@@ImperialDiecast I saw in an interview he was actually happy though. Something along the line of being glad he's back to being Grey rather than White.
Met him on A play set for a autograph of his one day. He still has a spring in his step at that time and takes the train and bus everywhere, but this was about 10 years ago .
"Kings made tombs more splendid than the houses of the living, and counted the old men of their descent dearer than the names of their sons, childless lords sat in aged halls musing on heraldry or in high cold towers asking question of the stars" - Gandalf Amazing...
+The Android Next Door I agree. I love Gandalf's role of narrating huge pieces of needed information to the audience without breaking the scene into several parts & making it smooth throughout.
Isn't it "high, cold towers"? But yeah -- Tolkien clearly has a lot of medievalist influence in his works, with the belief that the world is continually in decline, and that everything used to be grander the more ancient it was, but even so you also have his characters reflect on how this decline seems to be often caused by people pining for that past rather than living in the present. The line of kings failed because people kept living in and longing for the past rather than focusing on the present and the future ("Kings... counted the old names of their descent dearer than the names of their sons"), and being alone asking "questions of the stars" instead of living their lives to the fullest in the world that they had, investing in their family and neighbors. I love the depth in the world he's built.
I freaking love the Fountain Guards. Their armour is so awesome. They have the easiest job in the whole realm of Gondor; guarding an old dead White Tree.
@@namakudhani1 Probably the most boring job before the war. "I have risen through the ranks & schooled myself in martial combat... to be guarding a tree that my grandfather thinks is holy? Who is going to damage it aside from the occasional drunken scholars from the Academy below?
@@jonathantan2469 it’s probably like the tomb guard of the unknown soldier or the Queen’s guard and more of a honorary thing than actually protecting it
@@benjaminjeffery6873 the CGI has aged a lot, but everything else that was practical and built by human hands is truly incredible. it's partially why this movie has aged so well over the course of 20 years
This movie is almost 20 years old, but 0:47 still impresses me immensely. It’s one of the best looking shots out there, probably done with a mix of miniatures and real camera tracking with the actors on a similar set. You wouldn’t even notice it the first time, but it’s the little things in this movie that make it come to life.
Why the lord of the rings aged so fine and the hobbit didn't is because in the Hobbit they overused CGI and in LotR they used optic illusion and tricks. For a fantasy film with monsters, all kinds of unnatural things and huge armies they used suprisingly little gci.
Its the little details that make this one of the most narrative rich trilogies ever put to screen. The whole discussion at 1:42 about the clouds being devices of Sauron instead of a natural storm because Orcs have no "love of daylight" is incredible. So small yet so good. Chills every time.
Sauron uses the fumes of Mount Doom to cover the grounds of the earth for his Orc army. Notice how after the Ring was destroyed and Sauron finally vanquished, the volcano went back to sleep.
I feel this fits perfectly with the decline of Numenor aswell. They too built tombs greater than the houses of the living and their Kings became so weary of death they wouldn't leave the throne until very very old age when before they would usually abdicate and give it to their heirs.
Make Middle Earth Great Again. "We have a yuuuuge problem folks and nobody's talking about it. When Mordor sends it Orcs, they're not sending their best and their brightest. They're sending murderers, rapists, you name it."
@@pilladisimo87 Gandalf almost certainly isn't stronger than Sauron. Gandalf the white may have been able to hold his ground, but not beat him. The istari, while extremely powerful, sacrificed a lot of their power and wisdom coming to middle earth, they are far less gifted than they were as maia.
@@lizardlegend42 it isn't that they are less gifted in human form, it's that they willingly hold back their power as the Valar ordered them to do so when they left on their mission
@B Babbich And yet City Beautiful was fundamentally flawed, and now rightfully consigned to history, though alas it still has too much influence still. The City was Beautiful, true, but that didn't turn out to serve the people on the ground trying to live in it very well.
Kings made tombs more splendid than the houses of the living and counted the names of their descent dearer than the names of their sons. Childless lords sat in aged halls musing on heraldry or in high, cold towers asking questions of the stars
@@christopherbacon1077 more a commentary on what leads to many nations to decline. When kings focus on solidifying their own legacy with vain works and bragging about their ancestry instead of actually governing and setting an example for the rest of the rulers, things go south. Leaders who set a bad example but are still popular will have "lesser men" copy them when they take over instead of being innovative and creative.
That wide shot of Gandalf and Pippin walking on the keel of the citadel never ceases to amaze me. You truly get the sense of immense scale and magnificence there.
1:07 really poetic Gandalf, but I could've sworn the actual reason why the line of kings failed is because one childless over eager hugely self confident fool tried to 1v1 the witch king outside of Minas Morgul.
Well, that and the earlier civil war over the throne, which caused most of the royal lineages to give up their claim to the throne, which in Gondor is irrevokable. And that civil war was chiefly caused by the Gondorian hysteria over Númenorian racial purity. You got to have that right pedigree.
Anarions line ruled Gondor until his last descendent was killed by the witch king while Isildurs line ruled Arnor until it’s collapse then his remaining line became Chieftains of the Dunedian Rangers which Aragorn is so he was heir of both Arnor and Gondor.
captain peyton Right? It's so badass. It makes me want to dress as a fountain guard in any costume event. It's more badass than any Jedi (except Revan).
@@TheRybob nah I’m glad they weren’t in combat. Peter Jackson would have made them look like fucking useless soldiers just like he did for the gondorian soldiers
The theaterical release as it was was already some 3 hours long....so ofcourse there were lot of good scenes that needed to be cut, but this was by far not even the most essential one.....the death of Saruman was the biggest screwup that they cut from the movie, that should have definitely been in original release... But other than that I think they did good job at cutting and editing. But I do agree with Catzilla there that Intermissions would be good idea atleast with these longer movies....
“All has turned to vain ambition! He would use his grief as a cloak! A thousand years this city has stood. Now at the whim of a madman it will fall.” The Lord of the Rings has such beautiful language, you just get blown away every time.
“Kings built tombs more splendid than the houses of the living and counted the names of their descent dearer than the names of their sons. Childless lords sat in aged halls musing on heraldry or in high cold towers asking questions of the stars. And so the kingdom of Gondor sank into ruin, the line of kings failed, the white tree withered and the rule of Gondor was given over to lesser men.”
Even though this is a minor scene, for some reason I almost tear up every time I watch this scene; the cinematography, the music, and the elegance of Gandalf's speech make this just such a beautiful scene
This explanation leaves a lot unsaid, the great plague ravaged the kingdoms of the west and forced Gondor to abandon its watch on Mordor. And the gondorian civil war known as the kin strife further weakened Gondor while also destroying Osgiliath.
This scene doesn't explain shit. Sure, most information about Gondor 3000 years history is placed in appendices, not actual novel but we still learn A LOT about it's proud numenorean ancestry and slow tragic decline. If I would watch the movies without knowing the source material Gondor would be just some bizzare city-state with seriously fucked up military and leadership.
@@Godunow100 That's true man. I undrestand why PJ did what he did, still I don't really aprove it. Gondor was... something else as you may know, so magnificent, so strong, and in the movies it's protrayed as a very weak version of it. Yes, there was weakness in Gondor, but also strength, and there's only like 3 scenes of 10 seconds each that show it.
It would be really hard to explain Gondor's history in a concise way that did not confused the hell out of casuals, PJ did a great almost perfect job in setting up the lore and explaining the world of middle earth, lets always remember this movie was not for the hardcore fan but the average movie fan that probably have not yet read the books. Its just the fate of being a hollywood mass production.
@@aesir1ases64 Lotr may have been a victim of Hollywood, but back then - decades ago, it still had a bit of its former greatness. Today its jut a clownfiesta consisting of remakes after remakes and failed attempts of continuing old franchises
this is what you dont see anywhere anymore... it doesnt fit the budget or i dont know, in the marvel universe for example there were plenty of opportunity to show places like this, Asgard,Wakanda you name it. But its always a 5 second helicopter flythrough rather thane a slow graceful, mighty scene. But correct me if I wrong.
@lucgermain9310 I never noticed that, doesn't look too bad to me....to me composition is the issue, like perspectives/parallax don't look realistic given the supposed distances between layers or whatever, there's also when the Fellowship exits Moria after Gandalf's fall It's a 20 year old set of films, it's fine I can ignore it since everything else is timeless
Some viewers might not understand why Minas Tirith is so important. I’ll tell you, if you don’t mind a little story: Thousands of years before the War of the Ring, the Men of Arda (the world) aided the Elves in opposing the Devil of Tolkien’s stories, Melkor. Their reward for aiding Melkor’s defeat was an island paradise in the Great Sea west of Middle-Earth; and that paradise’s name was Númenor. Númenor was a beautiful and prosperous island that was blessed by the Valar (archangels), and it’s people lived up to 500 years old! Over time, Númenor became the cultural and military powerhouse of Arda; the Roman Empire of Tolkien’s creation, as it were. They were so powerful that Sauron surrendered to them at the mere sight of the Númenorean army sent to oppose him when he first declared war on the world. But that was part of his back-up plan. While imprisoned in Númenor, Sauron convinced the people to turn their backs on Eru Ilúvatar (God) and the Valar, proclaiming that the divines were deliberately withholding the secret to eternal life from Men. Eventually, King Ar-Pharazôn, 25th monarch of Númenor, built an army to wage war upon the Valar. Eru Ilúvatar decided that he couldn’t allow Men to set foot upon the Undying Lands of Aman. He used his holy power to sink Númenor beneath the Great Sea, buried Ar-Pharazôn and his army in a massive rock slide, made Arda into a sphere, and removed the Undying Lands from the sphere. But, Númenor was not entirely destroyed. Elendil, a nobleman, led thousands of repentance Númenoreans across the Great Sea to Middle-earth, Eru Ilúvatar blessing their journey because of their contrite hearts. He and his sons, Isildur and Anárion, established the two kingdoms of Arnor and Gondor upon Middle-earth, bringing much of the culture and memory of Númenor with them. That is why Sauron fears Aragorn; as Isildur’s only remaining descendant and heir, if Aragorn reclaims the throne of Gondor, then he will bring back the strength of Númenor with him. With the spirit of Númenor in their hearts, Sauron cannot win against Men unless he reacquires the One Ring. Minas Tirith, is the last remnant of what Men once were in Arda…
@@TheAETHER22 yes the vision does come true eventually. Ar Pharazon, (the heir apparent super populist guy), once he is king, will lead Numenor to ruin by waging war against Valinor. Eru will wipe Numenor off the face of Arda.
Thats not entirely true, Denethor as rightful "monarch" of Gondor couldnt be manipulated by Sauron, which had no right at all over the Palantir, Denethor just got depressed due to the mental fatigue of constantly fighting Sauron on Palantir visions and after seeing over and over again the almost infinite forces of the enemy. Thats why he grew older so fast, but no, Sauron didnt convince him of nothing, he just got depressed because he knew the true power of the enemy thanks to the Palantir and truly believed they couldnt win the war after all.
It annoys me that the movie omitted that. It would give context to Denethor's actions. All they needed to do is show him holding it as he speaks to Gandalf when Gandalf tries to stop him from burning Faramir.
@@HockeyNationHD Read the book. Denethor battled Sauron over the will in using the palantiri. In this contest, a surprising turn that the human have won against a Maiar. But it did left a mark on Denethor, making him weaker and feel grief that dark future awaits for Gondor. Also he's not a a rightful monarch. See where he sits. That's a seat only for the worthy trusted advisor of the king. He's a Steward of Gondor. The kingdom has never have a king for almost 500 years till Aragorn.
Gondor seems to me very representative of Western civilization. At its core a force of good and right, but on its last stand due to internal and external barbarism.
"Western civilization" is responsible for a number of atrocities in the name of God, democracy and progress; present Steward aside, *Gondor* is an ideal kingdom and in no way representative of our reality.
@@RagitsuGetting bored of Stargate??😂 Funny seeing you here. Rag Numenor and it's successor states is pretty much a combination of Atalantis and Rome. Minas Tirith is based on Constantinople with it's multiple layered for centuries impervious walls. The Gondorians and Arnorians were founded by same house and ruled by two branches of same family. One fell much earlier while the other lasted millennia longer. That's pretty much the story of the Eastern a and Western Roman Empire after it was split. Then there's Numenor which is pretty much direct analogy to the Atlantis legend. The Numernorians, Arnorians, and Gondorians aren't saints either. Numenor had a overseas colonial empire that deforestated Eriador and demanded tribute from subject nations. Pretty much legend of Atlantis with some environmentalism thrown in. Arnor forcibly assimilated the men of Eriador into their new realm but didn't inter marry with them and became the upper class. This eventually culminated in it's destruction by peoples essentially demanding independence that was exploited by the Witch King. If that isn't more or less what happened with Western Rome than idk what is. Gondor did the same in what became Gondor, Harad, Umbar, and Rhovanion which again culminated in civil wars started by subject peoples demanding to be treated as equals. The Gondorians did eventually relent and inter-marry but by that time the kingdom was already a fractured mess. That's pretty much the story of Eastern Roman Empire as well. Then there's Mordor and Sauron which Tolkein being Catholic made them analogous to something else...☪️ & 👼🌄🌟
@@Ragitsu Tolkein said alot of things but when you look at the characters in his books and read about the sources he drew inspiration from it's hard to not to notice similarities. You gotta go all Daniel Jackson on his works both primary and secondary to really notice it all ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-WskWZfFpWNI.html :p I think personally it was more that he preferred his works be looked at as it's own world in a vacuum. Not something that would be directly comparable to this or that story which might take away from his story. To be it's own standout saga. Allegory would imply he was attempting to teach something and perhaps he was simply saying that he wasn't. He simply was just trying to tell a story. The books were originally just for his family after all I believe.
"A thousand years this city has stood, and now, at the whim of a mad man it will fall. The old wisdom born out of the West was forsaken. Kings made tombs more splendid than the houses of the living, and counted the old names of their descent dearer than the names of their sons. Childless lords sat in aged halls, musing on heraldry, or in high cold towers asking questions of the stars." (Dialogue presumably lifted straight out of Tolkien's writing. Pure poetry. A real loss to the theatrical version that this scene was cut.)
I dont think they get paid, nor are there suffcient sickness and pension schemeswhen did you ever see an orc on holiday? Alos I dont think Sauron is big on cosmetic surgery
Sad fact: The “dark cloud” that Gandalf mentions extending from Mordor is very similar to one he used when he first returned to Barad dur. It extended towards Minas Tirith causing disease and paranoia and is what caused the death of Boromir and Faramir’s mother, and began driving Denethor to despair and insanity.
Watching the series again in high school made me realize the sort of parallels that Tolkein made between Gondor and the Byzantine Empire. A remnant of a once-great empire reduced to one city and a few surrounding smaller ones facing much more powerful enemies from the East.
@@Viktorvelat95 It's Tolkien's decision. He said Gondor based on Ancient Egyptians. And Numenor based on Atlantis. But the films and fanarts make them look very medieval-European 🤷🏻♂️ Its not what Tolkien imagined
@@_semih_ of course I get your point, however the story is always the same, there’s always a) another empire attacking as well as b) an inner turmoil of the falling empire that result in -> the total collapse
Be the change you want to see actually, we are in a hard time created by weak men. So America elected a strong man -- Donald J Trump. His greatest promise: "I will be the GREATEST jobs President that God ever created". Well, he's succeeding wildly. America is beginning to show signs of an economic boom. America's military is being built up MASSIVELY now, and the North Koreans are bending the knee and making concessions that they refused to make to ANY administration since the end of WWII. Mr. Trump's approval is rising dramatically; interesting times!
That shot that cranes past the prow of the city to Gandalf and Pippin looking out into the distance is one of the greatest VFX shots in the entire trilogy, with how utterly real and believable it is. There's a ton of stunning work in ROTK, specifically concerning Minas Tirith, but that one shot blows me away every time. It is perfect.
When I think of the state decline I often think about Gandalf's condemnation in the decline of Gondor. Such a short speech and so eloquent. I love these movies.
As an avid hater of Rings of Power, I got to admit that Peter Jackson had a great material for his dialogues in the books. Yes, his films made a lot of ridicilous changes, but he never forsaked the essence of the source material, and also, he could resort to Tolkien's very very well written dialogue Wheras ROP writers are supposed to mirror Tolkien's writing, which is an insurmountable task even for the best writers of English literature today. Here, Gandalf long exposition is actually uttered by Aragorn in the books, if memory serves. PJ just knew how to blend everything in. In the Two Towers, Treebeard describes orcs with ''Gnawing, biting, breaking, hacking, burning. Destroyers of usurpers, curse them!'' But in the books, it was Tom Bombadil, who told Frodo and his company at Old Forest of how trees resented things that roamed the Earth freely and how they saw them ''Gnawing, biting, breaking, hacking, burning. Destroyers and usurpers'' This is a direct result of being really in love with the source material
Anyone else think being a citizen of minas tirith, forever sentenced to stare at the omnious red glow of mordor on the horizon would be eternally depressing? I mean imagine it - youre a gondorian soldier, its your night off, you hit the tavern with the lads and while having drunken heart to hearts in the beer garden you look up and are like "ah shit, fucking mordor."
0:20 "The white tree, the tree of the king, will never bloom again" "Why are they still guarding it?" "They guard it because they have hope. A faint and fading hope that one day it will flower, the king will come, and this city will be as it once was, before it fell into decay" This small piece of dialogue, along with the imagery and score, and the idea that the fountain guards represent, touches my soul very deeply. Near to the point, i am brought to tears. In our world full of cynicism and nihilistic doomsaying, It's hard for me to find anything inspiring or that makes me hopeful of the future. And as made clear by many commenters here, it seems foolish or boring to guard a dead tree all your life, but i find it to be extremely beautiful and poignant. Just hearing/reading Tolkien's words create in me some kind of peace, as if even should the worst happen, there would still be hope left to guard that the future will be better. Nomatter how implausible it may seem, or how small in chance. How tedious a guard post it be, or foolish to those more pessimistic. As long as a single man takes that hope into his heart, that dreamed future remains possible.
No wonder Gondor had a tough time, waking up every day and looking over at that hellscape just over the way would be enough to put anyone off their breakfast!
I have to admit the extended edition of both lord of the rings and the hobbit is brilliant. Way better than the theatre version. Extended scenes and deleted scenes are just fantastic to watch. All actors and actresses are super talented in the lord of the rings and the hobbit
I thougth Minas Thirith was Real. I mean it was even Inside the DVD pack.....and it looks so fucking real. Then someone told me it istn real. After that, everytime i drive in a car (with parents or anyone else) and there was a wide fiel, i always told to myself "if i have some day enough money, i will build right there Minas thirith"
look at the length of the courtyard to the end where they stand.. and the burning ruler of this city ran all the way from the inside of the building to the edge to fall off... that part was ridiculous.. lol
Tolkien wrote this monologue in 1955. This is 67 years old, and yet this is more accurate than ever. Looking at Tolkien's work makes me a wee depressed sometimes, because everything he was criticizing in his books somehow only got worse as the generations passed. But I guess the best we can do is build better houses than our tombs, and hold the names of our sons dearer than the names of our descendants.
Theres a lot to love here but somehow the way McKellen performs the line "yes... There it lies..." About Mordor - to Pippin a long discussed menace - is fantastic, you can hear the disdain, weariness, dread but also a kind of defiance, great performance
This is my exact reaction to the new Amazon Prime Lord of the Rings show coming out... The fans still guard the white tree because we have hope that one day someone with respect for older franchise's will take up the mantle and craft a good story that both respects and adds to that which came before.
@@godzillavkk It’s not a weakness; it’s a g-damn theme of Tolkien’s legendarium as a whole. His entire legendarium stresses that the past was once full of wonder, Magic, love, and peace.
I think that what I love the most about this speech (so, not counting the awesome cinematography and music around it) is that he doesn't just regret the time when things were better, he regrets that the rulers of Gondor have stopped trying to make things better again, too busy as they were to remember the old days. Gandalf, on the other hand, has seen everything that ever happened, he has seen the decline of great realms, the treason of great kings, the destruction of great creations, but he never lost hope, determination and courage, and he keeps helping others to do the same. So of course he gets angry then melancholic when it doesn't work.
Gondor is clearly following the same pattern as nearly every declining empire. Their old expansionist spirit and bounty made them comfortable, so they grew lazy and cared more about themselves than their nation. Meanwhile the enemy marshalled his troops and by the time he attacked, the moral decay was so far-reaching, nobody put up a decent fight. So sad.
moral decay is such a nebulous all catch term to blame everything but reality (in Kingdoms and empires, no less) Empires fall generally due to dynastic splits between competing heirs and bad timing of their economic downturn/disease/famines during invasions and added stressors. and the term "fall' doesnt mean the people are gone or their power, its just that a big singularly colored map seems incredible compared to multiple colored shapes on a map. The cities are still there, the economic output is still there, the people are still there, the feuding militaries are still there, but the colored map gives a vague impression of a singular super power. but thats the complexity of history, this is a fantasy book where the world was literally flat and the sun and moon where physical trees. you can visit at one point.
Or just they had been fighting for 3 millennia against Saurons forces and have just began to lose. Gondor literally has been soloing the war against the East for an entire age.
Pippin: "A storm is coming." Gandalf: "This is not the weather of the world. This is the device of of Sauron's making. A broil of fumes he sends ahead of his host. The Orcs of Mordor have no love of daylight. So he covers the face of the sun to ease their passage along the road to war. When the shadow of Mordor reaches this city, it will begin."
I love how he explained that their people was obsess with their history and old legacy that they abandoned what was in front of them as as a result they decayed as people did over time. Also this shows how poetic their words were in most dialogue.
With the rise of Morgoth's new servents. A cult that would dedicate themselves to the works of Morgoth and use deceit to their advantage. Like the Synagogue of Satan in the Bible in Revelations. In JRR Tolkien's unfinished works they were named The New Shadow.
@@thorshammer7883 Weren't they meant to be a sort of satanic/Illuminati esq cult that secretly ruled things from the shadows? Tolkien pretty much abandoned that storyline since he thought that it was way too dark and depressing. Sad. Would have been very interesting to see what he came up with.
I was thinking the same thing...Aragorn rebuilds the two kingdoms, they prosper for a few hundred years.... and then what. It all starts going downhill again.
All the actors did everything correctly, but it bugs me that they turned Denethor into a fool. In books he was not weak minded fool. He called Rohan for help before the siege, and he had mental willpower to use the Palantiri without succumbing to Sauron. They had "mental duels" at times. He was not a perfect hero, he lacked certain wisdom, but he was not a weak minded fool. Still a great movie, actors good perfomance saves a lot.
In the book Denethor also goes mad near the end. Also they didn't turn him weak either. Quote from Boromir (in the movie) "Long has my father, the Steward of Gondor, kept the forces of Mordor at bay ... by the blood of our people are your lands kept safe."
