Tolkien was an officer in WW1 , Sam was based on the ordinary soldiers he commanded , who just got on with life , trying to make it as normal as possible with humour and stoicism, despite all the horrors of trench warfare , they were Tolkiens heroes
Specifically Sam is modelled after the Batmen of WW1. Each British officer had an ordinary soldier assigned to them, called Batmen, who served as the officers assistant/valet. Tolkien had the utmost respect for the role these gentlemen played in the war, and modeled Samwise and Frodo's relationship after them.
Absolutely agree! To this day no fantasy movie has made me feel the same way LOTR trilogy did and there has been nothing like it and there probably never will be like you said. The movies truly deserved the oscars! Seeing how most fantasy movie adaptations have really missed the mark, LOTR is truly a special gem.
The part where Sam talks about how he would have married Rosie gets me every time. The acting is so good, and I think it's the first time we really see Sam truly give up hope of surviving and going home.
“I love how he is shadowing an imperfect king.” In the extended addition of The Two Towers, Arwen is surprised to learn that Aragon is 87 years old and fought in a battle with her grandfather. He (Aragon) knew the present king when the king was but a child.
@@njemawut Yes, you’re correct. My fault, but I blame it on ADHD… oh, and that I’m from the southern states so the A’s and E’s sound very similar to each other. But thank you for the correction. 😬
@@Jmassey95 Yea, the pit falls of ADHD. Sometimes it takes a bit to catch up on my errors. I sometimes get motion sickness when I edit things I writings and find silly little stupid spelling errors and I roll my eyes at each one. Don’t get me stated on Sauron and Saruman. They both sound the same no matter how slowly one says them.
@@cozenw3236 haha it’s all good my man 😃 mistakes happen. But I feel it haha when I first was watching the movie I would piss off my friend who was a big fan because I kept mixing the names up because they sounded so similar 😂😂 whoopsie
When you are going to watch the making of stuff, realize that Gimli is actually, in rl, the tallest cast member. He is also the voice of Treebeard. Epic production methods. They literally invented filming technology and techniques never before used & inspired filmmaking ever since. Amazing.
One of the smartest things Peter Jackson did on these films was shooting principal photography on all three films at the same time. And then using the 11 months between releases to focus on the more intimate close up scenes. That way you didn’t have the issue of actors aging between films especially on a trilogy that’s happening on a concurrent timeline. My hands down favorite movie (I view it as one long movie) of all time! I’ve thoroughly enjoyed your reaction to all three films!
the dvd extras have some of the best behind the scenes documentaries ever made about movies. Gotta see them on your own time to get lots of answers. Thanks for sharing your reactions James,
Frodo went to the Undying Lands with the Elves. He had been stabbed by the Witch King, stabbed by Shelob, terrorized by evil creatures, disfigured by Gollum, and hunted like an animal. He owned the ring for a long time (decades in the book) and used the ring many times. All the while his mind and soul were being ravaged by the ring's influence. He could not return to the normal world and there was a duty to take him to a place where he could be happy and untroubled. Bilbo was able to resist the ring's power better than anyone, but he too needed to leave as they had touched the darkness and were sensitive to it.
You are so right, a Berserk adaptation would be incredible! I still have hope there will be a full adaptation one day. It deserves so much better than what it has gotten.
Regarding the battle scenes in this trilogy: The CGI shop managed to write a piece of software that could produce an infinite number of characters with their own ”will”. They would not have been able to achieve this scale without it. I mean, are there even that many horses in all of New Zealand? Fun fact: In early iterations of the software, everyone ran away from the battle to save their own skin.
LOTR still has the best score of all time in my opinion, everything fits the scene perfectly and the emotions it still evokes after countless rewatches is just incredible to me
These movies (and Tolkien’s works in general) do a great job of distinguishing between the powerful who disseminate evil and the weak who are seduced by it. The latter are usually depicted sympathetically and I think that sort of distinction is missing from our real life discourse.
I'm seeing this so late but here's to fill everyone in! Bilbo leaves at the end to go to the grey havens which is where normally just elves go, to live out the rest of their days without any sort of physical or mental pain before passing on. Frodo left because of his injury on weather top AND because of the strain the ring had put on him, being made from such cruel magic and malice. Gandalf is basically a spirit that only manifested a human form, he leaves when his task is done, galadriel and elrond are also part of the same alliance as Gandalf, god's of the universe set to look after it. Later on, legolas goes to the grey havens and comes back for gimli, even though elves and dwarves have been on dispute for hundreds of years, they are very very good friends. It also helps that galadriel has a huge crush on gimli and vise versa, she gave gimli a lock of her hair that he kept with him after everything had happened. The elves also come back for Sam after Rosie dies because Sam was a ring bearer, even though it was brief, when gollum led frodo astray into shelobs lair, samwise held onto the ring and he was permitted to go to the grey havens as well right before he died of old age
I'm sure someone else must have mentioned it, but at the end Frodo, Bilbo and the Elves are travelling to Valinor, where the gods (or Valar) of Middle Earth live.
19:00 I'm like 50/50 that the skull there is the gondorian soldier we saw get stabbed on the ground, based on the hair and shape. Also at 37:33, in the back you can see Legolas entering, Frodo doesn't say his name because "and you have my bow" was the only time in the entire movie trilogy that they spoke to one another. "Where are they going" They're going to the land of the gods (sauron, the wizards, and balrogs are all essentially minor deities/angels) and the homeland of the elves: Valinor.
First of all- I loved watching your reactions. You really felt the story and you were very perceptive, grasping the sense and layers of LotR incredibly well. Kudos to you, sir! Second of all- in the scene where Gandalf comes to save Frodo and Sam, I always found incredibly beautiful that he brought with him three eagles, because he believed and hoped in goodness of Smeagol 'till the very end. Third of all, LotR is definitely more than a movie- it's an experience (however corny that may sound;)). It is a legend - because Tolkien wrote it with an intention of creating a legend for Great Britain. And btw, the theme of hope and its importance is definitely one of the most crucial in this story, so, again, well done for recognizing it with such an ease!
Hey! This was an awesome comment by the way. Lord of the Rings definitely is one of those films, that go beyond its genre. It’s honestly like an epic in itself..which is ironic. I get the vibe. You are not alone in those feelings. I caught the depths of this pretty well due to how expertly executed this experience was crafted. Awesome art always wins!
Knowing how big you are on cinematography, I was waiting for your reaction to burning Denethor throwing himself off the cliff. That is one of the most magnificent camera flythroughs in the history of cinema!
I read these books in middle school & and was just blown away and everyone who loved them was anxious about how it would be portrayed. Peter Jackson captured middle earth PERFECTLY!!! It was just as I had imagined! You used to see occasional graffiti saying “Frodo Lives!”
One of the stories that I love is that when Legolas decided it was time to go to the Undying Lands he tracked his friend Gimli down and took him with him. Gimli was the only dwarf to ever see these lands and it was that the Fellowship truly came to an end in Middle Earth that day. People were shocked that a dwarf would give up his lands to sail across the sea but his love for Legolas was stronger than his ties to the earth.
Great wrap-up.. couldn't have articulated the experience of seeing this better. Read this in high school back in the seventies and my buds and I always wondered how the story could ever be made for the big screen. Well Peter Jackson delivered.
You should have watched the extended edition, There's some quite amazing stuff such as the encounter between Gandalf and the witch king that's missing in the theatre edition.
Basically what is sad about that ending is they will never again see Frodo after that, not even in the after life. He has crossed over to another realm of immortality with the elves. In a nutshell
Supposedly when Rohan rode for Gondor, peter jackson only wanted those who read the books to be the horsemen up front because only they would understand the importance
I just came across these videos and enjoyed them very much. I have to say that most of the lines you raved about were taken straight from the books. JRR Tolkien rules!
Bro you have the buy the extended collector's edition. You have to check hours and hours of material, behind the scenes, costume designing, location filming and much more. Also the included sound track is to give you chills. At the end of each movie, especially Return of the King, listen to Into the west sung by Annie Lennox which also won Academy Award for best song.
Here's how Eowyn disabled the Oliphant. Bend your knee and feel behind the kneecap. See how close your tendons are to the skin? Doesn't need a deep cut, just a passing swipe and you're donzo 🤣
Wait what? You still got to get through Harry Potter, Star Wars and Holy Molly my favorite Planet of the Apes! NAY No Way, where's that patron sign up thing?
”You bow to no one” The part where everyone ugly cries. Great reactions on these films, I really enjoyed it. Thank you for taking us with you on your journey!
A favorite story I heard from the making of these films was when Dominic Monaghan (Merry) was on a talk show, and said that it was like the biggest budget student film he had been on. Not in terms of quality, but in terms of how everyone pitched in almost naturally, so that even actors were helping carry out big electrical cables for lighting. And from watching the “behind the scenes”, it rings true - just about everyone treated this as a passion project. I don’t think I’ve seen a series of movie created with so much genuine love from so many hundreds (thousands?) of people. Seeing how these movies got made is a wonderful education and somehow never seems to lessen the magic. Sometimes, it makes the magic even greater.
The making of series included with the extended edition I was honestly shocked to find that I was more on the edge of my seat watching them than the actual movies. This coming from someone who, when it came out, watched every single showing every single day it was in theaters. It is just wild how crazy close they cut to make the deadlines and what everyone went through to pull this off.
Fun thing about the term “wizard”: The suffix “ard” really just means someone that does something a lot/is an example of the type, but almost all of the examples we still have are negative (“drunkard,” “bastard,” “dullard,” “sluggard,” etc.). So it’s thought that “wizard” may have basically been a term for something like “too smart for their own good” or “giving wisdom no one wants” or “wise ass.”
@@umairrashid9345 Smeagol had been following them at least since Moria, Gandalf himself told Frodo about it when they talked about Bilbo having pity on him :)
@@umairrashid9345 after the escape from Osgiliath, Faramir tells Gandalf that Frodo and Sam were taking the path through Cirith Ungol, and Gandalf demanded he tell him everything. It’s possible he told Gandalf about Sméagol at that point.
22:10 Frodo chooses not to kill Smeagol because Frodo has to keep the belief that Smeagol can come back. He needs to keep this belief because the ring continues to corrupt Frodo, just like how it did to Smeagol. Frodo already knows the evil of the ring is corrupting him, and that he could easily become just like Smeagol. If he believes that Smeagol can come back to being good, then Frodo can also keep the belief that he can come back from the corruption of the ring.
not only that is true, if you go back, Gandalf told frodo that anyone has a role to play for good or bad so whos to judge?, and the fact that frodo spared smeagol many times, actually led to the destruction of the ring, when frodo put the ring on, only smeagol could sense him (through his connection to it) and cut his finger off (sam wouldnt be able to do it), so smeagol with all his faults actually is the reason the ring was able being destroyed (this is based only on the movies not the books btw)
This movie took home 11 Oscars including Best Picture. It was the last and final epic film to win Best Picture, and the first fantasy film. The Shape Of Water would be the second to win in 2018.
It's from the tail end of the era when they actually gave Oscars to great popular movies. Now Oscars only go to movies specifically made to get Oscars, not for audiences, and that's a damn shame :(
@@TJMiton No, it was still nonsense back then. The other two films barely picked up any awards - then they gave a ton to this because they had to acknowledge it. FotR is probably the better movie but it got, like, Video Editing or something.
@@Deimos2k5 i think all the Oscars this trilogy won were warranted. Apart from being films good enough to win, the sheer scale and scope of these films, the technology was basically cutting edge and created (or perfected) as they went, plus the score, cinematography, acting, etc. The intangible aspects go a long way too. Rather than just Oscar-bait, the amount of effort, passion, and commitment by everyone involved is something almost non-existent in modern Oscar winning films. Obviously, there's exceptions to that, but the Oscars are pretty much just a popularity and/or inclusion contest over nearly the last decade
@@Deimos2k5 I mean...fellowship was nominated for 13 oscars and won 4, two towers won 2 out of 6 nominations, return of the king won 11 out of 11 nominations. imo this follows the order of the quality of the movies pretty well and giving the recognition to the last in a series that was really just 1 long epic movie makes a lot of sense. these days there are WAY more movies nominated and ive never even heard of like 90% of them. there's a clear difference in what the oscars are now.
Now that you’ve finished the trilogy, as a filmmaker and reaction content creator, we need reaction videos of you watching the behind the scenes. You’re going to love the work that went into this series, especially with the miniatures and the practical effects for scaling the hobbits vs people
I second this, they are as mind-blowing as the films themselves. Such creative solutions to practical effects and such amazing innovations for the CGI.
"Where was this shot?" The long shots of the white city of Minas Tirith are a "miniature." If you call a 25 foot model "miniature" But the size gives room for more detail and why it stands up as a real place. Jackson used large miniatures through the entire trilogy.
Someone actually did a gofundme to build the white city in real life; despite raising a lit, they fell short of the amount needed. Would be wonderful - they should build it in New Zealand as an epic tourism Hotel & resort. I would go!
I read most of the LOTR back in the mid to late 60"s and was so happy to watch the progression of CGI over the years. When Jackson and his people saw the possibilities for creating the visuals for these stories I just knew it would actually come true. Glad all you young whippersnappers get to see it all, brand new. (73year old man)
I love that Theoden led his army into battle, despite the odds being stacked against them. It’s such a powerful moment. When Sam picks up Frodo, man, I tear up every time. To sum it up, this movie is so emotionally satisfying, on so many levels.
I always love when a king is in the front lines of his army. I bet that does great for morale to see your leader being in the rather than safe sitting on his throne.
The book version - "At that sound the bent shape of the king sprang suddenly erect. Tall and proud he seemed again; and rising in his stirrups he cried in a loud voice, more clear than any there had ever heard a mortal man achieve before: Arise, arise, Riders of Théoden! Fell deeds awake: fire and slaughter! spear shall be shaken, shield be splintered, a sword-day, a red day, ere the sun rises! Ride now, ride now! Ride to Gondor! With that he seized a great horn from Guthláf his banner-bearer, and he blew such a blast upon it that it burst asunder. And straightway all the horns in the host were lifted up in music, and the blowing of the horns of Rohan in that hour was like a storm upon the plain and a thunder in the mountains. Ride now, ride now! Ride to Gondor! Suddenly the king cried to Snowmane and the horse sprang away. Behind him his banner blew in the wind, white horse upon a field of green, but he outpaced it. After him thundered the knights of his house, but he was ever before them. Éomer rode there, the white horsetail on his helm floating in his speed, and the front of the first éored roared like a breaker foaming to the shore, but Théoden could not be overtaken. Fey he seemed, or the battle-fury of his fathers ran like new fire in his veins, and he was borne up on Snowmane like a god of old, even as Oromë the Great in the battle of the Valar when the world was young. His golden shield was uncovered, and lo! it shone like an image of the Sun, and the grass flamed into green about the white feet of his steed. For morning came, morning and a wind from the sea; and darkness was removed, and the hosts of Mordor wailed, and terror took them, and they fled, and died, and the hoofs of wrath rode over them. And then all the host of Rohan burst into song, and they sang as they slew, for the joy of battle was on them, and the sound of their singing that was fair and terrible came even to the City."
No matter how many times I re-watch these movies (and I do this every year more than thrice) I always cry at the "my friends, you bow to no one" every single time😂😂😂 like I know it's coming and I still cry, and the only other scene that does this Tony's death
@@leslie2149 I remember watching this scene in the theatre, everyone in the theatre started screaming and cheering when they charged. Its like we were all there together with them, legendary moment.
I love how the scene of Sam saving Frodo from the lava by reaching their hands parallels with the scene in the end of the first movie where Frodo saves Sam from drowning
35:41 the advances made in CG acting can be seen in the subtleties in that one shot. Gollum goes from cradling his precious, joy on his face, to hitting the lava and looking confused, to a moment of pure anger at being betrayed, to the blank expression of death just before he’s consumed entirely… all in a handful of frames.
That's very true, but I'm not sure that's so much an advancement of the CG acting, as an advancement on the CG not hindering or obstructing an actor's performance. I know it's a CG character, but if you watch Lord of the Rings, Planet of the Apes, and The Last Jedi.... you can still see a LOT of Andy Serkis in Gollum.
Gollum swore an oath on the Ring to serve Frodo, and as he is bound to the Ring, the Ring is bound to him, and when he breaks his oath, the evil of the ring claims Gollum's life by making him fall into the volcano. Treachery begets treachery, and evil destroys itself in the end.
Why does everyone always miss the part when Sam gives Frodo back the ring? To this point, he is the single person with the strength to give it up without a fight.
In the books the ring tempts Sam, but since he is such a simple person all the ring can do is try to tempt him with making the entire world one big garden. After a moment Sam just decides that is just silly.
@@telynns8490 Right, and still, he decides. Right up to the very end when he says "I'm home", he's the only one in the whole book with the strength to let go, not just of the ring but of all the metaphorical things that weigh people down.
To be fair Frodo was willing to give the Ring to Gandalf and Galadriel in Fellowship. Impossible for me to say whether the Ring would have affected Sam more if he and Frodo had switched roles but am sure Sam would have been very different person by the time they reached Mordor if it had been him carrying the Ring for all that time.
@@Belisarius1967People keep forgetting that carry the ring for so long will affect anyone wearing, Sam included. The fact that Bilbo was able to give it up after so long, took true strength. The fact that Frodo tried to give it up 2 times with that sword wound affecting him, takes true strength.
The journey has finally ended..i don't trust rings now. ------- Want to vote on what I should watch next? Click here! www.patreon.com/jamesvscinema Be safe out there and enjoy the day!
Tolkien spent his entire life writing/expanding/creating this world and what you just watched is a small snippet of the thousands of years of story Tolkien Wrote! If you ever want to dig deeper check out a RU-vid channel called "Nerd Of The Rings" so you can learn about all the lore and history of this world!
Re: Giant Spider Shelob is the intelligent spawn of a monstrous spider so big and powerful that even the ancients aren’t sure if she was a fallen “angel” or something from the darkness at the edge of creation. Her momma spider wove shadows so dark even the creator could only see so far into it, she sucked the light from the trees that predated the moon & sun, and when Sauron’s old boss betrayed her she would have eaten him if not for a whole squad of balarogs (the big shadowy fire thing that almost killed Gandalf).
@@colleenross8752 Yep. A big yikes who helped breed a whole new line of scary giant spiders north of Mirkwood and then went into the south… where, considering people and life still exist, she disappeared. IIRC it was posited that her hunger grew so great that it consumed her from the inside out.
I don't think I can adequately express how Lord of the Rings makes me feel, other than to say, every time I finish watching it, I am hit with a deep, painful sadness that I don't live in that world.
@@themoviehobbit355 These recent times have been really bad and depressive, so LOTR as a type of escapism is something that all of us, big fans, want more than anything in their lives.
If not for this feeling, i don't think i would have started writing my own stories. Harry Potter opened me up to books when i was 9, but this world turned me into a writer at 12. Hands down.
I remember someone telling me they didn’t like these movies because “all they did was walk and travel to the end”. And it just blew me away. That’s like saying every movie and story ever made is the same because it’s a journey to the end 😂 like what
@@DrakengardGirl Well, trying to keep an open mind, I'd guess that if you like soap operas, probably movies with a end aren't your cake? idk There are TV series that ended as planned (not cancelled) and the finale leaves a lot of open questions. To me, those are worse than soap operas.
@@TheMule71 maybe but I got the impression it wasn’t the fact that it ended that was the problem, it was the fact that there was physically a lot of walking and running they couldn’t stand lol. Like the actual physical journey. They told me that was the whole movie and they didn’t like it
Glad to know that as a lifelong fan of LotR, who has read it many times and doesn't enjoy the liberties that the film took and would much rather read the books, that I get to experience eternal torment.
Damn this movie is a hell of a journey when you see this for the first time. The charge of the Roharrim always gives me an adrenaline rush every time I see /hear it. Some combination of the score and the visuals just hits exactly right every time. To this day, one of the most visceral and powerful scenes I’ve seen on the big screen.
Love the reviews and praise for Theoden. Our flaws are what make us, he didn't want to go to battle and he knows his death is the end of his line and despite the fact he knows he will lose and die, he faces his death like a G And yes, Sam is the best person to not exist
By not watching the extended editions you did miss what I feel is an important scene that shouldn’t have been cut. The death of Saruman. The scene also has the best behind the scenes story of Sir Christopher Lee basically telling Peter Jackson that he killed Nazis in WW2 and thus, is intimately aware of what sound a person makes being stabbed in the back.
Things just got cut because the theatre industry didn't want to sell tickets for 4 hours. The Extended Edition is simply the Intended Edition. Not just some bonus content. I wish this info would have reached some first time watchers.
@@DestinyAwaits19 What a bizarre take. You genuinely don't think they're better? I don't want to assume you're trolling, but I'm leaning towards it pretty strongly.
@@Pink.andahalf No dude I'm dead serious. Not a hint of trolling about it. I'll say it once and I'll say it again. The theatricals are far better than the extended editions.
There are so many good parts to this trilogy, but the two lines that slay me every time: 1. "I can carry you!" 2. "You bow to no one." Epic. Imagine a world where people lived that way. I feel it's a challenge to each of us to live up to this standard.
To live as a man like Aragorn is a challenge worth living up to for a lifetime. It's a calling to be a man more true and good than almost anything I've ever seen in history.
31:28 Years ago my household was marathoning the DVDs of the trilogy, and we had been joined by one of the sweet little grey tabbycat sisters we had at the time. She was curled up on my spouse's lap, pointed right at the TV. We didn't know how intently she'd been watching the film until we got to Theoden's death scene. Out of nowhere, she let out the saddest mournful wail a small cat could muster and there were actual tears running down her cheeks. She calmed down after we gave her cuddly hugs, but that's how we found out that the King of Rohan had been her favorite.
Ok. I just cried. I had a cat that would sit and watch LOTR with me... And when the birds, crébain from Dunland, the spies of Sauruman flew over the Fellowship as they hid, in the first movie, my little cat would duck and cover and get behind me on the bed and peer around me to watch it!
Just rewatched the whole trilogy. and I am a tad bit embarrassed to admit it, but I had tears in my eyes at multiple points. These movies are both epic and beautiful, they are true labors of love. I have all the respect to the director, cast and crew, who gave us this flawless trilogy.
Should definitely check out the behind the scenes on them, there is a ridiculous amount of content that they recorded while making them and they're probably some of my most watched videos
@@stairwaytoholiday I have seen the behind the scenes stuff, and it is so heartwarming. Everyone was doing their best, and giving it their all, to make these movies. Hell, if they didn't have the technology to do this or that, they just invented the tech. I wish we got more movies with this much heart behind them.
James I love how you mentioned the difference between the two kings in this story and how they’re imperfect characters. I heard somewhere that the two kings (and many characters in this story, actually) follow different paths based on their reaction to despair. All of them are facing a seemingly hopeless situation (as Gandalf says, “only a fools’ hope”) but where Denethor chooses to give in to the despair and go down a path of self-destruction, Théoden rallies his people together and leads them to war even though he knows that they will all likely die (“if this is to be our end, then I would have them make such an end”). I think the same difference can be seen (in part) between Frodo and Sam. It’s am interesting question to ask - why do some people possess a certain resilience against despair? I think that Tolkien really admired this form of moral courage (Mordor is supposedly based on the battlegrounds of WWI) and elevated this nobility above the nobility that society cared about (ie, Denethor was supposed to be more powerful than Théoden, Sam is a true nobody and would prefer to be at home gardening). These characters believe in something greater than themselves (“there’s still some good in this world, Mr.Frodo”) and that’s where they get that moral courage
You know all these epic lines like "I am no man!" and "But I can carry you!"? They read just as epic as they sound. I watched Fellowship and Two Towers but read Return before it came out and yes, those lines really leap out from the page. So there's about 1,000 pages worth of you to read if you feel up to it. Of course, then you have extended works like The Hobbit, Silmarillion, The Unfinished Tales, The History of Middle-Earth vol. 1-12, The Children of Húrin, Beren and Lúthien, etc. etc. :)
The prophecy spoken of by Gandalf is "Far off yet is his doom, and not by the hand of man shall he fall." Merry also participated in the Witch-King's death, he stabs the wraith in the back while Eowyn strikes the final blow thus making the prophecy doubly true. The Witch-King is killed by a woman and a Hobbit, one is not a man and the other is not a Man.
i absolutely LOVE this trilogy but my husband had never gotten into it so last month we did a rewatch and as soon as it ended he said “let’s watch it again”. I’ve never loved him more LOL
Denethor is actually a great Steward and man in the books. He falls into many of the same traps as Boromir; he is using one of the palantíri to defend his kingdom, and he is so afraid of losing it and his family to Sauron that it had droven him mad.
Yeah he is meant to be like this Shakespearean tragic character that you feel really sorry for, but the movie version is so over the top jerk that you are just happy to see him die.
He is a much more tragic figure in the books, but he still treats Faramir like crap. So still a bit of a jerk, but just not as bad. His mental decline is explained better in the books, being driven to using the palantiri and since Sauron had control of one of the seeing stones he was able to drive Denethor to despair and madness.
You learn in the extended that Aragorn is 87 years old. Part of the Dunedain people who were blessed with long life. He knew Theoden as a kid and rode out with Eowyn's grandfather years ago.
I loved your take on this. Lord of the Rings means so much to me, and these films were truly masterworks. There are of course issues to me in comparison to the books, but also great strengths. They're different beasts. If you consider The Hobbit films, people will spam you about how terrible they are. Don't listen to the haters. They're excellent. Honestly I'd watch you reacting to the Making Of - the craft involved is going to awe you.
