i couldnt decide what to watch on Netflix so apparently I’m watching the Lord of The Rings

I don’t think I’ve seen this movie since like... before I knew i was gay, damn

The beginning is very exposition heavy

We’ve spent five seconds in the Shire and there’s more colour and sunlight than I’ve seen in the two-hour runtime of some modern genre films

If pressed, I would cite Marlene Dietrich as my masc-of-centre style icon, but rewatching the Lord of the Rings, I realized something important:
It’s actually Hobbits

Me as a kid: why did some of the other Hobbits not love Bilbo

Me as an adult: oh he’s that dude who went on exactly one trip once and spent the entire rest of their life dropping anecdotes about it. We get it, Janet, you went to Italy and it was life-changing.

Okay i got 25 entire minutes into the movie before my ADHD reminded me that I forgot about a chore I was gonna do earlier

Back later with more scintillating insights on a 19 year old movie

I dont think I realized how weird this whole experience would’ve been for Frodo

his uncle fucks off & leaves him a house & his uncle’s ‘old friend’ is like ‘he left a gold ring behind. DO NOT TELL ANYONE ABOUT THIS. i’ll be back for it’

I’d be like ‘oh shit were they married’

Then you’re out for a pub crawl with your best guy & you come home & the dude has broken into your house demanding the ring, which he then SETS ON FIRE

‘Was this like: bad breakup??? what’s going on here???’

This is before we even hit “okay you gotta go on a quest. Fate of the world level shit. Tell no one and take no one with you. Yeah i’m not coming, I’ve got better stuff to do. Fine, your gardener seems chill though, bring him along”

I’m already picking up on the gay subtext like:

okay Sam heard ‘raised voices’ but why was he close enough to Frodo’s house in the middle of the night to do that? Does that not imply he was planning to drop in on Frodo?

Also ‘i will cut grass in the middle of the night as my alibi’ is such a himbo move

In other news I have 56 pre-1970 sewing patterns

Nobody let me buy any more, okay

“Your love of the halflings’ leaf has slowed your mind”

Translation: are you seriously so stoned you never noticed that

Are Saruman and Gandalf exes? I’m just gonna assume everyone in this movie is queer

This entire fight scene is just alternating angry eyebrow movements and yeeting each other

“Don’t you lose him Samwise Gamgee. And I don’t mean to.”

Shout-out to this random dude who brought his pet ferret to the pub. That’s goals right there

I forgot how objectively sketchy Aragorn is, on first appearance

The other Hobbits think Aragorn kidnapped Frodo and Sam is literally like (ง’̀-‘́)ง

This is where I confess I can never remember which one is Merry & which one is Pippin

Saruman has a distractingly fancy manicure in this scene where he’s communing with ultimate evil

Deforestation is bad, kiddies

Arwen. Pretty

I appreciate that they actually made Frodo look like hot garbage when he was all stabbified and gross

This movie really likes putting a glowy filter on people’s faces

I love that Frodo is all ‘wtf Gandalf why didnt you show up, I nearly died’ & Gandalf just goes ‘i was delayed lol’

“Samwise has scarcely left your side”

Bilbo your book is great but your font choice honestly sucks

It’s like papyrus meets Curlz MT with random dots

“It is in men, we must place our hope”

Elrond is big mad at all of humanity (valid) because Isildur didn’t destroy the Ring (less valid)

like, you were there too, Elrond, you could have done more about it than just yelled at the guy

Why didn’t you punch him in the face and yeet the ring, or something, why did you just let Isildur walk away like that

*gasp*

were THEY exes TOO?

“Aragorn is the descendent of the kings from 3000 years ago”

wait, THREE THOUSAND YEARS?

I looked up what happened 3000 years ago and it was like ‘japan *started* growing rice’ that’s how long ago 3000 years is

Hereditary monarchy is fantasy is wack

“The same blood flows through my veins”

yeah, diluted by a factor of like... the same way we make jokes about every bit of water we drink having a lil bit of dinosaur pee in it? it’s not that worrisome buddy

Arwen/Aragorn is still super tedious no matter how many soft filters they put on it

Why does everyone in this movie has chemistry with each other *except* the canon pairing

I forget that Gimli dramatically promises “and my axe!!” to Frodo not five minutes after he smashed his axe to smithereens, trying to destroy the Ring

“Not like, my best axe, just fucked that one up, but definitely at least a pretty decent one”

Boromir’s description of how horrible Mount Doom is=basically just Washington state rn

I also forgot that half the people in this scene are wearing... velvet ponchos?

okay okay ‘cloaks’, whatever, they look like fancy Snuggies

Me @ Frodo: baby

No, wait, Gimli holds up another axe when he says “and my axe”

how many axes did that dude BRING

there’s a lot of like, people offering comfort to each other, in this movie

That’s nice

I’m going to bed now

Okay I’m back with more bullshit

I like how this movie is willing to just... make the journey a character itself, almost?
That sounds weird but it like, will do long focused shots on the landscape that don’t add to tension in a chase scene, or any ‘function’, they’re just there to show where the characters are.

I keep comparing this to the more frenetic pace of modern movies, including the goshawful Hobbit films where it felt like the camera never stood still *once*, & thinking ‘more of this plz’

Boromir is such a Dude

“Sure do whatever you want, i dont care, it’s chill”

“It’s a shitty sword anyway lol”

“The gap of Rohan takes us too close to Isengard”

is that not... is that not where y’all are going

are you telling me half of this bullshit could’ve been avoided if they’d just taken a shortcut

Moria is spoopy

“Go on Bill. Don’t worry Sam, he knows the way home.”

[SAM LOOKS LONGINGLY INTO THE MIDDLE DISTANCE, BECAUSE DO ANY OF THEM KNOW THE WAY HOME, ANYMORE]

Why would the Dwarvish mines use an Elvish password

Never did understand that

It is objectively a massive dick move that Gandalf knew what happened in Moria, and never bothered to warn Gimli that his cousin and a ton of his family were super dead

Also I keep wanting to type Moira instead of Moria.

And now I’m randomly picturing Moria Rose as part of the Fellowship, love that

Oops the thread broke here: https://www.twitter.com/DubiousCA/status/1305573002533203968