Lord of the Tweets
Posted on November 27, 2011 Posted by John Scalzi 64 Comments
Last night both my wife and child were out for the evening and I was alone with a Lord of the Rings movie marathon on Encore, and access to Twitter. What happened next will be revealed, behind the cut.
Oh, hey, a Lord of the Rings movie marathon. Suddenly all my plans for industry fall to the wayside. #TheBloodOfMenIsSpent
“The Mimes of Moria” is the name of my next band.
Wife is at a rock concert tonight. I’m watching cable TV at home. Thus are illustrated the differences between us.
OSHA clearly has no jurisdiction in Moria.
Thanks to the Lord of the Rings, I always think of Kazakhstan as having Balrogs.
“You shall not pass!” — The Balrog’s algebra teacher.
I just realized that if you wanted to be a rebel in Lothlorien, you would wear bangs.
I’m imagining a Ken Burns’ documentary of the events in The Lord of the Rings.
Cue the long pan of the Alan Lee artwork.
It is odd to think it’s actually been ten years since “Fellowship of the Ring” came out.
The Two Towers is now on. I hold the minority view that it is the best film of the trilogy.
That said, I’d’ve trimmed back the ent scenes pretty severely.
I SWEAR I did not realize I was making a tree pun in that last tweet.
I am suddenly aware of just how little difference there is between Orlando Bloom’s Legolas and certain sparkly vampires one could name.
Orcs vs. Stormtroopers. GO. On second thought, never mind. Neither side aims well enough for it to be interesting.
And now for no good reason the image of Legolas with a Justin Bieber haircut just popped into my head. I’m sorry.
A name like Grima Wormtongue should have been a tipoff.
Little known fact: Theoden’s previous advisor was named Pervert McTraitorpants.
On the other hand, the name “Rasputin” meant “Debauched one,” and that didn’t stop Nicholas II. Conclusion: Kings are dumb.
Fun fact: Shadowfax, the horse Gandalf rides, had a younger, hipper sibling named “Darktweet.”
I wonder what dentists think when they look at Orcs. I suspect “that’s a sailboat right there.”
They could have just distracted the Wargs by throwing a bunch of red bouncy balls and yelling “fetch.”
The orcs would be awesome in a Road Warrior movie. The orcs probably WERE in a Road Warrior movie.
If the co-star of The Hangover made a porn film, they could call it “Helms Deep.” #ImSorryAgain
Specifically one thing that bothered me about the Ent scenes is the the green screen is qualitatively less good than elsewhere.
Now we’re at the “We paid Cate Banchett to be in this film so we might as well use her for exposition” scene.
Everyone in Middle Earth writes in the same font. THAT’S JUST NOT REALISTIC.
Dear world: I am deeply disappointed there is not a dubstep version of the Smeagol Fish Battering Song.
Frodo just admitted to being in a same sex relationship with Gollum. Sam will kill him!!
“Tricksy Master” is the name of my BDSM bar band.
Dear Aragorn: go right ahead and pose heroically on a mountain top. No rush to get to Helm’s Deep. It’s not like an Uruk army is coming.
Every time an ent is on the screen I think Robert Plant gets a tingle.
Related: the dude outfitting Theoden looks like David Gilmour. I want him to break out the solo to Comfortably Numb.
Now Aragorn is trying to cheer up the boy who has been chosen for the Hunger Games.
The men of Helm’s Deep are saved! The League of Bowie Impersonators has arrived!
All the elves look like they really could use a low-tar cigarette right about now.
For those of you who don’t know, there’s a very Helm’s Deep-like battle sequence in “Kingdom of Heaven,” also starring Orlando Bloom.
Dear sound effects people: The Wilhelm Scream is the Rickroll of your industry. Time to retire it.
Helm’s Deep explosion: One of the top five explosions in film history. Discuss.
The Legolas Arrow Eye Stab never gets old. The shield surfing, however.
Now at the scene where elf is stunned that someone as pretty as he can die.
The Two Towers may have the most neck wounds of any film ever made.
I wonder what ents do when they come across a book. I imagine there’s a lot of screaming.
The ents are marching, first to Isengard and then to a Phish concert.
I strongly believe Theoden could benefit from mood levelers.
Gimli is taking to that horn like it’s the world’s biggest hookah.
The horses of the Rohirrim: “You want us to gallop down WHAT?”
At the “Ents go Orc bowling” scene.
Burning ent putting himself out in the flood: Still cool.
Sam doing his Saint Crispin’s day speech. Undercut by his 70s roadie haircut.
Gandalf now foreshadowing. Movie nearing the end.
Mordor’s going about it all wrong, incidentally. Harness all that geothermal energy, sell it to the humans, LIVE LIKE KINGS.
Movie done. I wasn’t intending to livetweet it incidentally. It’s just that I’m ALL ALONE. With a computer. And cable TV.
And yes, Encore is showing Return of the King next. So if you’re sick of the tweets, probably best to unsub for the night.
The very first time you ever see Smeagol he’s impaling a living creature, so its not as if what happens to him afterward is surprising.
The One Ring is bad for your teeth. Pass it on.
Sitcom proposal: Frodo and Sam are roommates, Gollum is their cranky landlord. Gandalf as the wacky neighbor with a cat.
First time I’ve noticed the ents in the background, still throwing rocks at Saruman’s tower.
Merry and Pippin doing product placement for Green Dragon ale. I remember Middle Earth before it went corporate, man.
Gollum is the 1%.
You’d think they could password protect a palantir.
Merry and Pippin having a spat. They’re adorable.
It must be tiring to be an elf and always have to walk in slow motion.
They are reforging the sword of the king. Which will be given to Connor McLeod. IN MY CROSSOVER FANFIC #AragronConnorSlashFTW
Let’s be honest and admit that Gandalf’s people skills leave much to be desired.
I knew Osgilliath was doomed when the Starbucks closed up. All 16 of them #OrcsHateCoffee
Minas Morgul glows like an XBox.
And yes, that would make the Eye of Sauron the Red Ring of Death.
Also, I don’t care if they’re evil, I want a Nazgul.
Say what you will about the Orcs, you don’t get be one of their leaders just by having a nice head of hair #MeritocracyIsUgly
Of all the Hobbits, it’s not entirely surprising that Pippin is the one that starts fires.
I wonder what horrible thing you have to have done to be assigned to Beacon Patrol.
This may be a bit of futconning, but I think Eomer would be even more awesome if he spoke like Leonard McCoy.
Gandalf, walking around with that Nazgul repellent in his staff, only thinks to use it once. #NotATacticalGenius
We are now at the scene that suggests that Thanksgiving at the Steward’s House is never not awkward.
If I were Sam, I would not be sleeping that close to a cliff edge with Gollum around.
We’re at the emo-est parade ever. “You’re all doomed. Here’s some flowers.”
It’s nice that in Middle Earth you can become Steward of Gondor without ever learning to chew with your mouth closed.
Does anyone other than me notice the similarity of the falling necklace to the falling necklace in The Exorcist?
Aragorn will not be wanting to swing that sword around in a thunderstorm.
We’re at the “Eowyn discovers that proximity does not trump a hot elf” scene.
Also, for those who asked: I am totally sober right now. Believe it.
The whole city of ghosts part here is a little too “Haunted Mansion” for me.
Given the sooty barrenness of Mordor, the support logistics of the orc army are being seriously glossed over here.
Once again: Gandalf — not a people person. #WhatDenathorNeededWasAHug
That Orc general is badass. Good looking, too, in a John Merrick sort of way.
If Gandalf would only use his Magneto powers, this whole battle would be over in, like, a minute and a half.
Frodo should have turned back at “The walls are sticky!” We should ALL turn back when the walls are sticky.
It’s out of character for Sam not to have collected up the Lembas bread before he ran back up the mountain in a rage.
You know what would kill Shelob, don’t you. A good hard whack with “A Dance With Dragons.” #ALargeBookIsComing
Frodo, Gollum and the rest are easier to understand if you think of this movie as Peter Jackson’s remake of “Requiem for a Dream.”
Here comes my favorite, most Peter Jackson-esque line: BRING WOOD AND OIL
It says something about me that I have no problem with a 10 foot spider but I get annoyed that it has a stinger.
Elijah Wood spends a lot of time in these films expelling foamy spittle to signify pain. #ThatsActing
Theoden’s speech to the troops is pretty damn fatalistic. “Everyone! We’re going to die! Whoooo!”
These Orcs act like they’ve never seem stampeding horses before! Weren’t they at Helm’s Deep? Oh… right.
Denethor falling from a great height ON FIRE is why Peter Jackson was destined to make these films.
Here come the Oliphants. In the super-extended version, the riders of Rohirrim counter the Oliphants with T-Rexes. It’s a true fact.
Wow, things are going terribly for the defenders of Minas Tirith. If only some sort of Deus Ex Machina would show up to save their bacon!
Oh look! A Deus Ex Machina in the form of an unbeatable ghost army! That’s convenient.
Seriously, that flail? It’s like a chandelier on a chain.
Eowyn is No Man! And somewhere Odysseus is considering a copyright infringement suit.
We’ll not speak of Legolas’ Oliphant Adventure.
We’re at the “Eowyn and Theoden recite Luke and Vader’s lines from Jedi” scene.
Hope the people of Minas Tirith like Oliphant barbeque.
Aaaaand now we’re at the point where one goes “wow, this movie is still going?” no matter how much one is enjoying it.
Sam is dedicating his murders to friends and quipping as he stabs people in the back. How far he’s come.
Also, Sam as ringbearer is like the tribute band singer who replaces a front man in the real band. He knows it won’t last.
Mount Doom: The name’s a little on the nose. You’d think someone would have suggested rebranding to “Mount Pleasant” by now.
Every time the Orcs march I start hearing the Flying Monkey March from Wizard of Oz in my head.
I *did* warn people I would be tweeting a lot tonight. Don’t worry. It’s just until this movie ends, seven hours from now.
Next, I’ll livetweet Berlin Alexanderplatz!
It never actually ends, you know. One eventually just leaves to go pee.
You have to give Gollum credit for persistence. His can-do spirit is what America needs in these hard times. #Gollum2012
We’re at the “Frodo’s paid the florist and the caterer and everyone’s at the chapel but he still can’t commit” scene.
And then Gollum comes along to steal the bride. #ItsAllInTheSubtext
I’ll say it: Gollum and Frodo’s slap fight? Embarrassing for them both.
But of course there’s Sam to swoop in for the rebound.
We’re at the “Sauron’s Tower clearly not built to code” scene.
Sam and Frodo have a bubble of conveniently non-superheated air around them. Which is a lucky thing!
We’re at the “Sam’s deathbed conversion to heterosexuality” scene.
Aragorn is crowned king; spends the rest of his life settling taxation and usage rights issues. #KingBetterAsAConcept
Elrond clearly still believes Arwen is marrying down #ElfElitismIsSickening
At the “We’ve told Bilbo he’s going with the elves, and at his age that’s what the nurse’s aides at the home will look like” scene.
Frodo smiles as he leaves because he knows he’s stuck Sam with an open tab at the Green Dragon #ItWasAThingBetweenThem
Aaaaaaand now I’m done tweeting the movies. Tell the people who unfollowed they can come back now.
That was hilarious to read as it was happening. It was especially fun because @sarahreesbrenna was livetweeting LotR at the same time, so the streams crossed.
“Little known fact: Theoden’s previous advisor was named Pervert McTraitorpants.”
AWESOME.
Excellent.
I loved reading your tweets. I could picture the scenes you were tweeting. It also gave me a chance to send you snarky replies, which only added to the fun.
Ah, the memories… And that must have been one long bloody concert.
I tweeted during seeing RotK in 2003 before tweeting existed. During the battle at The Black Gate I blurted out ” What’s Gandalf doing? Magic Users can’t use swords, he’s not getting any experience points for this battle!”. To which the audience laughed at embarrassing my gf at the time.
Oh well, she was used to it, I also blurted out “so Verbal’s Kaiser Soze” halfway through watching “The Usual Suspects” on opening night.
Just before “Fellowship” came out, I watched a Godfather I-II-III marathon where “Fellowship” was advertised during what seemed like every commercial break. I ended up with a recurring dream where the Council of Elrond sent Fredo Baggins to Mordor to learn the casino business.
You’re right : Two towers is the best film. I’m used to being in the minority.
You’re wrong : In the extended version of the Oliphant battle, I’m sure it was velociraptors, not T-rexes :)
I’m so backward I don’t tweet, just read “the extended version” on the reader – but I’m for a LotR marathon this evening. It was fun.
I now understand why you don’t drink or do any other kinds of mind altering drugs.
BTW, I also agree that The Two Towers was the best. It’s usually that way in trilogies. I mean, everyone knows that “Empire” was the best of the Luke-Leia-Han trilogy.
I trust these were sent from a proper keyboard, rather than your cell phone?
I’d hate to have your thumbs this morning if not ow ow ow ow ow
Still retro-casting: Peter O’Toole, as Elrond, Patrick Stewart as Denethor, and Sean (I’ve never read the books) Connery as Theoden.
Now, if Will Ferrell makes Bored of the Rings, I’ll be there.
@Geoff, can you imagine John on drugs? He’d have the Ents battling the Photosynthesis-using soldiers from OMW for optimal sunning territory.
ha! I was watching the Two Towers also, and I can picture every scene you described. Wish I’d known this was going on :-)
Excellent. I’ve been trying to convince my family to sit down for a few hours over each of a few weekends to re-watch these moves (the kids haven’t seen them yet).
It was weird, though, as for a while I thought I was reading WWdN.
A buddy of mine has a NAZGUL license plate on his black porsche.
“Everyone in Middle Earth writes in the same font. THAT’S JUST NOT REALISTIC.”
Too funny!
I also think The Two Towers is the best the trilogy. I also admire how Peter Jackson turned a rather dull, long winded book into a fast paced movie.
I’ll have you know I am now hard at work on a Smeagol Fish Battering dubstep remix.
The Two Towers is my favourite of the trilogy too. I absolutely adore Rohirrim Barbie and all his horsey friends.
One moment of pedantry: the Nazgul are the Ringwraiths/Black Riders themselves; the winged monstrosities they ride are “fell-beasts”. Or possibly “fell beasts”. (I mean, Aragorn refers to them as Nazgul all the way back in Bree, when the wraiths were riding horses (or horse-equivalents, anyway).) If I’m wrong in assuming you were actually wanting a fell-beast, John, I apologize.
The use of “Nazgul” to refer to the fell-beasts drove me bananas while watching the bonus material for LotR 2 and 3.
/pedantry
Other than that, I’m glad you enjoyed your unintended live tweeting!
@Scorpius
Shouting your own commentary at a first run movie in a theater, no matter how clever you think it is, is not amusing to 99 percent of the rest of the audience. It is also not the same as tweeting because we can’t turn it off. If the rest of us want to hear clever comments, we’ll watch MST3K or RiffTrax or go to a midnight showing of Rocky Horror. When we pay $10-$15 to see Lord of the Rings in the theater, we want Peter Jackson’s vision of Tolkein’s work, not yours. Do us a favor and either shut up or stay home. /rant
Let’s not start fights, please.
I’m sorry, John. I should know better than to comment when my buttons have been pushed.
This absolutely made my morning… and saddened me that I decided to turn off my twitter last night because this would have been hilarious to read live.
I really enjoyed watching this happen. I’m such a huge LOTR nerd that every bit of it made me gigglesnort.
To echo half the people in this thread, Two Towers is totally the best one, and I doubt that’s an unpopular opinion. It’s awesome!
This is all very funny.
John, Gríma was his real name. Théoden’s men called him Wormtongue after discerning his nature. So it wasn’t that they missed a cue; they figured it out but couldn’t do anything.
Two Towers is the only one of the trilogy I have on DVD.
Snerk. I was teasing my mom about “Sparkly Elves” yesterday while we were watching it, too.
Love it!
John, I don’t know if you know this, but if you put the twitter URL on a line by itself in your blog post editor then it would have pulled each of the tweets into the post, and people could click through to retweet, etc.
http://en.support.wordpress.com/twitter-blackbird-pie/
Hope that helps,
Lloyd
Best when shared with others who have seen the movies. I had to call the family in when I started reading the tweets (after the fact). Hilarious.
Yeah during FOTR, under my breath I added “Mister Anderson” to all of Elrond’s lines.
Has anyone seriously considered updating Harvard Lampoon’s classic “Bored of the Rings” and making THAT into a movie?
My local theater does something called “Hecklevision” once a month which is: a bunch of people watch a (usually bad) movie and text their comments which appear on screen (usually only a few second second delay depending on volume) with a pre-registered nick in front. We went to Hackers in Hecklevision a few months ago. I hadn’t seen it but plenty of others had and some had clever comments ready to go in time to appear at exactly the right time. This week is the second Jurassic Park movie.
Extra great bonus: they have the system setup before the show so we get to comment on the pre-movie stuff which at this theater is awesome and fun random videos and clips (for a while they had a truly amazing Sonny Bono anti-marijuana piece), rather than endless car, sitcom and soda advertisements.
I really enjoyed the LotR tweets and kind of which Hecklevision wasn’t likely to ever do LotR or similarly “respected” movies. The on-screen texts aren’t too intrusive so it’s like everyone can talk in the movie about the movie without being as annoying.
I wasn’t joking, by the way.
Gandalf in Moria isn’t an algebra teacher, but a tournament bridge director ruling that the Balrog used unauthorized information when leaving in his partner’s takeout double.
@ a. Lee carter: Your Gollum dub step remix had me laughing out loud in the Chicago airport, nice work :)
@a. lee carter: You, sir, are a genius!
I would just like to know what concert your wife went to.
I wish I’d checked Twitter while watching Return of the King last night (as it was, I kept channeling the VSDs and whispered “Still not king” everytime they did a closeup of Aragorn. Of course I stopped once they actually crowned him.) After dealing with a holiday burglary these tweets would’ve been very helpful. As it was, I read through them this morning, and simply visualized each scene. I still laughed. :)
@bill: Strangely enough, I wanted to do a filmic “Bored of the Rings”… until I read it. The opening poem is wonderful, but the book itself isn’t Lampoon at its best, despite the involvement of the brilliant Henry Beard.
Now, a parody movie “Bored of the Rings” that just took the opening poem, the title, and the idea of a parody of LOTR, and drew on other internet sources (“Sam’d kill him if he had the chance”/”Still not king.”) would be awesome.
Cassandra Claire’s “Very Secret Diaries” is what I’m referencing: http://www.ealasaid.com/misc/vsd/aragorn.html
I guess I should be boiled in my own pudding, but I’ve never enjoyed the books. The movies on the other had I do enjoy. Love the battles and such, although in one of the battles I had a bit of a gripe from the first time I saw it: catapults outranging trebuchets. Really? Really? We’re talking medieval types here. Just makes me grit my teeth that poetry in motion (trebuchets) got the short end of the stick. After pointing it out to a couple of friends they had the same opinion. But hey… it is fantasy after all. ;-)
Best movie/book: FotR, because that’s where you get the tour of MIddle Earth. Battles, yawn. I am no longer as impressed as I was as a teenager.
Best line from Bored of the Rings: when the Ranger “Stomper” is introduced at the inn with the remark that “he’s ot-nay oo-tay ight-bray, if you know what I mean!”
Sorry, I just had to steal your ‘Algebra Teacher’ quote. I come from a family of math teachers.
Ents are so fickle, man. They’re all “not our problem” until they see the clearcut forest, then they’re all like “rawwrrwargwaglewargelwarg! He’s a wizard! He should know better!”
Gandalf is just one of those things that are cool to have in a story, but totally fuck it up if you let him hang around and do everything that he would do if he had half a brain. So he’s always galavanting around, doing some *other* thing that apparently only he can do, rather than doing what he *should* be doing, like calling down lightning bolts on the nazgul and their fell beasts. And then roasting them on a spit and a fireball or two. He’s a white wizard, for cripes sake, he defeated a goddamn balrog with his bare fricken hands (and maybe a magic sword and some spells, the specifics are a bit fuzzy, but the point being he did it by himself).
You think a bunch of pteradactyls are scary after falling into hell itself and killing a five story tall demon made of brimstone and pure hate?
No. So, instead of serving fell beast wings in spicy buffalo sauce at helms deep, Gandalf has to run off to… somewhere else… always somewhere else.. to … talk… to someone… about something… that everyone already knows about… but only he can do it…. whatever.
Also, this:
Its Liv Tyler. Of course she is marrying down.
Hey!
+++Yeah during FOTR, under my breath I added “Mister Anderson” to all of Elrond’s lines.+++
There was a great pic meme going around a couple of years ago of Elrond looking thoughtful, a pair of Agent Smith sunglasses added in and a background of Matrix code, with a thought balloon saying “Hobbits are a virus.”
“And now for no good reason the image of Legolas with a Justin Bieber haircut just popped into my head. I’m sorry”
This is what I call an imagination beyond expectations !! You surely added a life to the movie :)
Regards
Rob
Next up for Scalzi: watching and tweeting the Twilight saga.
OH GOD NO
@Scorpius: It appears that John’s computer committed suicide at the mere thought of it.
Dang it Scorpius, you killed John’s computer.
John, that was awesome! I could picture the movie scenes you were tweeting. I spent Sunday with friends practicing the fine art of conversation, so we missed the marathon. The *next* time I do a LotR marathon, I’ll pull out the tweets for laughs.
there is a scene at the end of RotK, where Gandalf takes Frodo onto one of the elven ships that are going off to Neverland. it has gandalf and an obvious short standin for Frodo with really obvious bad hair that just vaguely resembles Frodo’s hair. it was so horrible, I remember thinking ‘they can show an army of *trees* fight an army of *orcs* look believable, but walking ten steps to get on a boat looks like crap?
There’s an awesome folk-singer here in Australia named Martin Pearson who has done something similar to this which all you folks might find amusing.
“The Unfinished Spelling Errors of Bolkien” does a wonderful comparison of book vs movie (Film Gandalf now proves himself much cleverer than book Gandalf and realises that it must be a ring of power, and a pretty nasty one at that. He dashes off immediately, thereby saving seventeen years.) and also adds songs. Check out http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GFvhY-OutB0 for an example – The Legolas and Gimli song is beautifully done. :)
Please note that I’m not affiliated with Mr Pearson in any way, other than that I adore his work.
I too noticed this was going down on the cable and said to the wife with sadistic glee that oh, we must must must watch this. To fully appreciate this you have to understand that though I do love my wife, she is a terrible movie watcher. She doesn’t pay attention, she’s always gets up and does other things, etc.
I ended up recording them and through my mastery of the remote control through the weekend I have forced her to watch them. We’re currently halted at about 30 minutes in on Return.
It was fun reading the tweets because we made some very similar comments while watching the first two movies. Most notably that Theoden indeed should get a script for Zoloft and that stairway in Moira was definitely not in line with OSHA standards.
It’s funny because reading all your tweets made me hum to the tune of Ballad of Bilbo Baggins. That was awkward. -_-
I also think Two Towers was the best of the three.
@John, Athena seems sensible, what’s her opinion on Twilight I wonder….
Next, I’ll livetweet Berlin Alexanderplatz!
Scalzi v. Franz Biberkopf…I’m so ready for this.
Just read this, laughed so hard for half an hour that my abs are aching. Thanks… I think!
Still hard to beleive that wasn’t aided by several beers or a few Percoset… or large quantities of bacon and chocolate… 8>)
You clearly misspelled Aragroan in the 10th tweet of film 3 ;-)
Dude this is a great read im a huge supporter of live tweeting