Swindler? Well, no.
Starting point is 00:09:28 So he's a sort of similar guy who's kind of his thing, his scam. He's a little bit like- His scam. I love how he's like, no, his scam was different to mine. I had a different scam that I was doing. It's like the Ponzi scheme, right? Where he borrows money from one person and then uses it to pay someone else, you see. And his sort of scam is that, oh, you know, I'm an heir to this diamond empire and there's these people who are after me.
Starting point is 00:09:56 And so I can't use my credit cards. So can you lend me some money? You know, and so he funds this lavishish lifestyle but it's always relying on the next con right much like a ponzi scheme like as soon as one of the cons falls through he he can't pay his bills suddenly and he's trapped right um and so he has to really work around and grift a bit before we can get the sort of thing rolling again um and so he sort of bilked a lot of these um women from across the globe because he was sort of flying around, you know, living this sort of incredibly jet set lifestyle. And anyway, Inventing Anna is a very sort of similar thing where she is this person who is kind of doesn't have any money,
Starting point is 00:10:36 but has managed to ingratiate herself into sort of groups of people in society where you just it doesn't matter. people in society where you just it doesn't matter you know they will pay for you they'll cover everything and until you eventually manage to sort of get your business off the ground by borrowing and then suddenly you're independently wealthy it's almost like the american sort of fake it till you make it mantra yeah you know kind of thing where she obviously she did obviously bill a lot of people out of a lot of money. But it was in a really interesting way. But she reminded me of this both because both of these people had fallen out with their families. And there's this sort of scene where the journalist goes back to Germany and finds Anna Delvey's family and sort of talks to them. And they're just like, yeah, we've forgotten about her.
Starting point is 00:11:22 And she's like, do you not call her or anything? And they're just like, yep, we've forgotten about her. And she's like, do you not call her or anything? And they're like, no. And the person I was watching this with was like, but there's custom in this kind of, they seem like nice people, but why do they not care about their daughter? And I'm like, fucking hell if your daughter's some sort of scam artist who's like a terrible dad. And it's the same thing with the Tinder swindler guy.
Starting point is 00:11:43 They went and found his family and they sort of talked to them as if they were somehow responsible or like i don't know or or had some sort of like any any say in what was going on or any idea what was happening like because i think we haven't talked to him for 25 years because he's a fucking asshole it turns out exactly yeah and i think that i respect honestly people that cut ties like that with with their asshole children in the same way that i respect people who cut cut ties with their asshole parents like right i i agree that some people change and that like you know the blood is thicker than water some do but honestly like i mean i've lived long enough to know that most people do not change like uh past a certain point in their life if they're if
Starting point is 00:12:25 if they are how they are that's how they are like it's very hard to change um you know like major parts of your personality and stuff like i'm not saying it doesn't happen because i'm sure it does i'm sure somebody out there probably has like a good example or whatever but generally speaking i don't think most people change like i think you know i think you are who you are and you know if it works fine and if it doesn't well well what can you do you know like it's just uh you could you try to work on it but i don't know man like i've just known so many people like like you know nice people toxic people whatever and like they they're always they're always the same they never change it's just that's just my my here's my question do you guys think that there is kind of a push in the media
Starting point is 00:13:11 when someone has come out as an absolute arsehole to try and bury them under as much yeah we all hate them as possible as like a collective sort of outpouring of of hatred but the the ultimate thing to achieve is getting someone's parents to say yeah they're a piece of shit because it's like wow yeah even their parents were it's like kind of a gotcha and i think when someone has done something where they're like this person is a complete arsehole if you can get their parents to come out and say yeah they're an arsehole everyone's like wow like that's even worse that makes it even Yeah. So I kind of think that going to people's parents, even though they're not responsible,
Starting point is 00:13:48 like once your kid is a grownup and off doing stuff, like, I mean, they, they, the parents of the guys that did the Columbine shooting, they, they spoke to them.
Starting point is 00:13:57 It was like a documentary where they're interviewing them. Yeah. And they were like, we didn't know this was coming. And everyone, there's kind of two implications. One, wow. You must be really ashamed. It's like, let's coming. And everyone, there's kind of two implications. One, wow, you must be really ashamed.
Starting point is 00:14:08 It's like, let's get that on camera, which is kind of shitty. I think they are probably very ashamed. Of course. They definitely do feel, what did they do wrong? Where did they go wrong? And that's the other question. Yeah, why they're being interviewed. So did they ever, you know, when they were five, what were they like? Did they torture insects
Starting point is 00:14:25 and you did nothing you guys did nothing is that right and now they're an asshole it's like fuck off what are they meant to do honey I think the kids are serial killer he's two yeah I could just see it I could feel it in my water I wonder if
Starting point is 00:14:40 like all joking aside I wonder if like there are cases like that though. Like, like, like a young Jeffrey Dahmer or whatever. You're like, well, honey, I caught him sniffing the bones in the backyard again. Like, like I wonder if some people can really see it coming like from a young age, you know, like. Honey, I saw him on Tinder. He was trying to convince someone he was a 21 year old diamond. He was jacking off in his diaper a 21-year-old diamond there.
Starting point is 00:15:06 He was jacking off in his diaper again. But when's this going to stop? He's 20 years old, for fuck's sake. Oh, Jesus. You know, like, I wonder if people, I wonder if there is, like, cases where, you know, you can see it coming from a mile away and then sure enough. I think it should be the other way around. Because it's always these kids have been bullied or something by some some actual asshole do you mean who's who's who's like fucked him up somehow like at a certain point this we should let bullies family and hold them more responsible do you know what i mean yeah that's
Starting point is 00:15:35 that's always stuff it's it's a it's always like a really lethal combination of lots of things i feel like you know it's not it's i it's rarely just like one one thing right like it's you're right i think people like the simplicity of it of course yeah it's a lot more digestible but like but the reality is is that everybody is pretty complicated and it would it just takes a lot of unfortunate um you know combinations of things to occur for people to end up just completely mental i think i think that at the same time part of that part of the things that lead to these you know i guess like school shootings type things is the the availability and the cultural attitudes towards this in certain places.
Starting point is 00:16:25 You know, I think having guns casually available. Like I was listening to a criminal podcast the other day about this sort of 15 year old who, you know, him and his friends had managed to find a gun. Yeah. In America. They just found a gun and they were walking home from school and they were like just stealing using it to steal money out of people's like like just cash out of people's pockets kind of just yeah almost like casually and obviously he went to prison for life for armed robbery multiple counts of armed robbery well i mean and he was he was he just went to adult prison for life it's pretty fucking
Starting point is 00:17:03 distressing though like i mean it sounds comical but like if you're on the receiving end of that, that sucks, man. Like that is going to affect you probably for the rest of your life. That's going to give you anxiety. That's going to, you know what I mean? Like you're never going to forget that interaction, that negative interaction with somebody, right? Yeah, totally. It's an awful place everything awful thing to experience and uh you know i think that it's it's yeah i'm sure i but at the same time you know like we that
Starting point is 00:17:34 so i think it's changed now but up until very recently you know america was still putting kind of kids in jail for life um which i think i think there was a big thing that came down that said look if you went if you got jailed for life um when you were under 16 yeah you could you could have your sentence like kind of re revisited yeah there was a i remember if you remember i was talking about that philly da program like a long time ago. Yeah, yeah, yeah. There was a case of that as well. There was a guy, he was 16 and he shot and shot and well, murdered somebody. Which is not a trivial crime.
Starting point is 00:18:14 Of course not, no. But they eventually let him out early. But he was like, you know, almost 50 years old by the time he got out. So he'd spent from the age of 16 until, you know know almost 50 years old by the time he got out so he'd spent from the age of 16 until you know nearly 50 years old times as long as he'd been alive in prison yeah and it's like and you know you could you know you're you're they're interviewing him and he's a you know he's a grown man who realizes like the gravity of what he's done and is so if you're in maths and that guy's poking you will you shoot him will you get to do it again it's like uh it's maybe uh it's so uh it's so if you're riding
Starting point is 00:18:51 the bus to school it's just it's wild though isn't it because it's like it's like with a lot of this stuff they're they're they're trying to to to blanket cover a lot of eventualities but really it it comes down it's it's a case-by-case thing right like some people like are are reformable i think and some people just simply are not like and and and i think it it comes down to that and it's case-by-case for sure you know like i don't know it's it's crazy philip k dick um amazon show um which on prime yeah it's called it's called It's a Philip K. Dick Amazon show. Really? On Prime, yeah. It's called Philip K. Dick's Electric Dreams.
Starting point is 00:19:37 And it's kind of like a Black Mirror style anthology series. No, it's a couple of years old. How did I miss this? Man, I'm a big Dick fan. God, every week my Philip K. Dick Appreciation Society meetings. Someone mentioned it to me. Big Dick fan. God, every week, my Philip K. Dick Appreciation Society meetings, and nobody mentioned this to me? And so he obviously, it's 10 sort of hour-long episodes based on his work. And obviously, they vary absolutely wildly from kind of very cool and interesting sci-fi ideas to stupid.
Starting point is 00:20:03 One of them's got- I love that. One of them's got i love that one of them's got steve that's good oh man so yeah you don't quite know i've definitely spoken about philip k dick previously on the podcast i apologize to anyone that's caning through all 200 plus episodes and here's this again yeah but he he did a lot of amphetamines when he was writing right um because a lot of writers in that era were really fucking cranking out men i feel like i need to do more amphetamines while i'm streaming you know like like oh you hear all these guys in history that are like yeah he did all of his best work and he was jacked up on this and that like i need to get jacked up on this and
Starting point is 00:20:43 that like now is my time it's my my fucking time to get jacked up on this and that. Like, now is my time. We need to take some fucking drugs! My fucking time to shine, baby! Like, come on! We need to- you know, I gotta change it up a little bit. God, I gotta hit the hard stuff, I think. Yeah. Well, it worked for Philip. Yeah. But yeah, some of his stories were absolutely nuts, and he would often go down- He was a wild guy. He was. But he would often go down a rabbit hole. Like, his rabbit hole was
Starting point is 00:21:04 the confusion between what is real, right? That's, in summary, 80% of Philip K. Dirk's story. There's a 15% after that are a seemingly endless war between two sides on an alien planet, and one side comes up with some clever strategy to beat the other, normally involving robots that look like people. And then the other 5% are probably the ones you've heard of or the bonkers ones uh so things like the man in the high tower i always can never remember if it's castle or
Starting point is 00:21:33 tower but either way oh the the one where hitler's still alive right right right the one where the is that a philip k dick thing as well yeah that was all right yeah that was in a while um yeah and is bonkers because there are moments in it where people see the alternate reality and that with their own eyes and it's like not clear as usual being philip kiddick it's not clear whether it's a hallucination or whether they're actually seeing some other reality poking into their own it's unclear and this is exactly the case in these this series like in in many of them so it's kind of you're thrown into this odd universe where not a lot is necessarily explained yeah and you know like i think the first one of the first ones i watched
Starting point is 00:22:19 was there's like um there's like a a lesbian police woman living in the future okay when she goes when she puts on this vr headset she like really gets immersed in the personality of a straight game does male very billionaire game designer okay right so she switches between being this lesbian super cop and billionaire game designer that crazy. Those are my two personas as well. That's incredible. Incredible. The Billionaire Game Designer has designed a game that's incredibly immersive.
Starting point is 00:22:51 And he basically, the character he or she, is confused about which one of them is real. Right, yeah. They have to take the headset off and die in one of the worlds. But they don't know whether the world they're going to die in is going to be the one which is real. Which one would you pick you know it's really hard to pick billionaire would be pretty sweet man lesbian super cop would be fucking sweet that does also sound pretty cool but a lot more dangerous and you've got less money you know yeah yeah i mean i've just sort of spoiled
Starting point is 00:23:18 it but i mean i haven't really spoiled it because that whole episode is about you making up your own mind if you like about which one is real do you know i mean and the episode suggests lots of different arguments about this could be which way it could be around it i thought it was pretty cool but yeah there's there's a bunch of other ones there's like um a one which is like starship trooper style where they're engaged in this bizarre war with these aliens and sending ships to fight them and they're sort of limping back you know and earth's dying which is quite weird and there's there's one there's one that's just super weird where um where steve buscemi's in it um and it's just fucking bonkers like oh this so they're all
Starting point is 00:23:57 they're all mental little ideas but the reason i mentioned it because there's one of them is like set in this sort of u.s school where basically it's kind of this futuristic idea of what a u.s school is where they're they they're constantly scared of terrorist attacks you know they have like blast windows on the school in case someone attacks the school it's kind of this it's become this kind of incredibly but also they have this incredibly um surveilled situation where all the kids have this little apple wristwatch right where it basically just tracks their heart rate it tracks what they're doing tracks where they are tracks everything about them who they talk to who they interact with and so it but in a way what it's doing is it's brainwashing these kids right
Starting point is 00:24:40 to be a certain way and it's very it's very clever how it's just a couple of steps from where we are now, and you see how technology could be used to kind of make people... Make people... What's it? Fundamentalised or whatever. Do you know what I mean?
Starting point is 00:24:58 Like kind of make people angry about the way things are. Just in a very simple way you know you give them very gentle nudges and it's so easy to convince someone who's relatively normal to quickly be um dangerous radicalized yeah it's it's it's scary yeah there's there's a couple of ones about the president i think they were i think they were all pretty interesting and i mean i will say not great some of them um but because but you're always going to get away with an anthology partly because there's different writers on each episode there's different directors on each episode you know there's no necessarily quality checking they're almost like we're gonna just make let 10 of you make these things and then we'll put them out and then we'll
Starting point is 00:25:42 choose which order to put them out we'll put the best one out first you know we'll put them out and then we'll choose which order to put them out. We'll put the best one out first. You know, we'll hide some of the bad ones in the middle and then we'll finish with a good one. You know, so that people think it was a good series and we get another one. But I don't think they did get another series. Shame. So, yeah, it's on Amazon Prime. I just wonder how much the effect of the amphetamines made him question reality. Like, it's such a strong theme. What if nothing's real?
Starting point is 00:26:03 Dude's out of his mind on coke and this is basically 10 episodes of what if nothing is real what if what if i'm in a weird place and that's the problem like you can get the philip k dick anthologies there's like a million of them um they're huge and you could just pour through them and there is a lot of similarity uh between them which is funny but uh i'm sure if you had to pick 10 philip k dick stories you would still struggle to to not be locked into the what if nothing's real kind of theme i just found it funny whereas if you look at black mirror i feel like black mirror had a very similar kind of um overriding trope if you like that was occasionally there were variations but it was like near future something that
Starting point is 00:26:45 currently exists taken to an extreme yeah it was sort of like i never seen black mirror but my perception of it is that like it's all these like mini stories about like these kind of like 1984 esque scenarios or something some of that yeah yeah but a lot of it about about social if you could imagine the not Not social media, but the way that social interaction has changed. It's lots of stuff like... It's that kind of thing taken. Oh, if I get 100 likes on Facebook, somebody dies and stuff like that. It's all these weird...
Starting point is 00:27:16 Is it a bit like that? Well, so there's one of the earlier episodes with Bryce Dallas Howard, and who is... She's brilliant in it. She basically, you actually have a rating, like your Uber rating. And when you interact with people, they give you a plus or a minus sort of thing. And they rate you and you have an average. In order to get the really good jobs or get a really nice mortgage or whatever, you need to have a very high rating. It's close to five. Or go to a nice coffee shop.
Starting point is 00:27:46 Exactly. Or get insurance. You need to have the right rating. So if your rating is too low, they say, I'm sorry, you can't come in. So you literally have how liked you are by other people on you all the time. Oh, okay.
Starting point is 00:27:57 So that's a really interesting concept. Yeah, it's like an Uber rating or an eBay because Uber drivers, you obviously have that you have a rating right as well though they rate you right and so in a sense they could decide not to pick you up if you've got a bad rating right and it's that taken to a broad stretched out to what that would actually be like if all aspects of your life revolved around a lot of the episodes are that sort of thing i guess yeah and also like the idea of it spiraling like someone who's got a bad rating you're more likely to give them another bad rating but also people are trading good ratings
Starting point is 00:28:29 for favors and things like this and like you know it suddenly becomes this kind of currency or something knife at your throat right where you kind of have to do things you don't want to do that are you know in order or like or like grovel or be a certain way in order to try and it just leads to this kind of... I don't know, it's a little bit like in America how everyone is all grovelly in restaurants to get tips. Oh, yeah. Yes.
Starting point is 00:28:54 I'm not saying that. It's just like the fakeness of servers usually. I mean, it's not always the case, but like certainly like sometimes that fake niceness is so foreign to us as english people who've never had a service smile in their life you know it's it's kind of very strange british customer service is really something else isn't it it's just like holy it's reassuringly it's reassuringly shit yeah reassuringly honest yeah if you've been away on vacation somewhere nice and you and you come back you're're like, well, I'm definitely home.
Starting point is 00:29:27 Like people are grunting at you and ignoring you and stuff. But you're right. You should definitely watch Black Mirror, though. It's good. It's really, really good. It's all near future stuff. Whereas this is more kind of in the apocalypse and in space and you know like weird scenarios but yeah like it's it's not as touchable in a sense because it's it's um you you're the the characters are always almost as
Starting point is 00:29:53 confused as you are right in yeah yeah so by the way my uber rating is 4.82 wow and i and i've been told that that's really bad so i was kind kind of startled. And that's kind of interesting. I think mine's lower than that. Mine's like 4.7. 4.82. I've literally said that. And they're like, how do you get 4.82? What are you doing?
Starting point is 00:30:12 Are you like farting in the car? Are you like being racist to the driver and stuff? I was like, no, I just, I don't know. Like sometimes I think I forget to rate them, but I almost always tip them. And, you know, we chat and everything like that. But I must have pissed off some driver at some point i don't know if a non-rating counts as a zero or a one or whatever or if it just defaults to a three if you don't rate each other i have no
Starting point is 00:30:35 idea i don't think i don't think it's all right i think it adds to the average i think well it sometimes do you use it to like put other people in the car? Sometimes, yeah. Or sometimes if you keep them waiting. No, I never keep them waiting. I call a lot of Ubers for people and put them in the car, and I don't know what they're doing. Is that the many babes that come to the Lewis Love Pad? That's not that. Go send them home, baby.
Starting point is 00:31:01 Go home. You know, the class you move is an Addison Lee, just saying. You've got to get her an Addison Lee and ship her home and that that's the play right everybody uses uber addison lee you know that's the classier version that's like oh i see i see is that true yeah the drivers wear suits and shit you've never been in an addison lee no never even heard of it really they're like one of the biggest private car hires in the world it sounds like a fucking investment bank yeah it does that's why it's so classy yeah addison lee for travel and deliveries that matter we are they are not sponsored
Starting point is 00:31:30 there you go no we are not sponsored by addison lee i've never even heard of it that surprises me so what that's that's like a rich people yeah that's it you wouldn't call her an uber you'd call her an addison yeah anna delvey is getting that i know how to treat the ladies ladies you know i know how i know she has this odd accent you know. I know how to look up. Emily Rad in Addison Leigh. She has this odd accent. Really, really odd. It's so weird. It's like the kind of preppy American rich girl with a tinge of Russian.
Starting point is 00:31:53 It's just so weird. With a tinge of Russian. Nice. Yeah. It's like got Russian sort of underneath it. Julia Gardner does a good job, apparently, with it. It's such a weird, weird sound. And I think that that's maybe what made her her stand out is this kind of odd person you know
Starting point is 00:32:09 because she was she was in the art world she was sort of i don't know sorry going back to anna delvey so it's it's it's hot it stayed with me a bit that that show you said it was really mediocre though yeah but it's just because it's so fucking long, though. I've spent eight hours watching it this week. I feel like it's like I didn't. A lot of that was on my phone, I must admit. Well, you could have been watching eight hours of what I've been watching this week. And that is the new season of Married at First Sight Australia, which is as you would expect. Yeah, it's pretty wild. I's i mean parts of it are are quite enjoyable to watch honestly it's it's very fun to watch with my wife because we both have a similar
Starting point is 00:32:54 kind of attitude towards it you know like we don't really take it seriously or whatever and we make lots of jokes and stuff and it's it's it's it's it's it's good fun we do the same with the apprentice honestly like the apprentice is a bit like that too but it's i don't know the the the viewing experience is fun it's not so much that the show that's any good you know what i mean the it's good the news of that is that the network bosses endermol and all these people have issued a warning to the 2022 cast to stay away from inverted commas desperate former stars yes well because apparently well they are first sight people are very hungry to stay famous of course no like there was a big in the last season there was like
Starting point is 00:33:38 constant references to oh that's you know they're doing that because it's going to look good on instagram and and whatever and stuff. And you think, I don't know how many followers these people have going into a show like this. I wouldn't have imagined like too many sort of thing unless they were like, you know, big time influencers ahead of this or whatever. But none. I didn't know of any of them being having like any big sort of presence on social media or whatever. But if you're good looking and stupid and have no discernible talent this is your way to make it there's this we've created a way it
Starting point is 00:34:11 used to just be modeling oh man you're 100 right and the issue is is that when they're casting people for this show they want good looking people they don't want like me yeah like the baldies and the ugly ones uh you know they want they want fucking basically instagram stars already right so they want someone that people are gonna basically because it's like a mutually beneficial thing right the shark is the show and the contestants are like the pilot fish right and they both benefit the show benefits from having good looking people that then develop a big following over the course of the show because you want to tune in and look at these attractive people and frankly a lot of people want to look at them being attractive but also enjoy the fact that they're acting like idiots
Starting point is 00:34:51 yeah yeah like everyone would love to see someone that they really think oh she's so beautiful she's so great but if she slipped in a banana skin i guarantee you people would enjoy that even more sure so essentially you want to see these attractive people being vapid and boring because it makes you feel better about yourself you know even though they're better looking than me this girl's an idiot you know what i mean so it's and it sort of developed into this big uh well cycle it's it's it's weird because some people you kind of you almost root for you're like i actually you know like this couple and i hope that they do okay or whatever you know like they're they're they're fine and but then you know you the cracks
Starting point is 00:35:26 show after a while and of course you you know you you can change your mind or whatever and then some people you're just immediately like this person does not stand a chance like they're never gonna it's never gonna work they're they're broken or whatever like uh but it's i don't know man it's there was one guy that just escaped. It was quite a big deal at the time. They did a This American Life podcast where they talked to him and essentially he was on one of these shows. I don't know if it was The Bachelor or Married at First Sight or whatever.
Starting point is 00:35:55 But he just legged it. Yeah. He escaped from the compound and legged it. And of course, they can't detain him. No, of course not. They tried to sort of encourage him not to escape and sort of. Yeah. Kind of tried to contain him in a way, but he just climbed over a fence and fucking left.
Starting point is 00:36:11 Yeah. I was like, that guy's a hero. I love that. Well, you have to have you. You probably have like a bit of a crisis of self-awareness. Yeah. In the middle of filming where you're just like, what the fuck am I doing? Like, but that's how you know
Starting point is 00:36:25 he was he was a decent person i think because i think a lot of them don't have that nah yeah are you saying it's like the milgram experiment where it turns out that like most people are just willing to you reckon like the big brother contestants or whoever's in the staff you know they run in and they're like can try to him and like, oh, talk him down. You know, they could convince him through their authority. It's like, no, no, I'm the showrunner. You have to stay. You have to stay, mate.
Starting point is 00:36:50 I'm saying that if you armed the other people in the house, you would have martial law within a day. And someone would declare themselves as the leader. If you gave them roles and told them that the way to win the show was to stop this person escaping whatever it would be absolute chaos yeah absolute chaos especially because these people have no self-reflection or introspection at all they exist as reactive emotional creatures you're right this is like that other experiment that was done the one with the
Starting point is 00:37:21 the prisoners the stanford prison experiment 100 because the thing about the Stanford Prison Experiment was, if you don't know, look it up, it's really interesting, but basically there were a load of students who were prisoners and students who were guards. And it very quickly became this kind of very weird, like horrific kind of bullying, not like Abu Ghraib or something, but a little bit like, it was kind of a bit cruel and unusual quite quickly. Classic
Starting point is 00:37:48 old school experiment where they were like, let's fuck with some people and see what happens. But of course, the conclusions were always slightly flawed because they used it, much like the Milgram experiment was used to say, oh, well, you know, turns out that humans are just obedient, so maybe all those Nazis weren't so bad after all.
Starting point is 00:38:04 A little bit like that. It was sort of a little bit like that with the Stanford prison experiment. It's kind of a grim conclusion. It was like, Oh, most people were just going to turn into dicks if they're given power. It was kind of this weird thing, but,
Starting point is 00:38:15 but actually in the Stanford prison experiment, the, the, the, the students were kind of encouraged to, they were, they knew they were being watched. They were kind of beats like playing up
Starting point is 00:38:25 a little bit for the camera in some cases and i think in big brother and all these other things of course they are when they're they're gonna exaggerate themselves they can't they can't however lewis what you've got to remember is that in that experiment i don't think it ran for several months if you think about the big brother house these people are isolated and i think they develop social rules and like a little world of their own yeah because human beings are very adaptive they go a bit insane i think when they're in prison yeah and you almost forget at times right that you were being watched all the time like if you the more you watch someone the
Starting point is 00:38:59 less they notice they're being watched i mean think how many cameras there are in in britain there's more cctv cameras in britain per capita than any other country the facade exactly a little bit like you know on rupal's drag race and that as well you see them initially they're very they're they're they don't drop their persona or their their facade right but then so eventually they get irritable or annoyed or pissed off and they can't keep it up. And then their real personality shines through. And it turns out some of them are assholes.
Starting point is 00:39:32 Well, some of them are super nice. Oh, actually, we are third. Sorry, the US has the most surveilled people. Really? Yeah, it goes US, then China, then us. Oh, wow. And we have half the number that the u.s has so apologies what i mean what is that i mean that's surveilled i mean that's just number of cameras though right
Starting point is 00:39:50 i would say surveillance cameras counts as surveilling i don't know if that i don't know if they'd be watched though like how many i'd rather know how many watchers there were you know i know the motherfucking watches the fucking traffic camera on Heath Road. Listen to me, dickhead. Sometimes there's no way to get around a parked fucking car in the mainland. You have to go into the bus lane.
Starting point is 00:40:14 Don't fucking send me a 75 quid fine. I was in there for two seconds. There was nothing on the road. What am I meant to sit there for a minute while this fucking twat does his turn? I think, again, that's automated, though. 75 quid fine? It's done by a machine.
Starting point is 00:40:25 That's not done by a human, I promise you. Some dickhead did it. I guarantee you it's some dickhead. No, it's not. Sat there wanking off about how he's fine. Oh, I got another one. No, no, no, it's automated. Lie.
Starting point is 00:40:35 It's like as soon as a car goes in there, it prints it off instantly. Okay, answer me this then, Lewis. How come sometimes it doesn't get me? Oh, because sometimes maybe you're not cross. Maybe you're getting like a bonus day. Lull you into a false sense of security. Get you ready for it. No, he sneezed at that exact moment.
Starting point is 00:40:50 He was like. What in a split second that you'd weaved in and out of the bus lane. Exactly. Before we continue, this week's episode is sponsored by our friends at Manscaped. Who are the global leader in below-the-waist hygiene, turning men's shower dreams into their favorite routines with the new ultra-premium collection, an all-in-one hygiene and skin and hair bundle designed to upgrade your morning shower routine. You can't treat yourself.
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Starting point is 00:42:38 Manscaped.com slash Triforce. On with the show. Oh, I've got to change the topic for you guys. This is funny. So I re-watched the entire Lord of the Rings trilogy over the last week. Right. It's brilliant. It's worth watching.
Starting point is 00:42:51 It's great. Stuffed on the first one. I was like, what are we going to watch? And with Scarlet, I was like, let's watch Fellowship. And once you've watched the first one, you're going to watch the other two. That's just the way. Yeah, there's no way. Yeah, because it's so enjoyable.
Starting point is 00:43:02 Exactly. I love it. So these are some of the casting decisions that were almost made uh for the movie so daniel day lewis was the first pick to play aragorn okay he was gonna be aragorn yeah and he said i don't want to do it i don't do fantasy right it's fucking no thanks and they pushed and pushed they really really wanted him but he couldn't get he would have been he would have been good i think he would have been a superb aragorn i'm not saying vigor Mortensen didn't do a great job. I thought he was fantastic, but I think Danny Day-Lewis
Starting point is 00:43:29 would have been very, very good. I honestly think he was fine, but I think that would have... Russell Crowe was also offered the role. Of Aragorn? Russell Crowe of Aragorn. I think Russell Crowe as Aragorn would have sucked, and I don't mind Russell Crowe in certain roles, but I don't think it would have been good.
Starting point is 00:43:42 Yeah, Viggo. He's almost a bit non-human, isn't he? And his accent as well, I think, makes him seem like some fantasy character. Rather than just a slight Australian burr. You know, Frodo, we've got to get the bloody ring to Mordor, mate. Don't worry, you've got my sword. It doesn't work as
Starting point is 00:44:00 well. So here's another one. Sean Connery as Gandalf. Okay. For Aragorn, all of the casting uh considerations all seem to be like greasy looking people like is that just an aragorn thing you know like i think so they look greasy he was also off at dumbledore he was also off at dumbledore and turn that down i don't do fantasy liam neeson I'm glad the problem with Sean Connery
Starting point is 00:44:25 the problem with the more famous these names right the more issues with them having to make their
Starting point is 00:44:33 own change up like enforce their own rules like Awesome Whales in that bloody movie
Starting point is 00:44:42 that he did where he basically completely ruined it. And it made, was it John Carpenter? What am I thinking of? Prince of Darkness. Oh, no, you're thinking of the movie Body Parts. I'm not thinking of John Carpenter.
Starting point is 00:44:54 I'm thinking of who did The Godfather. Marlon Brando. Jimmy Dean? On the cover of a magazine. I'm thinking Marlon Brando in Apocalypse Now. Oh, of course, yeah. And how that was almost an absolute fucking disaster. No, I mean,
Starting point is 00:45:09 it was bizarre, but I think those scenes were really good, what they ended up with. I really do. Wait, one of you guys doesn't like Apocalypse Now, right? No, Apocalypse Now's great. I fucking love that movie. Who am I thinking of that does not like Apocalypse Now at all? It's a miracle that it was actually made.
Starting point is 00:45:26 Yeah, I know it was. It was chaos on the production. There's a documentary about it that's well worth seeing. There was typhoons and all sorts of shit. And sorry, Marlon Brando was an absolute disaster. Right, but I don't think we're laying it at fucking Brando's feet here. Coppola was fucking insane. Martin Sheen.
Starting point is 00:45:41 They're all insane. Martin Sheen almost died. Harrison Ford is in that movie. Yeah, yeah. Lawrence Fishburne is in that movie. Who else is in that movie? There's tons of people. A whole bunch of people. Dennis Hopper. Fuck me, man. It's a big one. Yeah. So Liam Neeson as Boromir. He was going to be Boromir, but he turned it down
Starting point is 00:45:59 because he didn't want to die at the start of a trilogy again, the same way he did in Phantom Menace. Right. Really? Yeah. He dodged a bullet dying at the start of a trilogy again the same way he did in phantom menace right really he dodged a bullet dying at the start of that one so get this bruce willis as boromir he really wanted to be in it and jackson said no thank god bruce willis can you imagine the fucking horns go off gondor needs aid yippee-ki-yay, motherfuckers! He's got his sunglasses on. So this to me is the most important thing that we
Starting point is 00:46:29 dodged in the entire trilogy. I don't think you're ready for this one. James Corden as Sam. Holy shit! We really dodged that one. Fuck! Although he is little chubby enough, he could do it. He's huge though. He's a little chubby hobbit. I would not be able to enjoy the trilogy i can see it it's so
Starting point is 00:46:47 it's it's he looks like a hobbit doesn't he he's a cunt he's a cunt i know but he looks like a hobbit he's i don't give a shit i could really see it it might be amazing we might have a different opinion of james corden now i would not be able to re-watch the trilogy i'd be watching james fucking corden's cunty face there it would ruin it okay but listen to this though the um kate blanchett's character in lord of the rings uh what's her face um uh galadriel galadriel or whatever okay imagine kate blanchett was unavailable to do uh to do the part and instead they got mike myers to do it i feel like he would fit perfectly,
Starting point is 00:47:25 right? Like imagine Austin Powers smiling and stuff like that, but like with the makeup and the dress on and stuff, he'd be perfect. I think he'd fit in there perfectly. It's a good shout. We can't get Cate Blanchett. What about Mike Myers? Alright, let's just get James Gordon in. It's fine. So no, seriously, I mean, there's this real thing where celebrities can pull you out of a movie or an immersive thing, right? Yeah, yeah.
Starting point is 00:47:53 It happened to me a little bit with Stephen Fry in The Hobbit, which The Hobbit movies weren't good anyway, and let's just forget about them. But Stephen Fry, I don't hate Stephen Fry, but it was one of these moments where it kind of, I was just like, oh, I don't want him to be in it. I don't need him in it. You almost sometimes prefer the unknowns.
Starting point is 00:48:11 And I think a lot of times when a big budget thing is going, even back with the original Star Wars or the modern reboot of Star Wars with the old, what's her name? She was, and you know, what's the dude? The Last Jedi? The new... Yeah, it was the latest Jedi.
Starting point is 00:48:31 I mean, I'm a big Star Wars fan, but, you know, the prequel trilogy, I know that people that are in their 20s now kind of grew up with those films and have a lot of fondness for them and a lot of, you know, you can watch them for the memes and everything. They're terrible movies. But the Jar Jar Binks ones. Yeah, they're all terrible.
Starting point is 00:48:47 Oh man, I know. But the new three, The Force Awakens was pretty good, I thought. It was. And do you know what though? The characters were relatively unknowns.
Starting point is 00:48:56 You know, with Adam Driver, he was relatively unknown. Daisy Ridley. 100%. Oh, The Force Awakens I enjoyed a lot actually. They were kind of fresh.
Starting point is 00:49:03 Like fresh actors. And so it allowed them to build this universe on a kind of framework of, you know, it wasn't like it was fucking Matt Damon and Ben Affleck. Do you know what I mean? It was like, Oh Jesus. It wasn't,
Starting point is 00:49:16 it wasn't, it wasn't like you weren't, you weren't, you didn't have preconceptions. But there's a reason for that is that sometimes the movie or the source material is bigger than a star. Like you look at, say, Mission Impossible, this is a Tom Cruise vehicle. If you look at a Russell Crowe movie, it's a Russell Crowe movie. You can't have an ensemble cast for Lord of the Rings of big stars, because then which of them has the most screen time
Starting point is 00:49:43 and whose movie is it? Yeah. I mean, if Liam Neeson is in it as Boromir, he's in it for like five minutes, then he fucking croaks it. No offense. Don't want to spoil it or anything. But, you know, he's only in the first film. He only appears halfway through.
Starting point is 00:49:54 You get to the city of the elves, and then fucking Mike Myers turns up. It's only a Rivendell. Holy shit, this is the best year. This is Elrond. Right. I mean, yeah. If the source material
Starting point is 00:50:05 is big enough, you don't want to have a superstar in the role. You want to have a series of good actors that maybe were not fabulously well-known unless they really are
Starting point is 00:50:15 meant to be the main driving force. Like Iron Man. And the idea is, but people like Marlon Brando, Orson Welles, and, you know,
Starting point is 00:50:21 in the original Star Wars, it was the guy who was Obi-Wan. God, I'm used to this today in my alec guinness they they were they were used as a billing to attract people because they thought we can't do a movie without a name you need like a big name at least like something something yeah so there is there is still that thing but that's that's sort of the creating a new dynasty of movies isn't it star wars Lord of the Rings is such a state of storied, you know, thing. It's like such a legend.
Starting point is 00:50:50 Back then it was like, it's a legendary book series, but I think it was a risk to take this big budget thing. I mean, even in McKellar's Gandalf, it's so iconic, right? I mean, he was. I don't know if it ever was a huge risk though. I think with like with enough enough money and effects and uh and and and some decent casting like that was always going to be i think fantasy could always be a risk though right because there's the chance because i think
Starting point is 00:51:14 lord of the rings had tried stuff before and it all flopped and failed yeah a bit of a sad yeah i mean but having said that though i guess the hobbit movies just didn't do as well at all they sucked they were really they were awful what they thought it's about adaptation though too like i think lord loring's the book is a slog it's out of date it was written a long time ago it was it was a foundation of fantasy and as a result like it's it's it's it's aged poorly versus modern fantasy and and so they really had to bring it up today and i think they did a great job yeah but but it was such a huge work for old peter jackson you know what he could have made it worse for himself because they were trying to cast nicholas cage as aragorn holy crap can you imagine how much pushback he must have given for this like god like he must have had
Starting point is 00:52:02 to fight but then the hobbit he just had couldn't fight anymore do you know i mean he was like he must have had to fight but then the hobbit he just had couldn't fight anymore do you know i mean he was like he was like because he had to i think he had to come in and save the hobbit trilogy didn't he because it was originally going to be directed by gilomo de toller or something like did yeah there was some other issues where he pulled out because he couldn't couldn't be asked yeah and and that happens often it was it was a very strange thing and he and he realized it was so daunting because lord of rings was so good he was like god how do i make something that this is this good with half the budget in half the time you know so i think i think it was this whole kind of embarrassment
Starting point is 00:52:39 how about how about jake jake gielenhall as frodo baggins wow was that actually a consideration yeah yes yeah but no one told him he was gonna have to do a british accent and he was like oh no How about Jake Gyllenhaal as Frodo Baggins? Wow. Was that actually a consideration? Yeah. Yeah. But no one told him he was going to have to do a British accent. And he was like, oh, no, I can't do that. So he didn't do it. Yeah. It's such a weird one, isn't it? Americans trying to do...
Starting point is 00:52:57 American actors trying to do British accents is much more of a miss than I feel British actors doing American accents, right? Like, there's plenty of really i feel british actors doing american accents right like there's yeah plenty of really good examples of british actors doing really good american portrayals and accents i agree and but not so much the other side it's quite easy to do an american accent that isn't particularly placeable if you're american yeah to hear a brit like for example in the wire uh when uh what's his name uh dominic uh is it dominic west yes yes it's just kind of vaguely american and he's joked about it since that his accent was he just went oh i you know we gotta solve this case yeah yeah he did good though he did he did he did all right
Starting point is 00:53:39 but anyone who was actually american could surely hear that and go okay this guy isn't american like it was it was fairly obvious. Right. But then there are certain American accents where it's like the sort of like classic New York accent or whatever. You know what I mean? Like that some of them don't. That's meant to be the hardest one to do. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:53:57 Like the really specific regional. Or like Frasier Crane's accent. Like I don't know what the fuck that is. But like is it Martin Freeman in Far in in fargo like oh yeah yeah like everybody said that that is like the minnesota accent right so i think if it's really unusual then you just practice that but if you just want to do generic american accent that'll sort of get by yeah you can do that but a british accent i think the accents work so well in sci-fi though to establish like you could use kind of people with odd accents to put them in all sorts of
Starting point is 00:54:30 weird like like like data from um star trek right he has this weird american accent but it's a very specific localized dick van dyke in in Mary Poppins Christmas Yes Very good Exactly It kind of can sometimes inform Mary Poppins Emily Blunt is English And she does a cracking American accent But you know
Starting point is 00:54:54 Well I didn't know You wouldn't know When I was watching The Wire And like I did not know Who Idris Elba was Oh yeah No his accent was super I assumed he was just an American actor or whatever.
Starting point is 00:55:06 Like, I was completely... I was floored to find out that he was... Oh, me too. Proper London British. Like, it's insane. It's crazy. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:55:16 It was really good. Yeah, I loved that. Man, anyway, no, Lord of the Rings, huge, huge fan. I think some of these casting choices are quite interesting
Starting point is 00:55:24 because I wonder how... I didn't... i think some of these casting choices are quite interesting because i wonder how i didn't i think the hobbit casting choices didn't help those movies well they sucked as well which was a big problem i mean i mean they just i feel like as a result i've kind of i i guess there's nothing redeeming about the hobbit movies like i'm sorry but they're they're just dreadful they took everything that was good about the lord of the rings and and ruined the hobbit was was only one book as well from what i remember it was not even a very big no i remember reading it when i stretched it and dragged it and and i enjoyed it enough yes same it was i loved it as a kid it was great like it was it was really good but i mean if you look at
Starting point is 00:55:59 that when i started watching it the opening scene which in the book is quite long of all the dwarves turning up at at uh bilbo's house and him sort of having to reluctantly feed them. And then they all agree to go off and do this quest. I remember reading that and thinking, well, this is a bit boring as a kid. But then you just get through it and then it gets interesting and they go into Mirkwood and they fight the spiders and then there's the trolls and all this kind of, you know, it's good. And then with Smaug the dragon and everything and it was really exciting as a kid i
Starting point is 00:56:28 really thought this is great and it was like my first introduction to fantasy and you look at what he made with those three movies and it was like it felt like a fan film of lord of the rings but with an unlimited budget because that the lord of the rings trilogy made so much money that i think they just said to him just just do whatever you want. And so he just chucked effects at everything, chucked stuff in that was sort of very vaguely associated with it. And it was just such extended, drawn out effect sequences. It was unbearable. It lost all the heart and soul that Lord of the Rings had in favor of just a fucking roller coaster ride.
Starting point is 00:57:02 It was shambolic. It was really, really bad. But also, so there is a couple of fan edits that you can download that cut the movie down to about two and a half, three hours. Yeah, you could torrent them. Is there a product I could use to mask where I'm downloading it from?
Starting point is 00:57:22 No, I don't know any of any. No, not today right okay i i haven't watched it but ben greatly recommends it and says it's actually watchable they cut out all the romance between um kate from lost and thank god i hate romance they cut out the bit where gandalfalf has a side quest and stuff like that. There's like a whole thing where he goes up on his own for a bit and does a thing. Yeah, what the fuck? That's all gone.
Starting point is 00:57:51 And apparently it's pretty good when it's cut from nine hours down to two and a half. Yeah, maybe it should have just been a two and a half. Yeah, it should have just made one fucking movie. One nice movie and then, you know, just moved on. I don't know if that was him or the studio, though. I don't know if they said, if you want to do this, it's got to be three. Oh, yeah. Because all they see is dollar signs, right?
Starting point is 00:58:10 Yeah, true. So I don't know if they said that, and he was like, fuck, now we've got to make this one book into three movies. Like, what Peter Jackson did with Lord of the Rings, I can't doubt him and his heart. Like, I just honestly have to assume it's a studio. If anyone knows, do tell us in the fucking comments. Yeah, yeah. We want to be the... We want If anyone knows, do tell us in the fucking comments. Yeah, yeah.
Starting point is 00:58:25 We want to know. We need to know. We must know. If we're done with Lord of the Rings stuff, can I say that I watched something interesting that maybe you guys have seen or maybe not, but you should check it out. It's interesting.
Starting point is 00:58:39 It was a Mr. Rogers documentary called Won't You Be My Neighbor. Not the film, but a documentary. It was an actual documentary and it was really good. Really interesting. I will watch that, yeah. I'm a big fan. Yeah, man. I thought the movie was actually pretty good. The Tom Hanks one. The Tom Hanks movie. I haven't seen that.
Starting point is 00:58:58 But this documentary is called Won't You Be My Neighbor? And it was really nice. Really good. Just showed you sort of you know him starting his you know mr rogers neighborhood yeah getting the funding for public television um his sort of crusade against commercial television and you know what he thought was not good for her children and his all of his work with like childhood psychology he really gave a shit
Starting point is 00:59:25 like he really did he really did and uh there's a near the end of the documentary when they're talking about um you know because he died in i think it was like 2003 and it was it was kind of sad because you know like like if you watch mr rogers when you're a kid and you remembered the messages in the in the in the in the programs and you know just his his general sort of um sensibility and stuff like that but even that's a message right yeah you know it was always very gentle very calm very nice you know like it was just you could see why it was so popular it was it was so out there but and there was nothing else like it but it was it was just so perfect too i think it was just i think he was really ahead of his time as well in addressing something that hasn't been addressed, really.
Starting point is 01:00:10 And in fact, some people are preying on it, which is a crime, which is, especially in young men, the anger. And he did a big thing. And you can see him talk about it in the Senate speech that he did um about dealing with anger and how you cope with that and rather than fan those flames and say that being angry all the time which everybody seems to be these days he was like we should not be this angry you must learn to cope with your feelings and not give in to them it's a bit like the dark side you know easier quicker more seductive like you know you don't want to give in to that no it was basically yoda for a generation yeah yeah it was it's sad because near the near the end uh when he did die and the you know the way the the direction society was moving in at the time and stuff you know this is
Starting point is 01:00:56 a couple years after like 9-11 this was a couple years after you, the internet started getting fairly prominent and big and stuff. And he was, he had, there was people in his, like, you know, in his production unit for the show who were gay, but not openly gay, because at the time it really wasn't the thing, right? Right. Especially not to be involved in a children's program as well like there was just no way that they could sort of uh make that public or whatever but he was always very supportive of people he worked with his friends tolerant everything and um and and and later on after he died like while his funeral was was was on across the street there was like a big protest about like a like basically a hate a hate group who were um criticizing him for being tolerant of uh of of homosexuals and like
Starting point is 01:01:53 they had children with them protesting and everything and apparently these children just looked really miserable because like they probably watched the show. Right. Poor guy's passed away, and your insane parents are dragging you out in the rain to protest possibly the dumbest thing ever. He did some little protests of his own on the show. Very famously, the mailman, they had a black mailman. That's right, yeah. And he shared the paddling pool with him, as a fuck you to people saying that any person of colour shouldn't be able to get in a
Starting point is 01:02:25 white pool. And that, you know, if they did, they'd have to drain the water, like it'd somehow been infected. This was the era that he was making these TV shows. He was, yeah. It was super ahead of his time. It was insane. And the sort of like weird part of the whole thing was that he was like you know very religious you know what i mean and like sometimes like they there's there's like negative um connotations like with with this because you assume that like especially in a place like like america if you are very religious you aren't going to be tolerant of exactly you know uh homosexuality or any progressive stuff right but like he was like it was insane i think this obviously like i think working with kids and this is something you
Starting point is 01:03:11 two obviously know more than i do but they i get the impression that they have quite a blank slate when when and they ask questions like oh you know is everyone equal you know and it's like why can that man not come in the pool with us? Do you know what I mean? If everyone's equal, you know, because as adults, you're always like, well, yeah, of course, everyone's equal. Of course, it doesn't matter what creed you are, what sex you are. Some of us are like that.
Starting point is 01:03:34 Some people are definitively not like that. Well, I think actually, you know, modern good Americans or people ever since, you know, for a while now while now certainly you know have have felt like like there should be things should be a certain way and kids can sometimes you know almost remind them like oh well if things are supposed to be a certain way why are we still overlooking this you know and so i think when you're surrounded, when you're working and making content for, I want to say blank slates, but like kind of the future generations of people, you know, it does make you question everything around you. Question your own beliefs and morals, too. I think in many ways, I think people are very stubborn or fixed on their views.
Starting point is 01:04:26 stubborn or fixed on their views i mean certainly i'm a very anti-religion in general partly because of the way that you can twist the words to be any way you want them but i think if you take them in the best possible way or examine them in all the different ways they could be interpreted i think it does lead you to a often humanitarian kind of viewpoint i think a lot of these things are positive and and want you to look after each other and yeah those aspects of religion i i'm definitely on board with you know like um like like the community side of it you know like the the charitable side of it the you know like uh forgiveness of all men and uh and and whatever like all those things yes but i i i switch off when they're like well god in the bible says that you can't do this specifically and it's like well nowhere in the bible is it saying specifically not to do like this one
Starting point is 01:05:19 certain thing that people have only become aware of like you know two thousand years later or whatever come on now. It's crazy. What you're listing is essentially anyone with any humanitarian feelings. Yeah. And that predates religion. Yeah. And so I think when we cherry pick the good parts of religion and say, see, religion can
Starting point is 01:05:38 be good. I'm not religious. No, but I think- I feel all of those things. And I did not inform my opinion. And if you look at what religion is, it is incredibly intolerant. Very, very... I mean, we're literally listing Mr. Rogers as an exception.
Starting point is 01:05:52 And we were like, he's very religious, which is surprising because he was really progressive. That's it, exactly. Like, we don't need religion to tell us, oh, well, there are some good sides to it. No, there are some good sides to humanity. Religion is one of the worst bits that you stick on top that ruins that good side, but claims to be the best of us. That's how I feel about it. Oh, I did watch something else as well.
Starting point is 01:06:11 Severance. Oh my God. Niles, you recommend it. There's only two episodes out. There's only two out. The next one comes out tomorrow. It's on Apple TV. So interesting.
Starting point is 01:06:19 What is it? It's about, I don't want to spoil anything. I'm not going to spoil anything. I will give you the opening couple of scenes, I guess. The show opens with a woman on a table in a conference room, unconscious, and a voice comes through a tiny speaker and she's dressed like an office worker. She's clearly in a place of work. And you think, is she drunk or something?
Starting point is 01:06:41 And then this voice comes and says, wake up. And it asks her these five questions. What is your name? You know, what state are you from? Where are you right now? And a couple of the things. And she gets them all basically wrong. And a guy comes in the door and says, that was a perfect score.
Starting point is 01:06:57 And that's how the story opens. She has no idea why she's there. She fails to answer any of these questions. And he tells her that is a perfect score. And you sort of go from there it's like this is really interesting it's like a near future uh office that they work in and it's it's fascinating there there is one scene where he's having dinner uh a dinner party at his i think it's his sister's house with her and her partner and it's a dinner party with no, which is exactly the sort of stupid fucking trendy bullshit you can imagine people coming up with.
Starting point is 01:07:29 And they justify it by saying, isn't this more interesting? Because I feel like the food gets in the way. And he's like, how can it be a dinner party with no food? And then they're talking about history. And one of them has this, he'd read this article about World War I. He goes, apparently they didn't call it World War I
Starting point is 01:07:42 because I suppose that would have been a faux pas. Ha, ha, ha, ha Ha ha ha ha ha ha. And the guy, the main character, had studied history and he was like, well, they didn't call it that
Starting point is 01:07:50 because it hadn't been a World War II and they're all like, oh yeah, huh. And I'm thinking, this is a really, really interesting sound because you could
Starting point is 01:07:57 absolutely imagine in some near future where World War I is literally ancient history that you don't even learn about in school that that's the same stupid opinion that, say, we've expressed when it comes to like napoleon and
Starting point is 01:08:08 shit like that it happened so long ago nobody cares it's just a vague idea in my head you know it's like that so that was really funny um and sort of the you know what is considered social norms and and the way people are living then and then also this other thing with his job so i recommend it there's a lot there's a lot to it as it's brilliant that sounds good yeah yeah that sounds like a great tip all right well i think we should end it there thank you everyone for for joining us again on our podcast of tv and movie recommendations thank you very much i am gene siskel and i give it one big, huge maybe. Thank you very much for watching. Thank you, everyone.
Starting point is 01:08:48 See you guys next time. Take it easy. See you next time. Bye. Bye.

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